Namibia: Common Ground - Reducing human wildlife conflict

The WWF report ‘Common Ground’ assesses cases of Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC),
focusing on elephants as a flagship of these conflicts. Often the scale of the damage
that can be caused by them, and the fact that they can injure or even kill humans,
makes them the species that communities most fear.

Although the dynamics and drivers of HWC can be very different wherever it occurs,
there are themes in the studies that can be used to compose a 'Common Ground' or a
basic list of solutions available and tested. Here are some of them:

Scale of the problem

Common Ground found the most serious conflict and harm to both human
communities and elephants resulted from unplanned and unregulated development.
In Namibia, elephant related conflict costs communal farmers around $US 1 million a
year, while in some Nepalese communities it can be up to around a quarter of the
household incomes of poor farming families.

The most significant consequence of the conflict was loss of human life, but other
considerable, costs of human wildlife conflict go largely uncounted – for instance, in
Nepal, men in elephant-ravaged villages faced difficulties in marrying as women as
scared to move to villages where elephants are a problem. In some areas, retaliatory
killing of elephants was a major threat to already vulnerable elephant populations.

Effective land use planning can reduce HWC

In Nepal, the study compared communities with high levels of wild elephant damage
with an area where the conflict costs were at half those levels, and found that the less
damaged area had more forest cover in edge areas and less fragmented forests
overall. Further analysis revealed that the level of habitat fragmentation was actually
more influential in determining the amount of crop loss than the amount of forest
coverage itself - although there are many other factors which play a part.

In Namibia levels of crop damage were closely related to the distance of farms from
wildlife areas, with farms immediately adjacent to unfenced wildlife habitat being “a
drain on the national economy”. Human wildlife conflict in just one region of Namibia
was estimated as causing annual losses of US$700,000 to the national economy.
Therefore effective structures and planning process that ensure new agricultural
developments are places as far away from wildlife habitat as possible will reduce HWC
and ensure greater profitability for the agricultural enterprise.

Community Based Natural Resource Management

The report also found that an effective way to manage HWC was to give rights over
wildlife to local communities, thus enabling local communities to benefit from
neighbouring wildlife. Economic analysis in Namibia demonstrated that these
communities were able to generate more income from wildlife than they suffered from
wildlife losses. In Nepal, communities which received benefits from wildlife and
wildlife habitat showed a much greater tolerance towards elephants than
communities receiving no benefits.

A united effort
In order to be truly effective, prevention of Human Wildlife Conflict has to involve the
full scope of society: international organizations, governments, NGOs, communities,
consumers and individuals. Drivers of the problem are not just local, but can be
regional or even international. In Namibia for example, international agreements
between Europe and Africa artificially enhance the economic viability of the livestock
sector compared to other land-uses and add to wildlife conflict pressures.
Innovative financial solutions
In many cases, innovative financial solutions are required. These range from
compenstation and insurance, to Payments for Environmental Services and the
development of ‘Wildlife Friendly Products’. These solutions are available, but need
development, backing and support.

Field based solutions

There are a number of practical field based solutions that can limit the damage done
both to humans and human property, and to wildlife. These are solutions that aim to
prevent wildlife entering crops or villages. But this is something on a case-by-case
basis. What people see as solution in one place, they may resist in another. What
works in one place, may have the opposite effect somewhere else.

South Africa: Flags of convenience fly in face of fisheries

protection
Maritime security and the future of fisheries are coming under increasing threat from
vessels flying flags of convenience (FOC), a UN conference on the Law of the Sea was
told last month.

Real and Present Danger: Flag State Failure and Maritime Security and Safety, a joint
WWF and International Transport Workers’ Federation study, found ships under flags
of convenience were also involved in piracy, people trafficking and arms smuggling.

“Many of the thousands of ships plying the world’s oceans are effectively without
nationality, their owners operating under a veil of corporate secrecy and anonymity
within a system that allows them to easily evade international laws and regulations,”
said the report’s author, independent consultant Matthew Gianni.

“Under the FOC system, flag state sovereignty and control over ships is fast becoming
a fiction of international law.”

The report cites the number of fishing vessels registered to states without fishing
authorizations and the extent to which these vessels have been mentioned in
connection with illegal, unregulated and unreported (IUU) fishing.

Some 318 large-scale fishing vessels without apparent fishing rights are registered to
Cambodia, Georgia, Mongolia, North Korea, Sierra Leone and Togo. Vessels from five
of these six countries are currently “blacklisted” in various fisheries for illegal fishing
activities.

For example, Spanish-based fishing company Vidal Armadores SA “has regularly used
a variety of flags of convenience to facilitate IUU operations” the report says. The
company, which was stated to have received European Union subsidies of €3 million,
has been prominently involved in the illegal trade of the highly overfished Patagonian
toothfish with three of its vessels registered to North Korea.

