On 15 August 07, a Nyalugwe Community Resource Board village scout, Davy Zulu, paid for and controlled by the Zambia Wildlife Authority, but from hunting concession fee money obtained from Mbeza Safaris, was found in possession of a pair of tusks. He is shortly to appear in the Nyimba Magistrate's Court. Japha Mbewe, the Mbeza and Luembe Trust legal officer, is investigating.
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On 22 August 2006, Zulu and his wife appeared in the Magistrates Court in Nyimba and were each sentenced to five years in prison. She apparently has a young child. Village scouts and their families are local people; that they are involved in such activities is the direct responsibility of their Zambia Wildlife Police Officer (ZAWA WPO) supervisors, one of whom is always placed in a village scout encampment. None of them, though most are involved in the poaching racket being run by the ZAWA office in Nyimba, has so far been brought to court, let alone sentenced. And word has it that the organizer of much of this, the notorious Goodson Chibeka - officer in charge at Nyimba, is now merely being transferred to Mfuwe. A disgrace, but very much a local tradition when remembering that some years ago, the then officer in charge was found with a lot of ivory and merely transferred to the provincial ZAWA HQ at Mfuwe.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
A follow up on the Nyalugwe poaching syndicate...
24 August, 07
by
Peter Nyalugwe
Mbeza Safaris Liaison Officer
Ten days ago a report was made to the MD of Mbeza Safaris, Mr Ian Manning, by the owners of the game ranch in Nyalugwe on the Nyimba/Luangwa rivers, that across the river, in the West Petauke Hunting Block, many rounds were fired. They said that law and order had broken down. Mr Manning said, that he had paid out money for anti-poaching (paying $21, 000 for this in 2005), but that it was the 12 village scouts and three ZAWA Wildlife Police Officers – who his company paid concession fees to support, which were directed by Wildlife Act of 1998 to protect the wildlife resource so that safari hunting could be done.
Mr Manning then instructed me to go to Nyalugwe and to report on the situation.
19 August, 07
I met the Community Resource Board (CRB) Chairperson for Nyalugwe and he briefed me how the CRB is being disorganized. If he calls a meetings the members do not gather as they were elected due to financial and food problems for them to attend.
a) I asked him what’s the way forward? He said he suspected that my absence as Secretary of the CRB left a gap for I worked with the previous CRB nicely and able to submit returns to South Luangwa Management Unit (SLAMU) and Chilanga (ZAWA HQ) head office respectively
b) No bank statement has been received from the CRB account in Petauke.
c) The analysis book is with the Community Liaison Officer (Nkhoma) in Nyimba for auditing
d) The Nyalugwe village scouts have not been paid since the last payment in march 2007
e) The community also complains over the hiked prices of the citizens game license hunting fees for 2007 which they say will now encourage them to poach. A poor villager can he afford to buy the animals. We doubt.
20 August, 07
Met the camp-in-charge, Whyson Daka. I reported about the many shots which had been heard in the hunting block. Daka mentioned that the shootings were the combined force of the ZAWA Wildlife Police Officers (WPOs) to chase away the elephants from crop raiding in the GMA residents fields. I asked him further about who were patrolling and he had no answer. For ammunitions I asked him how are issued at the camp. He said there is a field data form which they fill in when going out for patrols and where they have used them on what purpose and finally for the returns space. These ammunitions are being kept by the camp-in-charge. This was the answer given by the camp-in-charge. Ths same Daka left for Nyimba to hand over an old man called Zuwua Ibale from Fundo village, caught with snares and game meat on the Lunsefwa river. He had been beaten and had a very swollen eye.
21 August, 07
Met one of the village scouts at Kasolo camp and told me about a suspect who was caught with an illegal muzzle loader at Nyalugwe village hanging in his verandah. The man is Yesaya Lungu who appeared in court last Friday 17, 2007. I haven’t heard the ruling. ZAWA also within the same week on 19 August, caught three men selling game meat on the Great East road at Saulo village.
