Zambia to reintroduce elephant hunting
By Katongo Chisupa
Special to World Peace Herald
Published May 23, 2005


LUSAKA, Zambia -- Zambia is expected to re-introduce elephant sport hunting soon in two of its top national parks, after it was suspended over twenty years ago due to steep decline in the population, wildlife experts have revealed.

"The country now has the capacity to harvest a maximum quota of 40 tusks (20 elephants) from sport hunting and problem animal measures for the Zambian African elephant populations in [the] lower Zambezi Area Management Unit (LZAMU) and South Luangwa Area Management Unit (SLAMU)," an official said.


Only two areas will be designated for elephant sport hunting: the Lower Zambezi Area Management Unit (Chiawa and Rufunsa game management areas) in the southern part of the country and the South Luangwa Area Management Unit (Lupande game management area) in the eastern province, where elephant numbers have been monitored and data is available.

According to officials, the primary objective of the initiative is to promote the sustainable conservation of elephants in these two area management units.

Elephant sport hunting based on a quota that will provide for the conservation of the species and benefits to local communities is extremely important, according to the Government.

Proceeds from elephant sport hunting will be reinvested into elephant conservation and sustainable development in local communities for the benefit of the people living within the two elephant hunting areas.

The Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) argues that it needs additional resources to reinvest into elephant protection if it is to strengthen the elephant management program. To obtain the best out of the elephant population, the government says it is wise to utilize a small portion of the population, through sport hunting in two of Zambia's core areas where elephant populations have increased.

A legally binding benefit-sharing mechanism of revenue from the sustainable utilization of wildlife products in Zambia has already been established. ZAWA retains 100 percent of hunting concessions fees, while revenue from animal fees are shared equally between ZAWA and the local communities. It is expected the same formula will be applied to elephant sport hunting.

According to a detailed report from ZAWA, the hunting will be governed by numerous restrictions aimed at insuring that only the approved quota of elephants will be available for sport hunting.

Hunters will be required to purchase hunting licenses through the existing safari outfitter. After the hunt, hunters will be required to obtain certificates of ownership that will list the details of trophies, ivory and skin to provide for stricter monitoring of both hunting activity and the movement of trophies.

Each tusk will be marked in accordance with the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Enforcement personnel from the CITES secretariat will be able to monitor and check all the stages and processes of elephant sport hunting in Zambia. Hunters will be allowed to export back to their countries only the items cleared through this process.

The ZAWA report says Zambia will need foreign support for law enforcement if it is to carry out the sport-hunting program effectively.

The government says it doesn't see many problems arising, because the proposed hunting areas are some of the best-funded areas in Zambia's wildlife estates.

Since trade in wildlife products in Zambia are governed by veterinary regulations, all the individual ivory specimens will have to be fumigated prior to shipment.

The government's rationale behind the reintroduction of sport hunting is that protected areas alone are inadequate to ensure the survival of the elephants, especially in arid and semi-arid areas such as the Lower Zambezi and South Luangwa Protected Area Management Units, where competition with humans for resources is high.

ZAWA argues that elephants in this case must return tangible economic benefits to landowners or communities sharing habitat with them, without which elephant conservation will always be marginal to other land use forms, and that elephants must simply have a strong commercial value. At the moment, the value that is only limited to eco-tourism has its serious limitations.

The government agrees with the primary concern of poor rural communities, which is to fight the injustice that elephants inflict on them in the destruction of their livelihood by the loss of crops and human life. Examples abound: in the South Luangwa Area Management Unit, 60 percent of the problem animal cases are caused by elephants, which endanger human lives and cause damage to crops, threatening food security in the area due to heavy crop damage at the peak of the crop-growing season. This is one of the areas that have been earmarked for elephant sport hunting.

The government hopes that revenue from elephant sport hunting will therefore significantly assist local communities who in a great way have suffered costs of conservation, exacerbated by there being no scheme for compensation.

The undertaking will further offer relief and bring confidence to the community, as they will now place value on elephants unlike at present where communities see elephants as a threat and menace to their livelihoods.

