THANK RINEY
THANE RINEY was a member of the team which, financed under the United Nations Expanded Program of Technical Assistance, undertook a survey of wildlife resources in Africa over 1962/63 as a special FAO/IUCN project. He is now serving with FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division in Rome.
A discussion of priority needs for international help
ONE OF THE objectives of the FAO/IUCN African Special Project was to consider priorities for external help to develop wildlife as an African natural resource. The increasing need to develop the value of African wildlife was featured at meetings of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) at Athens in 1958, at Warsaw in 1960, at the Arusha Conference in 1961, and at the Nairobi technical meetings in 1963. The present paper confirms that this is an appropriate emphasis.
Utilization of wildlife on an African-wide basis involves several distinct types of use. Each type occurs within several different social and economic backgrounds and each type is increasing annually in importance. These are:
1. hunting for meat both by hunting tribes or members of agricultural or semi-agricultural tribes, the animals providing meat and skins for the local people;2. hunting for trophy or for sport;
3. protection of animals in parks and reserves as attractions tourists pay to see and enjoy and photograph;
4. commercial use of animals and animal products, specifically the sale of
(a) meat
(b) skins and other trophies,
(c) musk or some combination of (a) and (b);5. capturing and selling live animals.
With the exception of traditional hunting these types of utilization are in some early phase of development, and the stages of development differ with different types of utilization and in different parts of Africa. The present paper emphasizes the major problems now retarding the development of each type of utilization and suggests appropriate research, demonstration and training projects for consideration by those organizations outside Africa that want to help accelerate the development of the value of wildlife resource in Africa.
The major problems and their suggested remedies are briefly outlined below.
Traditional hunting for meat is the earliest and the simplest form of utilization of wildlife by Africans but still it remains one of the most important, as traditional hunting occurs over the greater part of Africa south of the Sahara.
Since little is known of its effects on animals, traditional hunting and its influence on mammal populations should be investigated in some area little influenced by the demands from commercial markets. Suitable areas exist in Ghana, Uganda, Dahomey, Zambia, Bechuanaland and several other countries. Of these, the Central African Republic, Ghana and Uganda are suggested as the most appropriate countries for such a study.
The efforts of a small team of men studying the effects of traditional hunting on large mammals in Uganda could be expected to make an important preliminary contribution in one year, but to obtain a national perspective would fully occupy at least three years.
A few countries still without an organization responsible for wildlife find themselves in the position where most of the interest in wildlife is by traditional hunting, while the resource has become increasingly threatened in recent years owing to better transportation and weapons, and an increase in the market for animal skins. The urgent requirement in these countries is for administrators to obtain help ir forming wildlife departments whose activities are based on appropriate legislation and, initially, simplified systems of protection and public relations. The report of an expert assigned to this type of task would have wide application in other parts of Africa. Somalia and Mali exemplify countries needing help at this basic level.
The business of sport hunting for trophies can be an extremely profitable undertaking. However, lack of knowledge of the proportion of the existing mammal populations that can be safely taken by trophy hunters is widespread. There is little question but that in many parts of Africa the numbers of permissible trophies could be considerably increased but, until appropriate demonstration studies are made, game departments must remain conservative in granting licences.
It is suggested that a demonstration study to help this type of wildlife utilization would be most useful if its terms of reference included the following:
1. In an area regularly used for tourist hunting (Kenya is an excellent example) population studies should be made in sufficient detail to evaluate the effect of the present rate of removal of animals from hunted populations.2. Recommendations should then be made regarding safe levels of cropping within the study area.
3. Every effort should be made to extend the terms of reference to include the development of simplified techniques for use by local wardens to check annually on trends in animal numbers so that appropriate adjustments in hunting "bag limits" can be made as circumstances require.
