D.M. Lewis, A. Mwenya and G. B. Kaweche
Dale M. Lewis is technical adviser to the Zambia National Parks and Wildlife Service, and Coordinator of the Zambia Wildlands and Human Needs Programme. Ackim Mwenya is Deputy-Director of the Zambia National Parks and Wildlife Service. and Co-Administrator of the Zambia Wildland Management and Human Needs Development Project. Gilson B. Kaweche is Chief Wildlife Research Officer of the Zambia National Parks and Wildlife Service, and Co-Administrator of the Zambia Wildland Management and Human Needs Development Project.
Today, rural coexistence with wildlife is precarious and heavily aid dependent. The magnitude of the challenge to make it once more self-sustainable in the longer term clearly requires more than a law enforcement response. As in former traditional times, rural community cooperation is indispensable.
Historically, African societies had a stable coexistence with wildlife, a function of the intrinsic value attached to ecological conservation in African culture (Hadley, 1985; Marks, 1976). However, the institution of colonial centralized governments undermined customary laws as well as the authority of traditional African leaders who enforced them (Swift, 1982; Willis, 1985). As the colonial governments were unable to provide an effective alternative means of wildlife conservation, the result was a poaching "gold rush" for the riches of rhino hoary, elephant ivory and other short-term gains.
Following independence, most African states maintained the colonial structure of centralized game departments and national parks systems. In most cases, wildlife management has been based on the adoption of punitive measures designed to maintain barriers between wildlife resources in protected areas and local residents living in or around such areas.
Zambia has had more than a decade of efforts in dealing with wildlife management, and specifically with a serious poaching problem (Lewis and Kaweche, 1985; Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989; Leder-Williams, 1985). Intensive law enforcement campaigns were waged in selected parts of the country and funded by large amounts of money. However, despite increased arrests, wildlife losses continued; in some cases they even increased where such programmes operated (Lewis, 1986). National losses of wildlife resources during this period included a near extinction of the black rhino and the reduction of over 50 percent of the elephant population. Similar trends have been documented in the United Republic of Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia and Kenya.
ILLEGAL HUNTING CONTINUES in spite of punitive legislation
Although law enforcement measures continued as an accepted deterrent to poaching, Zambia's National Parks and Wildlife Services undertook experimental studies (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989) and a technical workshop (Dalal-Clayton and Lewis, 1984) during this period to help identify the underlying causes of illegal hunting. As a result, a new national policy of wildlife management. called the Administrative Management Design (ADMADE) game management areas, was formulated to deal with these causes (Mwenya, Kaweche and Lewis, 1988).
Based heavily on people's participation, in the areas where it has been implemented, ADMADE has proved to be highly effective. For instance, in a three-year period, poaching of elephants declined by over 90 percent in one wildlife area in Zambia where local participation was actively promoted (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989). Furthermore, a resident population of black rhino suffered not a single instance of poaching during this period despite adequate numbers to attract illegal hunters (Lewis, unpublished data). This was achieved at a fraction of the cost assumed necessary to ensure adequate protection of wildlife in Africa on a per km² basis by many wildlife experts (Parker, 1984; Bell and Clarke, 1984).
This article first focuses on selected quantifiable variables that the above-mentioned studies and the results thud far obtained from the ADMADE programme have identified as key determinants in helping to predict poaching levels and wildlife management problems for a given area. Various methods or management treatments that can modify the value of these variables, and thus reduce the frequency and severity of poaching, are also discussed. Finally, a set of guiding principles are presented that government planners and wildlife authorities may find useful when considering options for dealing with wildlife management in Africa.
Availability of alternative protein sources
In rural societies where legal protein sources are limited, residents tend to adopt illegal practices to secure at least a minimal per caput requirement. As such practices go unchecked, subsistence levels are often exceeded. Under these circumstances villagers living outside and along the boundaries of protected areas with easy access wildlife resources will resort to illegal hunting in these areas, despite the greater risks of being apprehended.
A comparative study between two neighbouring villages, both in a tsetse fly infested area and therefore without domestic animals. suggested the significance of the availability of alternative protein sources in predicting poaching levels among village communities living outside protected areas (Lewis, 1988; Lewis, unpublished data). One village was located along a major river with high availability of fish. The other had no significant alternative meat supply other than the depleted wildlife resources in its area. The village with access to fish had far fewer traditional hunters and contributed much less to the areas's poaching problems than the village with less access to fish.
