Zambia: Poaching is threatening tourism industry

RAMPANT poaching is threatening the declaration of tourism as an economic sector, Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA public relations officer Maureen Mwape has observed

Mwape yesterday said ZAWA was worried about the increase in poaching activities in the Lower Zambezi National Park's Game Management Area (GMA) of Chinyunyu in Chongwe district. "If we are not careful animals will be depleted and since tourism is mainly wildlife based, the government's declaration of the sector from a social one to an economic sector will be adversely affected," Mwape said. "And all efforts of enhancing and promoting the tourism sector will not be attained unless poaching is controlled and we appeal to the government and other stakeholders to help since ZAWA lacks resources to adequately patrol the protective areas."

And Mwape said ZAWA over the weekend confiscated 91 kilograms of game meat from six suspected poachers in Chinyunyu area. She said the suspects who included four females and two males were arrested at a roadblock mounted by ZAWA officers when they were found with suitcases and sacks containing meat. The confiscated bundles comprised meat from baboons, impala, common tiger (impombo), warthog and hyenas. "We have six suspects in our custody at Masamba police in Chilanga and we are just processing the documents so that they appear in court tomorrow (Friday) and we also impounded the bus they were travelling in," Mwape said.

CHUMAMABOKO, FIRST OF THE CENTRAL AFRICAN PROFESSIONAL HUNTERS?

At the time that F. H. Melland - a nephew of Prime Minister Asquith, arrived in 1901 on foot at Mpika, North-Eastern Rhodesia in order to take up his post with the British South Africa Company as Assistant Native Collector, Chumamaboko (arms of iron) had for some time been a leading member of the elite elephant hunting achiwinda clan. Famous in that part of the world for his hunting prowess, he soon attracted the attention of Melland who wanted to spend as much time as possible on his favourite pastime, hunting. They were to stay together until Chuma’s death shortly before Melland’s departure for England in 1924 when North-Eastern and North-Western Rhodesia were removed from BSA Company control and became Northern Rhodesia, administered by the Imperial Government.

Chuma became Melland’s professional hunter at the same time that the pioneer professional white hunters, the Hill brothers, Clifford and Harold, began conducting lion hunting parties on their ranch in the Machakos area of Kenya. Arguably therefore, Chuma was the first professional hunter in what now constitutes Zambia.

While at Mpika until about 1912, he guided Melland all around the district, venturing far into the Bangweulu swamps and the nearby Luangwa Valley. On the Luitikila river, which has its headwaters near Mpika, they shot a 116 pounder which today can be seen in the Thring Museum in England, one of the biggest elephant ever taken in Zambia, the record being a 130 pounder with one tusk.

Chuma followed Melland from Mpika to Solwezi, thence to Kasempa, Kafue and finally, to Mazabuka. And all the time they hunted together.

Melland wrote three books, one on elephant hunting, one on the anthropology of the Kaonde in Kasempa district, and one recounting his journey with Chuma and a friend, from Bangweulu to Cairo, hunting elephant on the way. There are a number of fish named after Melland as a result of his Bangweulu fish collections and he made valuable contributions in anthropology and what is now termed development studies. His friends were people like Mickey Norton, perhaps the greatest of all elephant hunters, and J.E. Hughes who operated the first professionally conducted safaris in the Bangweulu and whose classic book, ‘Eighteen Years in the Bangweulu’ is still much in demand.

Chuma was remarkable in every way. Melland recounts the tale of how Chuma, a man revered by his fellow Zambians, once personally cleaned up the latrines in the labour lines at Kasempa during an outbreak of dysentery, hubris being absent from his character.

The picture of Chuma was given to me by Melland’s eldest daughter, Amicia in 1998; a remarkable woman who worked for many years in Chile. F.H. was killed at the outbreak of war in 1939 when he fell between the train and the platform. He had just been appointed Secretary to the Royal Africa Society

Zambia, a bit of Old Africa...

INTRODUCTION

Zambia is located on the Central African Plateau encompassing large parts of the Zambezi and Congo drainage systems with an area of 752,614 km 2 containing four major biomes consisting of forest, woodland, grassland and wetlands. Most of the 19 National Parks, 35 Game Management Areas (GMAs) and numerous National Forests are under only rudimentary protection and management; a bit of Old Africa.

HISTORY

The imposition of colonial rule in Central Africa in the late 19th Century by the British South Africa Company (BSA Co.) resulted in the creation of two separately administered territories named North-Eastern Rhodesia and North-Western Rhodesia. Inevitably, statutory land tenure and wildlife conservation measures were soon imposed on customary land by way of alienations to European settlers on the line of rail and in the Abercorn and Fort Jameson districts, the power of the chiefs and the freedom of their subjects over wildlife and forests eroded, and the conversion of some customary land to state protected status, reserve and trust lands initiated.

