An article in CS Monitor tells how the New-York Based Wildlife Conservation Society is trying to stop poaching in Zambia: the old-fashioned way, by giving people something else to do.
The program goes beyond teaching former poachers new ways to earn a living; it is creating a sophisticated network of markets that makes money for locals while reducing poaching, improving land use, and supporting conservation.
They are also introducing carrots for those who comply (while keeping the sticks for those who don't)
Mr. Lewis notes, "[poachers] can't do it without the support of the local community."
In that context, promoting conservation means recognizing the reasons poachers hunt – and setting up a business model that gives local residents the opportunity to make a real, legal, living, says Lewis as he sits outside the program's local trading center.
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1 comment:
WCS in Zambia are just another donor operation, by definition unsustainable. Attempts have been made to persuade Lewis that until the land tenure situation has been addressed, in particular the question of the ownership and custodianship of the natural resources, there will be no sustained development or conservation. Why, when the House of Chiefs has accepted the need for the creation of chiefdom Trusts, does he continue on with his antediluvian ways. His Admade programme, now abandoned, points the way to yet another future waste of everyone's time.
The Luembe Conservancy Trust
ipamanning@gmail.com
http://zambiaconservation.blogspot.com
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