‘Hunting Should Generate Revenue for Conservation’
http://www.theindependent.co.zw/

Thursday, 14 January 2010 17:01

ZIMBABWE will this March attend the Convention on International Trade in
Endangered Species (Cites) meeting in Doha, Qatar, at a time when poaching
is rampant throughout the country. Zimbabwe Independent reporter, Bernard
Mpofu, speaks to the outgoing Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management
Authority director-general Morris Mtsambiwa on the country’s conservation
efforts. Below are excerpts from the interview. Mpofu: The past week has
seen newspapers carrying advertisements for the post of Director-General of
the Parks and Wildlife Authority. What legacy have you left during your
tenure in office?

Mtsambiwa: The reason why you have seen those adverts is that my contract
will be coming to an end on 31 March 2010. I have served as Director-General
for seven years. As tradition the board has to appoint someone else but I’m
also free to apply. During this time that I was serving in the authority we
went through a transformation process — from being a government department
to a self-sustaining parastatal which meant that there were some typical
challenges that you find in that process. Firstly we used to get government
subsidies but now we have to finance ourselves. Conservation and
commercialisation are two independent processes that have the potential to
destroy each other. Our core business is conservation but to sustain that
business we need money through commercialisation. So the challenge has been
to strike that balance.
Secondly as a government department our main role was to be a regulatory
body and we continued to be a regulatory body. But through commercialisation
we have become competitors with those we regulate (for example the authority
has hunting concessions). We can however be a professional body through
accountability and transparency. Another challenge was that we were coming
from a civil service culture so there was need to transform the mind and
introduce a performance-based approach to business. It is also imperative to
note that during this same period of transformation, there was an upsurge in
the demand for wildlife products — both legally and illegally. Legally in
the sense that a lot of people wanted to come into business but it has its
own limits, especially for the indigenous people in the fishing industry
among others. Illegally in that the harsh economic environment that
prevailed triggered a surge in poaching. The fact that the authority is
still there means that we have been able to face some of those challenges.
We are still regarded as one of the best conservation agencies in the
region. In 2003 during my first 100 days I was able to convince people who
were preparing the World’s Parks Congress in Durban, South Africa that
Zimbabwe had a story to tell and we presented a paper on parks governance
which was describing our transformation process.

Mpofu: Last November, you suspended all hunting permits citing allegations
of illegal activities among some operators. What anomalies did you find from
the verification exercise that ended last December?

Mtsambiwa: We have concluded the exercise but fortunately or unfortunately
we did not come up with any discrepancies. Because of that exercise, if
there were people with forged documents, they did not bring them forward
which means that we foiled the use of those documents.

Mpofu: How many elephants and rhinos did the country lose to poaching
during the past year?

Mtsambiwa: We lost something to the tune of 145 elephants, about nine white
rhinos and about seven black rhinos. We also lost 42 zebras that were killed
for skins and 91 buffaloes. We are dealing with unscrupulous people that
seem to have a market out there.

Mpofu: Do you see yourself effectively thwarting such criminal activities?

Mtsambiwa: It is our hope that as the economy improves we will have more
resources before us to fully curb poaching. We also rely on other strategic
partnerships we have with other state partners such as the police, army and
the attorney-general’s office for stiffer penalties.

Mpofu: Press reports recently implicated cabinet ministers to poaching
activities. What do you say to this?

Mtsambiwa: We haven’t had any credible evidence on those allegations. They
have remained allegations and nobody has come to us to prove otherwise.

Mpofu: How much ivory does Zimbabwe have in store? How old is the stock
pile and what is its market value?

Mtsambiwa: We have roughly about 20 tonnes in stock accumulated since
January 2007. We are only able to sell the approved stock piles accumulated
before January 2007. Market value is determined by an auction. At the last
auction in November 2008, Zimbabwe’s ivory was worth US$150 per kg.

Mpofu: We understand it costs millions to look after animals in the wild,
where are you getting the money considering the government is broke?

Mtsambiwa: The authority generates revenue from safari, hunting concessions,
selling of animals in excess and from leasing concessions and various
activities within our commercialisation model. We also adopted an innovative
approach of generating revenue.

Mpofu: There are reports of wildlife farmers being evicted from their farms.
They are being forced to leave their animals including lions behind. Some
lions are now roaming freely posing a danger to surrounding communities…what
are you doing about this?

Mtsambiwa: First and foremost, we are not aware of such farmers. But we have
a case when someone abandoned captive breeding of lions and left them in the
custody of the authority and the SPCA. This farmer decided to abandon this
project after he was evicted from another farm elsewhere, not necessarily
the one where he was breeding the carnivores. It is true that one of the
lions escaped but we tracked it down and shot it.

Mpofu: From your understanding, how does Kenya benefit from its reported
proposal to Cites to extend the moratorium on the country’s trade in ivory
to 20 years?

Mtsambiwa: There are two different schools of thought between Zimbabwe and
Kenya when it comes to wildlife utilisation. To put it bluntly, they don’t
believe in hunting for commercial purposes. We believe in hunting. They
believe that if you allow that you’ll trigger poaching for ivory. Their
conservation efforts rely on donor funding and at times some of these big
donors influence their thinking to support this school of thought. So by
proposing that we stop trading, they are actually getting an upper hand in
that school of thought.

Mpofu: So how do they make viable business without this trade?

Mtsambiwa: Through safari and other products such as photography.

Mpofu: Finally what does it take to persuade Cites to permit ivory exports
from Zimbabwe? Or rather what message are you taking to the meeting?

Mtsambiwa: We believe in consumptive (hunting) utilisation which is
supporting our conservation efforts. We believe that hunting in a
sustainable manner is a good source of revenue for conservation. Lastly it
is our hope that the industry will recover from last year’s global
recession.