Wildlife Resource Management in Eastern and Southern Africa

Introduction

Africa, especially Eastern and Southern Africa is home to a variety of wildlife. The wildlife available include the big 5 game animals which are elephants, buffaloes, rhinos, lions, and leopards. The availability of these animals is a great resource to African countries. This is because they benefit the people through tourism and hunting for meat. African governments and people also value wildlife. This is proven by the extensive network of national parks and protected areas and by the important role of wildlife in traditional African cultures. Despite this, there has been an increasing pressure on the governments to grow the economy and support the ever-growing population on a limited amount land. Therefore, there is a need for this resource to be used sustainably so that the future generations can benefit and that the current wildlife does not go into extinction. This paper is going to look at the issue of wildlife population decline, management of wildlife in Africa together with challenges that affect wildlife resource management such as poaching and urban development and other conflicts between humans and wildlife. Ways in which these issues have been addressed will also be looked at in the paper. Apart from that, the paper will also highlight at various case studies in Africa to see which countries are using the best management practices and which ones need improvement.

Wildlife Population Decline

There was a rapid decline in wildlife population in the 1960s in both Eastern and Southern Africa. This was as a result of many factors including, poaching, increase in human population and development, lack of wildlife protection, and civil wars in countries like Uganda and Mozambique (Park et al. 2013). According to a study done by Craig et al. 2010, there has been about 60 percent decline in mammal populations since the 1970s in protected areas across Africa. This is a large number of decline that has happened in a short time. Therefore, measures need to be put in place to ensure that there is no further decline. Despite the total percent decline being high, it generally varies depending on the region. For example, in Kenya, mammals with high value such as elephants, rhinos and lions, their population decreased by 70 percent or more outside of national parks and declines near 40 to 70 percent occurred inside national parks (Nelson et al. 2009). Apart from Kenya, Tanzania also experience a huge loss of wildlife population due to poaching in the 1970s. As a result, it stopped people from hunting for a short period of time (Pack et al. 2013).

Poaching played a bigger role compared to excessive hunting and loss of habitat when it comes to rapid loss of wildlife population in African countries in the 1980s and 1990s (Herne, 1999). The number of animals killed legally through licensed hunting was under 10 percent of those that were poached and generally, these numbers were at sustainable levels (Coogan, 2012). In the 1980, there was enough habitat in Africa which the big five could occupy. However, due to various issues such as expanding globalization, government corruption, lack of funds for wildlife law enforcement, and inadequate international laws governing the rhino horn and ivory trade, there was an increase in poaching activities (Herne, 1999; Coogan, 2012; Pack et al. 2013). An example for increase in poaching activities is in Kenya, where the population of elephants declined rapidly by about 45% loss in just a period of two years (1974 to 1976), after Kenya put a ban on sport hunting (Coogan, 2012; Pack et al. 2013). The increase in poaching can be attributed to the fact that the hunting operators, stopped protecting wildlife animals that were in their lands. On the other hand, Tanzania was able to maintain its wildlife better after quickly lifting the ban on wildlife hunting (Pack et al. 2013).

Wildlife Resource Management in Africa

Wildlife in Africa is managed through several ways. These include community-based management, hunting, wildlife habitat protection and finally eco-tourism.

Community-based Wildlife Management.

One of the ways that wildlife resources are managed in Africa is through community-based conservation. This is after it has been observed by that the American approach of the American National Park model, commonly referred to as the fences-and-fines approach, has failed to protect wildlife on the African continent (Matzke and Nabane. (1996)). The theory behind the community-based wildlife conservation is that rural communities have long been isolated when it comes to managing and benefiting from wildlife resources. Therefore, through community-based wildlife management (CWM) they are given the rights to control, manage and also benefit from these resources (Songorwa, A. N. (1999). CWM is more suitable for a specific ethnic group which typically controls these lands such as the Maasai in Kenya or the Zulu in South Africa (Twyman, 2000). According to Songorwa 1999, the main goal of CWM is to create a situation where the management is bottom up and that majority of community members benefit from sustainable management and use of wildlife. There are two general outcomes that are expected from the CWM. One is maintenance of wildlife habitats and preservation of species. The second one is improved socioeconomic wellbeing of the communities participating in the CWM. In order for these outcomes to be realized, the revenues from the wildlife should offset the all the costs that are linked to the program. Another way in which the goals can be achieved is if the community where this project is going to be implemented is willing to actively participate in the program.

