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Two tons of illegal ivory confiscated en route from Uganda
Last week, an unaccompanied cargo of two tons of ivory and five rhino horns left Uganda’s Entebbe airport and... Full Story |
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Hot off the press is our report on the Hippo Survey of Queen Elizabeth, all the more poignant this year for its ability to help monitor the current Anthrax outbreak that has so far resulted in the... Full Story |
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| Equipping the world's growing population with wildlife-friendly solutions to living in harmony |
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A toolkit produced by the FAO is designed to help resolve, prevent and mitigate the growing problem of conflict between humans and wild animals. With the world’s population growing at some 75 million a year, humans and wildlife are having to squeeze ever more tightly together, thereby increasing the risk of conflict between them.
The FAO is the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations. The full story can be read here
A link to the full FAO report on mitigating Human Wildlife Conflict is here (Extract from press release on the FAO web site, July 19th 2010). Conflict can be either direct (e.g. attacks on humans or livestock by predators) or indirect (crop raiding); its effects overt (e.g. financial, starvation) or hidden (children missing out on education to guard crops or family members being sick) [Thirgood]. The people most likely to be affected are those least able to cope, either physically or financially and those who usually benefit least financially from the presence of wildlife. It’s for this reason that UCF, in partnership with the Uganda Wildlife Authority, invests in a programme of sensitisation to the potential benefits of conservation-based tourism. UCF’s experience in Budongo Forest, covering the Hoima and Masindi Districts of Uganda, and Ishasha in southern Queen Elizabeth Protected Area, tells us that there is no single solution to mitigating HWC: a number of complementary measures are needed. For example, in Ishasha, the excavation of 20km elephant trenches creates a physical barrier which makes all the difference to the survival of both the human and elephant populations. In valley areas, in the nearby Kikarara Parish, UCF is set to start using bee-keeping as a deterrent to help prevent elephants crop raiding. Fencing of these areas would be a far more effective solution, however this cannot be achieved without additional funds. |
