When Elephants Are All You Have (11-minute Video)

In the far west of Botswana lies a place where people live surrounded by elephants and yet remain among the poorest in the country. For thirty-five years, communities across southern Africa have been told that if they own the wildlife on their land, it can pay. For most, it never has. Why not?

From a century of colonial conservation that made wildlife the property of the state and turned local hunting into a crime, to the community model born in Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE and Namibia's conservancies, to why that model stalled.

Then it lands in the present with economist Brian Child and his organization, Life Through Wildlife, and the refined idea now being tested at a concession called NG3: make wildlife earn more than the alternatives, put the decisions in the community's hands, and pay the dividends straight to households.

It is a clean idea on paper. Whether it can work with one real, remote, and very poor community is the story this series sets out to tell. This is episode one of a three-part series.