Mark Moritz<\/a>, who teaches anthropology at Ohio State University. \u201cAnd what we\u2019ve found is setting aside so much land is not sufficient in and of itself, and a lot of these protected areas are protected on paper only.\u201d<\/p>\nThe authors of the study say that areas set aside for preserving Africa\u2019s signature large animals are too large and too costly to manage with currently available funding. They found that the effective management and protection of wildlife requires more funding.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo deal with this conversation overstretch, we propose to extend the repeatedly promoted solutions \u2014 scaled up funding, enhanced management \u2014 with a strategic retreat, focusing scarce resources on smaller areas to save wildlife in the Central African savannas,\u201d the researchers said in the paper.<\/p>\n
Seven parks in Chad, Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo were included in the study. Since the 1970s, these countries have set aside a quarter of their northern savannas as wildlife preserves. The total protected area is about the size of the United Kingdom.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe governments in these countries are overstretched, trying to do more than they are able to do,\u201d said co-author Paul Scholte, who manages two national parks in the Ivory Coast. \u201cAnd the reality is that increasing the areas under conservation, in Central Africa, is pushing countries to take on more than they can \u2026 when the international community has not given them the resources necessary to align with the realities on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n
Management of the preserves is self-funded through tourism revenue. Lack of security, a drop in the number of trophy hunters and COVID-19 lockdowns led to a drop in revenues. The authors of the study claim that the international community has not filled in the funding gap.<\/p>\n
The researchers found that in all the parks save one, current funding levels cannot cover the pay for the rangers needed to protect park boundaries. The only park to see increases in large herbivore numbers was Zakouma National Park in Chad, which also had more rangers than the other parks to enforce park boundaries.<\/p>\n
Researchers had access to plenty of data on visitors, revenue levels and tourism as the wildlife preserves have been in place for more than 50 years. They found a decline in six of the seven parks in the numbers of large herbivores: buffalo, elephants, giraffes and 10 species of antelope. The decline occurred even though additional land had been set aside for conservation.<\/p>\n
Tourism had collapsed in these areas, while the amount of livestock had increased. This means that nomadic cattle herders are using protected land, the experts said. Additionally, insecurity and political instability also contribute to the ineffective protection of wildlife.<\/p>\n
\u201cPastoralists in this part of the world are mobile \u2014 they move from one area to another \u2014 and the reason they move is they have to avoid insecurity elsewhere,\u201d Scholte said. \u201cWhen security is restored, pastoralists likely will go back to where they came from.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the 1980s, herders have brought their livestock to parks in the northern region of the Central African Republic. They have since penetrated wildlife preserves in Cameroon. While that may explain the drop in wild herbivore populations, low rainfall and budget shortfalls are more likely causes, Scholte said.<\/p>\n
An international agreement was signed at the 2010 Convention on Biological Diversity to expand wildlife preserves to cover 17 percent of the world\u2019s surface by 2020. For the next convention, planned for April 2022, an increase to 30 percent has been suggested.<\/p>\n
Scholte said high costs are projected for expanded wildlife preserves. In 2012, it was estimated that management costs would reach $75 billion. Most of the developing world, he said, will not be able to manage those areas without outside funding.<\/p>\n
The authors said if international funding for conservation does not increase, smaller, more targeted areas with easily protected borders could be more effective.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are not talking [about] twice or triple the funding to be effective; it would require 10, 15 or even 20 times more funding annually to these parks\u2019 budgets,\u201d Scholte said. Instead, he said, it is preferable to \u201cconcentrate these scarce resources on areas that are viable and could have a greater effect.\u201d<\/p>\n
Source: Zenger News<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Martin M Barillas November 16 , 2021 Researchers are questioning current conservation efforts in Central Africa, suggesting<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-africa-express","category-zenger-zone"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2549"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2551,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2549\/revisions\/2551"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/africanamericanvoice.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}