The protection of animals in parks and reserves as attractions tourists pay to see and photograph is a facet of African wildlife utilization that has become a major revenue earner in some African countries, add in certain areas wildlife is second only to agriculture in value. In spite of its comparatively advanced stage of development as a form of wildlife utilization, a major problem threatens the future of most of the parks and reserves visited in the course of the African Special Project Survey. The problem is one of learning appropriate techniques for managing large areas to achieve the permanent protection of the principal tourist attractions, the large mammals. There is good evidence that at least in several of the oldest national parks serious troubles are arising from overpopulation of certain species and from gradual decline in other species, both effects due to past management procedures.
It is here suggested that a major contribution to developing and ensuring the stability of this type of wildlife utilization should involve help with the preparation of specific management plans for the various types of protected areas that feature large mammals. Parks and reserves throughout Africa differ widely with respect to their present stage of development and specific objectives and, unfortunately, there are not enough appropriate plans in existence to circulate widely as examples. It is suggested that international help in this connection could be of the greatest value if a series of parks were selected for demonstration surveys, each survey to produce a management plan. The parks should be selected to represent the range of different stages of development and different types of park throughout Africa.
Suggested as appropriate for including in such a series are "W" national park, including parts of Dahomey, Upper Volta and Niger; Yankari game reserve, Nigeria; Oryx-Addax reserve, north of Abeche, Chad; Chobe game reserve, Bechuanaland; Nairobi national park, Kenya; and Kafue national park, Zambia. Management plans for each of these parks would contribute a segment of understanding that, when compared with the others and with those few plans already in existence, would make a major contribution to the sensible management of African wildlife parks and reserves.
Although most countries are in the early stages of developing this form of use, on an African-wide basis commercial utilization has been effectively demonstrated both in areas where a tribal system is still characteristic, and in almost completely "westernized" countries such as parts of South Africa and Southern Rhodesia.
It is evident, however, that we must know more of the animals and their habitats to achieve maximum annual harvests on a permanent basis. The productivity of the veld adapted African species, singly or as groups of species, is already favorably competing with domestic pastoral economies. This is true even with our present blundering techniques, which are ultraconservative through ignorance and the fear of overexploitation.
In a large area of southern Africa, although it is known that several wild species which are being commercially harvested can sustain annual harvests of 20 percent or more, cropping has been kept to about 10 percent of the population. Under this safe margin the populations are increasing and conservation requirements for soil and vegetation are being maintained (Riney and Ketlitz, 1964).
Delays in the development of commercial utilization of wildlife are of several types as would be expected from the diversity of commercial operations already started and because of different social and economic backgrounds for this phase of wildlife development. The most important problems of the moment are:
(a) marketing;(b) improving the techniques for producing a salable healthy product;
(c) conflicts with other forms of land use, particularly the extent to which there is exchange of communicable disease between wild animals and cattle.
Marketing
It is suggested that, as an initial step, at least one and preferably two marketing experts engage in a one-year survey to obtain an Africa-wide perspective of game-marketing procedures, and to make appropriate recommendations for further improvements. The terms of reference should include skins and trophies as well as meat. Suggested countries for such experts to visit are Dahomey and Ghana by tribal hunters, locally), Uganda (especially the Queen Elizabeth Park hippo cropping scheme), Kenya (the Galena scheme), Tanzania (the Serengeti area), Zambia (the Luangwa valley project and the copper belt market), Southern Rhodesia (the private European ranch schemes and the eland domestication scheme) and the Transvaal (several examples from the thousands of private farms utilizing game commercially as well several of the Transvaal nature reserve cropping schemes). Although these countries were selected to give a perspective of meat marketing, an investigation of the markets for skins and other products in the same areas would also provide a useful perspective.
Improving techniques for producing a salable healthy product
The dissemination of information relating to proved and simple techniques for preserving meat and making it marketable would be welcomed by technicians responsible for developing utilization projects. Preservation techniques are themselves important subjects for practical research. Particularly useful would be further development of smoking, drying, cooling, freezing, brining, tinning and sterilizing techniques and methods for the production of meat powder. The economic advantages of large-scale installations are recognized, and it is felt that the impetus for large-scale development will eventually come from large commercial firms such as are already becoming established in the Transvaal, Southern Rhodesia and Uganda.