Options for dealing with this variable may be limited, depending on the intrinsic features of the area concerned. One possibility is to promote alternative protein sources not disruptive to wildlife (i.e. introduction of fish farming, more intensive farming of plant protein species, etc.). Another is to allot a sustainable quota of animals to resident village hunters, and to employ their services to provide meat to the community. This would reduce pressures on the more threatened species and would also permit a more careful monitoring of the off-takes. This may help to ensure a net positive growth rate in the harvested populations, if such a growth rate is desirable from a management point of view.
WHERE THE ADMADE PROGRAMME HAS SEEN IMPLEMENTED no rhinos have been poached in three years
Employment opportunities
The growing need for income opportunities in rural societies is becoming acute ´ throughout Africa as the availability and accessibility of natural resources diminish. Given the external market forces related to wildlife, principally meat and trophies (skins, horns, teeth, etc.), when the for income is great enough, local residents engage themselves in paid services, legal or otherwise. Because of limited educational opportunities, local people often do not know the real market value of wildlife commodities sought by outside commercial interests and therefore exchange or sell them at prices far below their actual value.
While employment opportunities and availability of non-wildlife protein sources may vary between areas, it is relatively simple to determine what their respective levels are. With such information predictions about poaching levels can be made (see Figure 1).
Wildlife management as implemented by the governing authority can help to increase local employment opportunities in a number of ways:
Recruit and train local residents to provide the major share of the required workforce in the management of wildlife. Such a programme was initiated on a trial basis in 1985 by Zambia's National Parks and Wildlife Service (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989). Results included an increased understanding and appreciation of wildlife resources, their economic values, and the need to prevent non-residents from entering their area to hunt illegally. Locally recruited personnel employed to protect their chiefdom's wildlife were shown to have a superior knowledge of the land and less absenteeism than civil servant wildlife scouts, whose home areas were usually in a different part of the country. As a result, these locally recruited workers, called village scouts, contributed a significantly greater proportion of total arrests of illegal hunters. Furthermore, because the salary scales for the village scouts were based more on expected local income earnings, the costs of maintaining them proved far less expensive than civil servant scouts.
Promote programmes that encourage local residents to engage in small, non-disruptive "cottage industries" that depend on either consumptive (sustained-yield utilization) or non-consumptive uses of wildlife. Evidence suggests conservationist attitudes toward wildlife within a village area grow as the residents' dependency on the sustained-yield use of wildlife increases. As this occurs there is also an increase in appreciation among the local residents for the law enforcement efforts by their own village scouts. Such appreciation may take the form of volunteering information to village scouts when illegal hunters enter their area, as has been documented in Zambia (Lewis, 1989).
Encourage village meetings to solicit views and criticisms from local residents on the management of their wildlife resources. These have proved instrumental in minimizing misconceptions and promoting self-imposed responsibilities in the management and protection of wildlife resources (Lewis, 1988 and unpublished data). This approach is fundamental for establishing ties of joint cooperation between local residents and the technical government department responsible for providing legally sustainable benefits from wildlife for local communities (Mwenya, Kaweche and Lewis, 1988).
Government acceptance of traditional leadership on wildlife issues
Chiefs and/or headmen are the cornerstones of African rural societies and the traditional customs that bind and regulate village communities. Land tenure and access to natural resources were formerly determined by these chiefs in the common interest. Interference with or abolition of these powers during and after colonial administration has led to a situation where central governments are unable to sustain the needs of adequate law enforcement to protect wildlife resources. The continued misuse of these resources leads to the imposition of ineffective punitive measures which tend to further erode the influence of traditional rulers.
A potentially acceptable approach for integrating traditional local leadership with modem centralized governments in dealing with wildlife conservation issues is the formation of a partnership the two authorities. The ADMADE policy (Mwenya, Kaweche and Lewis, 1988) effectively does this by the establishment of Wildlife Management Authorities for each game management area. Chaired by the District Governor, an Authority is composed of local, traditional rulers and senior-level wildlife officers. The members meet periodically to exchange views and adopt wildlife management policies for that particular area. Under this approach, direct technical and capital inputs may be directed through government channels while traditional rulers exert their influence to increase local support and cooperation in managing the wildlife resources in their area.
