Someone had mentioned on a post earlier this month that they had a copy of this presentation. I asked them to send it to me. I would be very interested to hear from the members in Zim regarding the preliminary results and their reactions to the results. Apparently the preliminary results were presented on December 2. The presentation notes that the results are provisional and subject to error checking, although any errors are not likely to change the noted trends. Unfortunately the copy I got has some pages that the text did not show up on so I do not know what is reported there.

I understand who is underwriting the survey but the results certainly seem to be inconsistent with the general belief that elephant populations in Zim are up over the last decade. And of course, the survey does not address (as best I can tell) the carrying capacity of the land relative to the population since I think there would be some like Ron Thomson that might argue that the results in 2001 showed a substantial overpopulation so the fact that the numbers are down overall is a good thing.

The preliminary results are done by regions.

NW Matabeleland, population has shown a slight increase since 2001. Best I can extrapolate, from just under 50,000 in 2001 to 52,000-53,000 in 2014. They note an approximate increase of 10%.

Gonarezhou, population has shown a substantial increase since 2001. Best I can extrapolate, from around 5,000 in 2001 to between 10,000 and 11,000 in 2014. They note an approximate increase of 134%.

Zambezi Vally, population has shown a marked decrease since 2001. Best I can extrapolate, from just under 20,000 in 2001 to around 12,000 in 2014. They note an approximate decrease of 40%.

Sebungwe, a significant decrease since 2001. Best I can extrapolate, from around 14,000 in 2001 to around 3,000 in 2014. They note an approximate decrease of 75%.

Overall, the results show a provisional mean estimate of between 82,000-83,000 in the four survey areas representing a 6% decline in elephant populations since 2001.

http://allafrica.com/stories/201412300559.html


Zimbabwe: Jumbo Population Down 40 Percent


The elephant population has decreased by more than 40 percent in the Zambezi Valley in the last 13 years due to the rising scourge in poaching, a new survey released this month shows. The National Survey of the Elephant in Zimbabwe: 2014 Some Preliminary Results shows that elephant numbers decreased by about 75 percent in the combined Matusadona and Chizarira areas.

The results were presented by Mr Kevin Dunham at the Workshop to develop Elephant Conservation Policy and Management Plan for Zimbabwe early this month.

The survey is a partnership between the Great Elephant Census, a Mr Paul Gardner Allen Project and the Parks and Wildlife management Authority.

Mr Allen is the co-founder of Microsoft Corporation alongside Bill Gates.

Commenting on the survey results AWARE Trust Founder Trustee and Director of Operations, Dr Keith Dutlow said Zimbabwe could have lost more elephants to poaching as stress could have reduced population growth.

"While for example the Zambezi valley has dropped from 19 000 to 13 000 elephants since the census in 2001, we also need to remember that if you take into account that an elephant population under no stress increases at about seven percent per year, we have probably lost more than just 6 000 elephants in this area," said Dr Dutlow.

The poaching scourge that has been out of control in Central and East Africa has clearly already reached Zimbabwe with a 40 percent decrease in numbers in the Zambezi Valley and a 75 percent decrease in the combined Matusadona and Chizarira areas.

Poachers have accounted for more than 100 000 elephants in Africa in the last three years according to a report of Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In Central Africa alone where population growth averages five percent per annum the rate of poaching has been significantly higher at seven percent per annum.

Dr Dutlow's AWARE Trust seeks to pro-actively further the conservation and welfare of wildlife and wildlife habitats, with particular reference to conservation veterinary medicine, and to raise awareness of veterinary and ecological threats to wildlife species and habitats.

The Trust provides expert veterinary treatment and rehabilitation to sick or injured ownerless wild animals on a pro bono basis, especially where these animals have suffered at the hand of man.

This may include preventative treatment of wild animals at risk from disease, or pre-emptive rehabilitation of wild animals threatened by humans.

AWARE Trust performs free sterilisation, vaccination, and basic health care for domesticated animals living in poverty-stricken marginal areas at interfaces with wildlife conservation areas.

The Trust believes that improving the health and welfare of these animals improves the livelihoods of their owners, and has a positive knock on effect for wildlife by limiting the spread of disease into wildlife populations and reducing poaching in wildlife areas

Mike,

I am assuming NW Matabeleland includes Hwange??

quote:

Originally posted by Mike70560:
Mike,

I am assuming NW Matabeleland includes Hwange??

Correct. Sebungwe basically picks up the area around Chirisa, Chizarira, etc.

http://www.huntingreport.com/c...ion_force.cfm?id=347



Two Recent Zimbabwe Elephant Workshops Should Prompt USFWS to Allow Hunting Trophy Imports Again

Written By John J. Jackson III, Conservation Force Chairman & President
(posted December 2014)

In November and December 2014, Conservation Force initiated and sponsored two elephant workshops in Zimbabwe to prepare an up-to-date National Elephant Action/Management Plan. The last Zimbabwe National Elephant Management Plan was adopted in 1997, 18 years ago. The need for review and adoption of a newer plan was the first thing we set our sights on when US Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced its unexpected suspension of Zimbabwe elephant imports on April 4, 2014.

