The Sunday News
THIS week we discuss the perennial conflict between agriculture in general and wildlife production.
This is a very emotional subject for farmers who are affected by this enduring conflict that spans several years.
There are farmers in some districts who never get to enjoy a decent harvest because their crops are destroyed by elephants and other wild animals.
While they can do something and scare away other animals like the kudu, baboons and warthogs, there is usually very little that they are able to do about elephants.
Just one nocturnal visit from elephants wipes the whole field condemning all the five-month hard work from the farmer to nothing.
Then you have predation on livestock by carnivores like lions and hyenas, which accounts for a huge population of livestock losses in affected areas.
In addition to wiping out your harvest and preying on your livestock, wildlife will make your general area to be inhabitable, simply for reasons of sheer danger that the animals themselves pose to humans.
You cannot walk freely especially in the rangelands because you might bump into elephants or lions!
While it has been generally accepted that some areas will always be prone to human-wildlife conflict because of their natural proximity to protected wildlife areas like national parks, what is worrying now is that wildlife now seems to expand its home range into some areas that have not been known to be traditional habitats for wildlife.
A case in point is that of elephants now taking residence in pure communal areas that are neither close to protected national park areas or are known to be natural habitats of elephants.
An example is that of elephants that have taken residence at Embakwe and neighbouring areas in Mangwe District, Matabeleland South Province.
The elephants have been terrorising villagers there with no reprieve in sight.
In fact, the elephants have now expanded their residences to include areas less than 10km away from Plumtree Town.
Just last week, farmers from Solwezi resettlement, which is on the environs of Plumtree Town and have paddocks just about 10km from the town, ran for dear life after encountering the elephants that have taken residence in one of their furthest paddock.
The elephants have been there for almost three months now and there is no help coming to drive them away.
So livestock farmers in these areas cannot even go to look for their animals now for fear of encountering the elephants.
Imagine you are a livestock farmer and you are not able to go into the veld to look for your animals to kraal them or even do routine management on them.
Your animals might stray for ever and your calves will be preyed on by leopards and hyenas!
The point for this article is not only to lament the encroachment of wildlife especially elephants into human settlement but to scream for help from relevant authorities like the local authorities and ZimParks.
I am aware that there are ways and means that can be taught to and adopted by communities to scare away elephants from their fields and grazing areas.
These are very simple and cheap methods which can be afforded by all the community members because they use locally available materials, so why are communities not taught these methods by the local authority and the Department of National Parks?
Is it not safer and better to equip the communities and farmers on ways of warding off the animals so that they do not stray into human settlements?
While the general argument that is recklessly dangled around as cause for human-wildlife conflict, is the expansion of human settlement encroaching into wildlife zones, it is not always true.
An example is the Mangwe case that I alluded to above of wildlife, especially elephants, now coming to purely communal areas that are not anywhere near protected national parks.
We need to find ways of equipping farmers to deal with wildlife that migrates into human settlement areas so that there can be mutual co-existence between wildlife and humans.
Uyabonga umntakaMaKhumalo. Mhlupheki Dube is a livestock specialist and farmer.
He writes in his own capacity. Feedback [email protected]/cell 0772851275
