Conservation in Central Africa, Bushmeat Crisis
4/2/98
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RELAYED TEXT STARTS HERE:
Title: Conservation in Central Africa, Bushmeat Crisis
Source: Karl Ammann
E-Mail kamman@form-net.com or Fax: 254 176 32407 or
Nairobi 254 2 750035, Tel 254 176 22448
Status: Contact source for reprint permission
Date: 4/2/98
CONSERVATION IN CENTRAL AFRICA;
TIME FOR A MORE BUSINESS LIKE APPROACH?!
....Or conservation the ulitmate challenge to big business.
I wonder what would happen if we got Ted Turner, Richard Leakey and maybe
Richard Branson around a table with Bill Gates (who took his executives to
see the gorillas at Kahuzi Biega and then returned to honeymoon in Mahale)?
We could give them the status of conservation in Central Africa in general,
and the bushmeat issue in particular, as a 'case study', and ask them to
draw up a 'Business-Like Master Plan' to deal with it.
I would like to predict that the resulting document would describe a
drastically different approach from current attempts to deal with what is
now recognized as a major conservation crisis. Actually, that is what is
needed?! A drastic new approach might very well represent the last chance
for most of the primates and other wildlife of Central Africa.
To begin with, I should establish my credentials and qualifications for
commenting on wildlife conservation and business practices in this part of
the world.
My educational background is in business. I have a degree in Economics from
a Swiss University and one in Hotel Management from Cornell. I have lived
in Africa for over 20 years. During this period, I have twice held
Africa-wide positions for a large international hotel-management company.
Twelve years ago, I started seriously looking at wildlife photography as a
new career option. Today, while still working as a consultant to the
tourist industry, most of my time is spent on photography. Taking pictures,
in turn, led me to conservation. For the last eight years, I have been
sporadically researching the commercialization of the bushmeat trade,
visiting various Central African countries on a regular basis.
Today I see the bushmeat crisis as more than just another story. I am
convinced that what is happening on the bushmeat front is symptomatic of
events and trends in the region in general. The unsustainable utilization
of wildlife and other resources (such as forests) will sooner rather than
later mean shortages and famine, which in turn will lead to migration, to
social unrest, to war, to starving children on TV screens in the West, and
then to millions of dollars being spent on trying to do something about it,
so that WE feel better,
I have had the opportunity to discuss bushmeat-related topics with many
conservation executives. Coming from a business background, what has
surprised me more than anything else, is the lack of ways of measuring
results on the conservation front; that no attempt is made to establish
criteria against which performance can be assessed.
In my hotelier days, I was responsible for properties in several of the
countries concerned. All general managers worked to specific targets and
financial budgets. Independent quality assessors would go in unannounced,
with long questionnaires to be filled in. Guests would be encouraged to
send their comments to head office. If the management did not live up to
expectations, their Africa tours were often short-lived. In countries where
even good managers could not produce acceptable results, management
agreements were terminated. This is the way business works worldwide.
Many conservation organizations with operations in the countries concerned
have budgets similar to those of large hotels, but there seem to be no real
targets against which to evaluate the performance of the managers in
capital cities or field workers out in the provinces.
Take, for instance, the Congo Republique before it degenerated into its
present state. It used to be one of the more organized countries in Central
Africa, and several large conservation organizations had offices, even head
offices, in the capital, Brazzaville.
I started visiting the Congo regularly in the early '90s, mainly to
document the operations of the three great-ape sanctuaries there. (Two
cater to chimpanzees and one to gorillas. All of them care for dozens of
'bushmeat orphans'.) Here are some of the facts I compiled on these trips:
- Bushmeat from a wide variety of species was available for sale in all the
major markets, irrespective of it being closed or open hunting season.
- While the meat of protected species was disguised in some markets, it was
openly on display in others.
- For a while, elephant steaks, frozen and vacuum packed, were on sale in
the capital's most up-market supermarket chain. (When I questioned the
French manager, he told me it had been imported from Chad. He thought that
solved the problem. He had never heard of CITES).
- The Prime Minister went on TV, during the closed hunting season, to
encourage all school children to spend their holidays hunting and fishing.
- When some concerned individuals in the West responded to the initial
publicity by writing letters to the Congo Embassy in Washington they got a
reply stating: "There is no poaching problem in the Congo"
- At the Conkouati Wildlife Reserve, we filmed a lorry being loaded with
bushmeat, right next to an IUCN vehicle. When we interviewed one of the
traders and asked why the cost of the meat doubled by the time it reached
the coastal town of Pointe Noire, we were told that the government rangers
manning the road blocks would need to be 'paid'. When we asked how much, we
were told the more protected the species the higher the price.
