location: Zimbabwe

location: Zimbabwe

Social media activity version | Lean version

Analysis of largest elephant surveys ever shows stable population, but disturbing trends
- New research comparing data from the two largest-ever elephant surveys reveals the overall population in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area is stable, but also uncovers some concerning local trends.
- Elephant numbers in Botswana, home to more elephants than any other country, are stable overall, but declining numbers in areas where hunting is permitted, and increasing numbers in protected areas, suggest underlying issues for Botswana’s elephants.
- Survey comparisons reveal that elephants have all but disappeared from the western Angolan section of the KAZA area, but a lack of local research, an issue across the region, means conservationists are unsure why.
- More research is needed across the transfrontier conservation area to ensure a safe future for the world’s largest elephant population.

Locals slam Zimbabwe for turning a blind eye to Chinese miner’s violations
- Mining workers and villagers near the Bikita Minerals lithium mine in Zimbabwe accuse the government and Chinese mining company Sinomine Resource Group of sidelining environmental and social standards in the scramble for lithium.
- After a series of displacements, spills, labor abuses, a death, and little action by authorities, locals and experts accuse the government of failing to enforce its own laws and letting bad mining practices run loose.
- According to industry experts, in theory, Chinese investments come with an increasingly robust set of ESG standards, but in practice these aren’t followed if host countries “shy away” from making such demands from their new partners.
- Zimbabwe, under economic stress, holds Africa’s largest lithium reserves and sees potential for an economic boost from mining the critical mineral, which represents the country’s fastest growing industry, with companies from China as the largest share of investors

Count, connect, conserve: Southern Africa elephant survey points the way (commentary)
- The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is the largest transboundary terrestrial conservation area in the world – spanning five countries in southern Africa, it is home to Africa’s largest savanna elephant population.
- A 2022 survey of KAZA’s elephants revealed an estimated 227,900 individuals, but their movement is increasingly blocked by fences and human settlements, pointing to the need for better habitat connections and corridors.
- “Now that KAZA’s elephants have been counted, the landscape’s key wildlife areas must be connected, so that elephants and other species can be better conserved,” a new op-ed states.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

As the world swims in plastic, some offer an answer: Ban the toxic two
- Anti-plastic campaigners have achieved limited initial success in passing bans based on the toxic health effects of some plastic types, especially those that contain known carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals.
- Some activists say that two of the most toxic types of plastic, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) should be completely banned. But so far, bans of polystyrene in Zimbabwe, Scotland and elsewhere have focused only on certain products, such as takeout containers.
- PVC is used in medical devices and children’s products, despite its well-known toxicity. PVC and polystyrene are both used in consumer construction, where they can leach chemicals into water or home air, or release particles into the wider environment.
- The U.S. EPA is reviewing vinyl chloride, PVC’s main ingredient and a known carcinogen, but the outcome won’t be known for several years and may only affect U.S. production, not imported products made of PVC. More than 60 nations want a ban on “problematic plastics” by the global plastics treaty now being negotiated.

Report: Rush for ‘clean energy’ minerals in Africa risks repeating harmful extractivist model
- The nonprofit Global Witness investigated lithium mining projects in Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Namibia, which appear to reproduce the same model of extractivism that has impoverished African countries for centuries.
- In March, residents of the Namibian town of Uis took to the streets to protest the activities of Chinese miner Xinfeng, alleging the company was carrying out large-scale industrial mining without the proper permits or social license.
- In Zimbabwe, activist Farai Maguwu from the Centre for Natural Resource Governance described a similar experience of exclusion and exploitation at Chinese miner Sinomine’s Bikita lithium operation, calling it “typical extractivism.”
- One of the ways to prevent exploitation is to shut out companies that “socialize the costs and privatize the profits,” Maguwu said, adding he remains hopeful that encouraging competition between companies from across the world is the way to ensure better outcomes for Zimbabweans.

Zimbabwe sees recycling boom as waste picking becomes lucrative business
- Recycling trash by picking it up and selling it, or buying it and converting it into profitable materials, has become a booming business in Zimbabwe, as the country and its citizens struggle under hyperinflation.
- Community-based recycling organizations, which handpick litter, quadrupled in the last few years, now picking up 15% of all plastic waste generated in the country, says Zimbabwe’s Environmental Management Agency.
- Zimbabwe struggles under the weight of its plastic waste found in rivers, streets and open areas, which causes water pollution and breaks down into microplastics.
- However, environmentalists say relying on recycling itself, which can cause its own pollution, is still not enough to tackle the country and world’s plastic waste problem at its root.