There are several case studies of where CWM has been implemented. One of these is in Tanzania, on the East of Africa. After the increase in poaching activities in the 1980s, the government started an anti-poaching operation called Operation uhai (which is a Swahili word for Life) where they used military and staff of wildlife authorities to fight poaching (Songorwa, 1999). The program continued until 1991, where it was stopped. It helped to deal with the problem, but it did not completely eradicate it. The reason that it failed was that, the previous program of fence-and-fines, where they put a fence around a protected area and fine those who violate rules related to wildlife, requires a lot of funds to run. These are funds that the government does not have for the protected wildlife areas, which cover 28% of its total land mass. In a forum held in 1991 in Arusha town, it was revealed that the wildlife staff were under-equipped, on average each employee of the Wildlife Department was required to patrol an area of 110 km2. This shows that the fences and fines program was not effective. This led to the adoption of CWM. There are two types of CWM. One is where the program is conducted within an existing protected area, for example inside of a wildlife park. The other one is based on buffer zones, which are far from protected areas. The one implemented in Tanzania is the buffer zone CWM. They recruit communities (villages) sharing a border with or in close vicinity to existing protected areas: national parks (Serengeti Regional Conservation Strategy, Ruaha Ecosystems Wildlife Management Project, etc.) and game reserves (Selous Conservation Programme, etc.). As per Songorwa, 1999, this program was a not a success as it was expected because the villagers had different expectations compare to the facilitators of the program. The villagers supported the program at the beginning, but they started to oppose it when they realised their expectations were not being met. In some cases, the problems increased; an example from the study is that crop damage increased during the program.

Other cases of community-based wildlife conservation are in Southern African countries like Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. CWM is very successful in these countries because majority of wildlife conservation land is in the hands of private owners as opposed to the government. Therefore, they take care of the animals through ranching the wildlife and benefiting from the through tourism and sport hunting. The success of the CWM in these southern African countries can also be attributed to the fact that the governments of the respective countries strongly support the community-based wildlife management, whereas in other African countries the governments, there is weak support for CWM.

In Kenya, CWM is being practiced in Masaai Mara Reserve. The participation of the local people, who are the Masaai in the conservation of the wildlife in the protected area has been successful. This can be attributed to the fact that conservation programs are increasingly being designed to generate income for local people from activities directly associated with the protected area, or a surrounding buffer zone. These ways of generating income include jobs as wardens, scouts, guides, or maintenance workers (paid by the government or by the project), service jobs in the tourism industry, an expanded market for local produce or handicrafts, development of enterprises based on wildlife products. (Kiss & Bank, 1990).

Hunting

Another way that wildlife is managed in Africa is through Hunting in game reserves. Generally, hunting is implemented when there are high population of wildlife, which could pose a threat to human life and development. Hunting used as a tool to bring down these populations to a level that is more manageable. Hunting has been a major activity in African countries because it is a way for some of the tribal people to get meat. Apart from that, hunting is also a major source of revenue for African countries because some people participate in hunting as sport. The fact that there is a variety of wildlife, and their abundance led to many Europeans and Americans to take hunting trips to Africa. According to Holechek & Valdez. (2018), The famous East African hunting trip of Theodore Roosevelt in 1909 created a safari craze among wealthy sportsmen in Europe and the United States. This changed the perspective on game hunting because in that era it was perceived as a highly fashionable aristocratic activity involving courage, stamina, skill with firearms, and sportsmanship (Herne, 1999). During this period, who were colonizers of most of African countries, supported hunting because it reduced population of dangerous wildlife animals and it also generated income through licensing of hunting permits (Hunter, 1954). In Kenya, wildlife hunting reached its peak in 1963, when it gained independence from the Great Britain. This was when wildlife populations were high, and it had the infrastructure which made it possible for tourists to come into the country access to wildlife areas for hunting. In 1973, Kenya banned elephant hunting followed with a ban on all big game hunting in 1977. This negatively affected safari hunting. Despite that, safari hunting still continues to the present in a number of African countries, but it is not possible anymore to hunt all the big five animals in a single hunting trip.

Wildlife Habitat Protection in African Countries

Setting aside of land for wildlife and protecting it is another method of managing wildlife resources. Starting from 1980s, there was a major step forward in terms of protecting the wildlife and their habits areas around the word. This happened as a result of improvement of international wildlife laws and the creation of large nature reserves and parks in African countries. In the whole world, the amount of land reserved for wildlife has increased four times in the last 40 years and now they cover about 15 percent of the world’s land surface (World Bank, 2014). When we zoom in to Africa, every country on the continent has set aside land for use as wildlife reserves, parks, nature reserves, conservancies and other forms of protected areas. There are over 400 of these protected areas across Africa, which sustain and boost wildlife biodiversity. As per World Bank 2014, more land is protected in the Southern part of Africa when compared to the Northern part. When we look at the percentage of area protected, Namibia and Zambia lead with (38%), Tanzania comes third with (32%), Botswana (29%) in fourth, and Zimbabwe (26.6%) in fifth places (World Bank, 2014). However, South Africa (8.8%), Kenya (12.4%), Mozambique (17.2%), and Uganda (16%) all have large amounts of their land area under protection (World Bank, 2014). On the other hand, when we look at the number of parks, Kenya is in the lead with 23, followed by South Africa with 21, Zambia with 20, and Tanzania with 18. Several large national reserves and other types of protected areas are also found in these. People in local communities can inhabit reserves, but they are excluded from national parks. Table 1 below shows the number of protected areas by countries and the amount of land allocated to wildlife. As shown, majority of the wildlife areas are in Eastern Africa, but the Southern Africa has the most area of land for protected wildlife habitat.

