THE GOVT URGED TO INVEST IN ELEPHANTS TO BOOST TOURISM GROWTH

 

By Patrick Soko

As Zambia joins the global community in commemorating the World Elephant Day 2020, the Wide Fund for Nature notes that Investing in Elephants can move Zambian tourism from subsistence to year-long dynamic Tourism.

The African Elephant is a big part of the Africa Tourism proposition. However, the species and its habitat have come under increasing threat from various factors.

Zambia has lost more than 90 percent of her elephants since the 1950s owing to a multiplicity of factors including poaching, habitat loss, habitat fragmentation and retaliatory killings.

The number of elephants plummeted from an estimated 250,000 in the 1970s to about 18,000 in 1989.

However, due to a number of  interventions by government and partners as well as the effect of global conventions such as CITES, populations have started recovering in the last two  last decades  Recent surveys suggest a stabilization and even increase in elephant numbers in the Luangwa Valley,  Kafue, Lower Zambezi and Sioma Ngwezi ecosystems.

WWF Zambia Country Director Nachilala Nkombo notes that despite some recovery in recent years, high demand for illegal ivory over the past decade still poses pressure on Zambia’s elephants, contributing to a broader, continent-wide decline of 8 percent.

She notes that the low levels of elephant population growth in Zambia over the last decade compared with Zimbabwe and Botswana suggests lower investment in protected areas in Zambia.

She says these low investments have created an enabling environment for the illegal killing of elephants compared to our neighbours. Compared to Namibia, Zimbabwe, Rwanda, Tanzania and Kenya, Zambia is yet to create and believe in its business case for conservation.

“Nonetheless, there is light at the end of the tunnel on-going strategic partnerships between the country’s Department of Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) and conservation organizations such as World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ), Conservation South Luangwa (CSL), Kasanka Trust have provided support for elephant conservation in Zambia. Due to these concerted conservation efforts, no elephants were poached in 2018 in the North Luangwa National Park while Sioma Ngwezi recorded a 15-month Zero poaching of elephants from January 2018 to April 2019,” she said. 

Ms Nkombo explains that these results have a positive impact on tourism. 

“Sustaining these results will require stronger management effectiveness of protected areas and tourism operators in each landscape taking collective action towards increasing their investments in wildlife conservation as one way to support building the economic case for greater public investments in wildlife conservation” she explained.

 

In the meantime, the WWF country director feels Investments in elephants and wildlife have the potential to drive green growth and green jobs post COVID 19.

“Targeted investments have the potential to generate major financial returns to protected areas, deliver more economic opportunities for communities and contribute to maintaining and extending wild areas in Zambia.

Zambia has an opportunity to make a shift from seasonal tourism to robust, resilient, and sustainable tourism that delivers uninterrupted experiences, revenues and jobs for more Zambians all year round” Ms Nkombo said.

The conservation organization has therefore called on the Government to consider the following:

Ø  Provide incentives and institute policy changes that would be required to promote  wildlife  stewardship, that deliver increased benefits to local communities for  protecting elephants and other wildlife species.

Ø  Structural investments in tourism infrastructure to extend accessibility to tourism resorts in National Parks and  Game Management Areas (GMAs) from the current 6 months to all year round access.

Ø  Increase funding levels to DNPW, increase staffing levels and explore innovative co-management partnership models for the management of the national parks to secure long term sustainable financing.

Ø  Support for improved controls over ivory stocks and internal trade in ivory Provide legal instruments for the long term protection of major elephant corridors Invest in applied ecological research and the gathering of data on numbers, distribution, conflict, impacts, etc., of elephants– inadequate information remains a major problem.

Ø  Support the development and strengthening implementation of Zambian solutions for addressing human-elephant conflict with a high consideration for insurance strategies to cushion people living with elephants in the rural GMAs Implementation of ambitious CBNRM models that confer ownership of wildlife resources and deliver sustained benefits to local communities (and private sector) as incentives for the management of natural resources

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