Zimbabwe is full of elephants and conflict with villagers is growing. A new approach hopes to help
The new system of tracking elephants wearing GPS collars was launched last year by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It aims to prevent dangerous encounters between people and elephants, which are more frequent as climate change worsens competition for food and water.
'When we started it was more of a challenge, but it's becoming phenomenal,' said Sibanda, 29, one of the local volunteers trained to be community guardians.
For generations, villagers banged pots, shouted or burned dung to drive away elephants. But worsening droughts and shrinking resources have pushed the animals to raid villages more often, destroying crops and infrastructure and sometimes injuring or killing people.
Zimbabwe's elephant population is estimated at around 100,000, nearly double the land's capacity. The country hasn't culled elephants in close to four decades. That's because of pressure from wildlife conservation activists, and because the process is expensive, according to parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo.
Conflicts between humans and wildlife such as elephants, lions and hyenas killed 18 people across the southern African country between January and April this year, forcing park authorities to kill 158 'trouble' animals during that period.
'Droughts are getting worse. The elephants devour the little that we harvest,' said Senzeni Sibanda, a local councilor and farmer, tending her tomato crop with cow dung manure in a community garden that also supports a school feeding program.
Technology now supports the traditional tactics. Through the EarthRanger platform introduced by IFAW, authorities track collared elephants in real time. Maps show their proximity to the buffer zone — delineated on digital maps, not by fences — that separate the park and hunting concessions from community land.
At a park restaurant one morning IFAW field operations manager Arnold Tshipa monitored moving icons on his laptop as he waited for breakfast. When an icon crossed a red line, signaling a breach, an alert pinged.
'We're going to be able to see the interactions between wildlife and people,' Tshipa said. 'This allows us to give more resources to particular areas."
The system also logs incidents like crop damage or attacks on people and livestock by predators such as lions or hyenas and retaliatory attacks on wildlife by humans. It also tracks the location of community guardians like Capon Sibanda.
'Every time I wake up, I take my bike, I take my gadget and hit the road,' Sibanda said. He collects and stores data on his phone, usually with photos. 'Within a blink,' alerts go to rangers and villagers, he said.
His commitment has earned admiration from locals, who sometimes gift him crops or meat. He also receives a monthly food allotment worth about $80 along with internet data.
Parks agency director Edson Gandiwa said the platform ensures that 'conservation decisions are informed by robust scientific data.'
Villagers like Senzeni Sibanda say the system is making a difference: 'We still bang pans, but now we get warnings in time and rangers react more quickly.'
Still, frustration lingers. Sibanda has lost crops and water infrastructure to elephant raids and wants stronger action. 'Why aren't you culling them so that we benefit?' she asked. 'We have too many elephants anyway.'
Her community, home to several hundred people, receives only a small share of annual trophy hunting revenues, roughly the value of one elephant or between $10,000 and $80,000, which goes toward water repairs or fencing. She wants a rise in Zimbabwe's hunting quota, which stands at 500 elephants per year, and her community's share increased.
The elephant debate has made headlines. In September last year, activists protested after Zimbabwe and Namibia proposed slaughtering elephants to feed drought-stricken communities. Botswana's then-president offered to gift 20,000 elephants to Germany, and the country's wildlife minister mock-suggested sending 10,000 to Hyde Park in the heart of London so Britons could 'have a taste of living alongside elephants.'
Zimbabwe's collaring project may offer a way forward. Sixteen elephants, mostly matriarchs, have been fitted with GPS collars, allowing rangers to track entire herds by following their leaders. But Hwange holds about 45,000 elephants, and parks officials say it has capacity for 15,000. Project officials acknowledge a huge gap remains.
In a recent collaring mission, a team of ecologists, vets, trackers and rangers identified a herd. A marksman darted the matriarch from a distance. After some tracking using a drone and a truck, team members fitted the collar, whose battery lasts between two and four years. Some collected blood samples. Rangers with rifles kept watch.
Once the collar was secured, an antidote was administered, and the matriarch staggered off into the wild, flapping its ears.
