Wildlife protection is everyone's responsibility

By Jossy Muhangi

The calendar year 2016 ended on a cool note for wildlife, with a powerful state in Asia declaring a total ban on the trade in ivory and associated products. This, if implemented to the dot, would provide a great relief to the endangered and flagship tourism species known as elephants particularly the iconic African elephants which at hunted for their tusks to benefit few selfish merciless gangs.

While the world was still celebrating the total ivory trade ban notice, the media in Uganda were awash with screaming headlines quoting a one of the cultural leaders threatening to incite his subjects to kill elephants which stray out of the protected areas to raid crops thereby causing famine.

While we at Uganda Wildlife Authority appreciate and feel the pain caused by isolated cases of elephant raids and other problem animals which can even cause loss of life, all Ugandans, especially in influential leadership positions including cultural leaders like the Paramount chief of the Acholi, ought to have it at the back of their minds that wildlife conservation is a responsibility of everybody.

Uganda Wildlife Authority is mandated to champion that role in trust and on behalf of all Ugandans and the global community for mutual benefits. I would like to imagine that the chief was quoted out of context while expressing the pain of his people, because I have always known the communities in the local governments bordering Murchison Falls Conservation Area to be extremely supportive of conservation efforts and thus reliable partners in the execution of this mandate.

Besides the legal implications in anyone inciting violence against wildlife, killing or injuring protected animals, the benefits of conservation far outweigh the losses and challenges. It is on record that the communities in districts of Gulu which later gave birth to Amuru and then Nwoya local government, have for a long time co existed with wildlife and also abundantly shared benefitted   accruing from conservation which is bedrock for tourism in Uganda.

This has been in form of revenue sharing which is the mandatory 20% of all the gate collections every year from which projects like livestock rearing, bee keeping, classroom construction, cultural centres etc have sprung up. I was lucky to attend the commissioning of one such project called Koch Goma Secondary School dormitory valued at 166m/= .I also know of the Purongo cultural centre and several others.

Apart from this, UWA employs the policy of affirmative action while recruiting the ranger force by giving priority to the youth from communities adjacent to protected areas, provides direct employment to the some members as officers at other levels, hotels in the parks employ dozens while communities sell food stuffs to the hotels and crafts to the tourists.

UWA also pays a lot of attention to the problem animal control programs by digging deterrent trenches in hot spot areas, encourages growing of red chili which is a repellant to elephants and bee keeping along the park boundaries which restrains elephant raids while generating revenue for the communities.

A number of wildlife scouts have also been trained to always monitor cases of raids and have perfected traditional methods of herding back the jumbos to their designated habitats. In the worst case scenario, our rangers are now well distributed in outposts to timely respond to stubborn animals by way of scare shooting.

A recent report by the Wildlife Trust indicated that  "When a young elephant dies at the hands of an ivory poacher, the commercial loss to the tourism industry is more than $1.6 million-­-the amount the animal would have contributed to the economy had it lived a full and happy life.

The report, published by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust's (DSWT) iworry wildlife awareness campaign, describes the tremendous value that an elephant adds to tourism over many decades. It compares this to the relatively small one-off sum of $21,000 that ivory traders earn from the tusks­ of an elephant. According to this report, in financial terms, a living elephant is as valuable as 76 dead elephants.

Illegalities and monetary benefits aside, I would be the last person to tempt any human being to fight a wild animal since they also have capacity to retaliate in self defense. I have heard some isolated reports of illegal hunters or poachers who have been killed by wounded and entrapped animals like buffalos.

I accordingly urge the cultural leaders to continue engaging with UWA and other stake holders on the best ways to mitigate human wildlife conflict other than direct confrontation with the animals which is detrimental to the lives, tourism, conservation and our flourishing national image.

The writer is a Public Relations manager of the Uganda Wildlife Authority