- On our first and only evening in Ouesso, the gateway to the renowned
Nouabale Ndoki National Park, we filmed a lorry carrying tons of bushmeat,
including the carcass of a silverback gorilla. A Western researcher was
dutifully recording yet another dead gorilla in his 'bushmeat book'. This
was seen as a question of assessing the sustainability of the trade, and
not of reporting it to the authorities and doing something about it..
- The next day, the police chief kicked us out of town, asking us to
charter a pirogue to take us to neighboring Cameroon. He gave us an armed
escort in a track suit. We assumed this was for our own protection. In the
first village out of town we stopped to load a large bag of ivory, which
was to be 'escorted' to Cameroon.
- Two years later, an ABC crew filmed an elephant graveyard halfway between
the Nouabale Ndoki National Park and the Odzala National Park. They counted
280 carcasses.
- The Reserve de la Chasse de la Lefini is the largest protected reserve in
the Congo. It is also the site where the first group of orphaned gorillas
has been rehabilitated. I visited twice, and walked for hours in the
savannah and forest without seeing any trace of wildlife. The local
trackers informed me that there were two hippos left. The last chimpanzees
and gorillas had been shot in the 1960s. In this region it was not a
question of population pressure or habitat loss. There is no encroachment.
Market hunting for the capital Brazzaville, some 2® hours away had resulted
in the wildlife being wiped out. With regular flights from Ouesso having
bags of meat dripping blood as one of their main cargoes, it is easy to
guess what supply and demand will do to wildlife in the long term, even to
the more remote parks and reserves.
- I started wondering if there was any kind of law enforcement with regard
to poaching and wildlife. I asked to see records that any poacher had ever
been arrested. There were none.
This brings me back to objectives and targets: Where is the hope for
conservation when: poachers are not arrested, loggers who break the law do
not lose their licenses, and ministry officials ask you: What is the point
when the Minister of the Environment eats bushmeat at every official
function, and ministry officials rent out guns to poachers to supply the
restaurants they own in logging concessions? (This happened in Cameroon,
but I am sure the story is not so very different in Congo.)
What do you tell a villager who happily suggests that you first go to the
capital and tell off the big guys who loot the national resources and
economy in a big way, and then come back to him and tell him not to cut
this tree or shoot that gorilla?
What hope is there for conservation under these circumstances? Are all of
us who are concerned about the future of the wildlife and habitats in these
parts simply wasting our time and a lot of somebody else's money?
A prominent conservation organization, to whom I offered a bushmeat expose
for their in-house publication wrote back saying:
"The chief drawback, of course, was our firm conviction that publishing
your article with your compelling photographs would have wide repercussions
that certainly would adversely impact our scientists in Africa. An
essential and exhaustive part of their job is to maintain good relations
with the governments and indigenous people so that the Society's
conservation projects will be permitted to continue."
To me, this says it all. It is a license to look the other way. For
conservation organizations, it is suicidal to admit failure. Only success
attracts donations. So let's tell the public about some of our very minor
success stories. And let's ignore the mayhem around us.
Field representatives are expected to toe the company line: Maintain good
relations. Do not make waves. It is a bad career move to be confrontational.
This need to be associated with success was apparent in mountain-gorilla
conservation. Half a dozen conservation groups were competing to report
past success rates: 347 apes, 355, now 364, etc. Today, to the best of my
knowledge, there is not a single conservation project (except for the
maintenance of some parks) that is tackling the bushmeat issue head on. The
chance of failure is too high.
To bring this back to a business context: If a multinational ran
conservation in Africa, they would set targets first. They would measure
the results, and if targets could not be met they would pull out and go
somewhere where a return on investment is possible. This would be somewhere
where there is political will, or where it can be generated - in hotel
management terms, where a ministry or a minister who does not pay his bills
can be shown the door.
The IMF and other donor organizations regularly pull out of countries,
especially if there is no political will. And they no longer make any bones
about it. Currencies collapse and politicians shout, but the tune is called
by the person who pays the fiddler.
I have never heard of a conservation organization quitting a country in a
storm of publicity.
Conservation organizations do not criticize each other. This is another
unwritten rule, and "the quiet, diplomatic approach achieves more than
shouting and screaming" is a slogan I have heard over and over again.