Broken houses and promises: residents still in poverty near massive diamond project
- More than 14 years since the discovery of the Marange diamond fields, one of the world’s largest diamond-producing projects, relocated residents and locals living near the mines are still living in poverty.
- The government and mining companies promised homes, electricity, water, employment, social services and compensation, but residents and civil society organizations say they have still not received many of these promises since Mongabay last reported on the project in 2016.
- Rivers, which residents rely on for their livestock, vegetable plots and cleaning, are polluted and silted by artisanal miners seeking additional income and opportunities to escape poverty.
- Previously, foreign companies in Zimbabwe had to either give the majority of their shares to locals or divest money into community trusts. However, this promise has fallen short since current president, Emmerson Mnangagwa, reversed the law.

Australian oil and gas firm Invictus awarded carbon offset project in Zimbabwe
- The REDD+ project covers three national forest reserves near Hwange National Park and comes as Invictus has begun to drill for oil and gas in the north of the country
- Invictus says based on estimates still to be verified, the offset project could sequester 1 million metric tons of carbon per year, making its oil and gas drilling carbon neutral.
- Conservationists question the logic behind leveraging state forest reserves for REDD+ projects, saying they favor instead a “wildlife economy approach” to restoring landscapes.

Forests & Finance: Sit-ins, seeds over seedlings, and fuel-saving cookstoves
- Liberian communities affected by logging have staged a sit-in protest in front of the country’s ministry of finance, demanding unpaid royalties.
- Cookstoves and woodlots are the first step in a plan to halt deforestation in southern Zimbabwe.
- And a reforestation initiative experiments with providing Zimbabwean farmers seeds from indigenous trees rather than seedlings.
- Forests & Finance is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of briefs about Africa’s forests.

Element Africa: Diamonds, oil, coltan, and more diamonds
- Offshore diamond prospecting threatens a fishing community in South Africa, while un-checked mining for the precious stones on land is silting up rivers in Zimbabwe.
- In Nigeria, serial polluter Shell is accused of not cleaning up a spill from a pipeline two months ago; the company says the spill was mostly water from flushing out the pipeline.
- Also in Nigeria, mining for coltan, the source of niobium and tantalum, important metals in electronics applications, continues to destroy farms and nature even as the government acknowledges it’s being done illegally.
- Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin rounding up brief stories from the commodities industry in Africa.

As poachers poison wildlife, Zimbabwe finds an antidote in tougher laws
- Poisons like cyanide can be a deadly weapon for poachers, allowing them to kill dozens of animals without needing access to firearms or the backing of criminal syndicates.
- Wildlife poisoning is on the rise across Africa, targeting elephants as well as pushing endangered vultures toward extinction.
- A new study says Zimbabwe, which a decade ago witnessed some of the deadliest mass poisonings of elephants, has developed a sound basis for curbing poisonings by tightening laws to criminalize intent to use poison to kill wildlife.
- In addition to laws and renewed efforts to improve intelligence gathering, private players are pushing to ensure better law enforcement, resulting in more prosecutions and deterrent sentences.

White rhino conservation project attempts paradigm shift by including local community
- A project to reintroduce white rhinos in western Zimbabwe has been launched for the first time on community-owned land.
- Two rhinos have so far been released in a small sanctuary comprising grazing land voluntarily donated by villages located near the southern boundary of Hwange National Park.
- A key pillar of the rhino protection strategy has been to recruit scouts from the local community and compensate them fairly.
- As it grows, it’s hoped the sanctuary will raise tourism dollars for community development, and also create a buffer zone to protect farmers’ crops and livestock from Hwange’s elephants, lions and hyenas.

Cash-strapped Zimbabwe pushes to be allowed to sell its ivory stockpile
- Zimbabwe is continuing to push for international support for selling off its stockpile of elephant ivory and rhino horn, saying the revenue is needed to fund conservation efforts.
- Funding for the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority comes largely from tourism-related activity, which has virtually evaporated during the COVID-19 pandemic, leaving the authority with shortages of staff, equipment, and funds for communities living adjacent to wildlife.
- But critics say allowing the sale of the 136 metric tons of elephant ivory and rhino horn that Zimbabwe is holding (mostly from animals that died of natural causes) will only stoke demand and lead to a surge in poaching.
- They point to similar surges following other one-off sales in 1999 and 2008, but some observers say these were unusual circumstances (the latter sale coincided with the global recession), and that a poaching spike won’t necessarily follow this time around.