Once it was determined that a new national action plan was warranted, it became obvious that the CAMPFIRE Program communities, with 58 of the 60 Districts in Zimbabwe with more than 840,000 households, would benefit from their own preparatory elephant planning workshop before their representatives participated in the national workshop. Those communities cover more area of elephant habitat than national parks. Moreover, sport hunting is the backbone of CAMPFIRE, and the hunting of a small number of elephant contributes 70% of the CAMPFIRE program's total income. Elephant hunting is essential to the continued viability of CAMPFIRE and to the survival of elephant within the elephant range that CAMPFIRE provides. In fact, one determination made at the CAMPFIRE Workshop was that elephant would cease to exist in communal lands if the USFWS suspension is not lifted. This was repeated and confirmed at the following National Elephant Planning Workshop in December.

On 17 and 18 November 2014, the CAMPFIRE Stakeholders' Workshop: Towards the Development of a New Elephant Management Plan and Policy was held at Cresta Lodge in Harare. This first workshop was funded by Dallas Safari Club and Conservation Force, and was primarily planned and organized at Conservation Force's suggestion by CAMPFIRE Association Director Charles Jonga. It was well attended by the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), Zimbabwe's Ministry of Environment, both the Board Chairman and Director of the CAMPFIRE Association, more than a dozen District and Ward representatives and coordinators, a representative of WWF Zimbabwe, two safari operators (Clive Stockil of SAVE Valley Conservancy and Miles McCallum of Charlton McCallum Safaris), and many others. Conservation Force and Dallas Safari Club were represented by Regina Lennox, the new staff attorney at Conservation Force. SCI was invited and was represented by George Pangetti.

The workshop participants identified elephant issues and formulated recommendations for the National Workshop to be held December 2-4. The Chief Ecologist, Phillip Kuvawoga from the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA), summed the workshop up as "one of the best for 2014, and I've been to many. Good colleagues from all over, and a large amount of data was considered." He called the successful workshop "an early Christmas for a Parks guy."

The National Elephant Action Plan Workshop was held December 2-4 in Hwange National Park. Everybody who was anybody was present or represented. This workshop, too, was initiated by Conservation Force, with funding in large part by Shikar Safari Club International (not to be confused with Safari Club International). I personally attended and presented at this workshop, which was organized and conducted under the auspices of the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZPWMA). The objective was to update Zimbabwe's 1997 National Elephant Management Plan with a new Action Plan that includes smart, clear goals, objectives and management options/actions and indicators that are measurable.

One of the first presentations, and certainly one of singular importance, was on the preliminary 2014 aerial survey results of the GREAT ELEPHANT CENSUS, Paul G. Allen Project. The results show the Zimbabwe elephant population to be approximately 82,000-83,000 excluding the Bubye and Save Valley Conservancies. This is marginally 6% below the estimated 88,000 elephant in Zimbabwe's last countrywide aerial survey with a similar methodology in 2001. This 6% difference is not considered significant in an estimated population this size. Instead, it is generally considered stable. This is more elephant than when USFWS made its last enhancement finding in 1997. Then, the most recent census was made in 1995, estimating only 66k elephant countrywide.

Under the 1997 Management Plan, Zimbabwe maintains four viable elephant populations. They are 1.) Northwest Matabeleland (which includes Hwange National Park), 2.) Sebungwe Region, 3.) Lower Zambezi Valley in the north, and 4.) Gonarezhou in the southeast. Zimbabwe's largest population in Hwange National Park has grown to more than 40,000 elephant and continues to grow, a fact which Zimbabwe authorities have represented to both USFWS and the US Congress. The total NW Matabeleland population is up 10% since 2001. This population, taken together with the adjoining population in Botswana, comprises the largest elephant population in the world. This is where the nominal cyanide poisoning occurred that caused rumors of out-of-control poaching. In reality, collaboration between the local hunting operator and Zim Parks made short work of the poachers and poaching. The local hunting operator there has his own 12-man anti-poaching team and regularly flies that quadrant of Hwange National Park. Also, Zim Parks (ZPWMA) has installed a permanent anti-poaching outpost in the area. Experts venture that the population in Hwange is four or more times greater than management objective. We were elated to get the confirmation that the population is all or more than it is represented to be. Zim Parks has been doing something right!

The second growing population is Gonarezhou National Park. This population has been steadily growing for 20 years and has more than doubled since the last national aerial survey in 2001 to more than 11,000. This is up 134% from 2001 and the incline has been steady. It has increased from 5k in 2001 to 11k today.

The other two elephant population areas are down. The Lower Zambezi Valley population is down from 2001 (19k in 2001 to 14.5k today) and the worst, the Sebungwe Region, is down 75% (14-15k in 2001 to 3.5k today).