"Conservation of elephants is important but satisfying the basic needs of resident human populations is even more critical," says the position paper.

A changed perception about elephants would enable the community to tolerate and accept coexistence with them. This would secure a promise for habitat, and thus diminish threats to land conversions.

So far, since the benefit-sharing of revenue from wildlife resources was introduced in Zambia in 1994, communities have benefited from this program through increased opportunities to satisfy livelihood needs, improved health services, education and better food security.

Sport hunting will contribute to the survival of the elephant, given that resources will be channeled towards conservation activities and improving rural livelihoods. This will ensure that opportunity costs for poaching are rendered unattractive by reducing success rates, which in turn would make enforcement cheap.

As a party to CITES, Zambia is required to abide by the requirements of the Convention, while at the same time look into the interest of her citizens. The government here says it would be unethical to enforce the Convention at the expense of people's lives, hence the need to accommodate resource utilization pathways that will bring the best for both human life and wildlife resources within their environs.

From the CITES point of view, elephants are a global species. This puts the country at a great disadvantage, because as a third world country conservation is usually not a funding priority for the government. The Zambian government, like many others in the developing world, has too many pressing social and economic needs to be able to consider any meaningful commitment to elephant conservation.

The government therefore feels strongly that trophy hunting of elephants will pay for the cost of conservation in the range areas. With Zambia's poorly performing economy, elephant conservation can no longer be subsidized by the government.

Zambia's elephant population currently stands at between 22,000 and 25,000.

Zambia banned elephant sport hunting in 1982. The local trade in elephant products continued until 1989, when the species was placed on Appendix I of CITES.

Since then, the country has not directly exploited its elephant population for commercial trade or domestic consumption, either as live or their products, except through sport hunting before the ban in 1982. Under this recreational hunting activity, small quotas for elephants were allocated in selected Game Management Areas with potential elephant populations. All the revenues generated from hunting were banked into central government treasury.

At that time, the National Parks and Wildlife Service (now ZAWA) could not use these revenues directly for the conservation of the elephant population. The situation has now changed. All the revenue from hunting is collected by ZAWA and shared with the local communities for improving their livelihoods and also re-invested into conservation.

Elephants in Zambia are in Appendix I of the CITES listing, which prohibits commercial trade in elephant and elephant products.

ZAWA will issue a hunting license to the hunter, and will facilitate preparation of records (trophy size, weight, length, sex, identification marking) and ownership certificates.

At the time of export, CITES documents will be issued and only international airports have been designated as ports of exit to the hunter's destination.

Furthermore, law enforcement has been enhanced by the formation of the CITES National Coordinating Secretariat for multi-sectoral implementation of CITES in Zambia.

The ivory shall be clearly and permanently marked with punch-dies or, where this is not practicable, with indelible ink, using a special formula. A certificate of ownership, bearing details of the client and the trophy will be granted to the owner of the trophy. The government will retain duplicate copies and shall be the property of Zambia for future reference.

The trophies, including other parts such as feet, ears, etc., will be exported to the hunter's destination with prior authority from the importing through an import permit.

The meat from elephants will be given to the local community in the hunting areas as a source of protein.

This is good news.

I've spent some time in the South Luanga Park when hunting was closed. Saw a lot of elephant with what appeared to me as decent ivory. However, I'm not really good at judging an elephant's tusks, they all look big to me! Hopefully they can harvest some big old bulls out of Zambia.

Tim

How much hassle to get ivory into US?

I've spent some time hunting Buffalo in the Upper Lupande of the Luangwa Valley, and there are, or were, a lot of Elephant in that area. A few years ago we had over 100 elephant troop right through our camp to cross the Luangwa River from the tribal lands into the South Luangwa National Park. I saw some pritty nice ivory in that bunch, but the little bands of 5 to 10 bulls, is where we saw the best teeth.
I have a feeling the prices will be very high for Elephant in Zambia, but there is a chance for a real keeper in there!

I don't think I've ever been chased by more eles. more often than in the north luangwa. never did see one with teeth