Farmers rediscover benefits of traditional small grains in Zimbabwe
- Farmers in southern Zimbabwe are shifting back to growing traditional small grains and maize after experiencing food shortages from the failure of their hybrid maize crops, which haven’t adapted well to the region’s dry soils and climate.
- In Bikita district, a group of 220 farmers have brought back several small grians like the traditional svoboda and a tuber called tsenza that grows in wetlands.
- Farmers find themselves at a crossroad between seeds as hybrid maize seeds are costly and further degrade dry soils with their accompanying fertilizers, while cultivating small grains is labor-intensive and doesn’t produce much foliage for animal feed and crop manure.
- Agronomists say the government should further support farmers in growing small grains to improve soil and dietary health.

Journeying in biocultural diversity and conservation philanthropy: Q&A with Ken Wilson
- Ken Wilson has been working at the confluence of community rights, biocultural diversity, and philanthropy for the better part of 40 years as an academic, within foundations, and as an advisor and NGO leader.
- In those capacities, he has been a keen observer of a broad shift in conservation and conservation philanthropy toward more inclusive and community-oriented approaches beyond establishing strict protected areas.
- Wilson says the concept of biocultural diversity is being more widely embraced by these sectors because “it is a term that somehow invites attention to the connections – tangible and intangible – between local cultures, territorial governance systems, sustainable livelihood traditions and the experience of sacredness.”
- Wilson spoke about his origins and inspirations, trends in philanthropy, his love of dragonflies, and a number of other topics in a wide-ranging interview with Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler.

Zimbabwe’s forests go up in smoke to feed its tobacco habit
- Tobacco farmers are responsible for a fifth of the total annual deforestation in Zimbabwe, cutting down trees to burn in their curing barns.
- While the practice is not permitted, enforcement remains lax, and solutions such as establishing woodlots have not proved fast or scalable enough to address the problem.
- With Zimbabwe expected to produce 300,000 metric tons of tobacco by 2025, which will require burning 10 times as much wood, the current situation is unsustainable, officials warn.

‘Rural women in Zimbabwe are in constant contact with climate change’: Q&A with Shamiso Mupara
- According to Shamiso Mupara, founder and executive director of Environmental Buddies Zimbabwe, climate change, droughts and food shortages are having a greater toll on women than men in rural Zimbabwe, as seen in the rise of forced marriages during the 1992 year of extreme drought.
- Growing up in a rural community affected by regular periods of drought, Mupara decided to dedicate her life to empowering Zimbabwean women and increasing their financial independence with environmental campaigns and beekeeping trainings.
- Due to land degradation, Mupara told Mongabay, women are finding it increasingly difficult to farm, feed their families or engage in meaningful forest-based businesses.

Community tree nursery and garden bring a ray of hope to Zimbabwean village
- Tobacco production and brick making are needed sources of income for the Zimbabwean village of Guruve, but are also contributing to the rapid deforestation of woodlots to feed the growing industries.
- To address deforestation, a community women-led tree nursery project has planted more than 200 native tree species in the past year and anticipates planting 2,000 more by the end of this year.
- The project also includes a community garden that provides the women and families with an additional form of income not tied to tobacco production, and aimed at keeping kids in school by tackling food insecurity.

In Zimbabwe, an irrigation project threatens a tribe’s land and trees
- A Zimbabwean minority tribe, the Shangaan people, say they are living in suspense as they face eviction for the construction of an irrigation scheme that will raze 12,940 hectares (31,975 acres) of land containing mopane and baobab trees in their area.
- According to Zimbabwe’s Communal Land Rights Act, communal land is owned by the President who decides how it is to be used and occupied.
- The villagers have been sustainably conserving and living in the region for years through regenerative farming practices, stopping veld fires and preventing deforestation.