The quota setting meeting on 26 July 07 heard complaints that the monitoring officers (village scouts) sent by ZAWA to check on hunters coming to hunt in Nyalugwe from other parts of Zambia (urban dwellers) were corrupting these same officers – and shooting more animals than on license. As most village scouts cannot read or write they cannot do the job very well.
The negative point of it is they have the immunity on the ZAWA Wildlife Act No 12 of 1998 section 118 part xiii which whatever thy can practice will be protected. I don’t know what proper evidence can we take.
Peter Nyalugwe
Lusaka
24 August, 07.
COMMENTS OF IAN MANNING
Clearly Daka was aware that ZAWA personnel and CRB scouts were engaged in their normal activity of killing animals and preparing it for collection by the Nyimba ZAWA office. Why did he not go and investigate the presence of such a large gang in the area? Because they were his own staff. And once again village scouts are unpaid and therefore help themselves under the eager ZAWA meat syndicate. And what of the rural poor? Well they now have increased hunting license fees, are refused game harvesting rights as is allowed under the Wildlife Act of 1998, are assaulted and hauled off to a prison unfit for decent people who simply are trying to survive, and have to stand by and watch while the Government officials kill the very animals living on their own traditional land, animals they are supposed to protect. And what can Mbeza do, the company whom Chief Nyalugwe, with the help of Asian businessmen, tried to have removed from his area simply because it had seen to it that no more customary land was stolen from the community and sold off for 99 years. Not much. Jealousy is poison.
JAMES MILANZU, I/C SLAMU RESPONDS
Hi,
Thanks for the information. ZAWA-SLAMU is equally concerned of these activities. For own information we are now sending patrols from Mfuwe and combine with scouts from there. We also had a combined team from Mfuwe and Lower Zambezi where several arrests have been made. The Saulo village arrests were from Mfuwe. It is costly but we have a mandate to protect wildlife in that area. We are making several changes in leadership like transfering those incharge, some WPOs from Mfuwe and increased investigative operations from Mfuwe and Chilanga. A lot of information has been gathered and we will continue to help until the sector is able to stand on its own again.
On salaries we have sent names of all VS for their salaries for previous months and the remaining months in the year.
Again thanks for the info.
James
Thursday, August 16, 2007
Zambia poaching mayhem unabated...
A few days ago, a visitor to the Nyalugwe Open Area, on a number of occasions heard numerous shots being fired across the Luangwa river in the Nyalugwe section of the West Petauke Game Management Area. It is presumed that this is the work of the ZAWA Wildlife Police Officers and the Nyalugwe Community Resource Board village scouts, who, together with other units working within the Nyimba sector, receive unlimited amounts of ammunition from the officer in charge, the notorious Mr Chibeka, who later drives in with a ZAWA vehicle to collect the meat. Peter Nyalugwe has gone to investigate.
And in Luembe, ZAWA and Luembe village scouts caught poaching by me, continue in their posts.
In Rufunsa GMA, south of West Petauke GMA, ten ZAWA Police Officers and village scouts have this year been suspended for poaching.
Zambia's wildlife is being decimated by the very people employed to protect it.
And in Luembe, ZAWA and Luembe village scouts caught poaching by me, continue in their posts.
In Rufunsa GMA, south of West Petauke GMA, ten ZAWA Police Officers and village scouts have this year been suspended for poaching.
Zambia's wildlife is being decimated by the very people employed to protect it.
Sunday, August 12, 2007
ELEPHANT HUNTING…
2 NOVEMBER 2006
I respond to Eugene Lapointe’s article in BBC News weekly Green Room where the former head of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) makes the case for hunting and why it can be a part of wildlife management policies, posing the question: “Are bans on hunting and trade the best way to conserve species?”
In so far as trade bans are concerned, Lapointe makes a general point, which requires further elucidation. In general prohibitions don’t work, either because the prohibitors are embarked on some crusade without moral or practical merit, or because those being so prohibited from having access to something or other are convinced of their right to the prohibited entity, or are without moral scruple – or both. In the case of the ivory trade, those without scruple are the traders of the Far Eastern nations who require ivory for an ever growing market and who go to any lengths to obtain it. Therefore, if you allow the trade in ivory they will access what is available – and more by illegal means in order to satisfy demand, and if not available they will simply get hold of it by any means. There will therefore always exist a drive to satisfy demand, which means obtaining more than what is legally available; and if that legal harvest is 100 tons or no tons, the effect will be the same. Hunting of elephant, provided it is sustainable, and provided it does not damage your photo-tourism industry, is an excellent way to conserve the species, but by allowing the trade in ivory, this laudable goal is made impossible.
