Baraza

Category: Africa, South Africa, Uganda, big cats, hunting, tourism | Date: Oct 19 2009 | By: Maina

Recently, as is usually the case, a passionate discussion erupted here at Baraza following a post about Uganda’s sport hunting plan. While I believe that Uganda’s plan to get into sport hunting is unwise, not all agreed with me. Although the ‘to hunt or not to hunt’ debate is not anywhere near the end, when a new voice comes in, a new view emerges. Most of the time, this new view continues to discredit this barbaric and unnecessary so called ’sport’.

A lion in Kenya (photo courtesy of Ewaso Lions)

Some time ago, an article appeared on Bloomberg.com showing the dilemma that South Africa has found itself in after a court ruling more or less banned canned the so called hunting. Now they are grappling with some 3,000 odd lions that have been bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being shot by foreign tourists at the price of  $22,000 per lion. As Mike Cohen writes on Blomberg:

“Lions bred for hunting are often shot after just a few days in the wild. In captivity they are mostly fed on donkey meat bought from rural communities. After their release from breeding cages they catch and eat game that the farmers have acquired for their estates.”

This case exposes one of the hidden vices of sport hunting - canned hunting - a cruel and mindless practice that should never have seen the light of day.

When the sport hunting becomes popular in Uganda for instance, the chances are that many ranchers will want to convert their land into wildlife producing factories where, say, lions can be bred for shooting or antelopes can be bred for feeding the lions. Eventually, someone will challenge canned hunting in Uganda and they will find themselves in the same situation that South Africa is in presently.

Kenyans are currently bothered by there being only 2,100 lions in the country and that if they continue losing the lions at the current rate of 100 lions a year, they will have no lions in 20 years. South Africa on the other hand has more lions than Kenya but they are hunting them at a higher rate, and Tanzania is even worse. Cohen says

More than 300 lions are hunted in South Africa every year, with trophy hunters coming from countries including the U.S., Russia and Spain. That makes South Africa the second-biggest destination for lion hunting after Tanzania, where wild lions are shot. About 1,000 lions are hunted each year in Africa. 

You should note that South Africa has not stopped hunting of lions. Only canned hunting - which more or leas means the captive breeding of lions for the sole purpose of being shot - has been made illegal by the court of law. Of course, the greedy business people who make millions from this ugly business have appealed to have the court ruling overturned. What did you expect?

They are even using the prospects of losing some 5,000 jobs as a reason why canned hunting should be reinstated. They even have an association for that. Cohen writes:

The South African Predator Breeders Association has warned that the judgment may shut an industry that employs 5,000 people because farmers can’t afford to keep lions on their estates for long periods of time due to the cost of the antelopes they would eat. It also argued that the lions may need to be euthanized as the legislation reduced their commercial value.  

Let’s see how the court handles this.

Tags: Africa, Bloomberg.com, canned hunting, captive breeding, hunting, Kenya, Lion, South Africa, sport hunting, Uganda

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Category: Africa, Gorillas, In the News, Uganda, hunting, wildlife, wildlifedirect | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: Maina

Conservationists are taken aback over Uganda’s re-introduction of sport hunting in selected areas outside of designated protected areas. Conservationists from Nature Uganda and WildlifeDirect voiced their concerns over Uganda’s claim that they have enough wildlife to sustainably practice this consumptive use of wildlife. Ben Simon of AFP has the complete story.

Uganda under fire over legalized big game hunting

By Ben Simon (AFP)

KAMPALA — Outraged conservationists said on Wednesday that Uganda had neither enough game nor adequate control mechanisms to reintroduce sport hunting on animals such as elephant and buffalo.

Animal and environmental protection groups were angered by the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s (UWA) decision to sell shooting licences in a bid to boost tourism revenue.

“I do not believe that Uganda has enough game animals to sustain sport hunting,” Samuel Maina, of Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect, told AFP.

UWA spokeswoman Lillian Nsubuga said population levels had recovered from years of war in some areas and argued that ending the decades-old ban would contain crop-crunching elephants and buffalos while creating jobs.

Maina voiced doubts that the 90 percent loss of the large mammal population during the unstable 70s and 80s had been reversed.

“Sport hunting is thus likely to be unsustainable in the designated hunting areas and there is a likelihood that to sustain this lucrative sector, Uganda will have to extend hunting into protected areas,” he said.

Achilles Byaruhanga of Nature Uganda, a Kampala-based advocacy group, also judged the initiative to be dangerous because it is impossible to know the real strength of big game populations.

“I would want to ask UWA: Where is your data and your information coming from? Just because some animals have moved out of a wildlife reserve doesn’t mean their numbers are strong enough for sport hunting,” he told AFP.

UWA chief Moses Mapesa said that big game hunting was happening already and that the plan was simply for Uganda to benefit from it.

“In the absence of controlled hunting we have had a loss of animals and a loss of potential revenue,” he said.

But Byaruhanga argued that the reintroduction of legal hunting was unlikely to stop illegal hunting by needy local communities or create enough guide jobs to provide a viable alternative.

Maina also warned that Uganda had not proven it had the capacity to control the hunting effectively.

