Wildlife and livestock farming activities need not be separated geographically

Article courtesy AgriForum (June 2012) 

KAZA spans more than 440 000 km² of Africa’s richest, most unspoilt wilderness and connects Namibia, Botswana, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe through the Okavango and Zambezi Rivers. It includes no fewer than 37 formally proclaimed national parks, game reserves, forest reserves and game/wildlife management areas, as well as intervening conservation and tourism concessions set aside for consumptive and non-consumptive uses of natural resource
More information on KAZA at: http://www.kavangozambezi.org/

The world’s largest conservation area, of which Namibia’s Caprivi Region forms the heart, was officially launched on 15 March this year at Katima Mulilo. Known as the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), it is a unique conservation, tourism and sustainable development partnership between five African countries.

TFCA attempts to improve the cooperative management of shared resources, increase the area available for wildlife and natural habitat and bring economic benefits to the local communities adjacent to the park.

KAZA spans more than 440 000 km² of Africa’s richest, most unspoilt wilderness and, among others, is home to the largest elephant population on earth. It was formally established on 18 August 2011 during the SADC summit held in the Angolan capital, Luanda, when the Angolan president, together with the heads of state from the Republics of Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe signed the KAZA treaty.

The partner countries have identified nature-based tourism as a key economic driver for rural development and poverty alleviation, especially in areas considered marginal for agriculture. The idea is to accommodate both livestock and wildlife systems in KAZA to the benefit of rural communities who live in and around this conservation area. These communities are the custodians of the natural resources and bear huge opportunity costs associated with biodiversity conservation, such as human-wildlife conflicts which are contributing to household food insecurity.

According to Dr Russell Taylor, planning advisor for transboundary conservation for the World Wildlife Fund in Namibia, KAZA aims to maximise returns from these areas by boosting the tourism industry within the context of sustainable development. “Land should be used to best optimise its economic, social and ecological potential and we shouldn’t rule out those options that allow us to realise its full potential. Africa’s comparative economic advantage lies with its still significant wildlife populations and systems. KAZA offers an opportunity to achieve this without excluding other important agro-pastoral production systems such as cattle farming. This can be done without traditional subsistence farmers having to choose between wildlife farming and cattle production, but by realising value from both.”

One of the aims with KAZA is to encourage the free movement of transboundary wildlife populations by connecting animal populations across boundaries, both within and between countries. This could be done through a series of corridors that would allow animals to move seasonally between food and water supplies. Such corridors should essentially represent an unsettled area of wild habitat with variable width and distance, and, ideally, would be permeable, in other words, without fences and without interfering with adjacent human activities.

There are emerging opportunities to accommodate both livestock and wildlife through non-geographic based management strategies for transboudary animal diseases (TADs) such as foot and mouth disease (FMD), referred to as commodity-based trade (CBT). CBT is science-based and focuses ont he safety of the beef itself and appropriate standards of abattoir hygiene.

“Meat derived from healthy livestock that have been slaughtered at approved abattoirs is perfectly safe for consumption given that the lymph nodes have been removed, and the meat deboned and matured until the pH drops to below 6,0. This has been scientifically proven and is acknowledged by the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE). However, there are people who have entrenched views in this regard and are resistant to change. This resistance occurs at both the producer and the consumer end of the market and across a number of exporting and importing countries.”

It is essential to understand both the positive and the negative impacts of FMD control methods if the potential for the rural poor to benefit from both wildlife conservation and trade in products derived from livestock is to be optimised. The consequences of FMD in developing countries are often underestimated. In regions where FMD is still endemic, the disease has a strong negative impact on animal production. FMD-affected countries are excluded from lucrative export markets and the disease has a negative effect on local and regional trade in food of animal origin. As a result, economic development of small-scale rural farmers, as well as of organised production chains serving urban markets, is inhibited.

If importing countries would accept non-geographical standards such as CBT, a new world would open for farmers in areas such in the Caprivi where FMD outbreaks frequently lead to animal movement restriction for months on end.

Meanwhile, the second FAO/OIE Global Conference on FMD control is scheduled to take place from 26 to 29 June in Bangkok, where the socio-economic rationale and implementation costs of the global control strategy are among the discussion points. Ministers, high-level officials of Veterinary Services, veterinary private practitioners and representatives of governmental and non-governmental organisations, scientists and multilateral and bilateral funding partners will attend the event to deliberate on the matter.