Regarding the article on Monday 28, November: “7 Safari Firms Escape Prosecution – Kabeta”, by Brighton Phiri, I can only marvel at the resurrective powers of one, Hapenga Kabeta, declared mercifully surplus to requirements as Director General of ZAWA by our President in the Sunday Post (“Things Go Wild at Wildlife Authority”), only to be miraculously brought forth from the dead in The Post of Monday. Did he receive a Presidential pardon, perhaps a stay of execution?
As the MD of a hunting company named in the article in Monday’s edition, and a partner with ZAWA and the local community (villagers and their traditional leaders) in the operation of hunting safaris – a company bought in order to usher in participatory development in a far-flung rural area, I can understand the imperious Hapenga quoting the Queen so fulsomely, “We are not amused with such carelessness!” but was it necessary to go to the press with evidence of such a heinous crime committed by a partner – the shooting of a bushbuck over and above the quota. After all, I am a partner, one of the hunting companies who provide $3 million of the $5 million required annually by ZAWA to perform its statutory functions. But, was I really expecting a tickle in the ribs, a cry of, “You naughty boy?’ No. Instead, Hapenga goes for the ‘foreign’ investor jugular, fulminating at our criminal temerity: ”Should there be the repeat of the same crime, their agreements will be terminated”. Just like that. And I thought partners were friends, mates, taking it on the chin in good times and bad. And ZAWA’s and my partner, the local community – the 5,000 or so villagers in Senior Chief Luembe’s country struggling to find enough to eat, expecting at any minute that the elephant and the bushbuck will steal the food off their plate, they will just have to go along with the decision, I suppose. A curios partner is Hapenga. Or perhaps the article is all smoke and Kapiri mirrors?
The Post readers will be intrigued to know what a quota is and just why some ‘foreign’ rural investors, so essential to the poor of Zambia and the wildlife on which they and ZAWA depend, should be so threatened with the loss of their businesses for something which is not a criminal act, surely. But clearly the quota is something sacrosanct, like the natural law against incest for example. Well, a quota is nothing more than the number of animals of a species which can be kill annually and not effect its population. In other words, my clients shoot some, bushmeat poachers shoot some, others die, some are born, leaving you with the same number. It sounds simple, but to set one accurately, you would have to know something of the breeding biology of the species concerned, the number of animals in the population (virtually impossible to arrive at in Zambia without a great deal of money spent), the illegal offtake (simply massive in our area due to the bushmeat trade and poaching by scouts, and therefore unknown) and the natural mortality. It’s all dodgy wildlife biology. Because of that I refer to quotas as allocations, something the hunting companies and the community have a say in at the annual meetings with ZAWA. In my case, I reduced the allocation to my company, calling for more animals to be given to the rural poor, my true partners. Thus, I reduced the bushbuck numbers, meaning that Hapenga now has a net gain of bushbuck. I wonder if next year, when some nervous hunting client, fresh from Silicone Valley shoots two bushbuck by accident, Hapenga will invoke his heavenly powers and remove my business? And what will we do with Hapenga and his business when next year I catch more of his scouts poaching – this year alone killing the equivalent at least of my buffalo quota? Do I deal with it in the press? Surely not!
Unpublished letter sent to The Post by self