Poor African countries have many pressing demands on public money - with conservation standing in the queue. But the needs of the African ‘budget’ goes way beyond that, concentrating as it does on the ‘eternal scramble for Africa’ harvesting of donors so as to cover the shortfall for conservation, for education, for other development needs, but also for prestige projects having little to do with achieving the Millenium Development Goals.
It would be ideal were African conservation self-supporting, but then the conservation department, like the traffic department, the ministry of immigration, and all the rest, becomes yet another cash cow growing an ever over-centralized bureaucracy of non civil servants fattening on their slumbers and establishing yet another taxation tier set to drive investors dilly.
Eugene says that southern Africa countries have followed the philosophy of sustainable use with elephant hunting, and that they do not shoot breeding animals; this is simply not true of them all. In Zambia, despite the advisory note to the contrary from the cross-sectoral Natural Resources Consultative Forum (of which the safari hunting fraternity is a member) which cited the total lack of supporting scientific evidence as the reason for not allowing hunting, the Zambia Government, through its statutory body, the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA), issued 20 bull elephant to safari operators – supposedly crop raiders - or so they told CITES. The animals - shot by those operators with little regard for conservation, were certainly breeding animals, but they were also the icons supporting the tourism industry, supposedly the panacea, along with agriculture, for rescuing us from our poverty.
Sport hunting produces the only income in many areas it is true, so you could call it significant, but it is not enough to offer the necessary incentive to local people to stop supplying meat for the bushmeat trade and denuding their own lands of something which actually should belong to them but which has been expropriated by central government. Over the last five years, ZAWA’s income has been sourced as follows: hunting 23%; donor grants 44%; National Parks 26%; and other, unspecified income 7%. However, very little of this is invested in conservation activities with between 7 – 18% only going on field operations. What investment there is comes from the private sector and the donors. In our hunting area, our hunting quota allows for maximum gross earnings of $50 per km2 – given what we spend on land use plans, training, anti-poaching support and food security studies. ZAWA earn $10 km2 from hunting, expending $3 km2 on scouts and retaining $7 km2 for their HQ costs. The Community Resource Board, which represents the community and has the unenviable unpaid task of paying village scouts, receive $5 km2 from ZAWA as their share of hunting but have costs of $6.26 km2 for their scouts alone, though they are supposed to spend income on community projects and the like; and over the last four years – including the purchase of the hunting company, we have invested $200 km2 – an amount we actually require annually if the biodiversity and the people are to prosper. But where is it to come from?
Eugene argues that because Kenya has banned hunting and the sale of ivory, that poaching is encouraged. Zambia’s experience does not bear this out. As we speak elephant and hippo continue to be poached and our good Zambian poachers are doing the same in Zimbabwe, and doubtless in Angola where CITES is unknown and ivory sold without hindrance. While safari hunting was on the go in Zambia, between 1994 and 2002, 123.5 tons of illegal ivory went out from here via Lilongwe in Malawi to the Far East (confirmed by the Malawian Anti-Corruption Commission) – most of it probably coming from our Luangwa Valley.
It is true that elephant do wreak havoc in some areas on people, and we do need to provide income and supports to offset this, but having elephant hunted has little effect on this. We have always had animal depredations, and it will continue, hunting or no, for we have failed to deal with the problem of land tenure and wildlife ownership, and Government refuses to compensate villagers, even though under English common law – on which our law is based, and under customary law, it is allowed. And we suffer very little from elephant damage to natural vegetation where as a keystone species elephant can have an extremely beneficial effect on the ecology, something we are trying to expand upon with the development of transfrontier conservation areas.