Tourism – one of the oldest current Zambian industries, started c. 1880, when native hunters, often members of elite hunting clans - the Achiwinda, guided the occasional explorer/big-game hunters in pursuit of elephant and other game. From 1902, some settlers and ex-members of the BSA Co. began hunting safari operations. In 1949, after WW 2, the Government Conducted Hunting Scheme was started in the Luangwa under Norman Carr, and Bert Schultz – to be joined in 1950 by Barry Shenton, with 50% of net income accruing to the Native Authority. But, perhaps inevitably, conservation gave way to protection, when late in 1950, Nsefu became a special game reserve, in 1954 a full game reserve, and in 1972 being joined with the South Luangwa Game Reserve to form the present South Luangwa National Park. The significance of the two Luangwa-based schemes continues to be felt today as numerous efforts are made across Zambia and Africa to have wildlife provide earnings for tribal communities.

With the advent of Imperial Government rule in 1924 (Northern Rhodesia), particularly in the period between the Great Wars, the country was administered through the chiefs under Lord Lugard’s policy of Indirect Rule. By 1942, when a Game Department was more fully established, protective measures were increased, so that by the early 1970’s a broad-based protected area system was in place and 19 national parks created from their game reserve predecessors – stemming from the earliest creation of all in 1899, the Mweru Marsh Game Reserve. Many of these protected areas were supported by the production of management plans and by applied research. However, the power of chief’s greatly waned from independence, and the Natural Resources Act Cap 315 of 1962 – and later, the Natural Resources Act of 1970, legislation which contained everything necessary to usher in development to customary areas, was ignored and much of it later repealed by the Environmental Protection and Pollution Control Act of 1990. More recently, the Wildlife Act of 1998 creates Community Resource Boards (CRBs) within chiefdoms, with the chief relegated to the non-executive position of Patron, inevitably creating dissension, but also allowing for the first glimpse of the liberating intrusions of democracy.

In 1975, following a fall in copper prices and a rise in oil prices, freehold land was abolished and the civil service almost totally Zambianized – a service which in 1962 had 5,000 university graduates in the administration, resulting inevitably in a rapid decline in the management of National Parks, GMAs and their wildlife, and curtailment of income for Native Authorities and communities. Between 1973 and 1993, almost the total population of rhino of some 20,000 or so were killed for their horns, and the elephant population - in the South Luangwa National Park alone, had declined from 31,000 to 7,000, and between 1994 and 2002, at a time when millions were being invested by donors in conservation, protection and community empowerment (NORAD funded, Luangwa Integrated Rural Development Project), 23.5 tons of ivory – representing some 14,589 elephant, was – according to the Malawi Anti-Corruption Bureau, smuggled from the Luangwa via Malawi and Durban, to Singapore ; and at the same time, the last population of rhino living within a few miles of the LIRDP HQ – some 13 in number, were, despite the assurance of senior conservation personnel as to their protection , exterminated.

The year 2001 ushered in further deterioration in the management of the Zambian wildlife estate due in part to the suspension by the President of hunting safari leases and the subsequent loss of much of the ZAWA income (US$2 million in 2001; US$2.7 million in 2002), the delay in the appointment of a Board of Directors and Director-General for the newly fledged ZAWA – established in place of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, and the refusal of donors to provide funding in the absence of these appointments. Foreign exchange earnings, tax income, employment and associated benefits for ZAWA workers, and income for CRBs who were responsible for appointing law enforcement officers under the Wildlife Act of 1998 were adversely affected, encouraging the onslaught on wildlife by opportunistic bushmeat traders reacting to the considerable traditional game meat demands of burgeoning urban populations encouraged by the absence, or by the active support of striking ZAWA and CRB scouts. In addition, the scientific capacity of ZAWA was severely impaired, most of the management plans, scientific reports and relevant files produced in the previous years being stolen, not returned by borrowers, or thrown away – an inspection of the government archives in 2003 revealing few files deposited there after 1974, and nothing in the ZAWA library; and where valuable research information is available, such as at Ngoma, the HQ for the Kafue National Park, researchers there appear to be in total ignorance of it.

After the President had curtailed hunting, tenders were put out in 2002, awarded, and then some of them overturned by the Minister (MTENR), leading to further High Court actions. However, hunting did get fully under away again in the 2004 season.

In 2006, the state of the biodiversity on customary land ‘commons’ - in which hunting concessions are placed, is – with a few exceptions - when related to the situation thirty years ago, deteriorating, particularly of the strongly interactive keystone wildlife species such as buffalo which are of immeasurable importance to the ecosystems on which a myriad of other species are dependant, now reaching very low levels in some areas, resulting – with the assistance of uncontrolled fires, in the increasing brittleness of rangelands and a deterioration in carrying capacity. And most seriously of all, the rural communities, although still with access to a plentiful supply of land and adequate rainfall, are denied ownership or proper access to the benefits of the natural resources being supported on their customary land, finding their land sold off by unscrupulous chiefs, district councils and corrupt officials in the Commissioner of Lands, and continue therefore to be ensnared in poverty, their hopes for tourism revenues now diminishing with that of the wildlife.