The new 2014 National Management Plan in draft provides for the creation of a national elephant coordinator, as did the CAMPFIRE workshop. It also provides for the creation of a national committee and four regional committees to meet regularly and create and implement regional plans under the new national plan framework. Zim Parks is not waiting for the workshop reports or the completion of the new national action plan. Planning began for regional workshops in the two declining areas, Sebungwe and Zambezi Valley, at the national workshop. Already an action planning workshop is scheduled for 26-29 January in Zambezi Valley. The Tashinga Initiative Trust, directed by Lynne Taylor (www.thetashingainitiative.org) is spearheading this early effort with Zim Parks, African Wildlife Foundation, local safari operators including Charlton McCallum Safaris, local CAMPFIRE communities, and others. Lynne Taylor is the wife of Dr. Russell Taylor, one of the expert presenters at the national workshop.

A second regional planning workshop for Sebungwe is scheduled in two parts. The first initial meeting in early February, and a second, more comprehensive workshop in late February. This one is being spearheaded by Richard Maasdorp, also an expert presenter at the national workshop on 2-4 December.

The most serious decline to be covered by the regional workshops is in the Sebungwe region. Conservation Force has already committed to cover half the cost of the upcoming meeting for this important target region that has had the greatest losses in its elephant populations.

In short, the national action plan framework of objectives is being implemented before the plan itself has been completed. It is already being stepped down to planning in the regions with elephant decline. There should be a final Zim Parks National Elephant Action Plan and two to four regional action plans adopted and being implemented in 2015.

The conservation importance of the elephant hunting in Zimbabwe cannot be overstated. The elephant hunting is the largest single source of revenue to Zim Parks and the largest source of income to the CAMPFIRE Association and the communities it represents. It is the largest single source of income to the safari industry's operators and professional hunters in Zimbabwe, some of which provide half a million dollars a year to local communities and poaching control. For example, Charlton McCallum Safaris has provided $750,210 to CAMPFIRE in their Zambezi Valley Safari Area in the past two years. Lodzi Hunters has provided $531,000 to CAMPFIRE in the past two years in Matabeleland. Above and beyond their CAMPFIRE contributions, both operate serious anti-poaching teams.

With the moratorium on elephant hunting in Botswana implemented in 2014, Zimbabwe would and could provide the greatest volume of elephant hunting in Africa if imports into the USA were allowed. Before the suspension, Zimbabwe was producing a larger percentage of elephant imports than Tanzania, which has had a lower quota and extra restrictions on tusk weight and dimensions, and Zimbabwe had a larger number of elephant exports than South Africa and Namibia combined. Zimbabwe has the second largest remaining elephant population in all of Africa, second to Botswana, now that Tanzania's elephant population has reportedly been more than halved by uncontrolled poaching. Without Zimbabwe there is little elephant hunting left in Africa for Americans.

Moreover, Zimbabwe is a real hunting nation and the founder of the modern concept of both sustainable use and communal-based natural resource management, CBNRM. USFWS has long recognized Zimbabwe's leadership. In 1990 when the CITES Appendix I listing became effective, Zimbabwe was the only country initially allowed elephant trophy imports by USFWS. The others followed by two or more years and only after successful litigation by yours truly. Also, when USFWS denied the antis' petition to list the African elephant as endangered in 1992, 57 FR 35473, it cited Zimbabwe's CAMPFIRE Program, which had extended the range of elephant in Zimbabwe, as the kind of strategy that could ensure the long-term survival of elephant.

"An additional 20 percent of the surface area of Zimbabwe has become dedicated to wildlife management since 1980 because of the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE). This program is an important new-political-economic-sociological institution that has developed an environmental ethic, restored the perception of wildlife as a valuable resource, advocated wildlife management as an adjunct to subsistence agriculture, and encouraged the conservation of natural ecosystems and wildlife habitats on tribal trust lands (Anon, 1990)."

57 FR 35473, Page 12.

"The AECCG Review (1991) suggests these are feasible when political stability exists and if sufficient financial support arises. The long term goals are to balance wildlife and human needs. This requires that sufficient returns be realized from the sustainable utilization of wildlife so that wildlife conservation is easily perceived as an important land use. The CAMPFIRE program in Zimbabwe is an excellent example of a social program built on values obtained from the sustainable utilization of wildlife resources."

57 FR 35473, Page 18.

We have too few safari hunting destinations today and too few elephant hunting destinations.

Special accolades go to Shikar Safari Club International for its support of the National Elephant Planning Workshop and support of Conservation Force in both Zimbabwe and Tanzania since the April 4 suspensions. Shikar has really stepped up to the plate in both elephant and African lion conservation. No organization is their equal. We are honored and privileged to enjoy their trust, confidence and support at this critical period in the history of modern safari hunting. But for Shikar, a great deal of safari hunting could be lost and buried in this short, damaging interval.

Thanks for that write up by John Jackson. I still worry that a group like the USFWS that does not allow facts to get in the way of its desire to act politically would simply cite the overall decline in population, particularly in the two regions with significant hunting, as a basis for renewing the ban for 2015. I hope I am wrong.

Any reaction from the outfitters and professional hunters in Zim? Does the data square with their anecdotal observations?