The Sunday News
LAST week I had the opportunity of assisting some farmers from Mbizha area in Hwange district to organise themselves and transport their animals to the market. One farmer made a remark which got me thinking and asking questions around human-wildlife conflict among communal farmers.
The farmer remarked that his livestock should be loaded and transported to the market at whatever price because whatever he is going to get will be better than losing his cattle to hyenas and lions that are terrorising the area.
This was just a statement made in passing but quite revealing of the magnitude of the problem these farmers are facing with regards to livestock losses due to wildlife predation. I know that the knee-jerk response from conservationists is always that these farmers settled in wildlife territory and/or that they vandalised perimeter fences meant to protect them.
However, the truth of the matter is that wildlife predation is a real problem for some communal farmers and more so in Matabeleland North province which is home to vast tracks of forests which inevitably and invariably become a conducive habitat for wildlife.
The province also has the fortune or misfortune, depending on which side of the loss you are, of hosting a large game reserve.
Therefore, farmers in these areas lose either livestock or crops to wildlife. Elephants have been reported to have almost cleaned some fields relegating farmers to charity relief cases.
It is my contention and submission that realistic models and solutions should be crafted to address these perennial problems in areas that share boundaries to protected areas such as game reserves and conservancies.
I have argued before that the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (Campfire) has been by and large a failure, not withstanding a few successes here and there.
The reason for the failure being many ranging from defective model to greed by some local authorities. This therefore means that there is serious need for conservationists and agriculturalists to come together and formulate an agreed workable model which can at minimum provide a win-win solution.
Farmers cannot continue to lose animals to wildlife while conservationists are smiling all the way to the bank. Both the Government and private players in natural resources management cannot enjoy unmitigated benefits from consumptive and non consumptive exploitation of natural resources while farmers are left to lick their wounds year in and year out.
Whatever piece of legislation which is currently giving conservationists immunity and indemnity to any liability arising from wildlife raids needs to be revisited to be given a human face. I may not have any suggestions or answers to what model can be appropriate but I definitely know that the current situation is blatantly unfair and cannot be allowed to continue unchallenged.
Farmers who are direct burden carriers in-so-far-as sharing boundaries with protected areas need to have some form of restitution for their losses. This in my view should be the matter which powers that be, such as the boards governing operations of national parks, should be preoccupied with.
Farmers are being relegated to social welfare charity cases when herds are devoured by lions and hyenas and no restitution or whatsoever is advanced to them.
It cannot be acceptable that a farmer loses 10 head of cattle to an attack by lions in their grazing areas and conservationists look aside and bury their heads in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
Answers simply have to be found and solutions provided so that conservationists cannot continue condemning farmers to poverty with reckless abandon. Uyabonga umntakaMakhumalo.
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