Rising temperatures further threaten already endangered African wild dogs
- Researchers examined three populations of African wild dogs in Botswana, Kenya and Zimbabwe to understand if high heat correlates with increased mortality.
- In two out of the three sites, there was a strong relationship between extreme temperatures and increased mortality, with intentional human killings, snare traps, road fatalities, and disease transmission from domesticated dogs responsible for 44% of the deaths.
- The researchers say high heat is pushing both wild dogs and pastoralists out of their typical grounds, creating a higher likelihood of human-wildlife conflict and mortalities for the dogs.

Building a road to recovery for subtle racism in conservation (commentary)
- The following stories are based on firsthand experiences, personal observations, and eyewitness accounts related to race and privilege in the conservation space in Africa.
- More than 20 African women from nearly a dozen countries, each conservation leaders in their own right, contributed to these stories.
- They came together with a desire not to pulverize the conservation space, but rather to heal it. The goal is to offer a chance for self-reflection and open conversation in a world where too many things go unsaid.
- This article is a commentary, the views expressed are not necessarily those of Mongabay.

Podcast: Five years after the death of Cecil the Lion, trophy hunting debate rages on
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a look at the state of the debate over trophy hunting five years after the killing of Cecil the Lion sparked widespread outrage.
- How has the debate over trophy hunting evolved since Cecil’s death? We’re joined by three guests to discuss the issue: Iris Ho of Humane Society International; Amy Dickman, founder of the Ruaha Carnivore Project; and Maxi Pia Louis, director of a Namibian organization that works with local communities to support conservation.
- We also revisit a conversation with Jane Goodall that we featured here on the Mongabay Newscast in 2017, in which she discusses her take on trophy hunting.

‘Let us trade’: Debate over ivory sales rages ahead of CITES summit
- Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe want to sell off their ivory stocks to raise money for conservation.
- Growing human and elephant populations in these southern African countries have provoked increased human-wildlife conflict, and the governments see legal ivory sales as a way to generate revenue for conservation and development funding.
- Other countries, most notably Kenya, oppose the proposal, on the grounds that previous legal sales stimulated demand for ivory and coincided with a sharp increase in poaching.

Documentary seeks to tip the scales against illegal pangolin trafficking
- New film aims to raise awareness and strengthen protection and conservation of pangolins.
- Hunting and trafficking of these animals in Africa has sharply intensified to meet demand from Asia in recent years.
- Pangolins have historically been used for traditional medicine, decoration and gift-giving across Africa.

Plan to ship gorillas from DRC to Zimbabwe raises alarm
- The head of Zimbabwe’s wildlife authority says the agency plans to receive a donation of gorillas and okapis from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), part of a wildlife exchange program that recently saw 10 white rhinos sent to the DRC from Zimbabwe.
- The plan, officials say, is still being worked out. But the prospect has raised alarm over the welfare of the animals, the impact on the local ecosystem, and the possibility that animals from the DRC could be infected with Ebola.
- Zimbabwe has previously sold wild animals for display in China, leading some activists to fear the gorillas and okapis could ultimately end up in that country — an allegation Zimbabwean authorities strongly deny.

Language and conservation (insider)
- Using an example from a trip to Zimbabwe and Botswana, Jeremy Hance writes about the words we choose matter when it comes to conservation.
- A trip to Africa to see its wildlife should be an experience that goes well beyond entertainment: it should be educational, enlightening, moving, spiritual and, ultimately, transformative.
- When a guide refers to species by silly nicknames, one can’t help but feel that the guide places little value on their own wildlife.
- This is an insider story. To read, please become a member.

Tsetse fly numbers dwindle in the warming Zambezi Valley
- Tsetse flies carry the microorganism that causes sleeping sickness in humans and livestock, but a recent study reveals that their numbers have dropped at a site in the Zambezi Valley as temperatures have climbed.
- Sleeping sickness, known also as trypanosomiasis, is a debilitating and potentially deadly disease to humans that also kills perhaps 1 million cattle each year.
- The study’s authors say that the decline of the tsetse in Zimbabwe’s Zambezi Valley might be accompanied by a rise in their numbers in cooler locales where they once weren’t as prevalent.

Stay or go? Understanding a partial seasonal elephant migration
- Elephants in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park wearing GPS tracking tags shared a general dry-season home range but followed three different wet-season migration strategies: residency, short-distance migration, and long-distance migration.
- Despite similar dry-season conditions that kept all the tagged elephants near provisioned waterholes, the migrating elephants began their seasonal movements at the onset of the first rains.
- Scientists urge collaboration among stakeholders and countries to maintain the long-distance, cross-border migrations some animals need to survive.

