IUCN African Elephant Summit reveals staggering statistics

Not only guns and armed rangers needed to stop the chronic poaching of elephants and rhinos in Africa, but a good gesture and friendliness between local communities and wildlife could be a strong weap

Not only guns and armed rangers needed to stop the chronic poaching of elephants and rhinos in Africa, but a good gesture and friendliness between local communities and wildlife could be a strong weapon that would help to protect wildlife in the continent.

Poaching of wild animals is currently endangering African big mammals including elephants and rhinos, counted among the Big Five which every tourist visiting this continent would like see.

In East Africa, the Big Five is made up of the elephant, rhino, lion, buffalo and leopard.

But, conservationists across this continent fear to see the Big Five disappearing. Escalating poaching of elephants and rhinos, similarly, trophy hunting of lions, leopards and buffaloes are all, running to decimate the Big Five group from the face of this continent.

The International IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says the number of elephants killed has doubled and the amount of ivory seized has tripled over the last decade.

In its report made available during the opening of the African Elephant Summit held in Gaborone early this week, IUCN said elephant poaching and the illegal trade in ivory are of major concern across Africa, with serious security, economic, political and ecological ramifications.

When African range states are organizing militarized anti-poaching operations, Ngorongoro Conservation Area in northern Tanzania is taking conservation initiatives which brings closer the wildlife and humans, hence minimizing poaching crimes in the area.

Covering some 8,292 square kilometers of wildlife conserved area, Ngorongoro is a modal example of a place in this planet where natural foes โ€“ humans and wild animals are running to be permanent friends.

Good neighborliness between wildlife and humans had so far, reduced poaching of animals inside the conservation area, except few cases where animals are poached outside the area.

Sharing resources of the wide Serengeti plains, Ngorongoro, the grand world tourist site, has introduced domestic tourism programs that would attract local people to value tourist products โ€“ the wildlife, tourists and nature inside the conservation area.

Located some 160 kilometers west Tanzaniaโ€™s northern tourist city of Arusha, Ngorongoro Conservation Area is a unique part of this world endowed with natural wonders including its intriguing Ngorongoro Crater, an idyllic nature and landscape made up of the crater with a radius of 23-kilometers.

The crater is a caldera or collapsed volcano with a shape like a big bowl where animals live. The crater floor is a self-contained world apart, likened to Noahโ€™s Ark in its preservation of animal diversity in a relatively small area.

Here roams the densest permanent concentration of wildlife on earth (including 25,000 large mammals), enjoying year round water and abundant food. Lake Magadi, alkaline due to its bed of soda (sodium carbonate), occupies the lowest part of the crater floor

Domestic tourism had added a value in wildlife conservation programs within the area, and the aim was to make local people feel proud of their own heritage, conservators said.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area has been occupied by wildlife and the Maasai cattle herders, all living together side by side for many centuries. The Maasai move freely in the area with their herds of cattle, while wild animals feed in the same area.

Special Maasai homesteads or bomas have been developed for cultural tourism activities inside the conservation area. The Maasai people benefit from charges they get through tourism. Tourists visiting the bomas pay substantial amount to experience the local Maasai culture.

Enhancing good neighborliness between the Maasai communities and wildlife, managers and trustees of the area had set up a program to benefit the people through provision of health services, education and livestock extension services.

In the financial year 2012 and 2013 the Conservation Areaโ€™s management has committed direct funding to the community amounting to about US$ 1.2 million. The money has been spent for development projects within the conservation area.

Development activities funded include but not limited to funding of students attending various levels of education from Primary schools to the University level, said Justice Muumba, the Conservationโ€™s Community Development Manager.

A total of 966 students have been sponsored to pursue various education disciplines, Muumba said.

Since 2009 the Conservation Area management had started livestock breeds with improvement program through artificial insemination and purchase and distribution of quality breeding bulls to progressive pastoralists.

Through such community participatory initiatives, people living inside and outside the conservation area benefit directly from tourist incomes accrued from wildlife protection through tourism.

With great respect to wildlife resources, local people in the area are taking a leading role to ensure that those wild creatures do survive, thus, generate more tourist incomes for shared benefits.

Poaching in the area is minimal as compared to other wildlife parks in East Africa; thanks go to conservators for involving local communities in nature conservation activities.

Sharing the benefits from tourism would be a better weapon to protect the wildlife, conservators in the area do believe. As a long-term strategy, tourism benefit sharing would so far, encourage the local people to take part in conservation of wildlife as their resource.

Ngorongoro Conservation Area stands as a good example where poaching of wildlife would soon be delved in archives, taking us to the old Biblical days when people and wild animals were living together in peace inside the Garden of Eden.

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Linda Hohnholz

Editor in chief for eTurboNews based in the eTN HQ.

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