Introduction
On 30 December 2015, the President of the United Republic of Tanzania appointed the former Commandant of the National Defence College, Major General Gaudence Milanzi, to the post of Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism (MNRT). His appointment marked a new direction for Tanzania’s conservation at a time of poaching crisis and ‘war on poaching’. According to the President’s statement to the press, the intention behind his appointment was to send a message to those engaged in poaching. On the same date, during a board meeting of the Tanzania Wildlife Authority, the Minister of Natural Resources and Tourism supported the President’s view, and emphasised the need to have a frontline commander in the war on poaching Indeed, Milanzi has been open about his willingness to use military tactics in the fight against poaching (actually saying in one statement that he will use his military skills in the war on poaching). The Tanzanian government’s inclination to use forceful measures to counter poaching was strengthened following a helicopter crash in January 2016 in which a British pilot was killed while on a surveillance flight tracking down ‘poachers’:1 the flight was reported to have been shot down by poachers. In June 2016, the government announced plans to establish a special paramilitary ‘anti-poaching’ force and give military training to national parks’ staff. This aligns with what Lunstrum (2014, 818) terms ‘green militarisation’, i.e., ‘a process by which military approaches and values are increasingly embedded in conservation practice’ (Duffy 2014, 819). With the growing urgency to protect and manage wildlife resources for Tanzania’s tourism and revenue collection (Bluwstein 2016), the war on poaching is increasingly reaching the top of country’s conservation/development and security agenda, as it is also at the regional level (Roe 2015a; Massé and Lunstrum 2016; SADC 2015). In southern Africa, one example that showcases prominence of the war on poaching is the formulation of the Southern African Development Community’s (SADC’s) Law Enforcement and Anti-Poaching strategy, LEAP, which also establishes a SADC wildlife crime prevention and coordination unit with the responsibility of coordinating the war on poaching in member states’ territories (SADC 2015).
I take issue with the phrase ‘war on poaching’ (vita dhidi ya ujangili in Swahili), which is currently dominant in national conservation discourses (Bluwstein 2016). The use of the term poaching in wildlife crime discourse connotes the criminalisation of the poor, i.e. creating an idea of criminal enemies who are impossible to tackle, and thus justifying military-style war-like operations as the only option to fight poaching (Duffy 2014). As Neumann (2004, 813) notes, ‘War is now a common model and metaphor for conceptualising and planning biodiversity protection in Africa.’ African wildlife protected areas have become ‘spaces of exception’ in which the right to life no longer applies for poachers (Büscher and Ramutsindela 2016), and spaces of violence in which human right abuses and deadly violence against humans in the defence of wild animals are normalised (Neumann 2004). In this Briefing I discuss the war on poaching in Tanzania. I position my discussion in the recent political ecology literature on conservation and the war on poaching (Bluwstein 2016; Büscher and Ramutsindela 2016; Duffy 2014, 2016; Duffy et al. 2015, 2016; Lunstrum 2014; Neumann 2004) to call both for the underlying causes of poaching to be addressed and for diversity to be embraced in the measures to counter it. I specifically call for strategies that go beyond forceful measures that will not raise ethical questions (Neumann 2004), break community cohesion (Büscher and Ramutsindela 2016), or cause injustices to resource-dependent people living adjacent to protected areas. Besides, as Kideghesho,2 Røskaft, and Kaltenborn (2007, 2227) note, ‘use of force to achieve conservation objectives may increase unpopularity of conservation to local people and erode the government credibility.’ The need for a dialogue on such further measures to fight poaching is therefore necessary. I begin with a brief historical analysis of militarised conservation in Tanzania, linking it with some regional dynamics and neoliberal logics.