In the meantime, the small-scale operator such as an African District Council meets a top priority need, for it is at this level that the adoption or maintenance of sensible land-use trends is most urgently required. Wherever possible, outside help would emphasize the development of adaptable and mobile installations which are also simple and inexpensive, such as, for example, those that can be constructed from local material. The successful operation of these installations should require little special training or experience.
Another urgent priority is to develop some practical means of exploiting the overpopulation of large mammals that has caused crisis situations in many areas.
The solution of the meat preservation problem requires one or two experts with special abilities in the technique of meat preservation to work for a period of at least one year in close collaboration with a marketing specialist and with various utilization schemes in operation in east, central and southern Africa. The objective should be to obtain a perspective of the simplified meat preservation techniques already in use - including their uses and limitations - and to recommend either improvements in existing procedures or the adoption of other more suitable methods.
Preparation of shins. The preparation of skins is also important because the loss in value from skins being rejected or downgraded due to inadequate preparation amounts to many thousands of dollars each year. Although publications are available which outline the best methods of the preparing hides and skins, there is a need for a more simplified presentation especially of the simple steps involved between the freshly killed carcass and the delivery of a dried skin at the nearest store or collecting depot. For example, an improvement in the quality of skins could be expected over large areas by the display of specially designed illustrated posters at stores where the skins are purchased.
Capture and sale of live animals. On a continental basis the capture and sale of wild birds and mammals is a vast and profitable undertaking, as is evidenced in several of the African Special Project country reports. There are few countries that do not permit the sale and export of birds and mammals. There are, also, few countries where it is easy to locate annual export and sale figures. This is usually due to a combination of factors, chief of which are: lack of coordination between different government departments in supervising this activity, lack of adequately enforced laws prohibiting the illegal sale and export of live animals, and differences in sale and export regulations between adjacent countries.
Many problems arise in connection with the sale and export of live birds and mammals. In widely separated parts of Africa different countries are concerned with the excessively high mortality of certain captured animals, or the transmission of disease, or the export of rare species. Aside from these immediate problems there is the long-term question of the effect on the existing population of the removal of present numbers of live animals.
With these considerations in mind it is suggested that the greatest initial contribution toward placing this type of utilization on a sound basis would be the organization of an international meeting either as a technical session of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) or as a special meeting under other auspices. The purpose of the meeting would be to, highlight the international problems involved in the capture and export of birds and mammals, and the need for increased international co-ordination of control regulations governing the export and import of live animals.
Conflicts with other forms of land use
Examples of important wildlife problems involving conflicts with other forms of land use are crop damage, competition with domestic animals for food, and the exchange of disease between wild and domestic animals. Of these, the question of disease is at present of the highest priority and is subject to considerable controversy in various parts of Africa, with extremists taking sides either entirely with domestic animals, or entirely favoring wild animals. Even the extremists, however, acknowledge that great ignorance characterizes the subject of wild as opposed to domestic animal diseases, and this is a field where research is urgently required.
Because of the vested interests which are found on both sides of the controversy, it is suggested that a solution might best be offered by an international organization sponsoring a research team with headquarters at an appropriate African university. It is further suggested that initially a small team of two or three qualified veterinarians, with experience of the different aspects of the wildlife versus domestic animal disease question, be sent to a selected number of countries to report on the present state of knowledge of wildlife diseases versus cattle diseases in Africa. It would be the responsibility of this team to consider the feasibility of the creation of a research institute in Africa which should include within its terms of reference research on diseases common both to wild and domestic animals.
Ideally, such research would be centered on a university, so that a completely independent and objective approach to this controversial problem could be maintained.
As the extent to which wild and domestic animals exchange diseases becomes better defined, the practical implications can be expected to be important enough to require further ecologically oriented investigations in order to translate this knowledge into practical systems of management. It is suggested, therefore, that research on wildlife diseases be closely associated with studies of the ecology of both wild and domestic animals, as these studies develop in African universities or research centers.
Although not a significant form of utilization at present, the domestication of animals now wild has a potential significance that makes the subject worth mentioning here.