'Every second counts,' said Kudzai Mapurisa, a parks agency veterinarian.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Arab News
2 days ago
- Arab News
Angola unrest death toll rises to 30
The police did not say what caused the deaths but civil society groups and opposition parties blamed the security forcesLourenco said 'law enforcement acted within the framework of their obligations and therefore the order was promptly restored'LUANDA: Angolan President Joao Lourenco praised security forces Friday for quelling unrest that claimed 30 lives over two days but rights groups accused them of killing 'defenseless people.'Dozens of shops and warehouses in Luanda were looted and vehicles attacked on Monday and Tuesday when a strike against a fuel price hike descended into some of the worst violence in the oil-rich country in unrest spread to several provinces and police said that by late Thursday they had confirmed 30 deaths, including of a police officer, with more than 270 people injured, among them 10 members of the defense and security police did not say what caused the deaths but civil society groups and opposition parties blamed the security forces, who are regularly accused of using excessive force against his first public comment on the situation, Lourenco said 'law enforcement acted within the framework of their obligations and therefore the order was promptly restored.''We send our thanks to the law enforcement, the justice authorities, the health professionals...,' he than 1,500 people were arrested, 118 businesses vandalized and 24 public buses attacked, according to police.'We strongly condemn such criminal acts, we regret the loss of human lives...,' the president said, announcing the government would help looted businesses to replenish their from the MPLA party in power since independence from Portugal in 1975, made no mention of the July 1 hike in heavily subsidised fuel prices that has led to a series of demonstrations in a country with a high level of poverty despite its vast oil state is 'doing its best' to address Angola's social problems, he said, citing investments in health, education, housing and job and civic groups also condemned the vandalism but accused security forces of using excessive looting reflects 'the hunger and extreme poverty affecting the majority of Angolans,' said the Human Rights Monitoring Working Group of various NGOs late 'legitimate expressions of the population's indignation should not be used as justification to kill defenseless people,' it platform urged Lourenco to order the security forces to 'refrain from killing defenseless people' and create an independent commission to investigate the killings as well as compensation for the families of the of some of the people killed in the unrest have circulated on social media, with the case of Silvia Mubiala, a mother of six children allegedly shot and killed by police while trying to protect her son in Luanda, causing particular outrage.
Arab News
3 days ago
- Arab News
A trophy hunter killed a lion in Zimbabwe that was part of a research project, sparking anger
HARARE, Zimbabwe: The killing of a collared lion involved in a research project in Zimbabwe by a trophy hunter has been condemned by wildlife groups, echoing the infamous case of a lion called Cecil whose death at the hands of an American tourist in the same country a decade ago was met with international outrage. The latest lion, known as Blondie, was part of an Oxford University study and wore a research collar sponsored by Africa Geographic, a safari company. Africa Geographic said Blondie was killed by a hunter in June close to the country's flagship Hwange National Park after being lured out of a protected area and into a nearby hunting zone with the use of bait. After Blondie's killing became a new rallying cry for those opposed to hunting, a spokesperson for Zimbabwe's National Parks told The Associated Press on Thursday that the hunt was legal and the hunter had the necessary permits. Zimbabwe allows up to 100 lions to be hunted a year. Trophy hunters, who are usually foreign tourists, pay tens of thousands of dollars to kill a lion and take the head or skin as a trophy. BREAKING: Blondie the lion has been killed by a trophy hunter in Zimbabwe. Monitored by Oxford University, almost ten years to the day since Cecil the lion was killed, his death is a tragedy. The UK must immediately table legislation to #GetTheBanDone — FOUR PAWS UK (@FOURPAWSUK) July 31, 2025 Africa Geographic CEO Simon Espley said Blondie's killing made 'a mockery of the ethics' trophy hunters claim to prescribe to because he wore a clearly visible research collar and was a breeding male in his prime. Hunters say they only target aging, non-breeding lions. 'That Blondie's prominent collar did not prevent him from being offered to a hunting client confirms the stark reality that no lion is safe from trophy hunting guns,' Espley said. Hunting lions is fiercely divisive, even among conservationists. Some say if it is well managed it raises money that can be put back into conservation. Others want killing wildlife for sport to be banned outright. Some countries in Africa like Kenya have commercial hunting bans, others like Zimbabwe and South Africa allow it. Botswana lifted a ban on hunting six years ago. Tinashe Farawo, the spokesperson for the Zimbabwe parks agency, said money from hunting is crucial to support the southern African nation's underfunded conservation efforts. He defended the hunt and said they often happen at night, meaning the collar on Blondie may not have been visible. He said he had no information on Blondie being lured out of the park with bait — which is usually a dead animal — but there 'is nothing unethical or illegal about that for anyone who knows how lions are hunted. This is how people hunt.' 'Our rangers were present. All paperwork was in order. Collars are for research purposes, but they don't make the animal immune to hunting,' Farawo said. He declined to name the hunter. Cecil's killing in 2015 unleashed furious anger against Walter Palmer, a Minnesota dentist and trophy hunter who lured the lion out of the same national park in Zimbabwe and shot him with a bow before tracking him for hours and finally killing him. Cecil, whose head and skin were cut off and taken for trophies, was also involved in a research project by Oxford University. Zimbabwe authorities initially said they would seek to extradite Palmer over the hunt, although that didn't happen, while a hunting guide who helped him was arrested, only for charges to be dropped. Zimbabwe's national parks agency says the country makes about $20 million a year from trophy hunting, with a single hunter spending an average of $100,000 per hunt — which includes accommodation and hiring vehicles and local trackers. Zimbabwe is home to approximately 1,500 wild lions, with around one-third of them living in the vast Hwange National Park. Across Africa, the wild lion population is estimated at around 20,000. However, their numbers are decreasing due to habitat loss and human conflict. Lions, one of Africa's most iconic species, are currently listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Arab News