We do need to foster sustainable use but much of its failure to take hold is not due to the protectionists abroad but due to African governments themselves being unwilling to devolve power to their rural people, to decentralize – in this being supported by the donors, paradoxically following the system they inherited at independence. And Kenya, protectionist it may be, today stands out for its vigorous programme of game conservancies, something here we are trying to do but receiving no encouragement from Government, even though statutory and customary law is in place to support it.
I respond to Eugene Lapointe’s article in BBC News weekly Green Room where the former head of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) makes the case for hunting and why it can be a part of wildlife management policies, posing the question: “Are bans on hunting and trade the best way to conserve species?”
In so far as trade bans are concerned, Lapointe makes a general point, which requires further elucidation. In general prohibitions don’t work, either because the prohibitors are embarked on some crusade without moral or practical merit, or because those being so prohibited from having access to something or other are convinced of their right to the prohibited entity, or are without moral scruple – or both. In the case of the ivory trade, those without scruple are the traders of the Far Eastern nations who require ivory for an ever growing market and who go to any lengths to obtain it. Therefore, if you allow the trade in ivory they will access what is available – and more by illegal means in order to satisfy demand, and if not available they will simply get hold of it by any means. There will therefore always exist a drive to satisfy demand, which means obtaining more than what is legally available; and if that legal harvest is 100 tons or no tons, the effect will be the same. Hunting of elephant, provided it is sustainable, and provided it does not damage your photo-tourism industry, is an excellent way to conserve the species, but by allowing the trade in ivory, this laudable goal is made impossible.
Poor African countries have many pressing demands on public money - with conservation standing in the queue. But the needs of the African ‘budget’ goes way beyond that, concentrating as it does on the ‘eternal scramble for Africa’ harvesting of donors so as to cover the shortfall for conservation, for education, for other development needs, but also for prestige projects having little to do with achieving the Millenium Development Goals.
It would be ideal were African conservation self-supporting, but then the conservation department, like the traffic department, the ministry of immigration, and all the rest, becomes yet another cash cow growing an ever over-centralized bureaucracy of non civil servants fattening on their slumbers and establishing yet another taxation tier set to drive investors dilly.
Eugene says that southern Africa countries have followed the philosophy of sustainable use with elephant hunting, and that they do not shoot breeding animals; this is simply not true of them all. In Zambia, despite the advisory note to the contrary from the cross-sectoral Natural Resources Consultative Forum (of which the safari hunting fraternity is a member) which cited the total lack of supporting scientific evidence as the reason for not allowing hunting, the Zambia Government, through its statutory body, the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA), issued 20 bull elephant to safari operators – supposedly crop raiders - or so they told CITES. The animals - shot by those operators with little regard for conservation, were certainly breeding animals, but they were also the icons supporting the tourism industry, supposedly the panacea, along with agriculture, for rescuing us from our poverty.
Sport hunting produces the only income in many areas it is true, so you could call it significant, but it is not enough to offer the necessary incentive to local people to stop supplying meat for the bushmeat trade and denuding their own lands of something which actually should belong to them but which has been expropriated by central government. Over the last five years, ZAWA’s income has been sourced as follows: hunting 23%; donor grants 44%; National Parks 26%; and other, unspecified income 7%. However, very little of this is invested in conservation activities with between 7 – 18% only going on field operations. What investment there is comes from the private sector and the donors. In our hunting area, our hunting quota allows for maximum gross earnings of $50 per km2 – given what we spend on land use plans, training, anti-poaching support and food security studies. ZAWA earn $10 km2 from hunting, expending $3 km2 on scouts and retaining $7 km2 for their HQ costs. The Community Resource Board, which represents the community and has the unenviable unpaid task of paying village scouts, receive $5 km2 from ZAWA as their share of hunting but have costs of $6.26 km2 for their scouts alone, though they are supposed to spend income on community projects and the like; and over the last four years – including the purchase of the hunting company, we have invested $200 km2 – an amount we actually require annually if the biodiversity and the people are to prosper. But where is it to come from?