In the Chikwa-Luelo area of the Luangwa Valley, for example, the two ruling chiefs accepted the ADMADE policy, which by virtue of their chairmanship gave them chairmanship of their own Wildlife Management Sub-Authority. These sub-authorities bring proposals and funding requests to the Wildlife Management Authority. The chiefs asserted their leadership by condemning illegal hunting with the understanding that their community would receive benefits through the sharing of wildlife revenues under the ADMADE programme. Within a year poaching was reduced in the Chikwa-Luelo area.
The chiefs achieved greater respect from their people for using their traditional powers of authority to bring improved benefits to the community from wildlife. Revenue benefits were shared, as promised by the National Parks and Wildlife Service, and local residents were made village scouts to manage and protect the wildlife in their own chiefdoms while earning a livelihood. Because a significant reduction in poaching was achieved well in advance of the establishment of the village scout programme, the decline in illegal hunting was attributed to the influence of traditional leaders (personal communication with Peter Mwanza, Unit Leader of the Chikwa-Luelo area).
LOCALLY RECRUITED VILLAGE SCOUTS have proved to be more cost-effective in managing wildlife sources
Similar response to local traditional rulers is emerging in several other game management areas where ADMADE is being implemented and where the revenue benefits being sustained by ADMADE have become more noticeable. The Wildlife Management Authorities in most of the ADMADE areas, for example, have opened "Community Development Accounts" in which they deposit the community development shares of the ADMADE wildlife revenues. In 1988 these shares equalled US$230000 for ten ADMADE units. To ensure that projects accepted by the community are funded, only the sub-authorities, whose members are primarily village headmen, can recommend community projects to the Authority, and chiefs are made signatories to these accounts so that funds are used as intended.
The importance of traditional leadership in wildlife management has become very apparent under the ADMADE designs and is also proving to be far more cost-effective than direct implementation by a government authority (see Figure 2). For example, an approach observed in Luano and Sichifula-Mulobezi Game Management Areas under the ADMADE programme is the translocation of villagers who engage in illegal hunting to areas where there are no animals. When it is known that a certain person hunts animals illegally and is setting a bad example to the local community, that person is sentenced by the chief as being unable to live peacefully with wildlife and is ordered to live where there are no animals and to take up some other occupation. Figure 3 presents a set of relationships between traditional rulers and hunters as they may affect illegal hunting.
FIGURE 3 Poaching levels In a region as a function of government recognition of traditional rulers
Revenue earning capacity of the resource
Another variable in the poaching picture is the revenue-earning capacity of the resource. First, the area must be capable of generating substantial revenue through local management of wildlife resources. Second, there must be an agreed arrangement for resuming a major portion of these revenues to the local area for meeting programme costs. In order to increase local employment through wildlife management, develop alternative protein sources, or incorporate local ruling authorities in the governing of wildlife matters, revenue is required on an annual basis. Otherwise, continuity cannot be assured; frequent interruptions of the programme will tend to discourage local participation in the wildlife management effort.
National development plans throughout Africa show, beyond any doubt, that wildlife is a relatively low priority in government spending. Results of the Lupande Development Project (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989) and the current ADMADE programme (ADMADE, 1988), indicate that in order to achieve a commitment on the part of local people to participate in wildlife management efforts on a sustained basis wildlife revenues need to be available at the local level, and the people themselves must participate in the development as well as the implementation of management effort.
On a national scale this is being effectively demonstrated by the ADMADE programme. For the 1987 and 1988 financial years, US$260000, representing 40 percent of the total revenue earned from the wildlife resource in ten ADMADE units, were withheld for local wildlife management programmes (in addition to the base level allocation of $230000 referred to earlier). This sum was used to meet both recurrent and capital expenditures in these units. Recurrent expenditures included the maintenance and running costs of the seven ADMADE vehicles, wages and allowances for the village scouts and general workers, law enforcement costs, and sitting allowances for the members of the wildlife management authorities. As for the capital expenditures, ten new camps were established, 150 new huts for village scouts were built, three senior staff houses were renovated, one unit headquarters was built and work on three others was initiated. Both the recurrent and capital budgets were approved by each respective management authority.
Based on the experience of the ADMADE programme in Zambia, the following are offered as a set of guiding principles that government planners and wildlife authorities may find useful when considering options for dealing with wildlife management in Africa.
Employ predictive management in reducing illegal hunting
Given that the various determinants of illegal hunting are quantifiable, identification of those variables contributing to the problem, and the changes required to reduce it, provide a set of appropriate management treatments. This approach is a predictive management tool; Figure 4 provides a basis for evaluating the variables discussed in this article in order to determine an appropriate management approach.
