By Lerato Ndlovu
The Centre for Natural Resource Governance (CNRG) has raised concern over the step being taken by the Government of Zimbabwe, Zimparks and Wildlife Management authority of placing 500 elephants under the hunting quota.
This comes after Zimparks Spokesperson Tinashe Farawo recently told the CNN that declining tourism revenue owing to the corona virus pandemic was among the main reasons for the elephant hunt.
“We eat what we kill, we have a budget of about $25 million for our operations raised partly through sports hunting, but you know tourism is as good as dead at the moment due to the corona virus pandemic, he said.
Centre for Natural Resource Governance Spokesperson, Ms Simiso Mlevu, said the government has been placing elephants under a hunting quota for the past 30 years under the guise of funding conservation, not considering that animals can go extinct.
“The agreement to hunt the animals means that 15000 elephants have been killed by licensed poachers since 1991 with 500 forced to die yearly, and trophy hunting has stood as a guise of funding conversation.
“As CNRG, we believe that animals do not need to pay with their lives to ensure that their species are protected, but the government has the responsibility to avail funds for the protection and conservation of biodiversity,” she said.
“At the same time with the trophy hunting practice, there should be consideration of the locals that live in areas near the animal zones for they bear the brunt of wildlife vengeance, elephants are peaceful animals but can retaliate once provoked.”
She went on to quote the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which stated that the revered African Elephant is now in the Red List of Threatened Species because of unilateral and undemocratic decisions that involve selling off baby elephants, poachers, climate change induced droughts, diseases and government licensed killers, which all lies at the mercy of government officials.
“Elephants are generally peaceful animals that retaliate when a family member is attacked, killing one causes a huge distress to the herd considering they live as herds and costs a lot of locals their lives because they cannot defend themselves from the attack spearheaded by well trained trophy hunters who evacuate after achieving their hunting escapades.
“A lot of tourists visit the country to see the big elephants more than any other animal, but with trophy hunting that targets the big and tusky breeds soon the specie will be unimpressive and in some cases the country might be left with small and dwarfish breeds, leading to more loss in tourism revenue.
“Despite the governments argument that trophy hunting is meant to assist with conservation, the practice is motivated by greed and often the money is not even accounted for. There is a need for more innovative and eco-friendly measures to improve revenue generation from photo safaris and tourism in general,” added Mlevu.
CNRG called upon the government of Zimbabwe to rescind its decision to open the country to trophy hunters, seek the support of international conservation organizations in finding additional resources to improve conservation, be transparent, democratic and accountable with decision making processes that affect Zimbabwe’s natural resources and the country’s standing in the international community.
In 2020 alone the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority received 1500 distress calls in the same period from locals that stay in towns with animals that attacked and preyed on them after having been provoked by hunters.
At least 60 people were killed while 50 others were left injured by wild animals in Zimbabwe with elephants being responsible for 50% of the killings.
