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.