Situating militarised anti-poaching
The latest developments in the war on poaching landscape illustrate the continuation of militarised approaches to fight poaching in Tanzania. On June 1989, Tanzania declared a ‘war’ against elephant poaching under Operation Uhai (uhai means ‘life’ in Swahili). The People’s Defence Force, the Police Force and game rangers from the MNRT’s Division of Wildlife spearheaded the operation, which lasted until March 1991. In defence of declining elephant and black rhinoceros populations, Kenya and Zimbabwe also conducted similar operations. The governments justified the use of militarised approaches on the basis that poachers were well equipped and highly organised (Neumann 2004). Kelly and Ybarra (2016) and Bluwstein (2016) note on how conservationists’ framing of poaching as an organised crime legitimises the use of forceful measures. Subsequently, ‘military equipment, including automatic assault rifles, helicopters and even sophisticated remote-controlled surveillance aircraft flowed to wildlife agencies in these and several other countries in the region’ (Neumann 2004, 814), thus cementing in place the militarisation project. The operation had some success in terms of short-term increase of elephant populations and capture of huge stocks of ivory, but poaching continued. And since the beginning of the new millennium, elephant populations have been decreasing. For example, in 2006, a survey estimated the elephant population at Selous Game Reserve to be between 50,000 and 70,000 (Kalumanga 2015). Three years later, a new survey estimated the population to be 40,000. At Ugalla Game Reserve, in 2006 the elephant population was estimated to be 4,000; three years later the number fell to 1,000 (Kalumanga 2015). A similar trend was observed in almost all protected areas known to have elephants; poaching was the reason reported to be behind such a sharp decrease.
In October 2013, Tanzania again conducted a military operation to fight poaching. This time it was dubbed Operation Tokomeza (tokomeza means ‘eradicate’ in Swahili), involving the People’s Defence Force, the Police Force and game rangers from the Division of Wildlife. Issa Shivji argues that Operation Tokomeza more closely resembles a military operation than a civilian one. With the operation overseen by the Tanzanian People’s Defence Force, daily operation reports were sent directly to the Chief of the Defence Force rather than the minister responsible (Shivji 2013). Shivji considers that such militarised operations set bad precedents and should not be allowed under civilian and democratic governments. Unfortunately, with Tanzania’s commitment to recent declarations (see below) on the war on poaching, militarised conservation is likely to remain dominant. At the moment, it is impossible to explain the operation’s ecological success, because, unlike the 1989 operation, Operation Tokomeza only lasted for one month. Until now I have not read any ecological study linking the operation with wildlife population dynamics. Indeed, the latest report of elephant counts (TAWIRI 2015) shows a continued trend in decreasing elephant populations. When comparing survey results for the years 2009 and 2015, the report shows a 53.3% decline in the elephant population. In 2009, it was estimated that Tanzania had 109,051 elephants. But, the number went down to 50,894 in 2015. A similar trend is observed in southern Africa, with a dramatic drop over broadly the same period in the rhinoceros population (Büscher and Ramutsindela 2016; Massé and Lunstrum 2016; SADC 2015). This trend necessitates the need for dialogue amongst policy makers, conservationists, academics and citizens on the effectiveness and usefulness of existing anti-poaching strategies in the region. This needs to happen in the context of the understanding that militarised approaches have not been successful, despite persistent framing of poaching as an enforcement problem by national and regional conservationists (Bluwstein 2016; Challender and MacMillan 2014; Roe 2015b; SADC 2015). It is not only SADC’s LEAP strategy that demonstrates the intensified militarisation project in African’s conservation spaces.
On 8 November 2014, state representatives from eight African countries3 signed the Arusha Declaration on regional conservation and combating wildlife/environmental crime. Five months later, on 30 April 2015, the African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN) signed its Brazzaville Declaration on illegal exploitation and illicit trade in wild flora and fauna in Africa. These declarations see poaching as an enforcement problem. Even UN Resolution 69/314 on tackling illicit trafficking in wildlife in Africa – adopted by the UN General Assembly on 30 July 2015 during the 69th session – does the same, urging African states to strengthen enforcement as a way to tackle poaching. All of these simplify poaching into an enforcement problem, brushing aside complex political economic processes behind resource conservation and development in rural Africa. These developments are linked to neoliberal logics4 into conservation and development. For instance, the International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) supported the meeting that adopted the Arusha Declaration. ICCF, a US-based conservation lobby group, is an open advocate of conservation solutions through market-based approaches, supported with public and private partnerships. This aligns with Duffy’s (2016) and Massé and Lunstrum’s (2016) arguments that neoliberal logics (as they applies to conservation) enable militarisation, as state conservation agencies – proponents of militarised conservation – rely on the private sector. Proponents of neoliberalisation think that the use of market-based economic incentives would encourage conservation-friendly local resource-use practices (Schroeder 2008). Rather than seeing poaching as a conservation/rural development concern, these declarations, the UN resolution and LEAP see it as a security concern, necessitating the securitisation and militarisation of African conservation spaces.
