Why poaching must go

After decades of increased poaching that has seen the decimation of elephant and rhino populations through a new breed of poachers armed to the teeth with latest firearms in the market.

At midday, on Wednesday June 1, 2016 at Matambwe, one of the outposts for the fight against poaching, witnessed an auspicious occasion when Minister for Natural Resources and Tourism Prof. Jumanne Maghembe was presented with a drone, one of eight donated by World Wide Fund (WWF) Sweden.

The presentation ceremony was officiated by the Director General of the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) International, Dr. Marco Lambertini.

Through the deployment of the drones, it would now be quite possible for game wardens not only to keep track of poachers from the sky, once they get into the reserve, but also to launch a rapid response against them.

Through the use of drones, it would now be possible to nab poachers before they kill elephants.

Through the drones, clear images from exact locales can be transmitted to the command headquarters where action can be immediately taken through the deployment of a unit of elite game rangers.

Speaking during the occasion before presenting the drone to Prof. Maghembe, Dr. Lambertini spoke emotionally of his first trip to the Selous Game Reserve 30 years ago when he was still a young man.

He said after touring the Selous Game Reserve, he wrote a story that would later be published by an Italian magazine with a heading— Selous: The last Stronghold for Elephants.

However, he said recent narratives on the same reserve have had different, negative headlines one of which read: The Selous: An Empty Paradise.

Lambertini said the issue was not about saving the elephants per se, but it was rather bigger than that.

He stressed that the fight is for maintenance of a sustainable future for wildlife and communities surrounding the reserve.

Indeed, you kill the Selous Game Reserve through the decimation of elephants; you have killed flora and fauna in the reserve.

Africa, he said, had the chance of avoiding what they had done in Europe, through the degradation of the environment in the quest for development.

Barely a few decades ago, he said, Zambia had blossomed with all kind of flora, giving the country a spectacular landscape.

But lately things have changed quite considerably, plunging the nation into untold drought, he added.

Although he elected to remain silent on what had caused such drastic climatic change.

But the message was quite clear, to all and sundry, and that’s, negative handling of the environment is equal to environmental degradation and the outcome is a disaster. Dr. Lambertini wished to remind Africa, through Tanzanians, why they needed to protect the Selous Game Reserve and all that is contained in the reserve.

Prof. Maghembe, who is a forester by profession, did not mince words over what his ministry under the newly formed, no nonsense government of President John Magufuli was committed to as far as dealing with poaching was concerned.

The minister said in the last six months, the government had arrested a number of poaching barons. To date, he said they had arrested six poaching barons who had for years been sending small men to kill elephants and collect ivory for them. In short, the government has been going to the source of the problem and it’s just a matter of time before they bring poaching to a halt.

Indeed, evidence over the minister’s assertion is not only in abundance but very clear for all who have eyes to see and this includes the nabbing, a few months ago, of what has come to be referred to as the Queen of Ivory, a Chinese woman.

The Chinese woman had come to Tanzania in the late 1960s as an interpreter for Chinese railway engineers who constructed the 1,800km Tanzania Zambia railway line (Tazara) from Dar es Salaam to Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia.

Just last week, the minister said that they had netted in Iringa one of the biggest barons in the poaching industry. He said the Queen of Ivory is alleged to have been involved in the poaching business from then on until she was arrested a few months ago by the Tanzanian authorities.

According to the minister, the Iringa man is alleged to have been personally involved in the killing of close to 300 elephants. The continued killing of elephants for their ivory, among other things, ultimately affect the ecosystem, starting with the continued growth of trees and other vegetation to the very survival of small animals and sustaining micro-environments necessary for human survival.

He explained that there were certain tree seeds which could only grow if they went through the digestive system of the elephants. Therefore, the continued killing of elephants means that a time may come, if urgent measures are not taken, when certain species of trees would disappear on account of the disappearance of the biggest mammal in the land, hence the government’s continued support for anti-poaching efforts.

