News From Africa

I got this information from the African Indaba Newsletter.

Angola
In Cangandala the cameras showed the well-known four to five pure adult female giant sable and five sable/roan hybrids, including the four youngest animals, two male calves born in 2006 and two females in 2007. We suspect that there were no calves born this year. In Luando people in all villages felt encouraged with the ongoing Sable program. On his next visit vaz Pinto will have another attempt at capturing the first sable.

Botswana
Dr. Trevor Mmopelwa, the Director of Wildlife in the Botswana Ministry of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism stated that the lifting of the ban on lion hunting will depend on the rate of buildup of the lion population. He further said that “research to date, indicates that while the lion population in Botswana remains fairly satisfactory, in certain areas near protected areas, notably Khutse Game Reserve, Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve and the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. Conflict between humans and predators is on the rise. It is in these areas that the number of lions being killed has caused concern. Several mitigation measures, including fencing, are being considered to reduce the conflict.” He also stated that the suspension of lion hunting has allowed his Department an opportunity to focus its resources on the challenge of the loss of lions in defense of livestock. “Lions continue to be killed as problem animals in certain hotspot areas. Research being undertaken in these areas suggests that comprehensive strategies are needed to address this problem. The department is currently finalizing the Predator Management Strategy, which will holistically address predator conservation and management throughout Botswana. The issue of utilization of large carnivores including lions will be addressed in the context of the strategy,” Mmopelwa concluded.

Botswana/South Africa
The construction of the Pula 4 million Botswana and South African single entrance gate and Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park (KTP) is expected to be complete by November 2008. The Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park is Africa’s first trans-border conservation area and was officially opened in May 2000. The area was formerly known as the Mabuasehube-Gemsbok National Park on the Botswana side and the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa. The park is a popular tourist destination because of its 4×4 wilderness trails and its unique and fragile eco-system.

CAR
Air France and KLM refuse to accept hunting trophies as cargo. ACP (French PH Association) is working to find a solution and plans to meet with top management officials of the airlines to lift the ban. There may be a boycott against Air France and KLM in the cards. CAR outfitters used Libyan Airlines to move trophies but some shipments have been held up in Tripoli and trophy shipments from CAR are backed up.

DR Congo
Okapis were last seen in the DRC 50 years ago, and the images are the first to capture the animal in the wild of the DRC’s Virunga National Park. “To have captured the first-ever photographs of such a charismatic creature is amazing,” said Noelle Kumpel, manager of the Bushmeat and Forests Conservation Program at the Zoological Society of London, which took the pictures. “The photographs clearly show the stripes on their rear, which act like unique fingerprints,” said Theirry Lusenge, a key member of ZSL’s survey team in the DRC.

“We have already identified three individuals, and further survey work will enable us to estimate population numbers and distribution in and around the park.” ZSL said the images prove the okapi still thrives in the park despite threats to its survival, which include poaching, deforestation, military camps inside the park, and the influx of refugees at the park’s borders. The study involved 18 cameras set up around the park by the ZSL and the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation.

The animal’s exact status is still a mystery, however, and it remains under threat, the ZSL said. Okapi meat reportedly poached from the park is now regularly on sale at the nearby town of Beni — and if hunting continues at the same rate, okapi could become extinct within the park within a few years, the ZSL said. For more information go to http://www.zsl.org/field-conservation/news/first-ever-pictures-of-africas-unicorn,514,NS.html

DR Congo/USA
A three year partnership to integrate health, population and environmental needs for rural communities in Kenya, Nepal and the DR Congo was announced by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), Johnson & Johnson, and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) at a signing of a Memorandum of Understanding today. Thousands of people in these three nations will benefit from this partnership through activities that include family planning, obstetric health, and HIV/AIDS education together with community-based natural resource management and conservation education. This partnership builds on the success of the “Healthy Communities, Healthy Ecosystems” project between WWF and Johnson & Johnson, and USAID’s Population-Health- Environment Program.

Namibia
The Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF) has started offering international courses on cheetah management practices as a central source of information and training for wildlife conservation professionals. More than 30 conservationists from different countries such as Iran, Niger, Botswana and Kenya took part in the courses on integrated livestock and predator management and cheetah conservation biology to promote a unified and systematic approach to cheetah conservation. The courses focused on building capacity to conserve cheetahs and their ecosystems. Over the next three years, CCF will hold five more month-long training courses; in addition, at least 120 community development officers/agriculture extension officers from cheetah range countries will be trained in two-week training courses held twice per year. CCF has spent the past two decades developing integrated livestock and wildlife management methods and has fostered the formation of conservancies to benefit both people and wildlife.

