The Sunday News
Butler Tambo
AT a time the country has been facing one of its greatest challenges because of illiquidity and revenue flow leakages there has been a dearth in knowledge of what illicit financial flows (IFFs) are and how they affect the economy. Zimbabwe has been losing a lot of its revenue through trade misinvoicing and other forms of IFFs that also include poaching and in this week one looks at these leakages with the hope that policy alternatives can be sought to address these ills.
IFFs (is money that is illegally earned, transferred or utilised. These funds typically originate from three sources: commercial tax evasion, trade misinvoicing and abusive transfer pricing; criminal activities, including the drug trade, human trafficking, illegal arms dealing, and smuggling of contraband; and bribery and theft by corrupt government officials (Report of the High Level Panel on Illicit Financial Flows from Africa, 2015) and they largely stem from revelations that Zimbabwe could have lost around $3 billion through IFFs in mining, wildlife, fisheries and timber industries between 2009-2013. These losses, we are told ‘‘were mainly through under-invoicing by multinational companies’’ (www./3/8/2014 as quoted in Hadebe, 2014).
Wildlife and poaching in Zimbabwe
In the wildlife industry, Zimbabwe could have been prejudiced of a cumulative US$17 million, if the discrepancies in fish and fish products between Zimbabwe and Zambia are anything to go by. These discrepancies were recorded for 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively. South Africa and Zimbabwe were recently described by Tom Milliken, a researcher from the global wildlife trade monitoring network, as ‘‘the epicentre of an unrelenting poaching crisis in southern Africa’’ (WWF, 2009) It should also be noted that the majority of rhinos are concentrated in southern Africa, with South Africa having more than 80 percent of Africa’s rhino population (Hadebe,2014).
From 2006-2009, there were 210 rhinos that were illegally killed in South Africa, while in Zimbabwe the figure was 235 rhinos (WWF 2009). The comparative loss to Zimbabwe is huge considering the very low rate of conviction of poachers which is estimated at three percent (Kamuti, 2013).
Almost five million people live in arid and semi-arid communal lands covering almost half of Zimbabwe. Despite the dryness and difficult conditions, a wide range of wildlife is also found here. Today 12 percent of Zimbabwe is protected as conservation areas or National Parks. Some animal species have prospered so much in the protected areas that they are causing serious environmental damage, for example elephants. Some species are also suffering from genetic problems because of inbreeding.
Many local people were evicted from their homes when the Parks were created during the colonial era. Most now live in the surrounding communal lands. They are no longer permitted to hunt the animals and harvest the plants now found inside protected areas. However, animals frequently roam outside Park boundaries, destroying crops and killing livestock and sometimes people. This has created much conflict between local people and National Parks staff, often resulting in illegal hunting. Local people generally consider wildlife to be a nuisance, not a resource. Zimbabwe lost over $5 million following the killing of over 100 elephants by cyanide poisoning in the vast Hwange National Park recently in what has turned out to be an ecological disaster in 2013.
This brought the figure to $50 million after poachers killed almost 1 000 elephants in the previous five years. Poachers killed the elephants over a period of three months in 2013 by lacing waterholes and salt licks with cyanide. Animals were drawn to them during the dry season in the already arid and remote south-eastern section of the 5 660-square mile Hwange National Park. After the elephants died, often collapsing just a few metres from the source, lions, hyenas and vultures which fed on their carcasses were also struck down, as were other animals such as kudu and buffalo that shared the same waterholes. The cyanide had been planted by villagers who sold the elephants’ tusks for around £300 each to cross-border traders. These were resold in South Africa for up to £10 000 a pair, according to court papers relating one documented incident, sometimes re-emerging as carved artefacts such as bangles in Cape Town’s craft markets.