Of the many animals domesticated for short periods of time in various parts of Africa, the principal ones have been elephant, cape buffalo, zebra and eland; and of these the eland shows the most promise (Riney, 1961). A small herd of eland has been kept for several years by an agricultural officer in Southern Rhodesia, and interesting figures on growth and breeding have already been published (Posselt, 1963).
This is a useful development, providing it can be administered on a continuing basis and providing the research is oriented toward achieving results with the broadest implications outside the boundaries of Southern Rhodesia. Such an objective might best be ensured by employing a biologist and field supervisor for a period of three years to increase the scope of the demonstration by forming several small demonstration herds and to initiate research into the uses and limitations of the eland as a domestic animal in tsetse-occupied areas and in other habitats at present marginal to cattle. It is further suggested that at least one of these herds be developed in a tribal area in Brachystegia woodland in Zambia. If the latter development could be conducted by Africans, it would have important and widespread application to other parts of Africa.
In addition to special aid designed to quicken the development of the various types of utilization, several kinds of help would be useful in a more general way and would ultimately influence most of the suggested lines of development mentioned above. Four examples of such types of projects are:
1. training (a) at university level and (b) at medium-grade level;2. research on life histories of large mammals with priority attention to the species (a) principally used in utilization schemes or (b) those in danger of extinction;
3. preparation of a revised check-list of African mammals;
4. grants to help with the publication of work already completed or well advanced.
Of these four types of project the last two could probably be handled without significant expenditure of international funds. For example, the preparation of a checklist could be most conveniently done by IUCN forwarding a request to an appropriate museum or a museum association. This action was in fact initiated in the last quarter of 1963. Grants to help with the publication of already accomplished research would seem a logical and valuable type of help for private fund granting organizations to consider. Also important is the need to translate widely applicable works from English into French, and vice versa.
The other two projects, those for training and research, are important enough to need special emphasis in terms of continental needs.
University level
There are 10 universities in Africa south of the Sahara and north of South Africa which are potential locations for the development of advanced training for wildlife biologists and technicians. These are: the University of Salisbury, Southern Rhodesia; the three parts of the University of East Africa, located at Dar es Saalam, Nairobi and Kampala; two universities in Nigeria, at Ibadan and Nsukka; the University of Dakar, Senegal; the National Agricultural School of the University of Yaoundé, Cameroon; the University of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and the University of Khartoum, Sudan. Of these, four appear particularly suitable as deserving priority for support in such training programs; they are in Kenya, Cameroon, and Nigeria.
Of all universities in Africa, that at Nairobi is situated nearest to easily observed populations of large ungulates and to a considerable variety of easily studied habitats. It is also located close to excellent agricultural, forestry and veterinary research institutes which have a demonstrated active interest in wildlife research and which already have specialist reference libraries. The zoology and veterinary departments of this university have already combined to prepare a curriculum and research unit in Nairobi park for the study of large mammals.
The Federal University of Yaoundé appears to be the best-situated university in French-speaking Africa for the inclusion of large mammal studies, for in Cameroon one finds a greater spectrum of wildlife than in any other African country. Forestry training has already started on a small scale and the curriculum already includes conservation of fauna and flora. This school is a logical center for the expansion of wildlife training because it is ideally situated near related research institutes and government departments interested in forestry and wildlife resources.
Two universities in Nigeria - at Ibadan and Nsukka - are interested in the development of training in wildlife. The Ibadan university is already including wildlife in the school curriculum. Interest in incorporating mammal ecology and training, and research in wildlife management is certainly worth encouraging in both of these universities, and consideration should be given to arranging for one expert to spend alternate periods between both Nigerian universities.
The type of help envisaged for the four universities in Kenya, Cameroon, and Nigeria is to arrange for a senior research fellow to be appointed for a period of three years. It is suggested that his responsibilities would be primarily to help integrate a wildlife curriculum with other biological training and to initiate wildlife research specially designed to meet the priority needs of the major areas served by the university. This same research fellow should also be in a position to help with the development of such medium-grade training as is appropriate for the university and countries involved, and to supervise the work of such student research fellowships as may become available. It is estimated that for a three-year period, about one third of the research fellow's salary would be required for travel equipment and expenses, although this amount would probably be higher in Cameroon.