Zimbabwe’s chiefs revive tradition to save the country’s last pangolins
- Asian pangolins are fast dwindling for the illegal international trade, and traffickers are now targeting African pangolins for new supply, raising fears in Zimbabwe that they could wipe out the country’s last pangolins.
- However, traditional leaders, with the support of the Zimbabwean government, are playing a strong role in protecting the country’s remaining pangolins.
- They are reminding their communities of age-old myths and beliefs about pangolins, as well as imposing heavy fines on those who harm them, to instill a sense of collective responsibility among the people.

Owner of South African hunting company indicted by US prosecutors over illegal elephant hunt
- The owner of a trophy hunting business in South Africa has been indicted by prosecutors with the United States Department of Justice for violating the Endangered Species Act and the Lacey Act.
- Prosecutors in the US state of Colorado have alleged that Hanno van Rensburg, a South African national and owner of Authentic African Adventures, led an illegal hunt in Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou National Park in 2015 and bribed Zimbabwean government officials with somewhere between $5,000 and $8,000 to look the other way. Van Rensburg is also accused of conspiring with a member of the hunting party from Colorado to illegally export elephant ivory to the US by falsifying documents to claim that the hunter was a South African resident and did not shoot the elephant inside the national park.
- While prosecutors did not name the Colorado hunter with whom van Rensburg conspired to illegally export the elephant trophies, he has been identified as Paul Ross Jackson of Evergreen, Colorado. Jackson, a former vice president of the Dallas Safari Club, pleaded guilty in April to violating the U.S. Endangered Species Act in connection to the same hunt.

Pangolins on the brink as Africa-China trafficking persists unabated
- Pangolins are the most trafficked mammal in the world, with more than a million snatched from the wild in the past decade, according to IUCN estimates. The four Asian species have been hunted nearly to extinction, while the four African species are being poached in record numbers.
- The illegal trade largely goes to China and other East Asian nations, where pangolin meat is an expensive delicacy served to flaunt wealth and influence. Pangolin is also a preferred ingredient in traditional medicine in Asia and Africa. Traditional healers in Sierra Leone use pangolin to treat 59 medical conditions, though there is no evidence of efficacy.
- In 2016, pangolins were given the highest level of protection under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), a multilateral treaty signed by 183 nations. But laws and enforcement in African nations, along illegal trade routes, and in Asia continue to be weak, with conservationists working hard to strengthen them.
- Pangolins don’t thrive in captivity, but the Tikki Hywood Foundation in Zimbabwe and Save Vietnam’s Wildlife have succeeded in rescuing confiscated pangolins and restoring them to the wild. Six U.S. zoos are trying to raise pangolins as part of the controversial Pangolin Consortium project — only 29 of 45 imported individuals remain alive.

Trump’s elephant, lion trophy hunting policy hit with double lawsuits
- In policymaking, the Interior Dept. announced it was allowing U.S. citizens to import elephant and lion body parts to the United States last November. President Trump immediately put that decision on hold. Then in 2018, the USFWS said trophy hunting decisions would be made on a case-by-case basis.
- Now, Born Free USA, the Humane Society of the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity, and other litigants have filed a lawsuit against the plan, saying USFWS policymaking failed to offer a public comment period, lacked transparency, and didn’t outline a process as to how decisions will be made.
- In a second lawsuit, Born Free USA, an NGO, accused the Trump administration of stacking its newly formed International Wildlife Conservation Council (IWCC) with pro-trophy hunting members, some with ties to the gun industry, an allegation largely confirmed by an Associated Press study.
- The IWCC held its first meeting this month. A critic who attended said she was shocked that a council meant to advise the government on conservation seemed to know very little about the poaching crisis in Africa. A renowned trophy hunter was appointed to head the group’s conservation subcommittee.

Trump to allow elephant and lion trophies on case-by-case basis
- President Obama banned U.S. citizens from bringing home elephant and lion trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe. In November, 2017, Trump’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed that ban until Trump himself overruled the USFWS, pausing the new rule until the president could make a final decision.
- This week, the USFWS said in a memorandum that it will permit U.S. citizens to bring lion and elephant hunting trophies home from Africa – potentially including Zimbabwe and Zambia – on a case-by-case basis.
- Conservationists largely responded negatively to the decision, critiquing it for offering little or no transparency, inviting corruption, and identifying no stated system or criteria for determining how permit selections will be made.
- A variety of lawsuits are ongoing which could still influence the shape of the new rule.