From 2009-2012 some 847 elephants, at least 300 buffalo; 42 rhinos and 21 lions were killed by poaching syndicates across the country, the bulk in Hwange National Park. Cyanide poisoning at the Park’s salt licks has also affected the food chain, killing other game species where plains game were left to rot by the poachers. As a result, elephants and other species were still dying en masse from the effects of the cyanide poisoning in the park. Documents at Parks and Wildlife Management Authority have shown that key wildlife species illegally harvested in 2012 included buffalo (46), kudu (74), zebra (36), impala (106), waterbuck (nine), White rhino (five) Black rhino (three), lion (15), eland (11), Nyala (16), crocodiles (nine) and warthog (31).In 2011, poachers hunted down 223 elephants, buffalo (68), kudu (58), zebra (48), impala (88), waterbuck (9), Nyala (5), sable (3) and warthog (21) while in 2010, 77 elephants, 80 buffaloes, rhino (22), 9 Eland, 12 Giraffe, 63 kudus, and 20 zebras were killed and 145 elephants were poached in 2009. US-based International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) said:
“The recent rise in wildlife product prices has been met by the increased involvement of more organised, better-funded, and better-armed criminal and terrorist networks, and even militias, compounding the challenges faced by those charged with protecting the wildlife.” Asian demand for rhino horn has set a historic price for rhino horn powder — over US$30 000 per pound, making it more valuable than gold and cocaine. “Toothless laws, corruption, weak judicial systems, and light punishments,” ICCF said, “allowed criminal networks to thrive on wildlife trade with little regard to risk or consequence.”
What has compounded the problem of poaching in Zimbabwe is that the proceeds from Campfire gotten by villagers are negligible as compared to the lucrative but risky poaching activities. In addition, Zimbabwe unlike other countries has ready supplies of cyanide which is used in small-scale gold mining activities which have become the source of livelihood for most rural communities who prefer to pan for gold than embark on agricultural practices in such arid and dry regions like in Matabeleland North province in Zimbabwe.
Importance of understanding IFFs and poaching in Zimbabwe
Zimbabwe faces an increasing incidence of poverty with the poorest areas being wildlife-abundant rural districts where the sustainable use of the wildlife and other natural resources could greatly reduce rural poverty. Agriculture and wildlife conservation compete for the scarce land in rural Zimbabwe and this has been seriously felt in the South Western parts of the country especially in Matabeleland North province. Wildlife conservation must compete economically with agriculture, which is the prime source of rural communities’ livelihood, if it is to be accepted as an alternative land-use. Thus the survival of wildlife depends on whether it is an asset or liability to the communities living adjacent to it. More often, even when the people in wildlife abundant areas are furnished with community development benefits from wildlife revenues, they still lose out in economic terms from the presence of wildlife (Emerton, 2001).
During 1995/96, 61 percent of Zimbabwean households were classified as poor and this translates to 76 percent of the population being poor. Poverty is much more widespread in rural areas than in urban areas with 75 percent of the rural households being poor compared to 39 percent of urban households (CSO, 1998). Measured by numbers of people, 86 percent of the rural and 53 percent of the urban population were viewed as poor. The majority of the Zimbabwean population lives in the rural areas (Child, 1995) 63 percent of the households live in rural areas. The poorest districts are wildlife-abundant areas, especially the poorest three districts namely Hwange, Tsholotsho and Binga.
The wildlife sector is most vulnerable to this pillaging and looting especially in contexts of breakdown of civil order like in war situations. The Congo basin is a typical example, where the recent history of the eastern DRC has known more warfare than peace and stability mainly because of wildlife and extractive industries that serve as both the root cause and means for the armed conflicts (Jadot, 2012). But Zimbabwe has neither war nor breakdown in law and order, so the questions are: Why this seemingly uncontrollable IFF in the wildlife sector in particular and elsewhere in general? With a number of laws and various departments with overlapping duties in curtailing and curbing IFF why is the situation not abating? The next article will then look at the root causes of IFFs and wildlife poaching with the intention of finding solutions to this problem that has led to the bleeding of the Zimbabwean economy.
-Butler Tambo is a Policy Analyst who works for the Centre for Public Engagement and can be contacted on [email protected]
