Zambia Conservation – Balancing Act
Lynn Johnson
National Geographic
Search here in Zambia’s Luangwa Valley, where one of Africa’s greatest populations of elephants and rhinos once lived, for points of balance between mere survival and sustainable conservation practices and you will find only points of conflict – between the city dwellers who have never seen an elephant and villagers who are terrorized by them. Between the bush meat hunters and sellers who risk death to provide for their families and the wildlife scouts sworn to stop them by any means. Between local people forced from their traditional lands and the licensed hunters invited by the government to hunt there.
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Between the farmer who has little and the shopkeeper who has less. In Zambia, it is a balancing act that is constantly threatening to tip. Food, fuel home and health are always on the chopping block, along with the black rhino, hunted to extinction, 11.7 million people living on less than a dollar a day, one in six adults who are HIV-positive, and the many government officials who are shamelessly corrupt. Nevertheless, the people survive, and survive with wit and dignity, selling beer or rocks, or scarce trees in the form of charcoal. Young men are pulled into the bush meat trade to provide for younger siblings when their parents die of AIDS. Young women struggle to stay in school despite distance and tradition. Communities are dotted with heroes: Hammer, the innovator, Mr. Boa, the environmentalist, Joyce Chuba, the midwife. These are the people who do daily battle with poachers, disease, jealously and corruption, who have no intention of allowing their neighbors to tip over the edge.