Political ecology researchers link the ongoing poaching crisis and subsequent securitisation and militarisation practices to neoliberalism. For instance, Duffy et al. (2015, 2016) cite the rapidly rising wealthy population in South East Asia – China, Vietnam and Taiwan – as an incentive that pushes poaching and the subsequent decline in African wildlife populations. Schroeder (2008) sees poaching as a result of ‘failed promises’ from the prioritisation of wildlife protection through neoliberal logics, which are accompanied by resource dispossession of communities to secure resource frontiers and combat poaching (Massé and Lunstrum 2016). That is why Kelly and Ybarra (2016, 172) conceptualise the securitisation and militarisation practices – to counter poaching – as ‘strategies of state and subject formations’, where the state and non-state collaborations ‘establish sovereign territorial claims through violence’. Thus, as noted in Kelly and Ybarra (2016), Massé and Lunstrum (2016) in studying the Mozambican borderlands demonstrate how green militarisation is a practice of territorialisation that enables capital accumulation at the expense of people living adjacent to protected areas. I do not intend to engage in the debate about neoliberal conservation and its impacts; I think Holmes and Cavanagh (2016) have done this eloquently enough. What I want to say on this matter is that imposition of neoliberal logics into conservation spaces exacerbates inequality, as conservation practices funded by capitalistic markets produce sites of struggle between rural resource-dependent people and national actors over access to resources and finances, leaving the poorest vulnerable to further injustices. At the moment, it is very likely that Tanzania and other African countries will remain entangled in neoliberal logics for a long time, due to their recent commitments to the war on poaching. The important point in this discourse is how proponents of securitisation and militarisation frame poaching.
Unpacking ‘poaching’
Duffy (2014, 828) notes, ‘A key question is how we define poaching, because such definitions shape approaches to controlling it’. Like Bluwstein (2016), I also find a problem with how bureaucrats and conservationists frame poaching. In this Briefing, I conceptualise poaching as hunting of any wildlife done by individuals or group of individuals against the laws and regulations that guide wildlife hunting. Following Duffy (2014, 828), I use the term extra-legal wildlife hunting – ‘hunting that occurs outside the boundaries of legal frameworks’ – rather than poaching or illegal hunting. The term is less loaded with negative and criminalising connotations than poaching and illegal hunting (Duffy 2014). The key difference between legal hunting and poaching is the definition of what is legal, what is not, and where the hunting takes place (within or outside protected area boundaries). Duffy et al. (2016) note that there are two major categories of extra-legal hunting: subsistence and commercial hunting. Subsistence extra-legal hunting is done by individuals for reasons of maintaining or supporting their lives at a minimal level. Such individuals usually hunt low-value wild animals such as antelope and other small herbivores to get bushmeat for household consumption. They normally use low-level and simple technologies, which are shown by research not to have huge negative ecological impacts (see Duffy et al. 2016, 15, citing several studies that document this).
On the other hand, individuals connected to large syndicates carry out commercial extra-legal hunting aimed at making huge profits out of hunting high-value wildlife species such as elephants and rhinoceros. Commercial hunters use advanced technologies and carry heavy ammunitions during their hunting (Duffy et al. 2016). Their hunting activities are proven to have been causing significant ecological damages at both species and ecosystem levels – although it is important to note that subsistence hunting may change to commercial hunting especially when there is a great demand for wildlife commodities. Unfortunately, bureaucrats and conservationists (intentionally or not) tend to generalise all forms of extra-legal hunting and therefore propose and use similar militarised tactics to counter both subsistence and commercial hunting. The generalisation and subsequent application of approaches formulated out of such understanding have led to breaches of human rights and caused sufferings for individuals involved in subsistence extra-legal hunting. Individuals who hunt illegally to get food (as individual hunters or as part of illegal hunting syndicates) for their families suffer the consequences, while powerful people (who finance the syndicates) are not held accountable. The powerful seem usually to manage to get away with illegal activities.
