Teaching Teachers: How A Local NGO is tackling the Illegal Bushmeat Trade in Zambia
It is a nature reserve with notable features extending from the Zambezi escarpment to the mighty Zambezi River, and islands that complement its waters. The Lower Zambezi National Park lies on the north bank of the Zambezi River in southeastern Zambia. It is world-renowned for attracting numerous wildlife species that captive both locals and tourists alike.
Unfortunately, like many other places in Zambia, the wildlife in the Lower Zambezi is threatened by human activity, the most notable of which is poaching for illegal bushmeat. According to “People Not Poaching”, an online learning platform, the current motivation to poach bushmeat in the area is commercial and driven by demand from consumers in cities such as Lusaka. Poachers use unsustainable killing methods such as wire snares to trap and kill wild animals. This has resulted in a population decline in and around the national park.
The park is surrounded by three Game Management Areas (GMAs): Chiawa, Lower Luano, and Rufunsa. These GMAs and many others across the country were established by the Zambian government to act as buffers between national parks and human settlements where humans and wildlife coexist and share resources. GMAs are managed by the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) with assistance from Community Resources Boards (CRBs) which represent local communities and their interests. There is a total of 36 GMAs covering about 40 percent of Zambia’s land area. Due to economic developments, employment, and business opportunities, these areas have seen an increase in the human population over the years. An estimated 30,000 have migrated to the GMAs around the Lower Zambezi National Park.
An increase in human activity outside the park unfortunately tends to lead to an increase in human activity inside the park. Not all the people who have migrated to the area have been able to find jobs and an income. Furthermore, the allure of seemingly amazing profits from the illegal trafficking of wildlife products is sometimes too much to resist for some, no matter how steep the legal penalties are if caught. This and a combination of other factors have led to increased poaching in the park to satisfy the demand from illegal bushmeat consumers in urban areas. The demand is driven by a mistaken belief that illegal bushmeat is safe to consume.
To help address the illegal bushmeat trade problem in the Lower Zambezi, Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ), a non-profit making organization working in partnership with DNPW to achieve its mandate of combating the illegal wildlife trade and stopping the trade in illegal bushmeat, among its enforcement projects, established an Environmental Education Programme that has been running for close to 20 years within the three GMAs surrounding the park.
One of the biggest challenges Zambia faces is education. Particularly, educating the millions of learners in the country about the value of wildlife and how it can be conserved. CLZ has tackled this challenge head by creating the Nzou education programme. A conservation school club initiative that brings learners together in an informal setting. The program encourages and engages school-going children through school visits to the CLZ base camp and visits to the national park. To make sure learners have access to accurate information and learning materials, every year the matrons and patrons of these conservation clubs are invited to attend a teacher’s training workshop.
This year, CLZ partnered with Wildlife Crime Prevention (WCP) to focus on highlighting the dangers of the illegal bushmeat trade during the teacher training workshop. WCP is working in partnership with DNPW to curb the illegal wildlife trade in Zambia. In 2017, WCP launched “This Is Not A Game”, a behaviour change campaign communicating the dangers of illegal bushmeat to consumers. In partnership with CLZ, this year WCP successfully trained 32 teachers who oversee conservation clubs in communities living around the Lower Zambezi National Park.
The training was designed to empower the teachers of Nzovu Conservation Clubs with knowledge of the illegal bushmeat trade in Zambia and the devasting impacts it has. The bushmeat trade can be attributed to the continued loss of key wildlife species such as the Kafue Lechwe which is endemic to Zambia. Consuming illegal bushmeat is also linked to the spread of zoonotic diseases such as Anthrax from wildlife to humans.
I spoke to Martin Mulela, a conservation club patron at Margaret Mwachiyeya Secondary School in Chongwe, Rufunsa GMA. Martin has been managing the club for over five years and had this to say about the training; “This training has broadened my knowledge about conserving our natural environment, the wildlife found in it, and the effects of the illegal bushmeat trade.” He added, “I will pass this information I have acquired to my learners, with focus placed on the danger of being jailed, contracting diseases, as effects of consuming illegally sourced bushmeat”.
Environmental programs such as Nzou are not a new thing in Zambia. The Wildlife Environmental Conservation Society of Zambia has been running the Chongololo and Chipembele conservation clubs in most schools within Zambia for over 50 years. Learners take an informal learning approach to learn about wildlife and conservation-related topics and depict what they have learned through role-playing. In recent years these clubs have faced many funding challenges and are not as active as they used to be.
It goes without saying that the children are the future. So, the question is, how are we willing to invest in our future?