CHIEF CHIKWA WANTS MORE FOR BONAFIDE HUNTING

GOVERNMENT should have considered increasing hunting certificates to bonafide hunters instead of residents to allow local residents in communities derive maximum benefits from their wildlife, Chief Chikwa of the Senga people in Chama has said.

Chief Chikwa, who is the patron of the Chikwa Community Resource Board (CRB) said while people who were living in the Gama Management Areas (GMAs) were happy with Government’s decision to award hunting certificates to Zambians so that they could hunt selected species of animals, they were worried that the decision had the potential to escalate poaching activities.

The traditional leader said government had given restrictions and guidance of which species of animals should be hunted for meat and for sale but that he was concerned that the certificates for bonafide hunters had been reduced.

Chief Chikwa explained that resident hunters were often not the local people in communities that were in the GMAs and hunting blocks but that they were individuals who would come from outside communities to hunt and take away the meat while all the revenue was going to government.

He said he was worried that poaching activities would increase because government had offered limited and restricted numbers of the animal species that the bonafide hunters would be able to kill.

He said local communities would not benefit from resident hunting because the hunters often came from different part of the country to hunt and took away everything they killed at the expense of the villagers.

Chief Chikwa said resident hunters were the ones living and conserving wildlife and understood the effects of outsiders being allowed to hunt where they were not resident.

He however commended government for allowing communities to start hunting before the hunting season could close.