Over a cup of heavily sugared instant coffee this morning, I got to thinking about where the wild things are here in Africa, when the famous children’s book author, Maurice Sendak, popped into my head. At the risk of shattering your dreams & visions of Africa, true “wildlife” no longer exists here on the Motherland. There are virtually no free-ranging lands for wildlife to roam free on as they once did not so long ago before intense poaching decimated populations during the tusk & horn rush of the 80’s.
Nearly all of Africa is now either protected game reserve, national parkland, or privately fenced land owned by commercial farmers. Governments also own state land which they designate for various land-use purposes. The two concerning wildlife are Controlled Hunting Areas and Wildlife Management Areas. WMA’s are supposedly protected areas but allow for the sustainable utilization of some wildlife and issue one-time hunting licenses for target species. These are usually areas which are sandwiched between national parks and agricultural use areas to provide a migratory buffer zone for animals. CHA’s are designated as an area where licensed hunters may bring down whatever their black little hearts wish, so long as they abide by quotas.
Small pockets of land where wildlife are truly wild exist only in Southern Tanzania, parts of Zambia, and on the outskirts of the Kalahari in Botswana. This is the depressing reality of Africa today. If you want to see game, you have to either go pay for the opportunity at a national park or you have to pay to go pump a high caliber cartridge into them at a hunting ranch. You wont be seeing them on a leisurely Sunday afternoon drive through the countryside. All land which is not set aside as a national park or protected area in Zimbabwe, Namibia, Mozambique, Kenya, & South Africa is owned by ancestors of white European colonists. All of it is fenced, which leaves nowhere for the game to migrate to. Most protected areas are not fenced which means as the game wander outside the park boundaries, they end up on or near some rancher’s farm and are viewed as a pest or threat to livestock. Most are shot on site.
Africa is in deep trouble. Between AIDS, drought, malaria, poverty, and wildlife mismanagement, its’ a sinking black hole. Once the wildlife goes extinct, tourism, their only real hope for an income industry, will dry up. The Egyptian pyramids and Victoria Falls won’t be enough to lure international tourists to this faraway land, left behind by the modern world. It’s going to take an effort of enormous magnitude to change things here. Radical land reform policy should procure their (wildlife) ancestral home ranges to ensure sufficient space for breeding territories without the impact of human settlement. A military branch of this consortium should enforce the pact, with members on the ground in-country. This could be combined with radical human population growth control measures. Africa could adopt a policy similar to what they’ve done in China, limiting families to 2 children. Currently, the average family across Africa has 5-7 kids. Western aid money comes in as a bandage on a gaping wound with a compound fracture. Most ends up in the pockets of government officials and the cycle of corruption continues. We can’t rely on the problem to be solved at the country level. It must be addressed on the continent scale.
Of course, this pipedream I’m smokin’ will never happen.
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