Zim elephant poaching blamed on sanctions
The high demand for Ivory has cost Zimbabwe’ s special elephants to the evil hands of poachers who are connected to outside traders with 90 elephants said to have been killed due to cyanide poisoning by poachers.
The Zimbabwean government has put the blame on the poaching on the economic sanctions placed on the southern African nation. Reports from Harare say measures which were put in place to curb poaching including installation of satellite aerial view of the parks as well as drilling of boreholes which was to be funded by the World Bank was later withdrawn due to politics.
Edson Chadziya, the Director General of Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management said that conservative measures and efforts were put in place but due to illegal sanctions imposed by Western countries all were affected.
“The world bank wanted to come in with US67 million for aerial surveys and other conservative activities but when sanctions and politics set in, the funds were denied leading to the disaster now” said Chadziya.
“More boreholes should be drilled to avert water shortages in the parks which poachers are taking advantage of but no funds, sanctions is the barrier” he added.
The latest development is that the Minister of Defence Sydney Sekeremayi has pledged to deploy troops to the parks in an effort to stop poaching.
“This is an emergency and we had to take all necessary measures to respond to it. We are considering to deploy the army to the parks if necessary to protect the animals,” Sekeremayi told reporters.
In a campaign exercise of anti-poaching reports say, three poachers have been arrested and jailed for 16years each after being convicted for their role in elephant cyanide poisoning and eight others are still to stand trial while 4kgs of cyanide was surrendered by villagers in the nearby communities.
Zimbabwe is the one of the few African states with a large elephant herd and whether sanctions are lifted or not the government has pledged to double its efforts to protect the elephants.
Sources at the Hwange National Parks said that, the national park is understaffed instead of 700 workers including rangers, there are only 150 workers including rangers and poachers are taking advantage of this.
447 kg of ivory is said to have been intercepted in Dubai. – News Of The South
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