Eugene argues that because Kenya has banned hunting and the sale of ivory, that poaching is encouraged. Zambia’s experience does not bear this out. As we speak elephant and hippo continue to be poached and our good Zambian poachers are doing the same in Zimbabwe, and doubtless in Angola where CITES is unknown and ivory sold without hindrance. While safari hunting was on the go in Zambia, between 1994 and 2002, 123.5 tons of illegal ivory went out from here via Lilongwe in Malawi to the Far East (confirmed by the Malawian Anti-Corruption Commission) – most of it probably coming from our Luangwa Valley.
It is true that elephant do wreak havoc in some areas on people, and we do need to provide income and supports to offset this, but having elephant hunted has little effect on this. We have always had animal depredations, and it will continue, hunting or no, for we have failed to deal with the problem of land tenure and wildlife ownership, and Government refuses to compensate villagers, even though under English common law – on which our law is based, and under customary law, it is allowed. And we suffer very little from elephant damage to natural vegetation where as a keystone species elephant can have an extremely beneficial effect on the ecology, something we are trying to expand upon with the development of transfrontier conservation areas.
We do need to foster sustainable use but much of its failure to take hold is not due to the protectionists abroad but due to African governments themselves being unwilling to devolve power to their rural people, to decentralize – in this being supported by the donors, paradoxically following the system they inherited at independence. And Kenya, protectionist it may be, today stands out for its vigorous programme of game conservancies, something here we are trying to do but receiving no encouragement from Government, even though statutory and customary law is in place to support it.
Zambia Wildlife Authority officers implicated in poaching
18 November,06
On Sunday 12 November 06, a matriarchal herd of elephant was attacked in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley by an AK47 wielding poacher, accompanied by seven unarmed meat carriers; an adult female and a juvenile killed - possibly another killed, and one seen crossing the river with blood on its side. Twenty-three shots were heard at the nearby Malone safari camp – closed for the rainy season, between 8.00 and 11.00 a.m.. Later that afternoon, at 4.00 p.m. two Wildlife Police Officers of the Zambia Wildlife Authority appeared at Malone and requested transport from the camp-in-charge, David Chileka – also a police reservist, and were driven inland for some 30 km to where four other officers were waiting. Nearby lay two elephant carcasses, their tusks removed and much of their flesh, numerous pieces of clothing, bedding, food and pots lying nearby, evidence of the gang. Seeing some vultures in trees in the distance, Chileka was told that there was probably another dead elephant there. No attempt was made to verify this.
The six scouts, all armed similarly with AK47’s, stated that the camp in-charge, Benson Mwale, had heard shots at their nearby camp, Ndevu, had then sent someone on foot to another camp, Kalansha – some 15 km away, for reinforcements, then much later in the day, after guards from Kalansha had arrived on foot, the armed group of six walked in the direction of the shots, eventually coming on the gang of eight, who had then run away. Firing a few shots in the air, and showing no inclination to go in pursuit, the officers then settled down to cut off as much meat as possible, the officers-in-charge of the two anti-poaching camps, Mbo and Mwale, walking to the Malone camp to request transport. A full load of meat was then delivered to the river crossing point at the nearby Ndevu game camp (where early that morning a fishermen, Gandi, had seen the gang collecting water), the officers explaining that local villagers could not have the meat as it was needed in the nearby town of Nyimba, and that they were waiting for their boss. When the Nyimba officer- in-charge of ZAWA, a Mr Chibeka, came, he reportedly recovered one bag of meat, another nine having disappeared.
On Tuesday, 14 November, the two camp officers-in-charge were seen on the Ndevu-Nyimba road, both drunk, and later, on Thursday 16th seen drinking at 9.00 a.m. in a nearby village.
Two weeks earlier an elephant had been killed in the same area and the ivory removed. Two other cases of poaching, one of a buffalo by a village scout, another of an ex-scout found in full uniform and hunting a hippo with a muzzle loader, unaccompanied by a monitoring scout as is required, is being investigated.
These disturbing events, given that in 2005 ZAWA village scouts had been caught poaching a buffalo, hippo and bushbuck, swopping some of the meat for village beer, suggest the collusion of ZAWA and village scouts in a meat and ivory poaching ring. Investigations are currently underway by the Chairman of the Community Resource Board, Mr Axon Lungu.