Allow time and flexibility in introducing new programmes
It is unreasonable to expect immediate and universal acceptance of locally based wildlife management programmes. Initially, wildlife extension officers may face the handicap of being associated with past mistakes of the government department responsible for enforcing wildlife laws (Lewis, 1989). This can result in strong initial resistance, despite the potential benefits a programme may represent for the community. To facilitate the acceptance of whatever programme is being introduced, the wildlife extension officer must be sensitive to the needs and aspirations of the local residents, and be knowledgeable of past experiences and of local tribal customs. Persistence and patience are required simultaneously. Programmes that are forced into implementation too quickly without full acceptance and understanding of how they can serve local needs will lack the necessary foundation of local involvement and commitment.
Ensure economic incentives for legal uses of wildlife
An obvious factor in determining relative poaching pressures on particular species of wildlife is the economic benefit awarded to the illegal hunter. The sliding scale extends from the least commercially profitable species, such as duiker or grysbok, to the most profitable, elephant and rhino. While an effective law enforcement programme involving local residents may reduce illegal hunting pressures, an important complementary approach is to maximize the legally obtainable commercial values of the more "profitable" species, and to ensure that a portion of these revenues is channelled to local areas. This will increase cooperation with the law while sustaining the management costs of the area. This approach has a greater chance of local acceptance than community support of illegal uses for the simple reason that a larger economic return for the local community can be sustained from legal uses (see Table).
The manifestations of this approach in reducing poaching are far-reaching as seen in the Zambian ADMADE programme (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989; Mwenya, Kaweche and Lewis, 1988; ADMADE, 1988). Within a three-year period in Lower Lupande Game Management Area, for example, local village leaders identified various ways of improving the management of their wildlife resources to increase the revenue potential. Village headmen volunteered their services as vigilantes to inform village scouts when illegal hunters entered their area. On another occasion village leaders raised their concern that safari hunters, who contribute the largest share of legally sustainable wildlife revenues, were hunting only male lions. Concerned that the trophy males were being overhunted, they urged that fewer males should be hunted, if necessary replaced with females. From a management perspective, this was the appropriate decision; it underlines the potential for improved management with local acceptance as the appreciation for the sustainability of revenue earnings from wildlife increases among the indigenous residents.
Another example serves to demonstrate how quickly a management problem can be solved through sustainable economic incentives. Local traditional leaders were advised that late season bush fires were lowering the forage capacity to sustain wildlife. To maintain hunting quotas that would generate local income and meat benefits, village leaders agreed to advise residents of the dangers of starting fires after forage conditions became too dry.
Ensure threshold effect of wildlife management benefits
Reduction of poaching levels through local employment in wildlife management is a non-linear relationship for rural communities where employment opportunities are few (see Figure 5). Studies in Zambia suggest that if benefits are limited to too small a percentage of residents, residents who are not involved may resent the programme and conspire to frustrate the success of those who are employed (Lewis, 1989 and unpublished data). However, once enough people in the community are receiving benefits. community peer pressure quickly shifts to local acceptance of the need to cooperate with the legal users of wildlife and poaching rates drop dramatically.
In the ADMADE pilot programme, the Lupande Development Project, local employment was initially comprised of only village scouts. As their efforts reduced poaching, a parallel effort was made to employ local residents in the legal sustainable uses of wildlife. By the end of the third year, there were approximately three times more people employed in the legal uses of wildlife than as village scouts (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989; Lewis, unpublished data). The level of illegal hunting at the end of this period was negligible as compared to levels three years earlier. Attitude surveys indicated increased community interest in discouraging illegal hunters from entering the area, and greater support for village scouts (Lewis, 1988).
