Zimbabwe is full of elephants and conflict with villagers is growing. A new approach hopes to help
HWANGE: When GPS-triggered alerts show an elephant herd heading toward villages near Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, Capon Sibanda springs into action. He posts warnings in WhatsApp groups before speeding off on his bicycle to inform nearby residents without phones or network access.
The new system of tracking elephants wearing GPS collars was launched last year by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It aims to prevent dangerous encounters between people and elephants, which are more frequent as climate change worsens competition for food and water.
'When we started it was more of a challenge, but it's becoming phenomenal,' said Sibanda, 29, one of the local volunteers trained to be community guardians.
For generations, villagers banged pots, shouted or burned dung to drive away elephants. But worsening droughts and shrinking resources have pushed the animals to raid villages more often, destroying crops and infrastructure and sometimes injuring or killing people.
Zimbabwe's elephant population is estimated at around 100,000, nearly double the land's capacity. The country hasn't culled elephants in close to four decades. That's because of pressure from wildlife conservation activists, and because the process is expensive, according to parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo.
Conflicts between humans and wildlife such as elephants, lions and hyenas killed 18 people across the southern African country between January and April this year, forcing park authorities to kill 158 'trouble' animals during that period.
'Droughts are getting worse. The elephants devour the little that we harvest,' said Senzeni Sibanda, a local councilor and farmer, tending her tomato crop with cow dung manure in a community garden that also supports a school feeding program.
Technology now supports the traditional tactics. Through the EarthRanger platform introduced by IFAW, authorities track collared elephants in real time. Maps show their proximity to the buffer zone — delineated on digital maps, not by fences — that separate the park and hunting concessions from community land.
At a park restaurant one morning IFAW field operations manager Arnold Tshipa monitored moving icons on his laptop as he waited for breakfast. When an icon crossed a red line, signaling a breach, an alert pinged.
'We're going to be able to see the interactions between wildlife and people,' Tshipa said. 'This allows us to give more resources to particular areas."
The system also logs incidents like crop damage or attacks on people and livestock by predators such as lions or hyenas and retaliatory attacks on wildlife by humans. It also tracks the location of community guardians like Capon Sibanda.
'Every time I wake up, I take my bike, I take my gadget and hit the road,' Sibanda said. He collects and stores data on his phone, usually with photos. 'Within a blink,' alerts go to rangers and villagers, he said.
His commitment has earned admiration from locals, who sometimes gift him crops or meat. He also receives a monthly food allotment worth about $80 along with internet data.
Parks agency director Edson Gandiwa said the platform ensures that 'conservation decisions are informed by robust scientific data.'
Villagers like Senzeni Sibanda say the system is making a difference: 'We still bang pans, but now we get warnings in time and rangers react more quickly.'
Still, frustration lingers. Sibanda has lost crops and water infrastructure to elephant raids and wants stronger action. 'Why aren't you culling them so that we benefit?' she asked. 'We have too many elephants anyway.'
Her community, home to several hundred people, receives only a small share of annual trophy hunting revenues, roughly the value of one elephant or between $10,000 and $80,000, which goes toward water repairs or fencing. She wants a rise in Zimbabwe's hunting quota, which stands at 500 elephants per year, and her community's share increased.
The elephant debate has made headlines. In September last year, activists protested after Zimbabwe and Namibia proposed slaughtering elephants to feed drought-stricken communities. Botswana's then-president offered to gift 20,000 elephants to Germany, and the country's wildlife minister mock-suggested sending 10,000 to Hyde Park in the heart of London so Britons could 'have a taste of living alongside elephants.'
Zimbabwe's collaring project may offer a way forward. Sixteen elephants, mostly matriarchs, have been fitted with GPS collars, allowing rangers to track entire herds by following their leaders. But Hwange holds about 45,000 elephants, and parks officials say it has capacity for 15,000. Project officials acknowledge a huge gap remains.
In a recent collaring mission, a team of ecologists, vets, trackers and rangers identified a herd. A marksman darted the matriarch from a distance. After some tracking using a drone and a truck, team members fitted the collar, whose battery lasts between two and four years. Some collected blood samples. Rangers with rifles kept watch.
Once the collar was secured, an antidote was administered, and the matriarch staggered off into the wild, flapping its ears.
'Every second counts,' said Kudzai Mapurisa, a parks agency veterinarian.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
16 hours ago
- Arab News
Toll in lynching of Nigeria wedding guests rises to 12
JOS: The number of people killed after a mob stormed a bus carrying Muslim wedding guests in central Nigeria's volatile Plateau state has risen to 12, according to the Nigerian presidency. The dead include the groom's father and brother, it said. President Bola Tinubu has condemned the killings, the latest attack to hit the region where tensions are high after a series of bloody attacks in recent days, with ethnic Fulani nomadic Muslim herders suspected of killing dozens of people in Plateau's Mangu local government area. Police, survivors and local organizations said around 30 people on a bus to a wedding lost their way, stopped to ask for directions, and were accosted by an irate mob. They were attacked with sticks, machetes and stones and their bus set ablaze, a survivor told AFP. Initially authorities had confirmed eight dead with four reported missing. Tinubu described the lynching 'as unacceptable and barbaric,' said a statement from his office which said the dead included the groom's father and brother. The Nigerian leader ordered the arrest and punishment of the culprits as he urged the Plateau state government to 'take decisive action in handling these vicious cycles of violence.' Fulani herders in the state have long clashed with settled farmers, many of whom are Christian, over access to land and resources. Police say they have arrested 22 suspects in connection with the attack.
Al Arabiya
2 days ago
- Al Arabiya
Mexican authorities rescue 3,400 trafficked baby turtles
Mexican authorities said Friday they had rescued over 3,400 protected baby turtles stuffed into cardboard boxes set to be trafficked. During a roadblock in the southern state of Chiapas, agents found the critters 'in overcrowded conditions' in boxes in a vehicle whose driver was arrested on wildlife trafficking charges, the environmental protection prosecutor's office said in a statement. The baby animals were freshwater Meso-American sliders, native to Mexico, Central America and Colombia. They are protected in Mexico against overexploitation. 'The specimens were transported without documentation proving their legal origin, which constitutes a violation of environmental regulations,' the prosecutor's office said. The turtles were taken to a specialized unit for rehabilitation and to determine whether they can be released back into the wild.
Arab News
3 days ago
- Arab News
Rwanda arrests opposition leader, says investigative body
KIGALI: Rwanda has arrested prominent opposition leader Victoire Ingabire, who is being held at a detention facility in the capital Kigali on charges of inciting the public and creating a criminal organization, a state investigative agency was freed in 2018 after serving six years of a 15-year jail sentence handed to her in 2012 following her conviction on charges related to conspiring to form an armed group and seeking to minimize the 1994 is now accused of 'playing a role in creating a criminal organization and engaging in acts that incite public disorder,' the Rwanda Investigations Bureau said in a statement late on did not say when she would be charged in who heads unregistered opposition party DALFA–Umurinzi, returned from exile in the Netherlands to contest a presidential election in 2010, but was barred from standing after being accused of genocide year President Paul Kagame, in power for a quarter of a century, won re-election after securing 99.18 percent of the vote, according to the electoral is lauded for transforming Rwanda from the ruins of the 1994 genocide to a thriving economy but his reputation has also been tainted by longstanding accusations of rights abuses and supporting rebels in neighboring Democratic Republic of denies the allegations.