Conservationists continue to be alarmed at the well organized bushmeat and ivory trade in Zambia, it being recently revealed by the Malawi Anti-Corruption Commission that 23 tons of ivory had passed through Lilongwe on its way to the Far East over an eight year period. No arrests have been made.
On Sunday 12 November 06, a matriarchal herd of elephant was attacked in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley by an AK47 wielding poacher, accompanied by seven unarmed meat carriers; an adult female and a juvenile killed - possibly another killed, and one seen crossing the river with blood on its side. Twenty-three shots were heard at the nearby Malone safari camp – closed for the rainy season, between 8.00 and 11.00 a.m.. Later that afternoon, at 4.00 p.m. two Wildlife Police Officers of the Zambia Wildlife Authority appeared at Malone and requested transport from the camp-in-charge, David Chileka – also a police reservist, and were driven inland for some 30 km to where four other officers were waiting. Nearby lay two elephant carcasses, their tusks removed and much of their flesh, numerous pieces of clothing, bedding, food and pots lying nearby, evidence of the gang. Seeing some vultures in trees in the distance, Chileka was told that there was probably another dead elephant there. No attempt was made to verify this.
The six scouts, all armed similarly with AK47’s, stated that the camp in-charge, Benson Mwale, had heard shots at their nearby camp, Ndevu, had then sent someone on foot to another camp, Kalansha – some 15 km away, for reinforcements, then much later in the day, after guards from Kalansha had arrived on foot, the armed group of six walked in the direction of the shots, eventually coming on the gang of eight, who had then run away. Firing a few shots in the air, and showing no inclination to go in pursuit, the officers then settled down to cut off as much meat as possible, the officers-in-charge of the two anti-poaching camps, Mbo and Mwale, walking to the Malone camp to request transport. A full load of meat was then delivered to the river crossing point at the nearby Ndevu game camp (where early that morning a fishermen, Gandi, had seen the gang collecting water), the officers explaining that local villagers could not have the meat as it was needed in the nearby town of Nyimba, and that they were waiting for their boss. When the Nyimba officer- in-charge of ZAWA, a Mr Chibeka, came, he reportedly recovered one bag of meat, another nine having disappeared.
On Tuesday, 14 November, the two camp officers-in-charge were seen on the Ndevu-Nyimba road, both drunk, and later, on Thursday 16th seen drinking at 9.00 a.m. in a nearby village.
Two weeks earlier an elephant had been killed in the same area and the ivory removed. Two other cases of poaching, one of a buffalo by a village scout, another of an ex-scout found in full uniform and hunting a hippo with a muzzle loader, unaccompanied by a monitoring scout as is required, is being investigated.
These disturbing events, given that in 2005 ZAWA village scouts had been caught poaching a buffalo, hippo and bushbuck, swopping some of the meat for village beer, suggest the collusion of ZAWA and village scouts in a meat and ivory poaching ring. Investigations are currently underway by the Chairman of the Community Resource Board, Mr Axon Lungu.
Conservationists continue to be alarmed at the well organized bushmeat and ivory trade in Zambia, it being recently revealed by the Malawi Anti-Corruption Commission that 23 tons of ivory had passed through Lilongwe on its way to the Far East over an eight year period. No arrests have been made.
Out there in Old Africa...
The letter from the Luembe Community Resource Board of Nyimba district , Zambia, was quite straightforward. They needed funds to pay some volunteer teachers.
“As a Board, we strongly request for this help because we fell and accept that the government has failed to send teachers there. On this point , we ask you to to come to the aid of M’Shalira Basic School community found in the Game Management Area No. 17 to assist”.
As the rains threatened, and accompanied by Gordon Mace - a supposed agent based in Johannesburg, as well as the Chairman of the Board, Axon Lungu, we drove the six hours or so to my camp on the Luangwa river from the capital Lusaka, first dropping off Axon at his family village some 12 km away. The river was low, my pontoon of a dozen 44 gallon drums and angle iron stranded, so we crossed in the banana boat, skirting a hippo on the way. That evening, lightning played continuously on the horizon. We would have to hurry.
