While on my way to a business dinner tonight I sat listening to a NPR report about poaching in Zambia. Great I thought, more news about the senseless slaughter of elephants, how depressing.
My hand came dangerously close to flicking the radio off, I was going to dinner after all and the thought of mutilated elephant or rhino before eating wasn’t high on my list of things I wanted to do.
Something about the program caught my interest, or maybe it was a light that was turning yellow, I can’t really be sure. The show started out like I expected, talking bout poachers, but then it took a turn in a direction that I had never encountered in similar stories.
It spoke of a researcher, a man who decided to put his efforts into saving the humans in order to save the animals. What a shocking thought.
Gathering together regional leaders, he arranged to have 37 of the most notorious poachers come and meet with them to discuss why they poach, and what they make from poaching. With assurances from their elders that they would not be arrested, they came together to talk.
The finding were really interesting to me. Typically they would earn $100 a year from legal means, and an additional $200 a year from poaching. On average the government there spends over $2k to apprehend a poacher.
In large part the poaching it turns out is generational, taught from generation to generation. What did they use that extra $200 for? A new iPod? Hardly, starch based products (corn, etc.) were the primary use of the money.
So with this in hand, they started a comprehensive farming education program and shift from the traditional crops like tobacco and cotton to rice, peanuts and honey. Products easily grown and easily replenished.
But they didn’t stop there. They set up processing for the product and sold it in retail locations. Since there was no middle man, profits were assured. To date, product sales have given over $380k back to the communities who are growing the products.
Its also estimated to have saved the government over $280k this year alone in law enforcement costs. All this from some people out to save some animals. People who chose to do it by making the lives of human beings better, an animal we all are too quick to dismiss its needs.
Lest they stray too far from science, they used third party aerial wildlife data collection in the areas where this program was being conducted as well as a control area where poachers still hunted. The results proved the benefits this program was having on the endangered species of the region.
The story left me optimistic for the future of that region and ashamed of the dinner I was about to eat. So much excess in this country, when will we as a people do like this researcher and get our priorities right?
Tags: Business Dinner, Education Program, Elephants, Extra 200, Farming Education, Generation To Generation, Honey Products, humans, Middle Man, New Ipod, Npr Report, Peanuts, poacher, Poachers, Regional Leaders, Retail Locations, Rhino, save, Senseless Slaughter, Starch, Talking Bout, Traditional Crops, wildlife
August 8th, 2007 at 2:05 pm
That sounds like a wonderful program. There needs to be more incentives put in place that will draw people away from lucrative but harmful activities. My friend just got back from Zambia doing a documentary on human trafficking.
I heart NPR. :)
August 8th, 2007 at 2:33 pm
Hey Esther! I totally agree, its such a shame to see endangered species lost so that people can eat, can live in conditions that are hard for us to even comprehend.
You’re friends documentary sounds like it will be very interesting, I hope you will post a link to it on your site when it comes out!
NPR just seems to keep getting better and better…