The driving forces behind extra-legal hunting are another important aspect regarding how the practice is conceptualised. What drives individuals or group of people to undertake extra-legal hunting? This is a fundamental question when pondering sustainable, ethical and equitable countermeasures. A thorough understanding of what drives individuals (root causes) into extra-legal hunting must shape the formulation of countermeasures. Research shows that for subsistence hunters, the driving forces are usually: the fight against poverty and food insecurity; revenge against crop and livestock raids by problem animals; local grievances related to protected areas management; and adjacent people’s need to adapt (e.g. through resistance to conservation) to highly restrictive access to wildlife resources as a result of community-based conservation approaches (Duffy et al. 2015, 2016; Mariki, Svarstad, and Benjaminsen 2015; Schroeder 2008). On the other hand, rapidly increasing demand for products made of ivory and rhinoceros horn in Southeast Asia is driving commercial extra-legal hunting (Duffy et al. 2015, 2016). The growing wealth of middle- and high-income classes in China, Taiwan and Vietnam has led to a rise in extravagant spending to show off wealth, increasing the demand for jewellery made from ivory and for powdery concoctions made of rhinoceros horn (supposedly with the power to cure cancer and act as an aphrodisiac) (Duffy et al. 2016). These people also use the same concoctions to produce a local drink that they claim does not cause a hangover (Duffy et al. 2015). Uses like these, scientifically unproven, drive the demand for wildlife commodities, driving extra-legal hunting in Tanzania and southern Africa in general. This makes policy and science dialogue necessary amongst conservationists, policy makers, conservation bureaucrats, academics and people living adjacent to protected areas, in order to foster thinking outside of the ‘military box’.
Beyond militarised tactics
Influenced by Challender and MacMillan (2014), who argue for an array of strategies (beyond coercive measures) in dealing with extra-legal hunting, in this section I discuss possible immediate, medium-term and long-term strategies that could offer equitable, ethical and sustainable solutions to extra-legal hunting. It should be noted, however, that these strategies would require collaborative efforts at a range of levels – local, national, regional and international – with actors and institutions interested in equitable wildlife management.
Improving livelihood incentives to adjacent people
Livelihood incentives to protected areas’ adjacent people – the best wildlife protectors and managers – have been (and still are) one of the reasons for practising community-based wildlife conservation (Roe 2015b; Wright et al. 2016). I therefore argue that sustained efforts to provide tangible livelihood incentives to the people have to be the immediate tactic in countering extra-legal hunting. This can be done in several ways. First, problem animals (usually elephants and carnivores such as lions, leopards and hyenas) that raid villagers’ farms and livestock have to be dealt with effectively. Game rangers and protected area officials have to respond as quickly when problem animals kill villagers as they do whenever villagers kill the animals. In addition, realistic compensation when villagers have incurred losses has to be given in a timely manner. Section 71(1–3) of the Tanzanian Wildlife Conservation Act no. 5 of 2009 requires monetary compensation (or ‘consolation’ as written in the law) (URT 2009). However, obtaining compensation payments is very bureaucratic, making it difficult for the victims to request and receive compensation for each incident. It is also unfortunate that on some occasions compensation is not paid to real victims (Mariki, Svarstad, and Benjaminsen 2015), and even when the victims are compensated, amounts have been low when compared to actual losses. For instance, during the 2013/14 budget year at the MNRT, a total of TSH 5,368,000 was paid in compensation for crop losses (rice, maize and watermelon) that took place in a total of 68.3 acres of farms.5 This means that compensation per acre averaged TSH 78,594. This is peanuts when considering average crop production costs – for instance, a small-scale farmer incurs average costs of TSH 530,000 per acre for maize and TSH 954,000 per acre for rice.6
Since 1988 Tanzania has been implementing community outreach programmes under the banner of the Community Conservation Service (CSS) through Tanzania National Parks (TANAPA). CSS aims at improving relations between individual parks and surrounding local communities, and facilitating the planning and sharing of benefits to the communities (Schroeder 2008). Despite the challenges that CSS has faced,7 it still offers the potential to be scaled-up in other protected areas. Scaling-up efforts must target protected areas rich in wild animals that are high-value and in demand, such as elephants and rhinoceros. The areas have to be treated as special and priority zones in the efforts to outweigh economic incentives for extra-legal hunting. Paying adjacent people for their efforts in protecting wildlife could be one of the ways to do it. Debatably, there is no need to initiate alternative livelihood projects, which have not been effective in reducing environmental pressure, and have been wrongly conceptualised as substitutes for natural resource-based livelihood activities (Wright et al. 2016). I argue for efforts to support and enhance existing livelihood strategies, especially ‘those most vulnerable to conservation-imposed resource access restrictions’ (Wright et al. 2016, 7). Livelihood-focused interventions have to be directed at the most vulnerable people (who are the most likely to engage in extra-legal hunting either as individuals or as ‘employees’ of big syndicates) as a form of compensation. Peluso (1993, 217) rightly notes that ‘Only by seriously considering how local people will tangibly and immediately benefit from conservation activities will the protection of these resources be ensured’ (emphasis in original).