In the morning, we made ready for the short trip to M’Shalira school, first being briefed by my staff and the village scout, Emmanuel (only there as I had needed his protective help for some Belgian volunteers I had brought out to carry out a food security assessment), on the poaching incident some four days previously where a gang had killed two elephant – possibly another, and had wounded two, all from the same matriarchal group. My suspicions were aroused, for government wildlife police officers and the village scouts working under them, though paid by the Board from funds generated by our company, Mbeza Safaris, had appeared at the camp and asked for transport to collect the meat.
An hour after leaving Malone camp, not another person or hut to be seen, we drew up to the maize grinding mill which my sons had repaired two months ago, deposited diesel for the engine, and cement for the laying of a concrete slab, being watched by the friendly villagers from a village unchanged from that of their forefathers. And when one of my men emptied a sack of empty tins and bottles I had rescued from our Malone camp garbage hole, they rushed forward to claim them. Such are the treasures of a people forgotten by the world.
We then drove the short distance up to M’Shalira Basic school: and basic it is. Close to the road, I found the headmaster, Mr Daka, resting in his grass and pole Chitenje, the crumbling and cracked staff quarters standing close-by. We drove up to the school: six classrooms of mud brick and mud floors - one new classroom built of grass walls had been added on, and signs of flooding all around. Children beavered away inside at arithmetic, unsupervised, but as quiet as the surrounding bush.
“My only teacher is away in Petauke to get his pay. We have to go every month to collect it and it takes a week. As you see I am the only one here now, ” said Daka.
“When last were you visited by someone from the Department of Education?”
“Oh, they never come here. They can’t drive. You can see.”
“And the elephant, they give us a hard life here”, he said, waving towards some mangled pawpaw trees nearby.”
I thought of how an elephant can eat 4% of his body weight in a night of garden raiding.
Later I interviewed three volunteer teachers, one a member of the CRB whom I knew, the other the Village Area Group Chairman, part of the group of six with whom I was developing a landuse plan for the 1 million acre area. We settled on K250 000 each per month, the same sum I paid to keep the village scouts employed, unpaid by Government for seven months: $50 each a month; it did not sound much but it would feed them and their families; the villagers after all earned about $.30 cents a day – if that.
Daka showed me the book store-room, which seemed well stocked. Picking up a few work books, mud fell from between the pages. The termites were at work. Looking up at the dividing wall I could see that the bricks would soon fall onto the books.
On the way back to the camp we saw a group in the distance, obviously out hunting. One of them was in the green uniform of a village scout, but it turns out that he had resigned a month ago. He is hunting with a muzzle loader for a hippo, and as required, has no monitoring scout to see that he kills and marks the animal off on his resident hunting permit. We take his name and details which I will pass on to Axon. Later I hear of another village scout who has shot a buffalo legally but had not marked it off, therefore facing a poaching charge. And word was that the Zambia Wildlife Authority had issued four buffalo to residents, when last year they had agreed not to do so, given their decimation by the bushmeat trade.
That night the full loom of the rains rents our world asunder, and the following morning, once across the river, we only extricate ourselves with the help of my cheerful gang who take it in turns to look after our camp during the rains. In the nearest line of villages we see a group of men gathered under the eaves of a hut, drinking; there among them are the two ZAWA officers in charge of the game camps. Meat for beer. Cheers.
“As a Board, we strongly request for this help because we fell and accept that the government has failed to send teachers there. On this point , we ask you to to come to the aid of M’Shalira Basic School community found in the Game Management Area No. 17 to assist”.
As the rains threatened, and accompanied by Gordon Mace - a supposed agent based in Johannesburg, as well as the Chairman of the Board, Axon Lungu, we drove the six hours or so to my camp on the Luangwa river from the capital Lusaka, first dropping off Axon at his family village some 12 km away. The river was low, my pontoon of a dozen 44 gallon drums and angle iron stranded, so we crossed in the banana boat, skirting a hippo on the way. That evening, lightning played continuously on the horizon. We would have to hurry.
