Open letter to SADC Presidents :: Mmegi Online

Your Excellencies, as you know, international travel bans linked to COVID-19 have severely reduced tourist visits to our region. But are you also aware that some wildlife management staff and rangers have had to replace the tourist funds lost with new sources of money to meet their salaries ‘outside’ of official procedures?

When these extra sources dry up, wildlife protection will inevitably begin to crumble. That will allow the international poaching syndicates to increase their raids into our national parks and continue to decimate our wildlife.

This doesn’t paint a bright future for wildlife conservation or the wellbeing of citizens living in wildlife areas. The fewer benefits these people receive from wildlife, the less protection they are willing to accord it. Diminished benefits from wildlife, along with the increased pain of poverty, sadly and predictably force them to collaborate with poachers.

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