Increasing the supply to reduce incentives to poach
After creating sustained support to the people’s livelihoods, the next step must be to lower prices of products made out of ivory and rhinoceros horn. Until now, research suggests that trade bans on the products – under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, CITES – ‘limits supply, therefore raising prices and driving black market poaching’ (Biggs et al. 2013, 1038). Challender and MacMillan (2014) call for legalisation and regulation of the trade through ranching and farming of high-value wild animals (captive breeding). Environmental economists call this ‘the supply-side approach to conservation’ (Bulte and Damania 2004; Damania and Bulte 2007). Hypothetically, captive breeding could lower prices of wildlife commodities, and hence disincentivise extra-legal hunting. That is, by generating supplies (in the market) from farmed wild animals, the price of commodities made out of the wild animals is expected to go down, thus lowering incentives to poach (Challender and MacMillan 2014). In support of this, subsidies have to be provided and quotas set to people interested in captive breeding. This would not cause any legal problems in Tanzania, as the 2009 Wildlife Conservation Act – in Sections 89 and 90 – allows wildlife farming and breeding for citizens of Tanzania or a foreign company with majority shares owned by Tanzanians. One good thing about captive breeding and subsequent sustainable trade is that profits from this trade could be used to foster conservation, for instance through provisional of more tangible and life-changing conservation incentives to protected areas’ adjacent people, to further break the extra-legal hunting cycle. Moreover, Tanzania can learn from the Brazilian caiman crocodile management programme (Nogueira and Nogueira-Filho 2011). Started in the 1980s, the programme aimed to breed Caiman crocodilus yacare for acquisition of hides, used in the fashion industry. As a result, the caiman skin trade today is entirely fed by farmed caiman crocodile, a situation that has drastically increased the numbers of wild caiman (Nogueira and Nogueira-Filho 2011). However, this is not as straightforward a tactic as it seems. As Challender and MacMillan (2014) note, it needs further scientific and impartial scrutiny especially of the microeconomic structures of the market (with understanding of the ‘imperfect competition’ nature of the illegal trade), consumer preferences and biological feasibilities.
Decreasing the demand through strategic social campaigns
In the long-term, there is a need to decrease the demand for wild animal commodities in the illegal market. Ignoring the demand side – one of the root causes of commercial extra-legal hunting – of the phenomenon would be a grave mistake. In collaboration with countries such as China, Taiwan and Vietnam, where there is great demand for wildlife commodities, social marketing campaigns targeting users of the commodities have to be initiated and implemented, aimed at changing behaviours and subsequently reducing demands for the commodities (Challender and MacMillan 2014). The targeted social campaigns would help to set the tone and provide the right message for changing behaviours. It is crucial for the campaigns to target the consumers in a way that clarifies the specific issues regarding their consumption, in order to avoid consumers mistaking the campaigns for mere awareness-raising about wildlife consumption in general. That said, I am not devaluing awareness-raising campaigns, as they also form part of important strategies to counter the demand side of extra-legal hunting (Roe 2015a). WildAid and African Wildlife Foundation are currently using several local Tanzanian celebrities as ambassadors for social campaigns against extra-legal elephant hunting. While this is undoubtedly effective, I would recommend that the campaigns cross borders and target countries such as Taiwan, Vietnam and China. With a long-standing friendship between Tanzania and China, I would like to see actors and institutions interested in fair wildlife management take advantage of this relationship. Theoretically, if consumers change their behaviours and understand the negative ecological and ethical implications of using the commodities, demand will decrease, leading to lowered prices and incentives to engage in poaching (Challender and MacMillan 2014). Experiences from the successful anti-fur campaigns that took off in the 1980s in countries such as Canada and the USA could provide lessons. Clothes made out of fur, such as fur coats, are expensive and luxury commodities usually worn by celebrities and rich people to show off wealth or social standing.8 By targeting celebrities and wealthy people (e.g. through protests against/at fashion shows displaying fur clothes), the campaigns aimed to change their behaviours and impart consumer activism in them. Although, fur clothing is still part of celebrities’ and rich people’s wardrobes, the campaigning styles and strategies are worth learning.
