Big-game hunters pay to conserve wildlife
Big-game hunters pay to conserve wildlife
By Megan Lewis
BIRCHENOUGH, Zimbabwe (Reuter): Safari hunters are paying fat
fees for the privilege of killing African big game under a unique
plan to ensure the species' long-term survival.
High-paying hunters on privately owned ranches known as
conservancies are tracking down lions, elephants and other game
for fees ranging from US$5,000 to $40,000.
The fees are in turn used to restock the conservancies with
young, healthy wildlife and the professional hunting programs
have reduced poaching.
Multinational companies wanting to promote a "green" image are
being encouraged to back the conservancies financially under the
Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources
(CAMPFIRE) plan, receiving five percent interest on their funds,
which they would earmark for local African communities.
"It is a novel idea, nothing like this has been done before in
Africa or the world on such a scale," Derek Henning, a founding
member of the Save Valley Conservancy, in the South East Lowveld
of Zimbabwe, told Reuters on a recent visit.
But the three conservancies, run by former cattle ranchers,
arose from economic necessity, not ecological ideology.
Devastated by severe drought, the ranchers in desperation
sought alternatives to cattle.
"When the drought ended we decided never to return to beef,
which had been running at a loss for years," Henning said.
"Sustainability was the big word everybody was using at the
time and wildlife looked to be the answer," he said.
The plan is to raise Z$80 million ($737.6 million) to buy
surplus animals from national parks, such as buffalo, elephant,
sable and roan antelope, lion and leopard -- all abundant before
white settlers arrived in the early 1900s and claimed the land
for their cattle.
"We are not like a national park situation where animals are
left to compete with each other and if they go up or down it's
just too bad. We will be controlling the population of all
species and that includes lion," Henning said.
"It's fine for 'greenies' to say you must not cull animals,
but when you have an area of land which is finite, the potential
damage caused to the ecosystem has to be seen to believed."
But hunters are not just used to help restock conservancies,
they are also taught a lesson in ecology.
"Our clients (hunters) are made to work for their kill and if
that means tracking an animal for a few hours or climbing through
undergrowth on their hands and knees, then that's what they'll
have to do," a local safari hunter told Reuters.
"We have respect for the animals and think that paying hunters
should learn that too," he said.
But the ranchers were quick to realize the Save Valley
Conservancy would not work unless the black villages, which bound
84 percent of the 321,000 hectares (793,200 acres) of the
conservancy's 23 amalgamated properties, also benefited.
"Land pressure is so great -- we don't see ourselves as an
area of wealth in a sea of poverty, we just couldn't exist like
that -- not in Africa," Henning said.
After several meetings the cattle farmers formed a trust in
1992 which in turn created a company to attract multinationals to
invest or donate money to the conservancy members.
Henning said U.S. multinationals were being targeted because
the main hunting clients are Americans, with one of the world's
high-profile corporations on the verge of signing up.
The conservancy members pay five percent interest annually to
investors, who then have the opportunity to sink their money,
along with a "green" image, directly back into the black
villages.
"This way investors can be assured their money will not be
filtered out before it actually gets to the people," said
Henning.
Local Africans will also be trained as guides and game scouts,
and hired as cooks, servants and maintenance workers to cater for
the conservancy's 500-bed safari camps.
"Surrounding communities have already been told if they poach
wildlife the villages responsible won't receive any benefits," he
said. "Word has got out and poaching levels are nowhere near what
they used to be."
This gives peace of mind to the conservancy which since the
late 1980s has run a breeding program in conjunction with the
World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for Nature to save the endangered black
rhino.
David Butcher, chief executive for WWF Australia, praised the
conservancy project. "It may be, along with tourism, the only way
to stop animals becoming extinct," Butcher said.
"I think you have to go to these countries to understand one
of the few assets they have got is wildlife," he said.