Return of elephants a sign of peace in Chad

Press, 25 February 1987, Page 11

Return of elephants a sign of peace in Chad

By

JEFFREY ULBRICH

of Associated Press through NZPA NZPA-AP Douguia, Chad The elephants are returning to the wild country on Lake Chad. For Laoubara Bealoum, it is a sign of peace that he hopes will bring back the hunters and their muchneeded foreign currency. Bealoum is the director of the Douguia Hunting Reserve, 60,000 hectares that stretch along the Chari River to Lake Chad in the heart of northcentral Africa. Douguia is only 80 kilometres up a dirt road from Chad’s capital, N’Djamena, but the trip takes the visitor to an-

other world, to a simple hunting lodge on the banks of a wide river, situated in a lush grove of trees full of playful chattering monkeys. The giraffes are gone from the reserve now, as are the lions, ostriches, hyenas and the panthers. The last black rhino disappeared in 1977. But the hippos still bathe in the river and the lake.

“Last year I counted 26 elephants in a herd... on the way back from Lake Chad,” said Bealoum.

The animals are returning, but the hunters are slower to do so, frightened away by years of fighting in Chad. It is hard to convince them that the Government’s current war against the Libyans is 1000 km away in the sand and rocks of northern Chad. From 1977 until 1982, various Chadian military factions played havoc with the game on the reserve, slaughtering animals with their weapons. They killed the game to eat or to sell. From 1980 to 1982, the Libyans occupied the village and improved the private dirt airstrip on the reserve, turning it into a base for MiG jets and military transports. An abandoned anti-

aircraft gun mount still rusts away at the top of the strip, now closed “for security reasons.” Now it is quiet. Last year there were 147 visitors to the lodge. There were no visitors in the first three weeks of 1987, and the Government has contacted a Paris firm to help lure tourists.

“I think it is a lost season,” said Bealoum. “How do you explain to people that the war in Chad is not in N’Djamena? People see television and they don’t understand. All they see are dead people and destroyed tanks.” Big game hunting is not allowed on the reserve, except for gazelle. Safaris out for large trophies traditionally have hunted in Chad’s well-watered tropical south. But’ Douguia is a waterfowl hunter’s paradise, according to Roger Emery, a French hunting guide who has lived and worked in Chad for 33 years. In the marshes along the southern shore of the lake, source of the Chari River, hunting for ducks as well as wild guinea fowl and other birds is considered outstanding. Winter temperatures are comfortable in the 20s and 30s. “This is real game,

really wild, right on the migratory passage from the lower Nile,” said Emery. “A good hunter who works hard can easily use up his 50 shells a day." Douguia is the only functioning hunting resort in Chad, though there are several in the south the Government wants to re open.

Part of the problem is the lack of money in this destitute country, ravaged by 20 years of civil war. Chad is technically the poorest country in the world with a per capita income of SUS7B a year. The need for foreign currency is desperate. At the reserve, poaching remains a problem, though less so since peace has come to the region, but the four rangers using motorbikes for patrols are frequently outnumbered and outgunned. “If a ranger comes upon four poachers, what can he do?” said Bealoum. Things are getting better, though, and the return of the big game from its refuges in Cameroon is a first sign. “All we want is calm,” said the resort director. “If calm returns, our national parks will come back. And above all, the presence of the animals signifies peace.”