As the “iron curtain” that blocks the public’s view into Zambia’s international hunting management policy increasingly gets rolled down, so too is the increase in questions about the southern African country’s support for international hunting.
“Zambia has not articulated itself well on how it intends to run an open and transparent hunting industry,” said Dr. Rodgers Lubilo, the Chairperson for Zambia Community-based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) Association.
Concern over the Zambian government’s support for international hunting started growing in 2023 after it controversially reversed the previously approved hunting tenders for 19 prime hunting areas.
This sad development coincided with talks between Kenya, which is known for its anti-international hunting tourism policy, and Zambia with the view to signing a shared tourism management agreement.
This month, Zambia’s Ministry of Tourism and Arts finally signed a tourism policy standardisation agreement with Kenya.
Many observers wonder if this suggests that Zambia was likely to adopt the Kenyan-style anti-international hunting tourism policy.
Meanwhile, a well-placed Zambian news source, who spoke anonymously, said: “Only very few of the 19 blocked hunting tenders have been granted to the affected safari hunting companies, after they challenged the government’s illegal cancellation of their hunting tenders in court.
“It has been confirmed that these safari hunting companies will hunt this year.”
However, he said that the total number of approved tenders was unknown.
The permanent secretary of Zambia Ministry of Tourism and Arts, Evans Muhanga, who reportedly controversially blocked the 19 hunting international tenders last year, recently declined to answer questions about how many have now been awarded to the affected safari hunting companies.
The well-connected Zambian source said that for some unknown reason, the awarding of the hunting tenders was “being done in secrecy.”
“The Zambian government is signing the approved tenders on a case-by-case basis,” said the news source.
“Those who demand their hunting concessions are given. Equally, those who keep silent are kept the same (their hunting tenders remain blocked).”
Meanwhile, Zambian community leaders have expressed concern that blocking of hunting tenders has suddenly taken away the socio-economic benefits that the affected hunting communities have been enjoying.
“Obviously, it is our concern that if few hunting blocks are open for hunting our people will continue to suffer,” said Dr. Rodgers Lubilo.
“We need hunting to be opened up in all the 19 hunting blocks and others. It’s unfortunate that the government has chosen a path of destruction of the industry.”
“Zambia is still a safe haven for a robust sustainable hunting business, but it is being destroyed by lack of clear policy which is our major concern as communities and representatives of local communities,” said Dr Lubilo.
Meanwhile, Zambia Community Resources Board Association President George Tembo said that “we expect” that all the pronounced 19 hunting blocks should sign the concession agreements as directed by the court.
“It is high time that the government of Zambia should see it fit to engage all affected Communities, and hunting outfitters to solicit for possible alternatives to create good working relationships,” said Tembo.
He said that the livelihoods of the affected Zambian hunting communities “are badly affected.”
“It is imperative that all government agencies solicit thoughts and ideas from all stakeholders before policies are changed or amended,” said Tembo, suggesting the Zambia government’s possible departure from its well-known support for international hunting.
“The principle of rule of law promotes adequate consultation with the general public on any new things or any amendments.”
At a time when all the presidents of wildlife-rich southern African countries (Botswana, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, and Zimbabwe) are calling for the growth of wildlife economies through different wildlife use and wildlife products trade initiatives, including international hunting, Zambia seems to be opting for the Kenyan-style restrictions on the international hunting industry.
Asked whether the 21st-century Zambian government was being pressurised to restrict international hunting by the Western animal rights fundraising industry NGOs resident in Zambia and also non-resident ones, the Zambian source responded: “I am not sure, it could be corruption in government or Western animal rights NGOs pressure.”
The Zambian government’s restrictions on international hunting contrast sharply with the solid support for international hunting that the previous government of the 1990s showed.
In June 1999, this writer travelled to Zambia’s wildlife hub of South Luangwa to find out how the Zambian local communities benefit from international hunting, under the Administrative Management Design for Game Management (ADMADE) or CBNRM programmes.
So significant were the socio-economic benefits from international hunting that it made the very traditional South Luangwa hunting communities that used to resist family planning, impressively embrace it.
They welcomed family planning in order to avoid human over-population that would result in the expansion of human settlements into wilderness areas and displace wild animals from the land set aside for wildlife conservation.
“We experienced conflict between humans and wildlife in South Luangwa hunting communities, said the Nyamaluma Wildlife Institute, social worker Andrew Phiri.
“In the Chipuka area people conflicted with wildlife at water holes.
“Also, uncontrollable human population increase meant that there was continuous opening up of settlements that encroached onto wilderness areas, resulting in wildlife being pushed back into the parkland where hunting is prohibited.
“As a result, the dwindling of wilderness areas where hunting is allowed meant that communities started losing international hunting revenue benefits because most of the wildlife was retreating into national parks where hunting is prohibited.”
He said that the South Luangwa hunting communities could not face a future without the international hunting industry’s life-changing socio-economic benefits that they had become used to.
Hunted wildlife drilled boreholes and improved water supply, built and renovated schools, and ended the misery of dark nights among South Luangwa communities’ facilities by installing solar power systems.
It was the hunted South Luangwa wildlife, not the Zambian government that enticingly “taught” the local communities to choose small families over big ones so that they could conserve wildlife and its habitat, in order to continue benefiting from international hunting.
“They also used international hunting revenue to buy anti-poaching equipment, grinding mills, employ game scouts and pay their wages,” said Phiri.
Sadly, Zambia’s current international hunting restrictions might soon force its hunting communities to kiss goodbye to these conservation and development benefits supported by international hunting income.
This would inevitably result in wildlife-revenge killings as happened in Botswana under former President Ian Khama’s disastrous 2014-2019 international hunting ban, with four lions having been poisoned in one day.
In the long run it would as is happening in Kenya, result in the increase in human and livestock populations that are causing wildlife population decline through habitat loss by taking up wilderness areas set aside for wildlife.
*About the Writer: Emmanuel Koro is a Johannesburg-based independent international award-winning environmental journalist who writes extensively on environmental and developmental issues in Africa.
*The views expressed by the author of this article, Emmanuel Koro, are not necessarily those of The Bulrushes
