Namibia: Elephant Hunting - An Alternative View


The Namibian (Windhoek)

OPINION
9 September 2008
Posted to the web 9 September 2008

Garth Owen-Smith


OVER the past few weeks I have watched in amazement the escalating media frenzy, sensational headlines and misinformation over the Ministry of Environment and Tourism's issuing of trophy-hunting permits for six elephants to conservancies in Namibia's northwest.

Having worked as an agricultural official in the then Kaokoveld (1968-70), I was in charge of the Endangered Wildlife Trust's field operations in Kaokoland and Damaraland (1982-1990), and since then been co-director with Dr Margaret Jacobsohn of the Namibian NGO Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation, which works with 25 conservancies in the Kunene Region, I would like to give my perspective on the issue.


Let me start with the situation in the late sixties.

At the time I estimated the number of elephants in the Kaokoveld (north of Sesfontein) to be between 600 and 800, of which about 200 were permanently, or semi-permanently resident west of the escarpment, in the pre-Namib but which also moved down the larger riverbeds into the true Namib Desert.

The only other elephants inhabiting such an arid habitat were in the Gourme Reserve, on the border between Chad and Mali.

FIGHTBACK When I returned to the region in 1982 the situation was very different.

On the highlands of Kaokoland commercial poaching had wiped out all but about 50 elephants along the border with Owambo and the Etosha National Park.

An accurate figure was impossible to get because most of this area was then a war zone.

Based on Dr PJ Viljoen's research (1975 to 1983) and an aerial census in 1982, west of the escarpment only six elephants survived on the lower Kunene River and 30 along the lower Hoanib River.

The situation in Damaraland was a little better, with 185 elephants in the Ombonde, Uniab and Huab river catchments, of which between 30 and 40 were in the pre-Namib along the Uniab and its tributaries.

There were then no elephants in the lower Huab or in the Uchab catchment.

However, as over 80 elephant carcasses were also counted, it was clear that large-scale ivory poaching was now taking place here.

Over the next two years nature conservation officials under Chris Eyre, assisted by the EWT staff and community-appointed game guards, achieved numerous convictions for illegal hunting and stopped the poaching of elephants.

Sporadic cases of rhino poaching still occurred until 1994, but in only one case was a local community member responsible.

As between 600 and 1 000 elephants were killed or sought refuge in Etosha during the previous decade, without a single prosecution, this was a remarkable achievement, due primarily to the local people in the region now actively supporting conservation.

Since then elephant numbers have rapidly increased on the highlands, probably supplemented by some returnees from Etosha to the highlands because illegal hunting was no longer occurring in this prime elephant habitat.

In 1992 an aerial census counted 366 elephants in the region, but some herds were known to have been missed and the actual figure was taken to be about 400 - up from a total of 270 ten years earlier.

Although there have been no recent accurate counts, over the past 16 years we know that elephant numbers north of the veterinary cordon fence have increased substantially and they have now re-colonised much of the range they inhabited before 1970.

This would have been an unmitigated success if Kunene Region was a game reserve.

But it is communal land where the local people are trying to make a living from livestock and rain-dependent agriculture.

The elephants raid their crops, damage water installations and come into villages to drink large amounts of water that is pumped by the farmers at their own expense.

They also pose a hazard, particularly to women and children, that very few people anywhere in the world would be prepared to live with.

TUSKER RENT In spite of this most of the communities in the Kunene Region have shown they are prepared to live with elephants and have formed, or are in the process of forming conservancies, so that they can get the rights to manage and benefit from the wildlife on their land.

It is also important that we clarify the term 'desert elephants'.

Internationally deserts are defined as areas receiving less than 150 mm of rain annually.

The highlands of Kunene Region get substantially more than this, so the elephants here are not 'desert elephants' and in fact, live within a habitat that is little different to that in western Etosha, the Tsavo National Park in Kenya, or many other parts of Africa.

As highly intelligent animals, elephants should not be killed lightly anywhere, but if they are to expand their range beyond our national parks the cost to the people living there must be taken into account.

To put it crudely, they must "pay the rent" and where there are no non-consumptive opportunities available, the trophy hunting of a few bulls is the best option.

Now let us look at the situation in the west, where the rainfall is less than 150 mm.

The elephants along the lower Kunene were killed in Angola around the time of Namibia's independence.

However, the 30 elephants in the lower Hoanib have expanded their range to include the Hoarusib River, and according to Dr.

Keith Legget now consist of 38 adult cows and 16 adult bulls.

One teenage bull was shot here in 2005 because its behaviour posed a threat to both the local people and tourists staying at the Purros campsite.

The Uniab 'desert elephants' have also expanded their range, although fewer of them appear to use the pre-Namib now that the poaching has stopped and they are not being persecuted in the more favourable habitats to the north and east.

The area they move in comprises the Palmwag and Etendeka Tourist Concessions, as well as the Anabeb and Sesfontein conservancies.

In 2008 these two conservancies were jointly given a trophy permit, the first time since they were registered in 2003.