In the morning, we made ready for the short trip to M’Shalira school, first being briefed by my staff and the village scout, Emmanuel (only there as I had needed his protective help for some Belgian volunteers I had brought out to carry out a food security assessment), on the poaching incident some four days previously where a gang had killed two elephant – possibly another, and had wounded two, all from the same matriarchal group. My suspicions were aroused, for government wildlife police officers and the village scouts working under them, though paid by the Board from funds generated by our company, Mbeza Safaris, had appeared at the camp and asked for transport to collect the meat.
An hour after leaving Malone camp, not another person or hut to be seen, we drew up to the maize grinding mill which my sons had repaired two months ago, deposited diesel for the engine, and cement for the laying of a concrete slab, being watched by the friendly villagers from a village unchanged from that of their forefathers. And when one of my men emptied a sack of empty tins and bottles I had rescued from our Malone camp garbage hole, they rushed forward to claim them. Such are the treasures of a people forgotten by the world.
We then drove the short distance up to M’Shalira Basic school: and basic it is. Close to the road, I found the headmaster, Mr Daka, resting in his grass and pole Chitenje, the crumbling and cracked staff quarters standing close-by. We drove up to the school: six classrooms of mud brick and mud floors - one new classroom built of grass walls had been added on, and signs of flooding all around. Children beavered away inside at arithmetic, unsupervised, but as quiet as the surrounding bush.
“My only teacher is away in Petauke to get his pay. We have to go every month to collect it and it takes a week. As you see I am the only one here now, ” said Daka.
“When last were you visited by someone from the Department of Education?”
“Oh, they never come here. They can’t drive. You can see.”
“And the elephant, they give us a hard life here”, he said, waving towards some mangled pawpaw trees nearby.”
I thought of how an elephant can eat 4% of his body weight in a night of garden raiding.
Later I interviewed three volunteer teachers, one a member of the CRB whom I knew, the other the Village Area Group Chairman, part of the group of six with whom I was developing a landuse plan for the 1 million acre area. We settled on K250 000 each per month, the same sum I paid to keep the village scouts employed, unpaid by Government for seven months: $50 each a month; it did not sound much but it would feed them and their families; the villagers after all earned about $.30 cents a day – if that.
Daka showed me the book store-room, which seemed well stocked. Picking up a few work books, mud fell from between the pages. The termites were at work. Looking up at the dividing wall I could see that the bricks would soon fall onto the books.
On the way back to the camp we saw a group in the distance, obviously out hunting. One of them was in the green uniform of a village scout, but it turns out that he had resigned a month ago. He is hunting with a muzzle loader for a hippo, and as required, has no monitoring scout to see that he kills and marks the animal off on his resident hunting permit. We take his name and details which I will pass on to Axon. Later I hear of another village scout who has shot a buffalo legally but had not marked it off, therefore facing a poaching charge. And word was that the Zambia Wildlife Authority had issued four buffalo to residents, when last year they had agreed not to do so, given their decimation by the bushmeat trade.
That night the full loom of the rains rents our world asunder, and the following morning, once across the river, we only extricate ourselves with the help of my cheerful gang who take it in turns to look after our camp during the rains. In the nearest line of villages we see a group of men gathered under the eaves of a hut, drinking; there among them are the two ZAWA officers in charge of the game camps. Meat for beer. Cheers.
Sunday, August 05, 2007
Zambia Wildlife Authority crime syndicate being investigated...
News from Luembe, Nyimba district, is that Zambia Wildlife Authority officers from the Eastern Province headquarters at Mfuwe are currently in the area investigating the crime syndicate being operated by local ZAWA officers. This syndicate issues ammunition to ZAWA scouts and village scouts to poach animals for meat, and elephant and hippo for their ivory. As this syndicate has been in operation for many years it would be optimistic to hope for people being investigated, charged and imprisoned. However, there is little question that as a result of our work with the community over the last four years they now have some idea of their rights and obligations for the care of their land and its resources, and are now more determined to deal with outsiders stealing their resources, especially government officials.
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