Robin Lines of the Wild Dog Project suggested urgent action to save Namibia’s African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) population from extinction in his 2008 report. He said that Namibia has only about 300 wild dogs left and the population is declining at a rate of 10% a year. The report recommends wild dogs be re-introduced in protected areas such as Etosha National Park.

Namibia has an important, yet declining population of African wild dogs, representing between four and nine per cent of the total free-ranging population of 3 000 to 5 000 dogs on the continent. There are fewer than 32 breeding packs in Namibia, most of them outside protected areas. In the past 100 years, the African wild dog population has declined by 98 per cent and its range reduced by 95 per cent. Threats to the population include habitat loss, hunting and poisoning by humans, disease spread from domestic animals and isolated populations.

The Ministry of Environment and Tourism has selected more than 20 farms from 7 regions (Omaheke, Hardap, Otjozondjupa, Karas, Kunene, Erongo and Kavango) from 190 applications to be the first beneficiaries of the Wildlife Breeding Stock Loan Scheme. The availability of game in protected areas, the drought spell in the country, farm size versus current game present on the farms, fencing and water provision, regional representation and prior commitments of the game capture team of the ministry were some of the factors considered when selecting the farms. Five species of game, namely zebra, springbuck, oryx, ostrich and eland will be translocated to the farms.

South Africa
One hundred years ago there were eight subspecies of tiger. The Bali, Javan and Caspian tigers are now extinct while the Siberian, Bengal, Sumatran, Indo-Chinese and South China tigers are all critically endangered. Save China’s Tigers is trying to do as their name suggests, and they have a website that describes their project: “Save China’s Tigers”- a UK, US and Hong Kong based charity founded in 2000 by Beijing born and bred Ms Li Quan, is the only charity in the world outside China with a mission to save the Chinese Tiger from extinction. One of her organizations main projects is ‘re-wilding’ tigers. This means training zoo-kept tigers for re-introduction into the wild. This is taking place in South Africa. Why South Africa? There are several reasons… First, … for tigers to live naturally, each animal need at least 15 square kilometers of land. It is very hard to get 15 square meters of land for ONE tiger in China, not to mention a population of several tigers. However in Africa, Li and her husband have been able to purchase over 300 square kilometers of bankrupt farm land at a relatively low price compared to China. The project will use South African experts to train conservation officers from Chinese Nature Reserves and to instruct Chinese managers in eco-tourism management to improve reserve management quality, and prepare for high quality wildlife eco-tourism in China and will assist China to set up a Pilot Reserve, based on the successful principles of African wildlife reserves as the new home for the Chinese Tigers, after they are wild trained and gained ability to survive in wild conditions.

Sudan
The US Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) has denied import permits for trophies from Sudan. OFAC is the government agency enforcing economic sanctions implemented by the US State Department.

Tanzania
Arusha regional commissioner Isidore Shirima has defended hunting firms against the criticism of some civic society organizations, saying they have contributed enormously to the development of villages surrounding their hunting blocks. Shirima mentioned Robin Hurt Safaris which last year spent $8,194 on developing 13 villages located around its Burko hunting area in Monduli district. The villages are Arkaria, Arkatani, Eluwai, Emairete, Enguiki, Lendikinya, Lepruko, Lasimongori, Mbvaashi, Mfereji, Mti Mmoja, Noondoto and Orkeswa. Each village got $630 and local authorities received a quarter of all the hunting fees generated. Shirima was speaking after presenting a report to Vice-President Shein who was visiting the region.

Uganda
Marauding elephants in northern Uganda have added to the challenges faced by civilians trying to rebuild their lives in the wake of 20 years of civil war, destroying their crops and prompting some to return to displaced people’s (IDP) camps they had only recently left. Local leaders have vowed to kill the elephants marauding in the area. Area residents accused the government of prioritizing wildlife over the welfare of returning. Uganda’s wildlife senior conservation officer, Stonewall Kato, said that in recent years there has been an explosion in the number of elephants in the park, forcing some to stray out in search of water and food. Kato said an estimated 1,500 elephants stray out of the park to villages yearly.

Zambia
ZAWA signed a Memorandum of Understanding with African Parks for the management of West Lunga National Park. The project will initially focus on effective management and tourism development in the National Park and it is anticipated that it will gradually extend its activities in the neighboring Game Management Area and their resident communities. A funding proposal has been developed and submitted to the German Government for assistance in carbon sequestration through effective forest management (Source: REMNPAS August 08).

Zimbabwe
Tom Milliken of TRAFFIC, an international organization that monitors the illegal trade in wildlife, said there had been a “major increase in poaching” for food in the country. “As the economic situation worsens, hunger and poverty in rural areas is greater than ever,” he said. Milliken warned that organized syndicates who targeted rhinos for their horns were reversing gains made to boost their numbers. Mtsambiwa, the parks official, acknowledges rhino poaching is “out of control.”