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AFRICA: Elephant Overpopulation Keeps Cull Debate Simmering

Kudzanayi Shumba* - IPS/IFEJ

HARARE, Oct 9 2006 (IPS) - Precious Nyoni, 35, resident of the Gokwe district in southwest Zimbabwe, surveys his garden. The vegetable and sugarcane stalks are flattened, and half-eaten crops lie all around. This was his only livelihood, and in one night, it is all gone.

“(Zimbabwe’s) liberation struggle ended in 1980. But now we have another war, with the elephants. We are not allowed to kill them, hence we just frighten them, but look, where am I going to get the food to survive when everything has been trampled by these creatures?”

“They are too many and I believe they should be reduced through a culling exercise. Just recently, elephants destroyed 50 hectares of maize crop belonging to some villagers. It means that all of us need food assistance even before we have harvested,” Nyoni said, looking as devastated as his garden.

More than 600km north of Gokwe, in the Omay communal lands of the Nyaminyami district, farmers come down from a rickety treetop watchtower. They have worked in shifts through the night, guarding their lands from being raided by an elephant herd.

Southern African countries have been plunged into an elephant management and ecological degradation crisis that demands urgent action.

In the 1970s and 1980s, the ivory trade decimated elephant populations in Africa as the giant mammals were killed for their tusks. After the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES) banned trade in ivory in 1989, depleted populations began to recover and now they are competing in some areas with humans for food and land.

An estimated 600,000 elephants roam the African continent. Fragmented populations are to be found in 37 range states. Zimbabwe alone has a sixth of the total population; nearly half of these crowded into the country’s most famous sanctuary, Hwange National Park.

Regional governments believe a legal and controlled ivory trade could bring substantial economic benefits without jeopardising the conservation of the species, or a further loss of biodiversity.

That could include halving the jumbo population to bring them to manageable levels through translocation or exporting live animals to countries that need them, which is approved by CITES. Also on the table is the controversial culling method, which Zimbabwe would like to see resume after a hiatus of 17 years. The practice was banned under CITES.

African countries have been divided over elephant culling. Kenya and some West African states are strongly opposed to any resumption of the ivory business, which they believe will provide cover for an illegal trade derived from poaching.

Namibia, Botswana and South Africa are part of the pro-culling lobby. They want to be able to trade their significant stockpiles of ivory to fund conservation work.

CITES denied permission on Oct. 5 to the three countries to hold a special sale of 60 tonnes of unprocessed elephant tusks they have stockpiled since 2002, a decision that will be reviewed at the 14th Conference of Parties (COP 14) to the Convention, to be held in The Hague, Jun. 3-15, 2007.

At the last CITES conference, held in Thailand in 2004, Kenya’s proposal for a six-year moratorium on ivory trade was withdrawn, and Namibia’s proposal for an annual export quota of two tonnes of raw ivory was rejected.

However, permission was granted for trade in elephant hides and hair goods, as well as non-commercial trade in worked ivory, provided it was accompanied by a valid export certificate. South Africa also gained permission for trade in elephant hides.

Tapera Chimuti, operations director of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, said the country was unlikely to ask for approval at COP 14 to sell ivory.

“If we were to ask for approval to sell ivory today, the whole world will be against us for political reasons, although we have the best wildlife management practice in place in almost the whole continent,” said Chimuti.

Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean authorities are encouraging the participation of local communities in elephant conservation efforts, through the Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE), in which villages are part of the decision-making process, and the main beneficiaries of revenue earned from wildlife.

Based in Harare, CAMPFIRE was initiated in 1982, after an amendment of the Parks and Wildlife Act (1975) that granted “appropriate authority” status to popularly elected rural district councils so that they could manage and benefit from the sustainable utilisation of wildlife.

According to the programme’s director, Charles Jonga, CAMPFIRE has succeeded in reducing conflict between people and wildlife, and has created opportunities for sustainable economic development in Zimbabwe’s rural areas through natural resources management. Fifty-seven of the country’s 59 rural districts participate in the programme.

“CAMPFIRE’s impact on national income is at least 10 million dollars annually. If the multiplier on tourism activities is included, CAMPFIRE is worth 20 to 25 million dollars to Zimbabwe’s economy each year,” Jonga calculated in a Sep. 26 report.

Jockoniah Nare, the CAMPFIRE chairman, who lives in Beitbridge, nearly 500 km south of Harare, is of the firm opinion that the more a community benefits, the greater its interest and investment in wildlife.

He recognised, however, that the social costs of living with wildlife can be particularly high. They include, crop damage, threat to humans and livestock, and the loss of land set aside for wildlife that could otherwise be used for growing crops or other uses.

Elephants are responsible for up to 75 percent of all wildlife crop damage in communal areas, with between 30 and 45 cases reported per ward every season. Most rural communities are located close to rivers, and this naturally creates competition for water with the wildlife.

Local communities have lived alongside elephants for centuries. But over the last three decades, large numbers of migrants have come to the Zambezi River area, attracted by the good farming conditions, and have captured territories that are part of established elephant corridors, and around waterholes.

Affected communities are not paid compensation by the government. However, rural district councils under CAMPFIRE have set aside funds for loss of property, crops and even death.

(*This story is part of a series of features on sustainable development by IPS-Inter Press Service and IFEJ-International Federation of Environmental Journalists.)