How Zimbabwe is beating the poachers

Press, 21 January 1982, Page 13

How Zimbabwe is beating the poachers

Bv

STEPHEN TAYLOR

uy UXUX XXXJX, from Salisbury

An increase in game poaching throughout Africa has prompted an unusual and successful approach to conservation in Zimbabwe. The basis of “Operation Windfall" is to demonstrate to rural people that if animals are to be killed, it pays the community to let outsiders do the killing.

By following this advice, local leaders in one poor and remote region have this year received cheques totalling more than $160,000 and the word from the conservationists is that there is plenty more where that came from.

Mike Drury, the warden in charge of the operation, says: “Wildlife is one of the great resources of this country and as such it has a value in cash terms.”

A big. blunt-speaking man. Drury keeps on his desk an ashtray made from an elephant’s foot, an item which might offend some conservationists. “We cannot afford to be soft conseryationists,” he says. “The only thing that keeps these creatures alive is a system which gives them a greater value than can be earned from poaching.” Zimbabwe, with some of Africa’s great game sanctuaries. has always managed to keep at bay trie kind of

large-scale commercial poaching which afflicts, for example, Kenya and Zambia. But poaching for meat and skins is growing, and elephants — the poachers’ main target — are also suffering. “Operation Windfall” is the response. In addition to beipg a source of food, wild animals are also a crop pest. Drury says: “We have told leaders in the tribal areas that if there is a problem animal not to kill it themselves but to come to us."

After the animal, usually an elephant, has been despatched by a warden, it is reduced to its marketable commodities and the flesh is given to the local people. Once the hide and ivory have been processed and sold all the proceeds are handed over to the community.

The killing of problem animals accounts for a significant proportion of the earnings from “Operation windfall."

"We have a trophy quota — the number of animals which can be shot annually — which is based on half a

per cent of the total population of any species in an area,” Drury says. The full trophy quota for an area will be allocated to a hunter who will pay for the concession. One such concession, which includes two bull elephants, eight females, three leopards, two lions, 10 buffalo, and a number of antelope, will bring in $36,000. Fifteen areas are benefiting from the scheme, which yields more per hectare than agriculture. As a result of “Windfall" two representatives of Gokwe District Council, a remote region west of Salisbury, came to the city and bought two trucks for transporting building equipment. Four rural clinics and a waiting room at the hospital were being built. "Poaching is still a serious problem and it will remain so until we get right down to the grassroots, but we still have a system which is preserving our precious resources and at the same time serving people." Drury says.—Copyright, London Observer Service.