Relative benefits available to the local community from the legal and Illegal hunting of wildlife
|
Benefits |
Legal |
Illegal |
|
Monetary (returns per kg for local residents) | ||
|
1. Meat |
potentially high |
moderate |
|
2. Skin |
high |
low to nil |
|
3. Other trophies |
high |
low |
|
Employment (employment levels per animal harvested) | ||
|
1. Processing wildlife products |
high |
low |
|
2. Marketing |
high |
low |
|
Accountability of' off-take | ||
|
1. Sustainability |
high |
low |
|
2. Awareness by local leaders |
high |
low to moderate |
Use successful efforts as examples to stimulate programme expansion
If a programme is successful in reducing the effects of those variables contributing to poaching rates, it may also act as a catalyst for positive change in adjoining areas. Experience in Zambia has shown that the exchange of information between neighbouring communities is often rapid and can greatly facilitate subsequent expansion of a programme if initial efforts are successful. Furthermore, this is achievable at no extra cost to the implementing agency of the programme. In 1989, only two years after the ADMADE programme was instituted, two chiefs from outside the implementation area made formal requests to have their chiefdoms classified as Game Management Areas and adopted under the ADMADE policy. The significance of this is that only in a Game Management Area can the National Parks and Wildlife Service use public funds to assist with wildlife management and resource protection.
To take full advantage of the "steppingstone" effect, the initial implementation area should be where the potential sustainability of wildlife benefits is relatively high and initial efforts should be persistent enough to bring the benefits into full recognition by the community. In this way the news travelling to neighbouring areas will be positive and convincing.
Capitalize on the buffer effect of local participation
A successful programme of local involvement in wildlife management in areas adjoining protected or park areas may significantly reduce law enforcement costs within the protected areas. As wildlife conservationist views evolve and grow, the probability of illegal hunters entering the protected area with the support or acceptance of local residents diminishes (Lewis, Kaweche and Mwenya, 1989; ADMADE, 1988).
Arrange for protection of uninhabited lands
Resource requirements for human habitation may differ from those of wildlife resources. In many cases, therefore, an area endowed with important wildlife resources may be totally void of human habitation. Protection of these areas can be achieved through maintaining or developing a sense of association or ownership by the nearest communities: this can offer the needed work-force for the area's management. This also helps to ensure the full potential revenues earned from the area, on a sustained-yield basis, thus providing community benefits and easing management costs.
Avoid overconserving wildlife at the expense of the indigenous conservationists
It is recognized and appreciated that some wildlife enthusiasts in Africa often volunteer their services as non-professionals to aid in managing wildlife. The terms of reference for such non-government cooperation with the appointed legal wildlife management authorities, however, are often vague. This can foster a dangerous trend if well-funded, but uncoordinated non-government organizations assume roles that cause conflicts with government authorities. This may lead to divisive manoeuvrings between government and non-government authorities and a subsequent loss in cost-effectiveness for the use of funds available to wildlife conservation. Such conflicts may result in injudicious funding distribution by outside donor agencies.
An even more serious potential negative effect of these conflicts, however, is the erosion of confidence and morale among the professionally trained indigenous conservationists serving as civil servants for the official wildlife management department. This can have profound influences on poaching rates. Symptoms may include slow responses to poaching problems, inadequate coordination with other government agencies, and failure to discipline junior staff effectively. As a result confusion reigns and more wildlife is poached. The irony, of course, is that such problems arise from conservation efforts themselves.
Government authorities need full recognition and support to strengthen their leadership and effectiveness in upholding the law and implementing wildlife management programmes. This recognition by both donor agencies and non-government organizations is essential.
Variables influencing rates of poaching and other wildlife management problems in Africa are identifiable and modifiable. When guided by African values and traditions and in cooperation with a national perks' service sympathetic to the needs of local residents living with wildlife resources, these variables can be favourably adjusted more cost-effectively than has been shown possible with conventional methods. This approach to conservation, successfully tested at the pilot level in Zambia, and recently applied nationwide, has considerable potential for application in other areas of Africa. Key factors for success include the support of local leaders for legal uses of wildlife with their corresponding commercial benefits as opposed to illegal uses, and the level of local resident participation in actual management efforts.
Although this approach involving people's participation and the recycling of locally generated wildlife revenues to support local development and resource management costs is clearly pragmatic and cost-effective, experience shows that most African wildlife conservation efforts still depend heavily on outside funding. Although well-intentioned and unquestionably needed, this funding and the dependence created has often frustrated efforts to make management more self-supportive through sustainable uses of wildlife. In many cases, project proposals seek funds that are large so as to be appealing to donors. However, in the face of such large funding, locally generated resources are easily overlooked or not perceived as relevant to the overall financing of community-based programmes in wildlife management. The irony is that projects based on large overseas grants generally do not lead to permanent solutions because such large funds ale not sustained indefinitely. External inputs directed at wildlife management need to be linked closely with simultaneous efforts to develop sustainable local involvement.
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