By Charles Mpaka:
At the just-ended Africa Climate Summit in Nairobi, Kenya, Malawi advanced and rallied behind conservation approaches that consider communities around wildlife reserves as integral in designing strategies meant to protect animals.
Minister of Natural Resources and Climate Change, Michael Usi, made the case when he participated in a high-level dialogue which the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) organised on the sidelines of the conference.
Ifaw hosted the panel discussion to showcase its Room to Roam initiative.
This is a science-inspired, nature-based solution to climate change. It seeks to nurture ecological corridors that allow for safe movement of animals while also ensuring that communities thrive.
Speaking at the dialogue on Wednesday, Usi said the Room to Roam approach to conservation is a prescription to addressing challenges resulting from climate change — as long as people are at the centre of the strategy.
He said where animals and people share boundaries, both have the right to the land and the resources found in that space, hence the need for conservation approaches that balance the needs of animals and people.
In an interview yesterday after returning from the summit, Usi said conservation strategies that put people first are likely to reap positive results as they would be benefiting from the wisdom of communities who live side by side with the animals all the time.
“People around national parks live with the animals every day. All of us are away. They know the behaviour of those animals because they interact with them on daily basis,” he said.
Usi said for conservation strategies to be effective in animal protection, they should tap into the knowledge of local communities about those animals.
“These people might look ordinary but they are not blank. They have brilliant ideas that would inform strategies drawn to protect wildlife; so we need to put them at the centre of solutions and also equally attend to their welfare,” he said.
About the summit, Usi said Malawi and Africa have projected their voices to the world on the need to meet financing commitments and save the continent from further climate crises.
“The Nairobi Declaration articulates our position that climate transactions should be done on our terms as agents of solutions, not victims.
“As Malawi, we participated and projected our voice. What we are going to do now is to draw a plan to track the implementation of what has been agreed,” he said.
At the dialogue, president and Chief Executive Officer for Ifaw, Azzedine Downes, urged Africa to resist the notion that across the continent, people and wildlife are simply a victim of climate change.
“Where is the financing in climate discussion to ensure that the people that live with wildlife are healthy?
“All of the policy discussions, all of financing discussions have to be translated into daily lives of the people we rely on, our brand being ‘animals and people thriving together in a place we call home’,” Downes said.
He further said people and biodiversity cannot just be a side event in global climate discussions; instead they should be at the centre.
In a statement, Ifaw said its Room to Roam initiative is committed to strengthening transboundary connectivity for elephants to deliver “true benefits for nature, climate and people”.
“Wildlife and healthy biodiversity are key to maintaining ecosystem balance, and when we are in balance, we are more resilient and able to adapt to changing climate patterns.
“There is no better species than elephants to show us the path to healthy biodiversity across the globe,” Downes said in the statement.
The organisation is implementing conservation projects globally.
Among other countries in Eastern and Southern Africa, it is implementing the Room to Roam initiative in the Malawi-Zambia landscape which has Kasungu National Park in Malawi and Lukusuzi and Luambe national parks in Zambia.
From 2017, Ifaw implemented a five-year Combating Wildlife Crime project which restored the once-degraded Kasungu National Park.
The project culminated in the translocation of 263 elephants and more than 300 other animals from Liwonde National Park to Kasungu in July last year.
