ENVIRONMENT-SOUTHERN AFRICA: Animal Wars Far From Over

By James Hall Reprint | | Print |

James Hall

MBABANE, Apr 4 2005 (IPS) - The recent shooting death of an off-duty game ranger by poachers has reminded Southern African conservationists that the ‘’animal wars” that peaked during the 1990s are far from over a decade later.

‘’It’s all about the natural wealth of the land, from wild game to water rights to the land itself – who uses it and who owns it,” Ted Reilly, founder of the Big Game Parks system of Swaziland, told IPS.

Reilly said the game ranger who was killed by poachers got in the way of people who wished to reclaim the game parks of Southern Africa from nature conservationists, tourists and educationalists.

Some powerful political and traditional leaders in Swaziland, for example, have never been happy that vast tracts of the small country’s real estate are being used for animal conservation. To them, it is every Swazi man’s birthright to hunt indigenous animals, even though all game animals were hunted to extinction decades ago. It was the game parks, the first of which opened 40 years ago, that reintroduced the Africa menagerie to the country, first with herds of impala and zebras, and later elephant, leopard and lion.

With the need to hunt game for food a thing of the past, poachers today are in it for the money. Several butcheries in the capital Mbabane and the central commercial hub Manzini purchase game from poachers, and sell it secretly at prices well below beef and pork.

The poachers encountered by an off-duty ranger from Hlane Royal Game Park were filling their truck with dozens of carcasses of impala, wart hog and other animals shot at a remote part of the park. Animal parts were later found strewn over the area. They shot the ranger, also, whose body lay undetected for two days until other park workers happened across him.

‘’I knew Mandla as a friend,” said park ranger Sipho Mdluli of his slain co-worker. ‘’He died like a soldier, protecting the wealth of the nation.”

National political figures kept quiet about the killing, but Big Game Parks posted a large reward for information leading to the killers’ capture.

Such killings concern conservationists, for whom the Rhino Wars of the 1990s are a recent memory. From 1988 to 1992, nearly 90 percent of Swaziland’s and some other nations’ rhino populations in the region were exterminated by gangs of professional poachers armed with AK-47s. The war rifles were easy to come by, common as they were in Mozambique, South Africa and other conflict areas.

Rhino horns were in demand for use as decorative daggers in the Middle East, and as a key ingredient to potions sold in the Far East said to have aphrodisiacal powers.

To save the remaining rhinos, countries led by Swaziland enacted stiff anti-poaching laws, some which made poaching endangered species a non-bailable offence.

The tourism industry of Southern Africa was relieved when the shooting stopped at the game parks. Dozens of game rangers were slain by well-armed poachers. The commencement of another kind of animal war – with today’s poachers interested in meat of the hoof quickly converted to cash via cooperative butcheries û has them worried.

‘’Visitors to Southern Africa from Europe, North America, Asia and Australia û with the few also who visit from South America û are primarily interested in seeing African Big Game in the animal’s natural habitat. That leads the surveys of their interests,” said Wanda Khumalo, a travel agent in South Africa’s commercial hub of Johannesburg.

This is no time for the region’s game parks to be compromised by poaching. They are key attractions in a part of the world where tourist numbers were considered flat in 2004, going against a global trend of tourism growth.

Last year, double-digit tourism growth was the norm in every place but Europe and Africa, with Asia and the Pacific seeing 29 percent growth and the Middle East 20 percent. North and South America and Australia saw tourism rebound following travellers’ fears to go abroad in the wake of 9/11 attacks on America.

‘’Global tourism reached a record of 760 million international tourist arrivals and the best growth rate of the last 20 years,” said World Trade Organisation secretary general Francesco Fangialli.

However, Africa experienced a lacklustre seven percent growth rate. There were 4.5 percent fewer tourists from Europe, usually a major source of tourism revenue.

Although some regional tour industry officials blame the high cost of travel in Southern Africa for foreigners û the South African rand has appreciated 50 percent against the U.S. dollar last year û no one is certain why the tourism boom of three years ago has waned.

‘’One thing is certain, we must preserve what we have, what the tourists want,” Reilly said.

This includes game animals. Happily, the gang involved in the most recent game ranger shooting have been apprehended. The suspects proved to be professional poachers involved in a syndicate to provide town butcheries with cheap game meat.

‘’We need to educate the public that game animals are more valuable alive than as meat in the pot. Tourists pay big money to travel half the globe to see them in beautiful natural surroundings only found in Africa,” said Reilly.

Conservationists argue that African animals spawn jobs in the tourism industry, support supplemental industries like hotels, restaurants and handicraft, and do not subtract from the environment that sustains them.

‘’These greedy crooks want meat and money, but they are taking away our national heritage. We only have a finite number of animals, and that is why we are enlisting the communities to be on the lookout for poachers. They are helping us,” said game ranger Mdluli.

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