BULAWAYO, ZIMBABWE // Organised syndicates of poachers are killing wildlife in Zimbabwe's animal parks - some species to near extinction - a situation that worries conservationists and tourism operators.
Armed with assualt rifles, hi-tech communication and spying equipment, commercial poachers mainly target elephants and rhinos for their horns, and giraffe and zebra for their skins. Poor subsistence poachers who are mostly locals use wire snares to capture plains game for meat.
At Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage, 25km east of here, where dozens of abandoned, orphaned and sick animals are kept, all the rhinos have been poached.
Johnny Rodrigues, chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Taskforce, said poverty, greed and a breakdown in law and order are driving illegal hunting. Zimbabwe had about 1,000 rhinos 20 years ago, he said, but only 400 of the endangered species are left, after most of them had been poached.
"The problem is big and the losses are far higher than the US$5 million [Dh18.3m] given by the government.
"Nobody is policing people in high places who are running the highly organised poaching rackets. They say the army and police have been engaged to fight poachers, but soldiers are also poorly paid and are actually poaching."
In June, the government said $5m in potential revenue had been lost to poaching since January.
Areas hardest hit by rhino poachers are Lake Chivero, near Harare, and parks in the central, western and south-eastern parts of the country.
Rhino horns and elephant tusks are smuggled to South Africa, Europe and China, while zebra and giraffe skins are sold in South Africa.
Rhino horns are used to make medicine and aphrodisiacs in Asia. In the Middle East they are used to make handles for ceremonial daggers.
Mr Rodrigues said a kilogram of rhino horn could fetch $4,000 (Dh14,700), while an elephant tusk was worth between $500 and $2,000, depending on quality.
Amid the carnage, Zimbabwe now faces possible censure at the March 2010 Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) meeting to be held in Doha. Cites is a global organisation that controls trade and exploitation of rare species of flora and fauna.
Morris Mtsambiwa, the director general of Zimbabwe's Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, recently said he was concerned about resurgent poaching, especially targeting the rhino.
"Rhino poaching has put Zimbabwe in the spotlight within the framework of Cites," he told The Herald, a government-run daily.
"Rhino poaching is now becoming a very serious problem for us.
"Over the past few years we have seen an upsurge in poaching activities. We are facing organised poaching run by syndicates from the region that are now working in cahoots with locals."
The parks authority has enlisted the army and police to complement its own anti-poaching unit in repelling illegal hunters. It is also de-horning the rhinos to discourage killings.
The International Rhino Federation, a conservation group based in Florida, said eight poachers had been killed this year.
In a recent case, not captured in the federation's report, a suspected Zambian illegal hunter was captured after a shoot-out with rangers in the game-rich Mana Pools, 400km west of Harare.
The rangers recovered an AK47 assault rifle, 237 live rounds of ammunition and seven elephant tusks from the suspect.
Raoul du Toit, the director of Zimbabwe's Lowveld Rhino Trust, told the International Rhino Foundation website recently: "In the Midlands Conservancy, for example, the black rhino population has declined from 45 a few years ago to about five animals now."
Zimeye.com, a Zimbabwean online publication, recently reported that ministers Emmerson Mnangagwa and Webster Shamu were being investigated for alleged poaching of elephant and rhino, but dockets of their cases had mysteriously disappeared.
Operators in the country's wildlife-based tourism industry are also alarmed at the escalating poaching.
Paul Matamisa, the proprietor of Marondera Hotel, 70km north-east of Harare, said 90 per cent of local tourism was wildlife-based. So if the animals are depleted, the sector would lose its competitiveness, he said.
"Without wildlife, we do not have a tourism industry to talk of," said Mr Matamisa, the former chief executive of Zimbabwe Council for Tourism (ZCT), a union of local tourism operators.
Tourism contributes three per cent to the gross domestic product and brings $50m annually to the economy, according to ZCT statistics .
Mr Rodrigues called for higher fines and lengthy jail sentences for poachers.
He said the fine that offenders pay must match the price of the hunting trophies of the animals they would have killed. For example, one who poaches an impala, for which a safari hunter pays $700, must pay the same amount as fine.
