Born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe in 1962, Bill Child studied Agricultural Economics at the University of Zimbabwe before going to Oxford to take his DPhil. During his time as a Rhodes Scholar in Residence, Child also worked for Zimbabwe’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management and on leaving Oxford, he returned to Zimbabwe and pioneered the country’s approach to community-based natural resource management. He went on to spearhead projects across Africa, including decreasing elephant poaching by 80% in Kafue National Park in Zambia. In 2004, Child transitioned from practitioner to academic, taking up a post as an associate professor in the University of Florida’s Department of Geography. He continues to work in the field as well as in the classroom, regularly taking students back to Southern Africa, and he has also been instrumental in securing master’s level education opportunities for students from rural African communities. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 11 October 2024.
Brian Child
Zimbabwe & Worcester 1984
‘I’ve always had a passion for wildlife’
I come from a very strong tradition of supporting wildlife and rural development in Zimbabwe. My grandfather grew up going from one field station to another, and he became district commissioner and a senior government official. My father was director of national parks in Zimbabwe, and both of them were extremely innovative men. My father developed one of the best protected area systems in the world and he was actually responsible for building the Bulawayo Museum, which was opened by David Attenborough in 1965. He was passionate about conservation, he could speak the local languages and he was heavily involved in working with the United Nations to rescue wildlife in the 1950s.
I had a great childhood. My father’s life was his work and we spent a lot of time with him, camping and fishing and staying in national parks. We would go driving around Hwange and we’d all have to keep checklists and count the animals and look to see if they were fat or thin.
Being a white child in what was then Rhodesia meant having a very privileged upbringing. The civil war put a stop to that, but then we had the first ten years of Mugabe, which was amazing, because the country was so innovative and we did incredible things. When Mugabe lost the election, he became paranoid and the country changed completely. Through all those times, I’ve always had a passion for wildlife, and I don’t think I’ve changed what I wanted to do since I was three or four years old.
On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship
I knew that wildlife conservation was what I wanted to do, but when I was about 17, my father said to me, ‘Do you want to just enjoy studying what you’re doing, or do you want to be useful?’ I said, ‘Actually, I’d like to be useful,’ and he suggested I should become an agricultural economist, because there were so few economists working in conservation. I went on to study at the University of Zimbabwe, and it was a superb education. Even as an undergraduate, I had the chance to work with people in the World Bank, looking at things like the trade in ivory and elephant skins and what we could do about that. So, I was embedded in the industry from an early age.
I don’t even remember what made me apply for the Rhodes Scholarship. It was a bit like my role in Florida now: I just saw the advert and thought, ‘Oh, there’s something it would be good to apply for.’ I didn’t think I had a hope in hell of getting the Scholarship. I was this boy from the bush, and I didn’t even own a tie. I spent most of my spare time playing sports, and if you’d asked me to go on stage, I’d have preferred to face a charging elephant, by far. Then there I was, heading off to the civilisation of Oxford, which felt like this fairytale place I’d only ever read about in books. Before then, I’d been to South Africa on holiday, but other than that, I’d never even been north of the Zambezi.
‘Being in Oxford was so exciting’
Oxford was a very interesting experience for me. And what I found really intriguing was that because I was a ‘White African,’ people found it very difficult to pigeonhole me in terms of class. That meant I could go to a ball with the children of aristocrats, but I also played hockey with the car workers from Cowley. That gave me a really broad experience. Being in Oxford was so exciting. I even got the chance to live in Rhodes House with a group of other Zimbabwean Scholars, and we still stay in touch today. I loved every single minute of my time in Oxford, so much so that I didn’t even notice the weather!
I think I got more out of Oxford socially than I did academically, if I’m honest. I was studying wildlife economy, which didn’t really fit into the degree structures there. I started off in what was then called the Oxford Forestry Institute, in a master’s programme, and then I crossed the road to the biology department. I had two good advisers, and Oxford’s way of leaving students on their own to study really suited me. During my PhD, I went back to Zimbabwe for a year to do fieldwork. I worked with private farmers and compared the economics and ecology of the new wildlife sector relative to those of the old, traditional cattle rancher. From that, I was able to show that wildlife made more money and was better for the environment.
‘It’s not rocket science. It’s about treating people respectfully’
After Oxford, I went straight back to Zimbabwe and picked up again with the work I’ve been doing ever since. We saw that many of the white farmers were doing well in the new wildlife sector, but we thought, ‘What about the rural communities?’ And so, we initiated something called the CAMPFIRE programme – Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources – which was one of the world’s first community-based wildlife management programmes. It was wildly successful, and it’s still going today.
I’ve continued to work with communities, in two ways. The first is about economics, proving that ecology and caring for wildlife is more economically effective than the livestock monoculture agriculture that does such a lot of ecological damage. The second strand of what I do is about going into communities that have suffered from 400 years of slavery, colonialism and post-colonial corruption and working with all the members of those communities to rebuild their social capital. It’s about the money, but it’s also about building effective governance systems, like a village company, that will help communities become resilient in the face of climate change and the other threats they face.
Basically, we’re trying to put little democracies all over Africa. We get incredible buy-in from communities and there is so much talent there. There’s so much value to add by switching from poor agriculture to high-quality wildlife production. I think we have a model here that is hugely sustainable and that gives people the opportunity to have power over their own lives. My emphasis is on radical transparency. My students and I make sure that people in communities see the data we’re gathering and can interpret and use it for themselves. I’ve worked in wildlife projects in Zambia and northern Mozambique as well, and the process is always the same. It’s not rocket science. It’s about treating people respectfully and giving them clarity.
After I’d spent 20 years in Africa, a friend pointed me to a post being advertised at the University of Florida. It wasn’t something I’d been planning at all, but it looked exciting, and it has been. My job was to set up a programme about the African environment. I’ve probably sent two or three hundred students back to Africa by now, and I’m also working to bring students from African communities into master’s programmes too. I make sure all of my students are truly embedded in fieldwork and in communities. It’s a very personal relationship for them. NGOs can have a tendency to operate at arm’s length, handing resources to the chief and stepping back, but we work participatorily with communities, face-to-face.
‘I’d love to see us get a bit more real about it’
I think Rhodes Scholars have a duty to contribute to the public good. We are doing that, but I worry that we’re doing it in a very western way, as opposed to really connecting and understanding how the world works. We’re maybe a bit too embarrassed about the history of Rhodes and trying to do things apologetically for the past rather than being much more proactive for the future. I think if Rhodes Scholars want to understand how to make the world a better place they need to get out, like my grandfather and my father and me, and not just think academically and ethereally about what poor people need. Go and ask them, and connect with them, and help them. I’d love to see us get a bit more real about it, a bit more earthy about what we’re doing. And I’d love to take other Rhodes Scholars to the field and show them how we can help people.