After exporting baby elephants, Zimbabwe pledges to turn over new leaf on conservation
- On December 23, Zimbabwe officials quietly loaded thirty-five elephants between the ages of three and five onto planes that would fly them thousands of miles to safari parks in China. The elephants had been taken from the wild and their families in Hwange National Park.
- Zimbabwe airlifted the elephants to their new homes just a month after a stunning bloodless coup in the country led to the ouster of Robert Mugabe, who oppressively ruled Zimbabwe for 37 years, and the installation of Emmerson Mnangagwa, a former First Vice President and ally of Mugabe’s.
- For years, Zimbabwe conservation policies have largely depended on exploitation, often via trophy hunting and selling animals abroad. But change may be in the air.

U.S. court ruling complicates Trump’s elephant and lion policy
- A federal appeals court has found that the Obama administration did not follow proper procedures in 2014 when it banned importing elephant trophies from Zimbabwe. The USFWS failed to seek public comment at the time, among other infractions.
- This new ruling puts the Trump administration decision, made in November, ending the ban and allowing elephant trophy hunting imports, into question.
- Further complicating matters is Trump’s dubbing of the November USFWS decision as a “horror show,” and his putting of the policy on hold awaiting his response. To date, Trump has said nothing further.
- The way things stand now, U.S. hunters can import elephant trophies from South Africa and Namibia. They can import lion body parts from South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia. But the legality of importing elephant trophies from Zambia and Zimbabwe remains in limbo.

Scientists call for cheetahs to be listed as Endangered
- Only about 3,577 adult cheetahs remain in southern Africa, a new study has found.
- More than 50 percent of these animals live on unprotected lands, where they are sometimes persecuted due to conflict with local farmers.
- Revising the status of the cheetah from Vulnerable to Endangered on the IUCN Red List could help conservationists create more awareness about the species and “open more avenues to fund conservation and population monitoring efforts,” researchers say.

Trump’s indecision on trophy hunting reignites heated debate
- On November 15, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted a ban on the U.S. import of elephant trophies from Zimbabwe and Zambia. The president put a hold on the order two days later, calling trophy hunting in a tweet a “horror show.” He has yet to make a final determination regarding the USFWS order.
- At the same time, Interior Department Secretary Ryan Zinke announced the establishment of the International Wildlife Conservation Council. One goal of the body will be to promote with the U.S. public the “economic benefits that result from U.S. citizens traveling abroad to [trophy] hunt.”
- While trophy hunting does provide revenue for land and wildlife conservation in some special cases in Africa, the new U.S. council will likely have its work cut out for it, since many Americans no longer see trophy hunting of endangered species as ethical.
- Conservationists counter pro-trophy hunting advocates by noting that rampant government corruption in nations like Zimbabwe and Zambia make it unlikely that most trophy hunting revenues ever reach the African preserves, local communities or rangers that need the funding.

Trump budget threatens Zimbabwe climate change resilience programs
- President Trump has threatened to cut U.S. aid to developing nations by a third. This could impact Zimbabwe which receives $150 million annually to decrease food insecurity for 2.1 million people.
- Aid to Zimbabwe is important to rural farmers, victims of escalating drought due to climate change. USAID finances dams and irrigation projects, making agriculture sustainable.
- The 2018 budget isn’t due to be finalized by Congress until October 1, 2017, leaving Zimbabwe’s people in uncertainty as to the direly needed aid.
- What seems certain is that the climate resilience program will not be expanded to meet the needs of yet to be served Zimbabwean communities.

Climate change is increasing the mortality rate of African wild dog pups
- The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), a native of sub-Saharan Africa, is listed as Endangered on the IUCN Red List, which reports that there are only an estimated 6,600 adults in 39 subpopulations left in the wild — and that their numbers continue to decline due to ongoing habitat fragmentation, conflict with humans, and infectious disease.
- Compounding these threats to the species’ survival, according to a paper published in the Journal of Animal Ecology yesterday, climate change appears to be increasing the mortality rate for African wild dog pups.
- Researchers discovered that the packs spend less time hunting in hot weather. They also found that more pups died as the days got hotter, which they theorize is because, simply put, decreased hunting time means less food to feed the young.

