Poaching for the cooking pot: Zimbabwe’s growing disaster

Bushmeat hunting increases as food prices rise amid worsening economy

(ZACHARY PEARSON)

By Tatira Zwinoira for Newsday

Within seconds of driving into Koala Park Butchery and Abattoir property just outside Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, several men surrounded the vehicle like locusts swarming summer crops, clad in uniforms that appeared to be from the butchery.

They nearly surrounded the vehicle shouting out their deals..

After turning off the engine, I rolled down the window and asked, posing as a potential client:“Sorry, I am looking for game meat?”

At that, the men scattered with only one remaining, Tino, as he identified himself. He was a chubby man of medium height with medium to dark skin.He had a face of someone who had been involved in a few scraps before.

“Which meat do you want? I have 5kg buffalo and kudu (antelope) going for US$20 (£16.4) each,” he said.

As he spoke, he signaled a colleague not too far off to quickly come over. The man rushed over holding a closed bucket.

Once he got there, he opened the lid to reveal strange looking meat in see-through plastic bags.

Earlier on, at a butchery in Chitungwiza Town in the Harare Metropolitan Province, called Problican Quality Meat, they were selling crocodile meat at US$3 (£2.46) a kilogramme.

And despite having all the paperwork displayed on the wall showing themselves to be a certified butchery, there was no letter from Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) authorizing the sale of bushmeat.

Later independent checks failed to determine whether the butchery had the necessary paperwork from ZimParks or not as of writing this.

Later, I called Koala Park Butchery & Abattoir financial officer, Washington Kahari, to ask why the company had workers selling meat at the gate.

“We have a license to sell game meat but we are not selling game meat,” Kahari said. “I believe

they are buying the meat maybe from rural areas which in my books could be stolen meat…What those guys do is sell game meat on top then sell common meats at the bottom because I doubt they have steady access to game meat.”

Basically, from the ‘five kilograms’ of buffalo or antelope meat, there is actually one kilogramme of each.

Koala Park Butchery & Abattoir is located nearly 17 kilometres away from Mbizi Game Park where wildlife such as the giraffe, zebra, warthog, and various antelopes roam free.

“Yes, we have had reports of a few animals going missing from Mbizi Game Park but not a lot,” ZimParks spokesperson Tinashe Farawo told the paper.

While alarming, the brazen sales of wildlife meat at the Koala Park Butchery & Abattoir is no coincidence but rather a trend, according to the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA).

“The current economic challenges which have seen some families living with less than US$1 (£0.82) budget per day have seen people resorting to game meat as an alternative,” CHRA acting director Reuben Akili said.

“The animals are even hunted by illegal hunters and this is worrying. On the contrary restaurants from leafy suburbs have resorted to game meat as special cuisines fetching better and lucrative prices.”

While this is becoming commonplace in Zimbabwe’s capital, in the northwestern Matabeleland North Province, home to the country’s largest wildlife park, Hwange National Park, the practice is more rampant.

During a visit to the Hwange National Park, in May, a nearby small shopping centre called ‘Gwai Shops’ is seemingly deserted during the day.

But, when the sun goes down, poachers emerge at the Gwayi Shops in the dead of the night selling antelope and buffalo meat that costs US$3 (£2.46) a kilogramme.

“They approach with a certain veracity hoping to sell. If you don’t buy, they offer biltong of wild meat where a bundle can cost US$1 (£0.82) of mostly antelope meat,” a ZimParks official, who did not want to be named, said. “It is something that we are currently investigating and should be making raids soon.”

This is happening despite the creation of the Community Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) programme by ZimParks that was first conceived in 1982.

CAMPFIRE focuses on the utilisation of natural resources and wildlife for the benefit of the community towards infrastructure development, jobs and housing support, among other social amenities.

“Unfortunately, the community isn’t realising much in terms of revenue generated from CAMPFIRE and therefore instead of them being the protectors of wildlife in Hwange, some of them are now resorting to poaching,” Hwange Residents Association (HRA) coordinator, Fidelis Chima told the paper.