4 days ago
- Arab News
African armies turn to drones with devastating civilian impact
PARIS: The Easter period usually offers a rare respite in Gedeb, in Ethiopia's deeply troubled north, but on April 17 death rained from the skies in this sleepy town caught up in a war between rebels and the army. On this important holiday for Ethiopian Orthodox and Protestant Christians, many families had gathered in the morning to repair the local primary school. But out of the blue, shortly before 11:00 a.m. (1400 GMT), 'a drone fired on the crowd and pulverized many people right in front of my eyes,' a resident said. Ethiopia and many other African nations are increasingly turning to drones as a low-cost means of waging war, often with mixed military results but devastating consequences for civilian populations. Last year, Ethiopia carried out a total of 54 drone strikes, compared to 62 attacks in Mali, 82 in Burkina Faso and 266 in Sudan, according to data collected by the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project, a US-based monitor. According residents, the strike killed 'at least' 50 people, others said more than 100 — a figure corroborated by several local media outlets. It is one of the deadliest in a series of drone attacks since the conflict began in August 2023, pitting the Ethiopian army against the Fano, the traditional 'self-defense' militias of the Amhara ethnic group. A shoe seller at the scene, whose nephew was killed instantly, also blamed an armed drone that continued to 'hover in the air' some 20 minutes after the strike. 'The sight was horrific: there were heads, torsos and limbs flying everywhere and seriously injured people screaming in pain,' he recalled. Ethiopian authorities have not released any information about this attack in Amhara, where the security situation makes some areas very difficult to access and communications are subject to significant restrictions. The Ethiopian army's use of drones, which began during the bloody Tigray War (2020-2022), has since spread to the Amhara and Oromia regions amid multiple insurgencies. In the Amhara region alone, now the hardest-hit, at least 669 people have been killed in more than 70 drone strikes since 2023, according to ACLED. Ethiopia and many other African nations are increasingly turning to drones as a low-cost means of waging war, often with mixed military results but devastating consequences for civilian populations. Remotely piloted aircraft used for reconnaissance and strikes — low-cost technologies now ubiquitous in current conflicts and particularly in Ukraine — are generating massive interest in Africa. Some 30 African governments have acquired drones, according to data from the International Institute for Strategic Studies 'Military Balance' and the Center for a New American Security's Drone Proliferation Dataset. For decades, wars in Africa had been fought on land, conducted primarily by light and mobile infantry units. 'Drones offer sub-Saharan African militaries more affordable and flexible access to air power, which has been out of reach until now due to its cost and operational complexity,' said Djenabou Cisse, a west African security specialist at the Foundation for Strategic Research. Countries like China, Turkiye and Iran have the advantage of selling drones 'without attaching any political conditionality related to respect for human rights,' she added. Among African military commands, the most popular is undoubtedly the Turkish Bayraktar TB2 drone, which, along with its big brother, the Akinci, has dethroned the Chinese Wing Loong in recent years. The TB2 made a notable appearance in 2019 in Libya, the first African theater of drone warfare, between the Government of National Accord and its eastern rival, the Libyan National Army. The following year, its deployment in the Karabakh region during the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and then in Ukraine starting in 2022, boosted its popularity. Orders soared and waiting lists grew. While contract details are kept secret, experts estimate that a 'system' of three drones costs nearly $6 million — significantly less than the several tens of millions for a fighter jet or combat helicopter. This offsets its rather average performance, with a range limited to 150 km. The TB2 is produced by private company Baykar. After severing ties with former colonial ruler France, the military regimes of Mali, Burkina Faso and Niger have turned to Turkish drones to attack rivals. In December last year, the Malian army eliminated a leader and several members of the Azawad Liberation Front, a pro-independence coalition, in a drone attack. In November 2023, drones played a decisive role in the recapture of the northern Malian city of Kidal from predominantly Tuareg rebels. In Chad, four Turkish drones have replaced French fighter jets at the forward bases they occupied until N'Djamena ended its military cooperation agreements with France at the end of 2024. The latter had repeatedly provided air support to help the Chadian government halt the advance of rebels threatening the capital. The capital N'Djamena is equipped with only five Russian Sukhoi aircraft and as many aging Mi-24 helicopters. Contrary to Franco-Chadian relations, 'there is no military cooperation agreement (between N'Djamena and Ankara) but a trade agreement that allows us to acquire military equipment,' a Chadian officer said.