Trophy hunters overstate contribution of big game hunting to African economies: Report
- Humane Society International (HSI) timed the release of the report to coincide with the start of Safari Club International’s (SCI) annual convention in Las Vegas, Nevada on February 1.
- US-based SCI, one of the world’s largest trophy hunting advocacy organizations, released a report in 2015 that claimed trophy hunting-related tourism contributes $426 million annually to the economies of eight African countries and creates more than 53,400 full- and part-time jobs.
- But the HSI report, prepared by Melbourne, Australia-based consultancy Economists At Large, found that SCI had “grossly overstated the contribution of big game hunting to eight African economies and that overall tourism in Africa dwarfs trophy hunting as a source of revenue,” according to a statement.

Cheetah populations crash as fastest-animal disappears from 91% of its range
- The world’s wild cheetah population is down to just 7,100 individuals, a decline of more than 90 percent since the turn of the 20th century
- Cheetah have disappeared across 91 percent of their historic range.
- The findings have led the authors to call for the cheetah to be up-listed from from ‘Vulnerable’ to ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List.

Hot stuff: improving chili fence effectiveness (in protecting crops from elephants)
- Farmers should prepare in advance to ensure chili fences provide the biggest bang for the buck
- Farmers must lead and participate in installing, using, and maintaining any method
- Combine various techniques and be open to new ideas, because no one method is foolproof

Zimbabwe is dehorning its rhinos to curb poaching
- In 2015, at least 50 rhinos were killed in Zimbabwe by poachers.
- Zimbabwe has been using dehorning as a policy to protect its rhinos against poaching since the 1990s.
- Dehorning, used in conjunction with intensive paramilitary protection, can help curb poaching, conservationist says.

Amid epic drought, villagers bitter over Zimbabwean ethanol plant
- The Green Fuel plant in Chisumbanje in eastern Zimbabwe became operational in 2011.
- Since then the livelihood of local farming people, already thin, has become dire. Community members and advocacy groups offer a litany of complaints against the company.
- In April, Billy Rautenbach, the owner of the companies with a controlling stake in Green Fuel, was named in the Panama Papers as having offshore accounts, prompting calls for an investigation into his financial dealings that has yet to materialize.

Reducing human-wildlife conflict in the blink of a light
- As people settle closer to remaining natural areas, livestock predation by lions and other wild carnivores causes financial loss to often poor herders and farmers.
- Disruptive light systems, invented independently by herders trying reduce nighttime guarding of animals, emulate the movements of a night watchman to dissuade lions, foxes, and other predators from approach penned livestock.
- Users of Lion Lights, invented by 11-year-old Richard Turere, and similar light systems report very high success in deterring would-be predators and can play a role as part of a human-wildlife conflict reduction toolkit.

Abuse, displacement, pollution: the legacy of Zimbabwe’s Marange diamonds
- Eastern Zimbabwe’s Marange diamond fields, discovered in 2006, have been touted by experts as the world’s biggest diamond find in generations.
- In 2008, government forces ruthlessly drove out illegal diamond miners, killing more than 200, according to human rights groups. Since then villagers suspected of illegal mining have been subject to torture and brutal extra-judicial punishments, rights groups allege. Mine waste has polluted local water sources, and some villagers relocated to make way for the mines have been resettled in starvation conditions.
- The Zimbabwean government recently ousted from the Marange fields all but one mining company, which it owns, leaving local people’s future in limbo.

After Cecil: lion perturbation, conservation, and value to a global society
- Wildtech continues its interview with Professor David Macdonald, director of WildCRU at Oxford University and of the long-term study of Cecil the Lion and his cohorts through the Hwange Lion Project.
- The results of WildCRU research persuaded the Zimbabwean authorities to reduce the annual lion hunt quota from 60 each year to between four and six lions – an order-of-magnitude reduction.
- The worldwide outrage and sorrow around Cecil’s death could represent “a fork in the road as to how global society wants to live alongside nature,” Macdonald says.

Studying Cecil: development and deployment of lion-tracking technology
- WildTech discusses wildlife tracking technology with Professor David Macdonald, director of a long-term study of lions, including Cecil the Lion, and co-founder of the Hwange Lion Project.
- The evolution of behavioral ecology has closely tracked advances in technology in often unexpected ways — and continues to do so.
- Combining old and new technologies can make for effective conservation strategies.

