The CAMPFIRE initiative in Zimbabwe, which sought to devolve management of natural resources to local communities, has tended to focus on wildlife because of the potentially high returns. This paper reported initial efforts by a local NGO, SAFIRE, to expand the concepts of SAFIRE to non-wildlife woodland resources. The SAFIRE MITI programme was able to learn from CAMPFIRE, importantly by creating ways for benefits to go directly to local people instead of collecting in the bank accounts of local government. The authors identified the primary challenges to the new programme, which were applicable to community-based natural resource management programmes in general.