Is this not just another excuse for looking the other way? The governments
concerned like to hide behind the fact that these major organizations have
hung out their shields in their capital cities. Where is the problem? As
long as these prominent groups are involved, we must be doing something right?
The facts are:
The rate of loss of habitat, natural resources and species in tropical
Africa is now higher than ever before. The quiet, diplomatic approach has
totally failed, and a lot of time and money has been lost.
As for the bushmeat trade: it has now been commercialized to the point
where it has become an integral part of the economy. The problem has now
gone beyond the scope of conservation organizations. Even the loggers had
to throw in the towel: One executive of a major French firm told CNN that
they were now afraid of the poachers, who had automatic weapons.
Some German loggers who are fed up with the bad publicity recently asked
the transporters of their timber to tell their drivers to stop carrying
bushmeat. The drivers went on strike, and the loggers and transporters had
to give in.
The Congo Republique has now disintegrated; not surprising, considering the
lack of law enforcement on the conservation front. In Gabon, a prominent
German logging firm has just started operations in one of the national
parks. In Cameroon, things are about as bad as they can get before the
situation deteriorates into a scenario like that in the Congo Republique.
In the DRC, loggers are frantically looking for US$ 50 million to link the
Central Congo River Basin to the logging-road infrastructure of Congo, the
CAR and Cameroon. We will then be able to buy bonobo meat in the markets of
Douala.
So, who will take action? Who will create the political will that would
mean results might be achievable on the conservation front?
Mr. Liboz, a very prominent French logger in Cameroon, went on camera
stating that what was happening now was "Total destruction", and that there
was no point in counting on the government, the loggers or the conservation
community to effect any kind of change. He felt only a major international
outcry would make a difference.
But, as long as the conservation community needs to publicize its very
limited success stories in order to survive, and as long as they insist on
the 'quiet, diplomatic' approach and classify shocking bushmeat publicity
as sensationalizing the issue, there will be no such outcry.
Our politicians, as much as any, govern by opinion poll. If the public
speaks, the decision makers listen. The ivory crisis, whale hunting and
seal clubbing became major issues through public concern. What will it take
to turn the large-scale slaughter of chimpanzees, gorillas and elephants
into a similarly emotional campaign? If we can do nothing for our closest
animal relatives, what hope is there for the giant pangolin and the potto?
And what does that say about mankind as a whole?
In tropical Africa, the western donor community is still taken seriously.
If large sticks and carrots are our best hope, then our best bet is to link
donor funding to environmental performance, in the same way as human rights
issues are linked to donor assistance.
I found it absolutely astonishing a few weeks ago, when the Indonesian
economy had to be bailed out with tens of billions of dollars in donor
assistance, and every human rights organization spoke out and asked for
severe pressure to be put on the authorities to change. I saw no evidence
of environmental groups taking up the issue and trying to link these huge
loans to better environmental performance - and this was while the forest
fires were still burning. Nobody took advantage of this opportunity to
'persuade' President Suharto to cancel the Rice Bowl Project, in which
10,000 sq km of prime orang-utan habitat are being cleared for a rice
planting scheme, using US$ 150 million from the National Reforestation Fund!!
How come human-rights groups get Senator Kennedy to oppose the loan, while
conservationists could not get US Vice President Al Gore to add his piece
on the environment?
As a photographer, I would want to close with a picture that this journal
unfortunately cannot publish. This image is the result of a German
journalist asking me to illustrate the price difference between bushmeat
and that of domesticated species, such as pork and beef. We went to the
Yaounde bushmeat market and bought two gorilla arms. We then acquired the
equivalent amount of beef. Next, we bought the frozen head of a chimpanzee
and matched it with a much bigger pig's head. We took all this back to the
hotel and stuck on price tags to illustrate that beef and pork were less
than half the price of gorilla and chimp.
This is clearly a question of supply and demand: the supply of great-ape
meat - and that of other species - to satisfy the taste buds of a growing
urban middle class willing to pay a premium for the product. The problem is
that this practice is no longer sustainable, and has not been for some
time. (Plus it carries a serious health risk for mankind as a whole: See
Ebola, HIV/SIV and HTLV/STLV). Increasing demand and decreasing supply will
inevitably result in prices going up. With a limited resource, this will go
on until there is no more supply, which according to a Polish missionary
will elicit the response: "Why has God done this to us?" Supply, demand and
pricing are the domain of economists and business people, so why not see
what kind of 'solution' they can come up with?
Karl Ammann
Dec. 20th 1997
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