Medium-grade level
Medium-grade training involves instruction in the making of practical decisions on the management of the wildlife resource. Because of national differences in the students' levels of education, in the types of administration responsible for wildlife, and in the present stage of development of the wildlife resource, the nature of the medium-grade training job differs for each country. Ultimately, appropriate training can be accomplished either by integrating wildlife training within the national system of technical education, by creating special wild-life training centers, by the development of inservice training, or by some combination of them.
A medium-grade school for the training of English-speaking technicians has already been started near Moshi in Tanzania and will shortly be expanded and strengthened by a United Nations Special Fund Project. Another medium-grade training school is needed for French-speaking countries and a similar project is being negotiated with the Cameroon Government.
Apart from these longer term projects there is an immediate practical need to get some level of training distributed quickly over as wide an area in Africa as possible. The suggestion here proposed is the formation of regional short-term workshops to train cadres to initiate some appropriate form of in-service training in their own countries. More specifically the short-term regional workshop in wildlife training is suggested as the most suitable means of:
(a) achieving some measure of management technique by existing staff over the widest possible areas of Africa;(b) encouraging the start of in-service training by training the local officers responsible for in-service training;
(c) promoting an international exchange of ideas initially on a regional basis.
It is suggested that the series of seminars or workshops (similar to the nutrition seminars operating under the Freedom from Hunger Campaign) should be oriented around the integration of wildlife with the development of other renewable natural resources in pastoral and marginal lands in Africa, and should emphasize techniques and special problems of management in national parks and game reserves, in hunting and in utilization schemes. Included in the curriculum should be a review of the uses and limitations of systems of in-service training already started in various parts of Africa.
Initially, two seminars of three or four weeks should be considered, one in French- and one in English-speaking Africa. To these seminars should come country representatives, either responsible for, or best in a position to develop medium-grade training in their own country.
It is further suggested that the timing of these seminars should follow the production of a working field handbook to facilitate not only the instruction of cadres at the initial seminars but to help the cadres in their efforts to take appropriate initial steps toward starting their own national inservice training programs.
The seminars should be followed by several demonstration in-service training courses in different parts of Africa, the countries selected to represent the greatest possible diversity of types of responsible government organizations and social and ecological conditions. At the end of this period, which should be completed within two years, it would be useful to reassess the medium-grade training needs for wildlife conservation in Africa.
Two types of research in this field are advocated for universities in various parts of Africa. There are:
1. studies of life histories of species of African mammals designed to include detailed information on habitat requirements;2. exploitation of easily obtained materials from utilization schemes and tsetse operations.
Emphasis is here placed on learning minimum and optimum habitat requirements.
There is already sufficient evidence in Africa to show that, on a long-term basis, changes in habitat are the most powerful of all factors for increasing or decreasing populations of wild animals. Research into the minimum and optimum habitat requirements of large African mammals is therefore important for the ultimate solution of practical wildlife problems a, they arise in cultivated, pastoral, forest or marginal lands, or in parks and reserves. The importance of an increased understanding of habitat requirements is equally important for all these aspects of wildlife utilization.
The immediate practical research objectives already discussed depend on major problems important for each different type of wildlife utilization; all these are practical ways of increasing the rate of development of the wildlife resource. However, minimum and optimum habitat requirements will eventually have to be understood in order to achieve the most effective management of the resource, just as a knowledge of site requirements for various trees is indispensable not only in selecting appropriate tree species but to achieve the maximum development of the timber resource in a given area.
Biologists cannot recommend specific techniques for producing the greatest number of the greatest variety of African mammals on a permanent basis simply because the minimum and optimum habitat requirements are only known for few large African mammals. Ignorance of the minimum habitat requirements for almost all rare or threatened species adds still another menace to their existence. Combinations of large mammals can be recommended for certain marginal or wild lands that will produce more tons of meat per square mile than the best known type of domestic animal management program when applied to the same area. This is based, however, on the crudest type of understanding. For example, a harvest of 10 percent is often recommended, while many species may prove to sustain a 20 percent annual harvest or more. The critical elements of the habitat and the proportions of these elements that must be maintained to sustain permanent optimum conditions for any type of utilization scheme have yet to be learned.