For instance, experts say, elephants’ combined acts of pushing trees down has a nature function of opening up the land through which small animals that include, among others, impalas or bush bucks can graze while simultaneously keeping an eye on predators on the prowl.

The minister reiterated the government’s call on all livestock keepers to keep their livestock away from National Parks and Game Reserves, including the Selous Game Reserve. Sending livestock in the National Parks and Game Reserves was against the laws and is socially bad in that it helps in the transmission of diseases from livestock to wild animals and vice-versa.

Apart from spreading livestock and wild animal diseases, he said the government had lately discovered that poachers sometimes would send livestock to graze in national parks and game reserves as part of a ploy to investigate the exact location of elephants or any other animals for that matter that they wanted for their products ranging from horns, ivory to skin.

The government had decided to go for the poaching barons rather than the small killers because that is where the market lay. For, if poaching barons were left, it would be extremely difficult for the government to stamp out poaching because the number of killers of animals on the ground grew by the day and they were so efficient that they could remove a tusk from the elephant carcass in five minutes.

He said the government had therefore decided to go for the root of the problem, the poaching barons, leaving the branches to wilt on their own.

Commenting on the drones, the minister thanked WWF International and in particular, WWF Sweden for the assistance. He noted that the drones would go a long way in enhancing the ministry’s ability to detect, hence deal swiftly with the poachers.

As for the government’s part, he said they were presently busy putting up together what he described as a paramilitary force that would deal with poachers. The second part of the war against poaching involves appealing to poachers to refrain from poaching through involvement in productive economic activity.

“The war against poaching is similar to the drug war. In order to win in the drug war, you need to go both for the drug barons and drug users,” he said.

The same thing, he said could be said about the war against poaching. That one needs to go both for poaching barons and those used in the ring from the man who shoots down an elephant in the reserve to the one who takes out the tusks in less than ten minutes to the transporter through the use of a motorcycle to those who transport it through various chains to metropolitans centers like Dar es Salaam before the ivory is finally transported across the seas to their final destinations.

All those involved in the ring, call it the network if you like, need to be persuaded to refrain from involving themselves in the dirty business.
The same thing, he said could be said about those who used the end product of the ivory as bangles, earrings and other items.

“We need to tell these people to be ashamed of putting on dead animals’ bones as a piece of ornament…we need to tell them that it’s a pride to wear ornaments made of other items and certainly not from dead animals’ bones,” he said.

The minister said there was also a need to convince foreign governments whose citizens were heavily involved in trade in ivory and other wild animal products to refrain from such businesses.

“It’s a pride for a person to put on a Rolex watch. But certainly not for a bangle from a dead animal bone,” said Prof. Maghembe.

Other WWF top officials who had accompanied the WWF Tanzania Office Country Director from Dar es Salaam, Dr Amani Ngusaru to the Selous Game Reserve for the drones handing over ceremony to the minister included the Chief Executive Officer, WWF Germany, Mr Eberhard Brandes, the Board Chairman of WWF Germany, Dr. Valentin von Massow and the WWF International Campaign Manager, Zach Abrahams.

Apart from presenting the drones to the minister, Dr. Lambertini also presented a plaque to the best Game Warden for Selous for the period 2014/2015, to Mr. Namsifu Yohannes Marwa.

The general message to Tanzanians is that they all need to get involved to stop killing of elephants for the simple reason that given the role they play in the ecosystem, their continued existence is more important for our own daily lives.

If we have friends, relatives, parents or guardians involved in poaching, we need to dissuade them from their continued involvement in such activities. This is because their continued involvement in such obnoxious activities is tantamount to being involved in tampering with our ecosystem which is crucial for our own continued living.

Therefore, they need to stop thinking that poaching has nothing to do with them. To the contrary, it has a lot to do with their wellbeing, hence the need to be closely involved in stamping out poaching.
And that starts with reporting to the authorities whenever they come across people they believe to be involved in poaching.