Fishing vessels used in illegal operations typically change name and flags many times
to avoid being caught. In 2007 the Vidal Armadores’ vessel Ina Maka, previously
named Black Moon, Red Moon, Elo, Thule, Magnus and Dorita and flagged at various
times to Equatorial Guinea, St. Vincent & the Grenadines and North Korea, was fined
400,000 South African Rand ($US50,000) and its 60 kilometres of gillnets were
confiscated after being caught illegally fishing off South Africa with a load of
endangered nurse sharks on board.

The report notes that as FOC countries seldom exercise adequate control over the
operation of ships registered to fly their flags, their ships also dominate records on
sub-standard shipping, poor safety, maltreatment of crew and pollution of the marine
environment.

IUU fishing costs an estimated US$1.2 billion each year and threatens the food
supplies of millions in coastal areas of developing countries. In addition to the direct
loss of the value of the catches to local fishermen, IUU fishers rarely comply with
regulations and cause damage to fragile marine ecosystems and vulnerable species
such as coral reefs, turtles and seabirds.

WWF is calling for the establishment of a UN Committee to negotiate a new

implementing agreement to the UN Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) – the legal framework
governing the use of ocean space – that sets out enforceable measures to ensure flag
states fulfil their responsibilities under UNCLOS and prevents states from operating
vessel registers in breach of regulations and international agreements.

“Without transparency of ownership on the FOC registers and without flag states
exercising effective jurisdiction over vessels flying their flag, FOC vessels will
continue to plunder marine resources on the high seas with impunity,” said Miguel
Jorge, acting Director of WWF’s Global Marine Programme.

The report was released as governments attended the ninth meeting of the United
Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea
(UNICPOLOS) in New York.

Maputo, Mozambique Is the Dugong population in Bazaruto slowly recovering?

Dugong aerial count: population overwhelms expectations in Bazaruto

Recent aerial counts performed in the Bazaruto bay, including the Bazaruto
Archipelago National Park (BANP), brought out new expectations in terms of
conservation of dugong population in this area: the frequency in appearance of the
species has proven that the number of its population may be increasing or at least the
fact that they are seen routinely could be a sign of success in its conservation.

Jane Provancha, a Senior Scientist at Dynamac Corporation (Florida) and a WWF

Consultant, led the team which included the BANP as well as WWF Mozambique staff
during the aerial counts. According to the experience gathered during this
assignment, she could contentedly say that: “We saw a huge range in the numbers of
dugongs – one of our “official surveys” resulted seeing only 9 dugongs, whereas on
another of our “official surveys“(just two days later) – we saw 135 dugongs… we can
comfortably say that our highest count was a minimum number of dugongs using the
area: there are likely more than 135 dugongs here.”

When compared to SASOL report, the South African Oil and Gas Company, from last
year in which their high count was around 69 dugongs, it can be said that: “This
“change” may not indicate a real increase in the population, but is a good sign that
animals are in fact routinely seen in the area and in higher numbers than reported
thus far. I would say that conservation efforts are moving forward given WWF´s
current emphasis on continued interaction and education of the local
fishermen/women and tourists”, she completed. Results from the SASOL study
pointed at an estimated number of 250 individuals in the Bazaruto bay.

On the other side, Helena Motta, the WWF Country Coordinator and herself
participating in the aerial survey commented: “In 2001 the estimations pointed at a
population of dugongs of around 100 individuals in total. Today, with the SASOL
studies as well as these surveys that we conduct in conjunction with the BANP, we
can say that things are looking much better for the dugong population. However, the
findings also point out that a large proportion of individuals are being seen outside
the Park area, a fact that we all need to address”.

This is in fact a critical issue despite these inspiring numbers. The area where the
dugongs are seen has large fishing nets, both beach seine and gill nets. These are too
dangerous to dugongs, marine turtles, dolphins and other endangered species, which
could easily be entangled and incidentally killed. The regular disturbance of the
underlying seagrass beds by these nets is also another worrying matter as they are a
very important for the presence of dugongs.

This is the reason why WWF is now promoting activities beyond the Park borders.
Together with the Fisheries Authorities of Mozambique it is working on several
mitigation impacts of the use of non-recommended fishing gear in Vilankulo and
Inhassoro districts, in the coast of the Bazaruto bay, and in the BANP. One of the
activities which have been producing very good results is the continuous
environmental education campaign targeting fishery associations and schools in the
area.

Recently, WWF organized a football tournament which motto’s “I Protect Endangered

Species of Bazaruto” called the attention for the conservation of 4 identified species:
Dugongs, Turtles, Dolphins and Sharks. Four teams composed by fishermen
associations, WWF staff, Fishery Authorities and students participated and helped
raise awareness on the conservation of Bazaruto biodiversity. Flyers, banners, t-shirts
and other informative material were produced specifically for this event.