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NewsDay

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Cyanide will hurt your bottom line too

Opinion & Analysis
Four elephants were last week killed by cyanide poisoning at the country’s premier tourism resort — Victoria Falls’ Zambezi National Park.

Four elephants were last week killed by cyanide poisoning at the country’s premier tourism resort — Victoria Falls’ Zambezi National Park.

View Point with Wisdom Mdzungairi

The brazen killing of the jumbos is a sad reminder that the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (Zimparks), its partners and indeed government must keep focused on preserving the wildlife heritage for the benefit of future generations.

All eyes must remain on the ball especially after the massacre of about 115 elephants by cyanide poisoning sometime last year in Hwange National Park – itself a major game sanctuary for the country.

There are already many stories doing rounds vis-à-vis how it all happened. But the truth of the matter is the elephant carcasses were simply discovered in advanced state of decomposition.

What the killings have done is to rubbish all efforts that have been put into protecting the wildlife which is inter-related to growing the country’s tourism product. And so Environment, Water and Climate minister Saviour Kasukuwere and Tourism minister Walter Mzembi’s industry will be hard hit by any negativity in these sectors.

Does this ring a bell? Of course yes! It is one more horrific chapter in the tragic story of the African elephant. Although, the elephants may have been the target, poison is indiscriminate in who or what it kills.

Lions, hyenas, vultures, kudu, and other wildlife, in addition to elephants, have fallen victim.

The proximity of the poisoning is indeed a concern here. Zambezi game park straddles along the mighty Zambezi River and that’s everybody worry.

While the number of elephants killed last week might look miniscule, it is important to note that these weapons poachers are turning to might as well be weapons of mass destruction.

They wipe out large numbers of a keystone species — the intended target — and lay waste to whole ecosystems. Like the aftereffects of a weapon of mass destruction, poison used in this way has dealt a devastating blow to wildlife and the environment in the short and long-term.

The devastating effects of these types of mass slaughters have on the ecosystem are appalling, and speaks to all players to pull in one direction to protect both game and the people.

Kasukuwere was quick to condemn in the strongest terms the killing of the jumbos last week and urged Zimparks to work tirelessly in ensuring that the perpetrators are brought to book. The assumption in this case is that the heinous act was committed by anyone who has remained in the country.

It is not entirely off the mark that this could have been an act of diverting attention from Hwange to Victoria Falls and therefore throw off rail all cyanide-related investigations.

Regrettably, the cyanide debacle in Hwange has only seen a few villagers being arrested yet the modus operandi showed that it was a well-oiled syndicate behind the commoners used as pawns in the killings.

Yes, no government will tolerate the continued decimation of the country’s wildlife by poachers using chemicals and all effort must be directed at ensuring that the culprits were apprehended.

In almost all cases, the elephant tusks were removed, underscoring the fact that this was a coordinated poaching attack.

Due to the shortage of water in major parks estates poaching syndicates laced watering holes dotted around major parks with cyanide to illegally harvest ivory for their market.

It’s a known fact that Zimbabwe is hamstrung by lack of funding or donors willing to sink boreholes to provide reliable water sources for wildlife.

So for Zimbabwe, coping with the worst drought or floods in the recent elephant deaths is another chapter in an unfolding disaster that shows no sign of abating.

And with climate projections showing more frequent changing climates and attacks on the body-politic the elevated cyanide poisoning add to the challenges Zimbabwe is facing in global warming.

Are we individually responsible for global anthropogenic climate change?

Do we have individual duties to act in order to mitigate the dangerous effects of climate change? Perhaps both in scientific and philosophical debates, conventional wisdom may answer in the negative.

The majority of authors writing on this topic seem to agree upon the idea that obligations to mitigate present and future climate changes concern governments and collective groups, not individuals, because there is no direct responsibility of individuals in intending and causing climate change.

Everybody has the duty to prompt governments to act against climate change, although no one has an obligation to substitute governmental action with theirs.

Yes, global warming and climate change occur on such a massive scale that our individual action may make no difference to the welfare of anyone.

We all have various kinds of responsibility for future climate changes, but the responsibility on our laps now is of a new kind, different from traditional sorts of moral and political responsibility.

Hence, absence of individual responsibility for climate change is often cited as a ground to explain the motivational difficulty of the morality of climate change and cynide poisoning.

Because we tend not to see climate change as an a moral problem, it does not motivate many of us to act with the urgency characteristic of our responses to moral challenges.

This kind of conduct needs to abate environmental degradation and to mitigate future climate changes that run contrary to entrenched human motivations.

So Kasukuwere needs support from the Executive in this fight to ensure he deploys manpower in the troubled areas.

The fact that poachers poisoned natural salt licks in the parks resulting in the deaths of other species such as one cape turtle, dove, one sand grouse and a vulture will continue to haunt the country’s ecologists.

Perhaps, it is not enough to threaten poachers — stiffer penalties should also be passed in all cases involving wildlife crime countrywide.

It is suicidal, both economically and literally, to lose focus with regards to poaching. Pitting the natural environment against the human-invented economy and placing higher value on the latter is foolish.

The timing of the poisoning is even suspicious especially when climate scientists are expected to debate Africa in the next couple of weeks.

If leaders can’t comprehend that, then poor we!