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Zambia: Stop Invasion of Kasanka Trust National Park
The Zambia wild life authority (ZAWA) needs to act with all haste to halt what appears to be a virtual invasion of Kasanka Trust National Park in Serenje. The reports coming from the national park are worrying and indications are that if not checked, the decimation of wild life in the park may attain critical levels.

This is so because according to park manager, Edmond Farmer, poachers are entering the park from every direction signaling more or less free for all activity in the park.

The situation should not be allowed to continue because so much effort is being put into conserving Zambia's precious natural resources.

Else where in this newspaper, we have carried a story in which the Norwegian government has given the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) US$8 million to support the second phase of the Community Markets for Conservation (Comaco) project in Luangwa Valley.

This is essentially a programme which has weaned off poachers and would-be poachers from their activities by offering them alternative sources of income.

Such efforts would count for nothing if the same wildlife resources are being decimated elsewhere, in fact, it would be futile to continue with such programmes because if not stopped the problem could worsen and engulf all the game protected areas.

It is a fact that in some of Zambia's national parks, poaching has been reduced tremendously over the years.

This is the trend that should be replicated to troubled areas like Kasanka and not the other way round.

It is clear from what the park management is saying that the approach put in place so far, is not working effectively.

There could be a number of reasons for this and these could include capacity and resources available at the local level.

This is where ZAWA should come in and design another approach to the situation taking into consideration that each location of a national park in Zambia has its own peculiar poaching related problem.

ZAWA could help boost the manpower levels for the purposes of patrols by seconding additional wild life scouts to the national park.

Zambia's tourism is largely based on wild life and at a time when the Government has placed the tourism sector in the first rank of the sectors that should be revamped for growth, preservation of wildlife becomes critical to the whole undertaking.

http://www.times.co.zm/
 

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