One trophy elephant shot here every five years is sustainable, but the question arises: Is this the best use of big bulls in conservancies with high photographic tourism potential? I will return to this point later.

South of the veterinary fence the situation becomes much more complex.

As there are no restrictions on livestock movements here, many of the residents are, in fact, commercial farmers living on communal land.

And for years they have asked why they have to live with elephants causing them economic losses, when white farmers do not have to and call for blood every time one comes onto their property.

Thanks to the Ministry's conservancy legislation these attitudes are changing, but until much more income is earned from non-consumptive wildlife utilisation this unanswerable question will not go away.

Another complicating factor is that in the Uchab catchment there were no elephants before the early nineties, and had not been since the 1940s.

Consequently, unlike the communities further north, living with elephants is a new experience for the farmers here.

Add to this that a number of local people have been killed by elephants in recent years, including a community game guard in 2007, and you have a conservation dilemma for which there are no easy solutions.

With the elephants in the arid west of the Kunene Region having doubled in number over the past 26 years, and their range having extended both northwards to the Hoarusib River and south to the Uchab River, it is ridiculous to suggest that their survival is threatened.

However, that too many large bulls are being hunted is a valid concern.

Selective killing of big tuskers by poachers in the 70s and early 80s, the shooting of bulls as problem animals and the number of trophies hunted south of the veterinary fence have all contributed to there now being a severe imbalance between adult bulls and cows.

According to Johan Haasbroek this is particularly so in the Uchab River, and as IRDNC has not worked in this area since the early '90s, and no reliable count has been carried out recently, we do not have any reason to dispute this.

So what should be done? Firstly the Ministry deserves praise, not criticism or threats, for a community-based policy and enabling legislation that is widely recognised as the most progressive in Africa.

Without this we may not have had any elephants left in Kunene Region.

Instead we now have wildlife populations, including elephants, recovering and extending their range in virtually all of Namibia's communal areas - in stark contrast to what is happening over the rest of the continent.

COMMUNITY It is equally important to recognise the contribution made by the communal area farmers, who are not only prepared to bear the cost of living with elephants and large predators, but have set aside land exclusively for wildlife and tourism, as well as employing game guards at their own cost to stop poaching and thereby safeguard the business interests of their private-sector partners.

From the early 1980s NGOs have also played a major role in supporting Namibia's community-based natural resource programme and the fledgling conservancies that have grown out of it, with their many donors having invested close to N$100 million in the Kunene Region alone.

Here EHRA's contribution of building protection walls around water-points in the Uchab and Huab catchments is also recognised.

Namibia's professional hunters have played their part by paying good prices (determined by a closed tender process) for the few animals that are shot as trophies every year.

Their injection of funds directly to conservancies has often been crucial in their early years, and will continue to be needed to make them into sustainable community-based organisations that improve the quality of life for the residents of communal areas.

Considering the combined contributions of all the above to make the Kunene Region the conservation success story that it is, why do we still need to shoot precious elephant bulls in the west? Unfortunately, with a few exceptions, one party has not yet come to the table in a meaningful way: The lodge and photographic safari operators who profit from the wildlife that the local communities conserve for them.

As part of the Ministry's policy of allowing communities who live with elephants to benefit from them, in 2008 Purros Conservancy could have claimed a quota to trophy hunt one bull.

They did not do so because their income, primarily from their own campsite, but also from two joint ventures and traversing rights to the Skeleton Coast concessionaire, had given their elephants a non-consumptive value much greater than what they would earn from one being shot.

I believe Sesfontein and Anabeb conservancies would have done the same if they had been earning sufficient income from the Palmwag tourism concession - 550 000 hectares of land that in the 1980s their communities agreed not to use and to reserve for wildlife.

For the first 17 years, while it developed into one of Namibia's premier tourism destinations, they received nothing at all.

Even under the new exclusive concessionaire, which operates three lodges and a very lucrative campsite here, the income they received up to 2007 did not even cover their staff salaries and other conservancy management costs.

In order to give their members some long awaited benefits, in 2008 they decided to jointly trophy hunt one elephant.

Most of the conservancies south of the Huab River have to date received little or no non-consumptive income from their wildlife, in spite of the area being an extremely popular destination for both local and foreign tourists.

Until this situation is rectified the MET will continue to be faced with demands for elephants to be shot here, either as problem animals or trophies.

No conservationist, government or NGO, wants to see any more of the western elephant bulls killed, but sensational headlines and one-sided opinions in the media do not help.

Therefore, my advice to Johan Haasbroek is to stop being a "lone ranger" and work with us to find a solution that addresses the local communities' legitimate problems, as well as Namibia's international responsibility to conserve this unique sub-population of 'desert elephants'.

And to the private sector: If they are also concerned about the real conservation issues in the Kunene, and not just their profit margins, then recognise what the local communities have done to make your businesses possible, and pay them a fair price for the right to operate on their land.

If this does not happen much of what has been achieved over the last 25 years could be lost.


Garth Owen-Smith is the Co-director of IRDNC Namibia