Village Suffers After Hunts Banned
suspension. “Zambia has always hunted from time immemorial,” said Jean Kapata, Zambia’s minister of tourism.
Zambia recently lifted a twoyear- old ban on hunting leopards, and lion hunting is likely to resume next year. In 2013, Zambia curbed trophy hunting and imposed a blanket ban on hunting the big cats, also in an effort to replace trophy hunting with photographic tourism. But that brought little income, Ms. Kapata said, while lions increasingly stalked livestock. During the ban, a local councilor was killed by a lion, she said.
“In Africa, a human being is more important than an animal,” Ms. Kapata said. “I don’t know about the Western world,” she added, echoing a complaint in parts of Africa that the West seems more concerned with the welfare of a lion than of Africans themselves.
Zambia’s reversal points to the central role that trophy hunting has played in managing wildlife in southern Africa. It takes place mostly on communal lands where villages are supposed to receive a share of the fees paid by hunters.
Sankuyo, a village of 700 people, sits east of the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. In 2010, it earned nearly $600,000 from the 120 animals — including 22 elephants, 55 impalas and nine buffaloes — that it was allowed to offer to hunters that year, said Brian Child, an associate professor at the University of Florida, who is leading a study on the impact of the ban.
Among the benefits to the community, 20 households chosen by lottery received outdoor toilets. Standpipes were installed in courtyards, connecting 40 families to running water. Gokgathang Timex Moalosi, 55, Sankuyo’s chief, said, “We told them, ‘ That lion or elephant has paid for your toilet.’ ”
Where trophy hunting benefits communities, people are more motivated to protect wild animals, experts say. But in most places without trophy hunting, they are simply considered a nuisance or danger, and locals are more likely to hunt them for food or to kill them to defend their homes and crops.
Dr. Child said trophy hunting had failed to benefit many communities because of mismanagement and corruption. But in the countries where trophy hunting had worked well — Botswana, until the ban; Namibia; and Zimbabwe, until its economy collapsed in the past decade — it had accomplished the twin goals of generating income and protecting wild animals. “We actually ended up killing less animals,” Dr. Child said.
Lions, which used to feast on the meat of elephants left behind by hunters, are increasingly entering villages looking for livestock. “We’re experiencing an exponential increase in conflicts between animals and human beings,” said Israel Khura Nato, the head of the Botswana Department of Wildlife’s problem animal control unit. According to the department, such conflicts nationwide rose to 6,770 in 2014 from 4,361 in 2012. Poaching incidents increased to 323 in 2014 from 309 in 2012.
Galeyo Kobamelo, 37, said he had lost all 30 goats at his family compound to lions and hyenas since the ban. Elephants had destroyed his fields of sorghum and maize. His family no longer receives the free meat that hunters left behind. His mother no longer receives a pension.
In Sankuyo, William Moalosi is one of dozens of people whom the ban has left jobless. He worked for eight years as a tracker and driver, earning about $100 a month. He lost his crops of maize and watermel- ons to marauding elephants a few months ago.
Villagers identified Mr. Moalosi, 40, as the man who killed a lioness last month. The animal had jumped into a kraal with goats. But Mr. Moalosi said he knew nothing about it, a statement that drew knowing smiles from neighbors.
“We are living in fear since lions and leopards now come into our village,” he said. “Elephants cross the village to go to the other side of the bush. The dogs bark at them. We just run into our houses and hide.”