"If the massacre continue like this, what will tourists see when they come to Zimbabwe?" asked Mr Rodrigues. "Animals on three legs?"
foreign.desk@thenational.ae
NO OTHER LAND
Director: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham, Rachel Szor, Hamdan Ballal
Stars: Basel Adra, Yuval Abraham
Rating: 3.5/5
Need to know
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The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
What went into the film
25 visual effects (VFX) studios
2,150 VFX shots in a film with 2,500 shots
1,000 VFX artists
3,000 technicians
10 Concept artists, 25 3D designers
New sound technology, named 4D SRL
The rules on fostering in the UAE
A foster couple or family must:
- be Muslim, Emirati and be residing in the UAE
- not be younger than 25 years old
- not have been convicted of offences or crimes involving moral turpitude
- be free of infectious diseases or psychological and mental disorders
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- undertake to treat and raise the child in a proper manner and take care of his or her health and well-being
- A single, divorced or widowed Muslim Emirati female, residing in the UAE may apply to foster a child if she is at least 30 years old and able to support the child financially
The schedule
December 5 - 23: Shooting competition, Al Dhafra Shooting Club
December 9 - 24: Handicrafts competition, from 4pm until 10pm, Heritage Souq
December 11 - 20: Dates competition, from 4pm
December 12 - 20: Sour milk competition
December 13: Falcon beauty competition
December 14 and 20: Saluki races
December 15: Arabian horse races, from 4pm
December 16 - 19: Falconry competition
December 18: Camel milk competition, from 7.30 - 9.30 am
December 20 and 21: Sheep beauty competition, from 10am
December 22: The best herd of 30 camels
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Our family matters legal consultant
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Key facilities
- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
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- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
- Specialist robotics and science laboratories
- AR and VR-enabled learning centres
- Disruption Lab and Research Centre for developing entrepreneurial skills
A MINECRAFT MOVIE
Director: Jared Hess
Starring: Jack Black, Jennifer Coolidge, Jason Momoa
Rating: 3/5
Ms Yang's top tips for parents new to the UAE
- Join parent networks
- Look beyond school fees
- Keep an open mind
BUNDESLIGA FIXTURES
Friday Hertha Berlin v Union Berlin (11.30pm)
Saturday Freiburg v Borussia Monchengladbach, Eintracht Frankfurt v Borussia Dortmund, Cologne v Wolfsburg, Arminia Bielefeld v Mainz (6.30pm) Bayern Munich v RB Leipzig (9.30pm)
Sunday Werder Bremen v Stuttgart (6.30pm), Schalke v Bayer Leverkusen (9pm)
Monday Hoffenheim v Augsburg (11.30pm)
Globalization and its Discontents Revisited
Joseph E. Stiglitz
W. W. Norton & Company
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ICC men's cricketer of the year
2004 - Rahul Dravid (IND) ; 2005 - Jacques Kallis (SA) and Andrew Flintoff (ENG); 2006 - Ricky Ponting (AUS); 2007 - Ricky Ponting; 2008 - Shivnarine Chanderpaul (WI); 2009 - Mitchell Johnson (AUS); 2010 - Sachin Tendulkar (IND); 2011 - Jonathan Trott (ENG); 2012 - Kumar Sangakkara (SL); 2013 - Michael Clarke (AUS); 2014 - Mitchell Johnson; 2015 - Steve Smith (AUS); 2016 - Ravichandran Ashwin (IND); 2017 - Virat Kohli (IND); 2018 - Virat Kohli; 2019 - Ben Stokes (ENG); 2021 - Shaheen Afridi
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The number of Chinese people living in Dubai: An estimated 200,000
Number of Chinese people in International City: Almost 50,000
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Daily visitors to Dragon Mart in 2010: 20,000
Percentage increase in visitors in eight years: 500 per cent
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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• Landfill gas is composed of 50 per cent methane
• Methane is 28 times more harmful than Co2 in terms of global warming
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Adele: The Stories Behind The Songs
Caroline Sullivan
Carlton Books
The specs
Engine: 4.0-litre flat-six
Torque: 450Nm at 6,100rpm
Transmission: 7-speed PDK auto or 6-speed manual
Fuel economy, combined: 13.8L/100km
On sale: Available to order now
THE BIO
Born: Mukalla, Yemen, 1979
Education: UAE University, Al Ain
Family: Married with two daughters: Asayel, 7, and Sara, 6
Favourite piece of music: Horse Dance by Naseer Shamma
Favourite book: Science and geology
Favourite place to travel to: Washington DC
Best advice you’ve ever been given: If you have a dream, you have to believe it, then you will see it.
Our family matters legal consultant
Name: Hassan Mohsen Elhais
Position: legal consultant with Al Rowaad Advocates and Legal Consultants.
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The bio
Favourite book: The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho
Favourite travel destination: Maldives and south of France
Favourite pastime: Family and friends, meditation, discovering new cuisines
Favourite Movie: Joker (2019). I didn’t like it while I was watching it but then afterwards I loved it. I loved the psychology behind it.
Favourite Author: My father for sure
Favourite Artist: Damien Hurst
The Rub of Time: Bellow, Nabokov, Hitchens, Travolta, Trump and Other Pieces 1986-2016
Martin Amis,
Jonathan Cape