“Some of them are even abetting poachers who do not even reside in Hwange. So, I think

maybe the best thing that should happen is that the communities should at least have a sense of the value of wildlife which they interact with every day,” Chima continued.

““We see these poachers everyday and don’t have to wait to see them selling game meat. It is happening on a very large scale.”

He said the rising cost of living as a result of a depreciating local currency has contributed significantly to communities turning to either selling bushmeat illegally or buying it from poachers.

He said sometimes they have even received reports of donkeys and even baboons being sold, as desperation over economic fortunes persist.

Nearly 119 kilometres from the Hwange National Park is Zimbabwe’s busiest tourism town, Victoria Falls.

Since the advent of COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020 that resulted in not only local but international travel restrictions as well, the town has seen a record decline in tourism activities.

While this has seen some improvements since the start of the year as economies begin to open up, the recovery has been slow.

What this period meant for Victoria Falls, however, is that a lot of people were out of a job, and struggling to make ends meet, hence, many increasingly turning to bushmeat for business or consumption.

This was confirmed by the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust (VFWT), a group dedicated to conserving wildlife noted an increase in bush traps during the 2020 to 2021 period.

“You definitely get this correlation with economic decline. Like in 2008, when we had the crash of the Zimbabwe dollar and now with COVID-19. There is an economic decline in Victoria Falls because there are no tourists, there is no money,” VFWT wildlife and research manager Roger Parry said in an interview.

“A lot of people have lost their jobs so yeah absolutely we have seen an increase (in villagers hunting for animals for food). Human communities during this economic decline turn to these natural resources. Going out poaching and putting out snares. Snaring targets is not animal specific but they are meant for herbivore animals like buffalo, kudu and impala.”

He said the danger of these snares is that they have even killed carnivores like lions and hyenas. “We lost seven lions last year to these snares,” Parry said.

Why is this happening? Ever since the reintroduction of the Zimbabwe dollar in June 2019, the economy has become hyperinflationary.

As a result, with no commensurate economic growth, the Zimbabwe dollar is depreciating leading to the consumer buying power being greatly eroded.

With this erosion, the price of basic commodities has risen leading to high cost of living that also includes foodstuffs.

Currently, beef prices average between US$5 (£4) and US$11 (£9) per kilogramme, pork US$5 (£4) to US$8 (£6.5), fish US$7 (bream) (£5.75) and chicken US$5 (£4).

However, the unofficial cost of living is much higher. Hence, people are turning to bush meat.

Zimparks director general Fulton Mangwanya said Zimbabweans have always been hunting game meat since time immemorial.

“You know, this is poaching for the pot, not poaching rhinos, not poaching elephants, not poaching leopards, but poaching for the pot. It is something that we say has been happening and continues too,” Mangwanya said.

“This is the reason why we want resources to do awareness campaigns so that people appreciate the value of these animals whilst they're alive as opposed to when they are in the pot. No one applies to hunt game meat but what we know is that when hunters go on the ground and kill an animal, they dispose of the meat in any way and this is the meat that finds its way to the communities and other people.”

Mangwanya admitted that the increase in the cost of living and lack of resources to defend wildlife have also contributed to the increase in people looking for bush meat, by any means necessary.

“It’s no secret that the economy is experiencing headwinds,” he said.

Deputy minister of Environment, Climate, Tourism and Hospitality Industry, Barbara Rwodzi, also linked the rise in poaching to the COVID-19 pandemic.

“COVID-19 made work so difficult to be out there and of course poachers took advantage in doing business. And we are saying let us come together in one voice in finding ways to reduce poaching,” Rwodzi said. “Poaching is really rampant now.”

She said it was important to deal with poaching on a regional level now, not just on a national stage, to address the problem.

This article is reproduced here as part of the African Conservation Journalism Programme, funded in Angola, Botswana, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe by USAID’s VukaNow: Activity. Implemented by the international conservation organization Space for Giants, it aims to expand the reach of conservation and environmental journalism in Africa, and bring more African voices into the international conservation debate. Read the original story here.