In the development of the wildlife sector, non-consumptive tourism on high quality wildlife land will give by far the greatest economic returns (Barnes 2001, Martin 1999). However, only a limited amount of land in any country is suitable for high quality game viewing tourism and, if wildlife is to compete with alternative land uses over larger tracts of land, then it is necessary to harness a range of sustainable uses to maximise the income from wildlife. Safari hunting is one such use. Martin (1995) found that whilst high quality eco-tourism could very easily realise net returns greater than US$25/ha, the net income values for safari hunting reached a ceiling of about US$7/ha. This may, in many situations, be the highest valued use for wildlife and the highest valued overall land use. Safari hunting is capable of producing competitive returns from land with less capital investment than that required for non-hunting tourism and with a lower adverse ecological impact. It has other advantages. Whilst it may take several years for any non-hunting tourism venture to build up markets, the returns from sport hunting are almost instantaneous - provided a minimum population of wildlife is present. This feature may be very important in the development of local community wildlife programmes where benefits are needed from the outset in order to provide the incentives for wildlife conservation. Barnes (et al 2002) observe that instability in markets for wildlife can affect sustainability and give examples to show that recent political events in southern Africa have severely affected growth in non-consumptive tourism in parts of Namibia including some of the conservancies examined in their study. Safari hunting has been demonstrated to be far less susceptible to these types of market perturbations. It may be that the political instability to which Barnes (ibid) are referring obliquely is the present traumatic situation in Zimbabwe. It is significant to note that whilst the Zimbabwe ecotourism market collapsed very shortly after the inception of the said 'political events', its safari hunting market has persisted throughout - albeit slightly reduced in volume in the 2002 hunting season. A similar situation existed during the 'liberation war' in the 1970s in Zimbabwe. Where there was no ecotourism activity to speak of, a viable and resilient safari hunting industry continued throughout the war. This consideration should affect decision-taking on land uses in the areas of this study