Source: Zimbabwe’s elephant population balloons | The Herald October 13, 2017
Walter Mswazie and Runesu Gwidi
Zimbabwe’s elephant population has ballooned to 84 000, exceeding the carrying capacity of 50 000 jumbos, which is exerting pressure on the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority. Speaking during the launch of the Command Water Harvesting project in Masvingo recently, Zimparks director-general Mr Filton Mangwanya said the problem has been worsened by the CITES ban on the sale of elephants.
“Since we are unable to sell our elephants due to CITES restriction, the elephants’ population has ballooned to 84 000 and yet we have a carrying capacity of only 50 000,” he said. He said the authority was failing to contain poaching activities, partly due to staff shortages. This has seen one game ranger being responsible for manning 1 000 square kilometres of area when the ideal situation should be one ranger per 20 square kilometres. Mr Mangwanya decried rampant poaching activities in Zimbabwe that saw a good number of the elephants being killed through shooting or poisoning.
“A total of 893 jumbos were killed by poachers during the period between 2013 and 2016. Out of this number, 249 elephants were killed through poisoning using cyanide and shooting. We suspect that these poisonous chemicals come from the mining and agriculture sectors or other chemical industries,” said Mr Mangwanya. Mr Mangwanya said Zimparks had potential to contribute to the country’s economic development, but this was being affected by a lack of resources.
“Our own lodges at national parks are not in good shape, while perimeter fences have been destroyed by unscrupulous villagers, resulting in human-animal conflict,” he said. Zimparks, he said, felt that if they were allowed to sell some of the elephants, they could get resources to refurbish infrastructure at national parks and game reserves.
COMMENTS
The quoted authorities are dispensing incorrect and inconsistent information:
– The figure for “carrying capacity” of 50,000 elephants is simply invented and is not based on any evidence or scientific method.
– CITES is not preventing ZimPark managers from killing as many elephants as they want – it seems that they think they should kill 34,000 (= 84,000-50,000) so they can go ahead and do that. They could sell or donate the meat and keep the ivory. Or burn it, if they wished to follow international best practice.
– The revenue from any ivory sales would be relatively small compared to management requirements. It is up to the Ministry of Finance whether they provide sufficient funds for such needs. ZimParks should be allowed to retain revenues from tourism bed nights and related fees – even a subsidy from international tourists’ visa fees – for their management use. If villagers are destroying fences, then ZimParks should be engaging with them rather than expecting that killing elephants will solve the problem.
Culling elephants for environmental Sustainability and generation of revenue makes economic sense especially if the elephant population is increasing. Let the southern Africans with experience in managing their resources make the decisions. Burning ivory is the most stupid act ever done. It’s burning valuable hard earned resources. The fact that some countries are burning ivory doesn’t make it the best practice. There are so many poor communities living around the wildlife parks who can benefit from the cash generated from ivory sales. It’s high time we experiment with rhino n elephant breeding n farming for horn and ivory production. It’s environment mentally friendly unlike gold miningn the bloody diamond trade.Banking on tourism for managing wildlife is a unsustainable especially in countries with low and declining tourist visits, more over tourist spent most of their money in hotels not game parks.