Table 1: Primary protected wildlife areas in eastern and southern Africa denoting country, size, and world heritage status.

Wildlife-protected areas a

Country

Size b (ha)

World heritage sites

Chobe N. P.

Botswana

1,169,583

No

Moremi Game Preserve

492,115

No

Amboseli N. P.

Kenya

39,206

No

Lake Nakuru N. P.

18,908

No

Samburu N. P.

16,501

No

Nairobi N. P.

11,721

No

Tsavo East and West N. P.

2,281,342

No

Masai Mara R.

15, 002

No

Gorongosa N. P.

Mozambique

3,770,000

No

Etosha N. P.

Namibia

2,227,469

No

Kgalagadi Transfrontier P.

S.A/Botswana

3 885 120

No

Kruger N. P.

South Africa

1,948,630

Yes

Selous Game Reserve

Tanzania

4,478,815

Yes

Lake Manyara N. P.

33,671

No

Tarangire N. P.

258,008

No

Kilimanjaro N. P.

168,873

Yes

Ngorongoro Conservation Area

809,481

Yes

Serengeti N. P.

1, 476, 346

Yes

Ruaha N. P.

2,026,333

No

Bwindi Impenetrable N. P.

Uganda

33, 153

No

Kafue N. P.

Zambia

864,439

No

Hwange N. P.

Zimbabwe

1,464,609

No

Victoria Falls N. P.

12,331

No

Source: Wikipedia 2019a, b

Eco-tourism as a way of Conserving African Wildlife

Eco-tourism is another great way of managing wildlife resources through conserving them. During the past 30 years, eco-tourism has become important in eastern and Southern Africa as it provides economic benefits while at the same time acting as an incentive to conserving wildlife. Honey (2008), defines eco-tourism as environmentally responsible travel involving viewing and photographing wild animals in their natural habitat. Majority of wildlife tourists are from the United States followed by Western Europe, Canada, and Australia, its popularity is also growing in Asian countries like China and Japan. An example of a country where eco-tourism is thriving is in South Africa. This country is leading in eco-tourism because it has high quality national parks and private wildlife reserves, excellent quality and variety of tourist accommodations, stable government, and variety of outdoor activities. In South Africa, over half of eco-tourism and 80 percent of nature conservation occurs on private lands (van der Merwe and Saayman, 2003).

There are many benefits of eco-tourism such as sustaining conservation activities, providing income for involved communities and generation of funds for wildlife conservation, provision of funds for African governments through tourist visas and national park user fees, generation of employment at various levels ranging from tour guides to staff needed for hotels/lodges, and generation of funds for antipoaching enforcement (INTOSAI, 2013).

[image: page7image18093760]

Figure 1: Female lion in Amboseli National Park at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro in Kenya. Both eco-tourism and sport hunting give lions value that help in their conservation. (Photo by Jerry Holechek.)

On the other hand, eco-tourism can pose a threat to wildlife conservation. This is because for it to happen on a larger scale, infrastructure such as roads, airports, and hotels/lodges needed, and they could have some adverse impacts on protected wildlife habitats (INTOSAI, 2013). Apart from that, the frequent trips by human into the wildlife parks to see these animals can affect their behaviour because they are constantly being watched or disturbed. Another issue with eco-tourism is that the money the tourist pay does not benefit the local community in terms of improving schools, sanitation, domestic water availability, and food production and as direct-income payments (Groom and Harris, 2008). The concerns about this issue is different in each county, tourism company and community. For example, in a study done in Kenya by Groom and Harris, 2008, the county puts more emphasis on the spread of wildlife conservation than the money that is earned from it. The tourists can play an important role in this by ensuring that they only choose eco-tourism companies that are contributing some money to the locals or at least they are improving the lives of the local people through infrastructure and other projects.

Conclusion

To conclude, wildlife plays a major role in terms of the economy and environment in Eastern and Southern Africa. Therefore, their protection from handful activities like poaching and encroachment of their habitats through human development is very important. This is despite the negative effects of wildlife such as destroying of crops and killing people, it provides many benefits to the local people and governments. As outlined in this paper, the main ways of managing and conserving wildlife in African countries is through community-based management, hunting, wildlife habitat protection and finally eco-tourism. The paper also noted various issues that come with wildlife management such as local communities not benefiting economically form the income derived from wildlife tourism activities and disturbance of animals when people develop infrastructure to support eco-tourism.

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