*******************************
WORLDWIDE
FOREST/BIODIVERSITY CAMPAIGN NEWS
Zimbabwe
Wildlife Program in Disarray
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Forest
Networking a Project of Ecological Enterprises
October
7, 1995
OVERVIEW
& SOURCE
The
Earth Times reports on actions taken in July by the Zimbabwean
government
to halt management of rhino and elephant populations
widely
hailed as progressive. The item
highlights the difficulty
in
implementing conservation activities within cultural, social
and
ecological constraints. This item was
posted in econet's
env.wildlife
conference.
g.b.
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RELAYED
TEXT STARTS HERE:
/**
env.wildlife: 772.0 **/
**
Topic: Zimbabwe wildlife program in disarray **
**
Written 6:50 AM Sep 27, 1995 by tomgray in cdp:env.wildlife
Title:
Zimbabwe wildlife program in disarray
By
Donald H. Dunn
Earth
Times News Service
HARARE,
Zimbabwe--Zimbabwe's wildlife management program has been
thrown
into disarray amid charges of favoritism and blundering.
It's a
stunning blow for the Department of National Parks, which
acted
vigorously the past few years to save the nation's remaining
300
rhinos from poachers. The department moved them from open
government
lands to well-protected areas and private game parks.
Similarly,
it set out to reduce its elephant overpopulation--some
50,000
more than the 35,000 which it believes can survive in the
drought-wracked
bush-- through a judicious culling effort and the
sale of
entire "families" to other countries.
Such
activity, however, came to a sudden halt in July with the
suspension
of the Parks Dept. director and a deputy. Officials in
the
parent Ministry of Environment and Tourism announced an
investigation
into the "direct role" the officials and others
played
in "translocating" game--such as selling 200 elephants to
South
Africa--without authority. The investigators will try to
determine
whether any individuals profited from such deals. And
meanwhile,
no animals can be moved.
The ban
shocked members of the Zimbabwe Wildlife Society, which is
largely
made up of affluent whites. Some members have turned large
tracts
of unused farmland into private game parks, and paid hefty
prices
to acquire their own animal collections. While the private
parks
can provide a secure home for endangered species, there has
been
suspicion that some park operators' motives aren't entirely
altruistic.
Skeptics
note that calling a huge expanse of unplanted farm
acreage
a "game park" and stocking it with a rhino or two and
small
herds of kudu, eland, and other grazing animals effectively
precludes
the government from designating the property as
"unused."
And, according to an agreement reached at Zimbabwe's
independence
in 1980, the government can acquire unused land on
which
to resettle its masses of landless indigenous citizens.
The ban
met resistance from some Wildlife Society members. They
say
that unless game can be moved from marginally protected parks
and
communal lands, it will continue to be harmed by overcrowding
and
poaching. But the protesters got no support from the society's
president,
Mike Hitschmann. At a mid-July meeting attended by 300
people,
Hitschmann said he doesn't think a sound conservation
program
should rest on a foundation that takes animals away from
the
people who have lived with them through the ages.
Putting
game into private hands, he told the surprised crowd,
gives a
small group of individuals an opportunity to make big
money:
They can charge safari operators and tourists for use of
their
"game parks" and auction off newly born or excess animals to
interested
buyers. Very little money, said Hitschmann, gets back
to help
the people in the communal lands who for centuries
depended
on wildlife for a basic part of their livelihood.
The
president argued that although preservation of endangered
species
is the major goal, it's vital to educate the Zimbabwean
masses
on the subject and involve them in decision-making. Simply
moving
animals away would cause millions to feel they were losing
part of
their heritage, he said. Poaching would end, he added, if
entire
communities understood the harm it does. And where the
Zimbabwean
Parks Dept. has basically decreed that people should
have
nothing to do with animals in parklands, Hitschmann cited
Kenya's
successful conservation program as one that involves input
from
basic grassroots communities. (Richard Leakey, visiting the
Zimbabwean
wildlife society a year or two ago, is reported to have
looked
out at the sea of white faces in front of him and murmured,
"I
see a problem right away.")
Hitschmann
told the society he approved of the ban ordered by the
Minister
of Environment and Tourism, Chem Chimutengwende, while
the
investigation is underway. And he drew incredulous stares when
he
talked of "decision-making removed from the people" and said,
"I
would be very suspicious of the whole structure that is in
place
at the moment."
In a
letter to the Harare Herald, an obviously angry Wildlife
Society
member stated that Mr. Hitschmann's views "are not
necessarily
those of the other members." Without translocation,
the
country probably would have no rhinos, he wrote, before
castigating
the occupants of the communal lands for killing
wildlife
for food and overstocking the areas with cattle
and
goats, "with no thought for the future." And he wrote that
personal
greed "which is so prevalent in our region" would insure
that
poaching would continue despite efforts at "getting everyone
involved."
The
question behind the controversy about translocating animals
appears
to be whether personal greed is widespread among not only
the
poachers, but might be influencing both some white farmers and
government
officials who see profits in "wildlife farming."
Recognizing
it as "a viable economic activity," Minister
Chimutengwende
defended the investigation and ban: "We must never
allow
the pursuit of economic benefits at the expense of the
survival
of the species. We must strike a correct balance between
the
two."
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