Elephants Out of Harm's Way

[Julie Mattern]

LILONGWE, Jun 24 (IPS/IFEJ) - A South African capture team has almost completed the translocation of a herd of elephants from the Phirilongwe forest reserve located in a communal management area in southern Malawi.

Forty-four elephants have now been removed from an area that has been the scene of a lengthy conflict between elephants and humans since the 1960s.

A total of 60 elephants in Phirilongwe are the remnants of a larger herd that historically roamed a wide area at the southern tip of Lake Malawi, but found their range reduced and divided due to encroachment by a rapidly-expanding human population.

Department of Parks and Wildlife and Wildlife (DNPW) director Leonard Sefu told IPS that human-elephant problem in Mangochi lakeshore district has been a contentious issue for the last three decades.

Sefu confirmed that close to $300,000 had been identified for the translocation exercise as part of the Eco-Tourism Development Project, which seeks to restock and relocate wildlife from communal land to protected areas.

Not enough room for everyone

An ecosystem utilisation study by the wildlife research unit based at the nearby Liwonde National Park on Phirilongwe reveals that there is continued pressure being exerted on the forest resources by human activities these include deforestation for wood energy, encroachment among other.

As is the case elsewhere in Africa, a growing human population has been steadily clearing new land for agriculture in the Phirilongwe forest, shrinking the elephants' habitat and reducing food and shelter for the animals. The elephants are also being wire-snared and poisoned by poachers, according to DNPW staff.

In their search for food, the elephants have caused extensive damage to crops in the field, and raided granaries for stored maize. Joe Chinguwo, Parks and Wildlife Officer, in charge of Environmental Education at Lake Malawi National Park confirmed in an interview that 16 people have been killed by elephants since 2004.

Population pressure on the reserve seems irresistible. Wildlife researchers warn that the problem will continue as long as Phirilongwe elephants are surrounded by communal management land along the Mangochi-Monkey Bay strip at the southern tip of Lake Malawi.

The translocation exercise began smoothly enough on Jun. 8: "A group of nine elephants, including three young calves, have been successfully darted and tranquilised and are en route from Phirilongwe, just south of Lake Malawi to Majete Wildlife Reserve," said Jason Bell-Leask, International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) director for Southern Africa at the time.

The journey to their new home in the Majete game reserve, in the lower Shire Valley some 200 kilometers south away, took this first group some six hours.

Resistance to translocation

But the operation was then suspended. A group calling itself the Friends of Phirilongwe obtained a High Court injunction restraining IFAW and DNPW from moving the elephants, saying they wanted further study to determine the future of the elephants in the forest reserve.

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