A better knowledge of habitat requirements is also necessary to increase understanding of the limitations of several techniques already commonly used in population studies. For example, the extent to which a population of animals is in balance, or is below or above the carrying capacity of the environment, makes a great difference to the way that age ratios and condition indices are interpreted (Riney, 1963), and can be expected to be important in the interpretation of the incidence of certain diseases. But to determine the carrying capacity for a given species one must be able to have some measure of at least the major elements of the habitat used by the species in question. For most of the large African mammals this information is lacking.
There are, therefore, certain very important types of research requiring much more effort than a short-term survey can provide. It is suggested that the universities mentioned above are in the best position to carry forward this longer term type of research
The granting of special research scholarships is proposed as an interim means of contributing to these long-term needs. An appropriate arrangement would be for each of the senior wildlife research fellows mentioned to supervise two or three graduate students, the latter supported by research scholarships. If, to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, the senior research scholars keep in touch through correspondence, there is every reason to hope that within five years most of the basic information needed for the management of several key species and their habitats should be available.
Another major contribution that universities can make is to exploit (while they last) those basic research opportunities associated with tsetse and other control programs, and with utilization and hunting schemes. This type of research seems ideally suited to universities, for short periods of time in the field lead to rapid accumulation of valuable material. Furthermore, numbers of students can participate, both as research assistants and as an integral part of their training. This type of contribution is not expensive as it only involves the cost of the fellowships, vehicles and running expenses. Appropriate laboratory facilities already exist at the universities mentioned above.
If the principle is accepted whereby the international aid-administering organization has as one of its aims the successful completion of projects to develop the wildlife resource as an integral part of development programs of African countries, then the procedure logically becomes a matter of:
1. sorting out priority needs;
2. finding appropriate men to do the jobs;
3. designing the projects.
In this way it will be possible to maximize the extent to which these projects may be useful locally and stimulate continuing effort by the respective governments. Although the present report has outlined priority needs, this is only the first step.
It is suggested that to be effective this procedure requires the full-time services of a small wildlife staff within the framework of the United Nations. Since there is a shortage of men suitable and available for dealing with more than a small proportion of even the urgent needs, the actual program must be a compromise. The day-to-day practical approach will probably involve designing projects with the co-operation of the most suitable available experts; assigning priority emphasis within the framework of some general statement of needs and aims, either as submitted above or as otherwise determined by the administering United Nations agency; and co-operating (in the planning stage wherever possible) with local governments or other external organizations with a view to making local administration and management, and extension and training services, aware of the most significant practical implications of the work accomplished by grants in aid.
POSSELT, J. 1963. The domestication of the eland, Rhodesian J. of Agric. Research 1 (2): 81-88.
RINEY, T. 1961. The international importance of African wild-life, Unasylva 15 (2): 76-80.
RINEY, T. 1964. The impact of introductions of large herbivores on the tropical environment, IUCN. New Series (4): 261-273.
RINEY, T. and KETTLITZ, W. L. 1964. Management of large mammals in the Transvaal, Mammalia 28 (2): 189-248.
Participants at the opening in Washington D.C. of a training course and study tour on forest fire control practices and methods. This course, for the benefit of 28 trainees from 15 countries, WAS held in July and August in the United States of America (Southern States, California, Oregon and Montana) and Canada (Ontario and Quebec), under arrangements made between FAO, the United States Forest Service, the Canadian Forest Department, and the United States Agency for International Development (US/AID). Seated at the table (left to right) are V. L. Harper, Deputy Chief, United States Forest Service; R. W. Kitchen, Director of International Training, AID, F. P. Cliff, Chief, United States Forest Service: N. A. Osara, Director of FAO's Forestry and Forest Products Division, and A. A. Brown, Technical Director of the study tour in the United States.