Conclusion
In this Briefing, I have engaged with recent political ecology discussions on the discourses around wildlife conservation and the war on poaching. I have discussed how the discourses tend to wrongly conceptualise extra-legal hunting by having a generic understanding and categorisation of both subsistence and commercial extra-legal hunting as one single form of hunting. I have discussed how Tanzanian and regional political landscapes (informed by the generic understanding) are ruled by securitisation and militarisation in the war on poaching for the sake of salvaging wildlife. I have shown that militarised conservation has not been able to produce equitable and long-lasting solutions, as bureaucrats and conservationists give less attention to root causes of extra-legal hunting. I have therefore discussed possible beyond-militarised strategies in dealing with extra-legal wildlife hunting, arguing against the dominant thinking that extra-legal hunting is an enforcement problem only. Specifically, I have emphasised the need to prioritise and sustain livelihood improvements of people living adjacent to wildlife-protected areas. I have argued that, unless adjacent people see their lives improving out of wildlife conservation, extra-legal hunting will persist. I have also highlighted the need to lower prices of wildlife commodities through ecologically friendly and well-researched captive breeding of high-value and in-demand wildlife. That goes hand in hand with conducting targeted social campaigns in the efforts to change behaviours of consumers of wildlife commodities, especially in South East Asia. That is, the existence of multiple driving forces (as discussed earlier) makes diversity necessary in the tactics deployed to counter extra-legal hunting: it is this diversity in tactics that creates conditions – equitable and sustainable solutions – for fair wildlife management.
Therefore, the argument that I raise is that instead of framing it as a war on poaching, it would be better for bureaucrats and conservationists to put more resources into redressing what drives extra-legal hunting. One may think of local resistance to militarised conservation as another countermeasure, but Peluso (1993) thinks differently: instead of providing a long-lasting successful response, local resistance to coercive conservation practices – such as the securitisation and militarisation of conservation spaces – ‘is likely to increase and may lead to violent response, resource sabotage, and eventual resource degradation’ (1993, 216). Thus, local resistance would make state resource agencies winners and adjacent people losers, as the state counters resistances even more coercively and further justifies its control over local resources through ‘its claimed right to govern’ (Peluso 1993, 217). Besides, with the reliance on the private sector, which ‘may not be accountable, especially to vulnerable rural communities, in the same way that state actors are in practice or at least in theory’ (Massé and Lunstrum 2016, 236), local resistance would also be unproductive. And with Tanzania’s regional war on poaching commitments that are entangled with neoliberal logics, moving Tanzania away from neoliberalism seems a difficult task at the moment. These phenomena therefore leave us with the option to strengthen public financial support to existing community-based conservation initiatives. The support should be directed towards redressing unequal distribution of costs and benefits of conservation, which has been a major reason for the slow progress. In addition, similar to Peluso’s (1993) call, a recent African symposium on wildlife crime and local communities argued for more sustained efforts to realise equitable sharing of the costs and benefits of conservation, if community-based intervention are to be successful in combating extra-legal hunting (Roe 2015b). Kideghesho, Røskaft, and Kaltenborn sum up my argument well, noting that
the most pragmatic solution to long-term success depends on improvement of local people’s living standards by alleviating poverty. Provision of benefits to local people will hardly deter them from illegal activities if they cannot meet their resource demands for survival. (Kideghesho, Røskaft, and Kaltenborn 2007, 2228)