2015 was the worst year on record for rhino poaching in Africa
- South Africa, ground zero of rhino poaching in Africa, today reported a slight drop in the number of animals killed last year, but that decrease was more than offset by significant increases in neighboring countries.
- In Zimbabwe, poachers killed 12 rhinos in 2014 and a widely reported total of “at least 50” in 2015, while rhino deaths in Namibia also rose sharply, from 24 in 2014 to 80 last year.
- A number of rhino conservation measures were agreed to last week at the 66th Standing Committee of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Tags that protect, as well as track, endangered carnivores
- Modular tracking collars may make updates to tracking electronics more affordable.
- Researchers working with tech designers should define their needs specifically to ensure new devices meet your mission and criteria.
- Consistent communication with local ranchers is paramount when addressing human-wildlife conflict.

Jericho, brother of Cecil the lion, killed in Zimbabwe?
- Conservation group says Jericho, the brother of Cecil the lion, was killed on Saturday
- That claim is disputed by a researcher who tracks the lion.
- Cecil’s killing made international headlines because the lion was part of a long-running study by researchers at Oxford University’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.

Zimbabweans near protected areas feel good about wildlife. Tourists? Not so much.

Chilojo Cliffs in Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe, one of the four protected areas studied in the new paper. Photo credit: Gonarezhou Conservation Project/Patience Gandiwa. In Zimbabwe, people living near protected areas are quite happy about wildlife but not so much about tourists who visit these sites, according to a new paper published in Tropical Conservation […]
Land redistribution in Zimbabwe threatens wildlife and human populations

Secretary bird (Sagittarius serpentarius) in Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania (East Africa). Photo by: Rhett Butler. What started as a program aimed at land redistribution to empower vulnerable, landless people has turned into an ecological quandary. In many parts of Zimbabwe, commercial agriculture has given way to small-scale farming. A new study published in Mongabay’s open-access journal […]
Zimbabwe selling baby elephant calves to China, says environmental group

Frightened and malnourished female elephant calf in an enclosure in Zimbabwe prior to exportation to China. Photo courtesy of ELEPHANTS DC. A hundred thousand African elephants were killed by poachers for their ivory between 2010 and 2012. Now a new threat looms: a growing wildlife trade in baby animals to satisfy international tourism. Zimbabwe has […]
Firewood fervor may turn Zimbabwe into an ‘outright desert’

A baobob tree in scrub woodland in Masvingo Province, Zimbabwe. Photo by Kjdhambuza. Zimbabwe, home to more than 14 million people, is currently facing a severe economic crisis. Under President Robert Mugabe’s land distribution reforms, in the year 2000 all white-owned commercial farms were forcibly seized for redistribution to landless native Zimbabweans. In February this […]
Zebras for the win! Africa’s longest land migration discovered

With food and water scarce in many parts of Africa, many species migrate long-distances in order to survive. A new study published in the journal, Oryx has found a new record-breaker for the continent’s longest tracked terrestrial migration: a huge group of zebras that traveled a total distance of 500 kilometers (300 miles). The journey […]
Unlikely success: how Zimbabwe has become a global leader in rhino conservation

Raoul du Toit will be speaking at the Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 12th, 2013. With its collapsed economy, entrenched poverty, and political tremors, one would not expect that a country like Zimbabwe would have the capacity to safeguard its rhinos against determined and well-funded poachers, especially as just across the […]
Innovative idea: wildlife income may help people withstand drought in Africa

Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe. Getting local people to become invested in wildlife conservation is not always easy, especially in parts of the world where protected areas are seen as taking away natural resources from local communities. This tension lies around Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe, where a growing population of livestock herders competes with […]
Scientists: stop treating population growth as a ‘given’ and empower women

Climate change, biodiversity loss, resource depletion, water scarcity, and land issues: almost all of the world’s environmental problems are underpinned by too many people inhabiting a finite planet. A new study in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B warns that overpopulation—combined with over-consumption—is threatening to push the entire globe into “a collapse of global […]
Local knowledge matches scientific data on wildlife abundances

Zebra in Zimbabwe. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. How far can scientists trust local knowledge when it comes to ecosystems? This is a question that is undergoing heavy debate in scientific circles. A new study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science contributes to the debate by finding that basic local knowledge of animal abundance […]

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