“Hunting-law enforcement is going to be difficult when new hunting blocks are opened. I doubt UWA has enough personnel and machinery to prevent abuse of the hunting licenses and concessions,” he said.

Maina also argued that sport hunting was incompatible with the east African country’s current attempts to enhance its international image as a destination for ecotourism, with gorillas the main attraction.

“Ecotourism and sport hunting are more or less mutually exclusive. Ecotourists do not want to go to places where wildlife is being killed,” he told AFP.

“The growth of sport hunting tourism will give Uganda a bad name as an ecotourism destination and is thus likely to reduce earnings from ecotourism including gorilla tracking,” he added.

Tags: conservation, ecotourism, illegal hunting, Nature Uganda, sport hunting, tourism, Uganda, Uganda Wildlife Authority, wildlife

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Category: Albertine Rift Project, Bwindi, Uganda, conservation, wildlifedirect | Date: Jun 16 2009 | By: admin

January this year on one of our visits to Uganda we had the privilege of meeting one of Africa’s leading conservationists. Gladys Kalema Zikusoka, recently the winner of the prestigious Whitley Fund for Nature awards. Her organisation Conservation Through Public Health is one of WildlifeDirects new Albertine Rift Project blogs.

The team and I were immediately captivated by CTPH and decided they would make a phenomenol blog advocating gorilla conservation. On our return to Nairobi we started making preparations for the followup visit conducting a blogging training workshop in Uganda and Rwanda.

Organised with the help of CTPH a 10 hour journey from Kampala, we held a workshop in Buhoma for the benefit of the community members adjacent to the Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. An IT centre had already been established by CTPH, run on the ground by David Matsiko. The centre has trained over 150 community members to use computers and navigate their way around the Internet.  This provided an excellent opportunity to train members in the art of blogging and share their experiences and thoughts through a twin blog to the CTPH one Gladys updates. A blog that would be all about the community and the role in gorilla conservation through CTPH.

Our workshop and lodgings were at the CTPH campsite close to the national park.

Alex Ngabirano gave us a tour of the lab where all the samples collected from the field  gorilla fecal samples) by Uganda Wildlife Authority rangers were stored and analysed. After traveling to Uganda and Rwanda Twice now working with organisations doing gorilla conservation and still not having seen one myself I was just as happy to be staring into one of the specimens containing a gorillas lunch from a week ago.

Alex explained how CTPH began it’s work looking into the incidences of disease outbreak in gorillas and comparing it to that of the human population in communities nearby.  It is described in more detail in the introductary post on the CTPH blog.

For more on CTPH keep your eyes on their blog.

Published by Masumi.

Tags: Albertine Rift, Bwindi, CTPH, Gladys Kalema Zikusoka, Whitley Awards, wildlifedirect

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Category: Albertine Rift Project, Gorillas, Rwanda, Uganda, wildlifedirect | Date: Apr 06 2009 | By: Maina

The MacArthur Foundation-funded Albertine Rift project shifted gear on 24 March 2009 as WildlifeDirect organized the first ever wildlife blogger training in Kampala, Uganda. It was revolutionary in many ways. Many of the participants not having blogged before, they were quite keen to learn all they could about this experience.

Victor explains a point

The training was attended by various individuals representing the civil society as well as governmental organizations in environment and conservation during the two days that it was conducted. They included representatives of the Albertine Rift conservation Society, the Uganda Nile Discourse Forum, Makerere university, Wildlife Clubs of Uganda, the Uganda Environmental Education Foundation, the country’s wildlife authority, Uganda Wildlife Authority, the Kikandwa Environmental Association, and several community-based organisations.

The training took the form of a day of lectures and practical activities, the first step introducing the new bloggers to the Wordpress dashboard and how to use it to create a blog post and the second step teaching how to blog well. Victor Ngeny took the trainees through the initial step which was done in an interactive manner allowing the trainees to practice what they learn in real time. No wonder a few of their mock-up blog posts showed up in Baraza and caused a little confusion.

Samuel Maina would then take over the next session which, as interactive as the first one, would teach the new bloggers the elements of a good blog post and how to improve their writing so that they can attract and retain readers. They were also taught how to frame their calls for action such that they were credible and likely to elicit positive response from the readers.

Participants during a practical exercise

Masumi Gudka, who would first introduce each training session, would mostly introduce the new bloggers to WildlifeDirect as an organization and prepare the bloggers for what to some would be a lifetime experience. The participants would also be shown a short video, featuring non other than the Dr Richard Leakey, that explained what WildlifeDirect does.

Amid the tasty teas and open interactions between the training team and the trainees, a new and huge thing was developing. We were building a new community of conservationists from one of the most biodiverse ecoregions in Africa: The Albertine Rift. You can expect to read from the new bloggers we trained soon. Expect good quality posts.

Some of the participants pause for a group photo

From  Kampala, the trainers headed to Buhoma, the southwestern Uganda district where the world renowned Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is located. The experience there was different. Being rural and close to a national park - with gorillas in it - the experience must definitely be so much different from that in Kampala City. That is why I will tell you about this experience tomorrow.

Tags: Albertine Rift Project, blogger, Buhoma, Kampala, training, Uganda, Wordpress

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