Biology Reference
In-Depth Information
that in turn carnivores or humans live off. In South Africa (471 thousand square miles, 1.221
million square kilometers) there are 84 million hectares of grazing land (323,000 square
miles) and of this area, 20.5 million hectares (79,000 square miles), more than one quarter of
grazing land or one sixth of total, is now devoted to wildlife on over 10,000 private game
reserves and ranches. This is apart from the 6 percent of the land of South Africa devoted to
national or provincial game reserves, less than half of that of private land. For a very long time
during the hunter-gatherer era, 99 percent of man's existence, the earth's population stayed
stable at some 10 million inhabitants and at a concentration of one to five people per square
mile.
The population increased only when wild animals were domesticated, human milk was
replaced by animal milk, and agricultural farming practices took over for feeding people. The
cost was greater human aggression, territorial imperatives, and habitat and wildlife
destruction.
Paradoxically, many areas of Southern Africa are devolving back to pastoral or even hunter
societies, although the latter hunting of wild animal “bushmeat” is often labeled poaching.
TRAFFIC, the wildlife monitoring network of the United Nations and the Convention on
Biological Diversity did an extensive report of this written by Nathalie van Vliet. The problem
is that the hunting of bushmeat is not sustainable at current levels and yet 30 to 80 percent of
populations are dependent on it for food, “medicines,” and income, apart from the better taste
they ascribe to it compared to mutton or beef. The TRAFFIC document proposes sustainable
adaptive options to produce small-scale supplemental protein food sources. Other ideas
include other sources of income like bee-keeping, cocoa plants, bead work, poultry
production, and pig farming. The danger of the latter, as in the southern United States, Hawaii,
and Brazil is that porcines become an invasive species disrupting the ecology. Mini-livestock
(rodents, snails, caterpillars) production has also been suggested but also comes with similar
risks, apart from the risk of zoonotic diseases such as plague, Hanta virus, Marburg virus,
Salmonella, and others. Another option suggested is Community-based Wildlife Management
(CWM), the principle being that CWM will result in wildlife habitat and species preservation
and also improved economic wellbeing. For example, the so-called Mbuti pygmies now
protect their forests and lead either Eco tourists into the rainforests or hunters, who pay a large
fee to hunt. Another suggestion is game ranching of wild animals within a fenced off area for
use for meat, live animal sales, ecotourism, or sport/trophy hunting. The report specifically
points out that Cape mountain zebras, bontebok, red hartebeest, and black-faced impala in
Southern Africa have been brought back from extinction through this process.
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