Making the most out of our wildlife resources
By Stanford Siachoono
Times of Zambia

Wildlife, exclusively the large ungulates, in Zambia is located in mainly the respective 19 national parks and 35 game management areas (GMAs) taking up 6 percent of the total land area in Zambia.

The large ungulates include the big five, namely, the elephant, rhino, leopard, lion and the buffalo.

Others are the large antelopes, such as the Kudu, eland, roan, sable and a host of medium and small antelopes. In addition to this are the wildebeest, giraffe, zebra, and hippos.

The current Government intervention in protecting wildlife resources in Zambia is through the Zambia Wildlife Authority (Zawa) institution.

The present Zawa is a result of the departmental transformation of the former National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) into a statutory organ, most likely to improve the economic efficiency of our wildlife resources utilization.

Before NPWS, there was a larger department of game and fisheries which was responsible for wildlife and fisheries.

The splitting of the game and fisheries department was most probably to increase efficiency in the service delivery of the respective departments.

The national park concept goes for back in time to 1872 when the Yellowstone National park in the United States of America was created.

Located in Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, the park is home to a large variety of wildlife that include the grizzly bears, bissons, wolves and elk.

This is the first national park in the world that still is a model park to date in terms of its management, conservation and economic use of the wildlife resources.

The question one may ask is; are we making the most out of our wildlife resources to adequately compare with other resources such as mineral resources, forestry, fisheries etc, without weighing heavily on the financial returns?

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION

The wildlife conservation efforts in Zambia started during the colonial period when the administration zoned certain areas as national parks.

For example, the Kafue National Park was set up in 1955 and has remained as the largest park in Zambia and in Africa.

The rest of the parks were made as need arose with the last one being the Lower Zambezi National Park.

All of the parks without exception provide added protection of the wildlife species, while the GMAs are buffer zones which provide for added space for animal species as they increase in number in the parks.

GMAs offer the public the hunting grounds to license holders for a number of respective species available in that GMA.

The wildlife conservation strategy is therefore to give maximum protection to the wildlife that are based in the national park as these can not be hunted like the ones in the GMAs.

WILDLIFE AND HUMAN CONFLICTS

GMAs are closer to human settlements mainly in traditional land settlements. They also form the buffer zones so that a park is much further from human settlements.

Communities adjacent to these areas suffer from social costs caused by wildlife in GMAs as a result of this closeness.

The picture gets worse when these animals are hunted at a profit by outsiders and the people who live next to them get nothing in return for the social cost that they incur in the course of living next to wildlife resources.

Further more that some, if not most, of the traditional land was alienated from these communities in the course of making the parks and GMAs in the name of wildlife conservation.

This dilemma generated a lot of discussion and studies in the 1980s as how they could address the wildlife and human conflict. Firstly there was a realisation that there was a problem and that indeed the wildlife human conflict existed in these areas.

The approach to the solution was partly through a wildlife management programme designed to find solutions to the wildlife and human conflicts. The department employed the administrative management design (Admade) .

Under this scheme proceeds from wildlife utilisation in GMAs was shared with the local communities.

Secondly that the local community would find employment as wildlife scouts and help in monitoring the resource use while at the same time assist in guarding it.

Thirdly government set up the Wildlife Conservation Revolving Fund (WCRF) to assist the department have money to meet some of its wildlife conservation expenses.

This worked well as the department was able to use the money directly for wildlife conservation work. The headline in the Times of Zambia of February 2, 2008, Zawa gives out K4 billion to 45 community resource boards for resource protection was along these procedures established and improved with time.

ECONOMIC RETURNS FROM WILDLIFE RESOURCES

Wildlife conservation efforts were the early part of wildlife management in Zambia through the creation of national parks.

The national park concept was already well established by the time colonial authorities set up their government administrative structure in the early 1990s in Zambia.

The conservation and management practice was however mainly based on policing of wildlife by using game guards. Offenders were arrested without considering the social costs mentioned above unlike in the present arrangement which allows for benefits to strikcle to the community.

The economic returns from wildlife resources were seen more in posterity and bequest values and not in the present tangible value which would generate interest in the ordinary citizens.

Infrastructure development is the backbone of meaningful economic returns.
This implies access to the source of the resources in any given situation. Our wildlife areas have not done well in this area.

Out of the 19 national parks only six are easily accessible to the public. Luangwa and Kafue National parks are leading in the infrastructure development.

As a result we have not gained the most out of the areas that are not easily accessible to the public for recreational needs such as photographic safari and game viewing.

ALTERNATIVES

At the rate we are going in developing our infrastructure in wildlife based areas, economic realization from wildlife resources will not be achieved in the near furture.

What seemed to be possible is a strong partnership with institutions and individuals that have the capital.

The Government initiative at Kasaba bay in Northern Province is a good example. Here 100 hectares of land were given to Libyans to develop a tourist resort.

The intervention is a larger part of the tourism development for Northern Province which is based on zone development approach.

Other approaches are game ranches in vantage areas. It is good to note there are a growing number of these around the country.

Lusaka has Chaminuka, Lilayi and Protea in Chisamba. These offer the client accommodation and wildlife resources at almost the door step.

The Copperbelt has Nsobe and Kafue Lodge in the vicinity of Ndola and Kitwe part from Chimfunshi. This concept has worked very well for South Africa where there is only one National Park, the Kruger.

The rest are private game reserves but contributing very well to the tourism economy for the country.

Another consideration would be leases of some parks to individuals and institutions that can put the infrastructure and make them more accessible to the public.

The Kasanka Park is good example of private concession of a mineral resources. Though in comparison, this is a 100 percent consumption activity as compared to the conservation measures that are placed on renewable resources such as wildlife.

A concession for a park for example would place a demand on the developer basic standard infrastructure development, such as an airport, roads, lodges etc.

In return the developer would adhere to the park conservation practice, and benefit from safari hunting in the adjacent GMA and tourism in the park and any other tourism activity that may be possible to arrange, plan and manage in that area.

In this way we could also improve on our consumptive wildlife part where meat processing would be considered in areas that allow hunting to take place.

This can be done either as service to those who hunt and have meat to process or a scheme that has a deliberate mandate to process meat.

There is no reason why we should not enjoy buffalo sausage, warthog bacon, impala smoked sausage and a host of other possible meat products which add value to the wildlife proteins that are abundant in our hunting areas.

The value would be enhanced and these could find clients even in the hotels and lodges especially those in wildlife proximities.

In making the most of our wildlife resources in Zambia we need to re-tool our thinking and go beyond conservation measures.

Government intervention is clearly limited and the efforts need private intervention for Zambia to move forward.