Another article on disease outbreak from DRC. “The disease reappeared because people here regularly eat monkeys and squirrels, which are reservoirs for the virus, and above all because smallpox vaccinations stopped”. Bushmeat is again the culprit here! Iregi Mwenja
DRC: Monkey pox kills 22 in Equateur provinceKINSHASA, 1 July 2008 (IRIN) - An outbreak of monkey pox in Democratic Republic of Congo’s (DRC) Equateur province has killed 22 of the 470 people infected since the start of 2008, according to medical officials.“The epidemic began in the Tshuapa health zone and has reached almost all parts of the province,” said August Makaya, the chief epidemiologist in Equateur. “Cases of monkey pox have been registered all over Tshuapa health zone but also in Befale and Mopono health zones and more recently in Ingende health zone, near Mbandaka [the main town in the province],” he said.
I am not a keen follower of Kenyan politics and more so since the 2005 constitution referendum when politicians divided the country into two for their own selfish ends. To win last year’s election, they continued with their divisive politics and the consequences of their action is known to everyone. I decided not to participate in the election since it was no longer based on issues but tribes and individuals. And the two principals didn’t demonstrate statesmanship all the way to the end. The Daily Nations editorial in January 2008 summarized the situation “Neither PNU nor ODM during their campaigns demonstrated any particular restraint or regard for the country’s stability. Their mantra appears to have been: We either rule it or burn it” And they chose to burn the country until they ruled it! Thats why I am so disgusted with politicians that I am never keen on politics. However, the reality is that we cannot live without these politicians in todays world of “Democracy”. I am disgusted with the secret sale of the Grand Regency (a public asset) to foreigners and moreso by the arrogance exhibited by the Finance Minister the after ‘whistle was blown’. People like Kimunya should simply step aside and allow someone else to take charge of our Finance ministry since his name keep on appearing on very controversial government deals.. the Safaricom IPO saga, and the Grand Regency sale. I have no idea whether he is guilty of any wrong doing, but in the public court he has been found guilty and should therefore resign. The Finance ministry will continue doing well without him. As Raila said, ‘no one is indispensable’
Iregi Mwenja Patroitic Kenyan
Illegal hunting threaten Tanzania’s wildlife
When Moi was in power we blamed him for every ill in our country. While I agree he was directly and indirectly responsible for most of those problems, Ugandans have now taken the cue and are accusing Museveni of every problem in Uganda, including the soaring food prices which is a global problem! However, this only means that more poor Ugandans and East Africans in general with turn to their traditional source of food in times of hardship and scarcity - WILDLIFE. This global phenomenon will presents us (conservationists in EA) with the greatest challenge in recent times. Bushmeat off take is expected to rise during the coming dry season and might not decline until the food satiation in the country stabilizes! As for now, we know it’s almost impossible to stop a dying man from eating anything he can lay his hands on! Mwenja USFWS MENTOR Fellow on Bushmeat in East Africa Museveni Has Nothing to Do With the Food Prices New Vision (Kampala) COLUMN Karoro Okurut A literary and socio-political analyst The other day I was listening to the Forum for Democratic Change (FDC) President Dr. Kizza Besigye on some FM radio station talking about the rising food and commodity prices and blaming them on President Yoweri Museveni. No surprise there, as it has now become a pattern: holding the President to excuse for every ill, real or imagined and keeping him as their favourite excuse for every failure and problem. And he went on a singing spree of his slogan “agende” (he should go) which incidentally hit a dead end during the last presidential campaigns. As he roared “agende” folks looked around and said: “eh, is that their manifesto?” it was kind of reminiscent of the last elections in 2006 which the opposition lost and as expected, cried foul. I would like to put it to Dr. Besigye and the opposition at large that neither President Museveni nor the National Resistance Movement (NRM) has anything to do with the sky-high food and commodity prices. This is a global issue that every country on earth is experiencing at present. As US President George W. Bush noted in his comments on the economy sometime ago, “prices are up at the gas pump and in the supermarket.” An economist I know gave me a few explanations on the matter. First, as we all know, oil prices have soared to incredible highs. Oil and other petroleum products are important inputs in food production. As the prices of inputs increase, inevitably the cost of production goes up and drives up the equilibrium price. Second, is the rising demand for food globally. There is increasing demand for western foodstuffs from developing countries like China. More affluent Chinese consumers eat more meat and China needs to import more cereals to feed its mushrooming population of pigs and poultry. When China demands anything in quantity (we are talking about over a billion human beings, one sixth of the earth’s population), there will be scarcity all over the place. As people in developing countries demand more food and more food that is more easily produced in western countries, the demand curve for this food shifts to the right and forces up the equilibrium price. This effect, combined with the apparent increased food intake by people in developed countries, is probably important. Third, the opportunity cost of selling grains for food has risen greatly because of the increase in demand for grains to produce bio-fuels. Bio-fuels are already big business in the United States, where bio-ethanol is seen as a greener and more sustainable alternative to traditional petrol. Although ethanol can be produced most efficiently from sugarcane, the sugar and maize (corn) lobbies in the US and elsewhere are of recent, turning more to maize to produce ethanol. As the price of maize is driven up by this increased demand, less farmland is available to raise food. These higher opportunity costs have contributed greatly to the increased price of food, throughout the world. Problem with this is that land which until recently was growing crops for food is now growing crops for fuel. The United Nations says a third of the total US maize crop went for ethanol last year. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says there is no question that demand for biofuels is driving up food prices-and that it will go on doing so. There are other reasons of course. Drought and political instability in many areas of the world, especially Africa have made it impossible for food to be grown in the affected areas. That means only a few places (Uganda being one of them) are able to supply food to the rest. For the domestic market that means a lot of our food is going to Sudan, Congo, Kenya - an aggregate area far bigger than Uganda several times over - which translates into higher prices automatically. In many ways we have become what in the Bible days, Joseph and Egypt were to the rest of the world-a place where everybody around could go to buy food because of the widespread scarcity. That is why President Museveni a while back remarked that the rising prices are actually great for local producers because they present an immediate and handsome profit. Our colleagues in the Opposition ought to know that our people are no fools. In this age of enlightenment with radio, television and internet all over the place, people know very well what is going on around them and around the world. You cannot wrap the blame blanket around the President and the NRM each time something goes wrong, hoping to make easy capital. And it is important to distinguish between regular, meaningful opposition and outright below-the-belt knocks. This country needs civilised politics based on articulation of issues and dispensing credible and workable alternative policy agendas. In the unlikely event that Dr. Besigye or any member of his party took power in this country, there is no way NRM folks would stand up and say Besigye is the cause of a food or commodity crisis or some other such crisis if it was a global issue. We are above that and would rather adopt a think-tank approach to politics, by fronting alternative solutions if we were in the opposition rather than making feeble attempts at explaining the cause of the problem. I suggest the Opposition would make more capital through engaging the populace on what direction they can take this country to when given chance, than stooping so low as to launch unwarranted personal attacks
Although this presentation was done at the Sullivan Summit which I attended from day one to the end, I got this article through the web and I found it interesting since people never seem to agree on where HIV/AIDS originated from. But we all know that bushmeat is a health hazard and these are some of the possibilities. I would love to see your comments on this issue.
Iregi Mwenja USFWS MENTOR Fellow
Central Africa: Expert Blames Aids, Ebola to Bush Meat The Citizen(Dar es Salaam) 6th June 2008 By; Zephania Ubwani Consumption of bushmeat may have fueled the emergence of viral diseases including HIV/Aids and Ebola, among people in the Congo basin, a scientist warned yesterday. Dr John B. Flynn, director of Usaid-supported Central Africa regional programme for the environment said there is evidence that HIV has been transmitted to humans by wild chimpanzees, one of the most hunted animals in the Congo basin. He told the last session of the 8th Sullivan Summit that medical researchers were concerned that bushmeat trade could not only eliminate primate populations in the area, but could also spread HIV/Aids, Ebola, monkey fox and related hemorrhagic fevers. He said although some populations of wild chimpanzees tolerated closely-related SIV virus with few harmful effects, medical researchers were concerned that bush meat trade would eliminate the endangered chimpanzees and other primates. Should that happen, the potentially invaluable information that could have been provided by the on-going trials on the cure of Aids using primates would also disappear, the scientist further warned. According to him, the pool of viruses resident in wildlife populations, especially the primates, has created substantial threat of zonotic diseases transmissions from animals to humans through active hunting and consumption of wildlife. “The bushmeat issue is thus an issue of global concern. It is one of the most severe threats to many large and medium sized mammals in Central African forests,” he said, adding that bush meat has also found its way on the dining tables in town markets in the region. He said the dramatic reduction in mammal populations and the massive felling of trees could lead to ecological disruption of the complex ecosystem in the second largest tropical forest belt after the Amazon in South America. The World Resources Institute, a Washington-based global organisation dealing with natural resources, estimates that about 50 per cent of Central Africa’s forests, under which the Congo basin falls, are under logging leases. “This means the commercial logging sector must be involved and cooperate in order to bring about forest conservation and sustainable use of the natural resources there,” he pointed out. The Congo basin contains about 20 per cent of the world’s moist tropical forests. Although deforestation there is relatively low compared with other tropical zones, scientists say the forest loss there is substantial, corresponding to 21,668 square kilometers for a 10 year period. The basin is believed to be the source of Africa’s existing biological diversity. Of the estimated 8,000 plant species found there, about 80 per cent are endemic to the region, according to the expert. “It is also the riches area for fauna in terms of numbers and level of endemism, with 655 species of birds and 58 species of mammals, about half of them endemic to the area,” Dr Flynn explained, adding that of these, 16 bird species and 23 mammal species are considered threatened. The region supports the world’s largest population of lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) and forest elephants. The Congo basin forest partnership was launched in 2002 in Johannesburg during the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) by the United States and South Africa along with 27 public and private partners to promote conservation of natural resources in Central African forests.
Well-managed wildlife trade can benefit poor communities-TRAFFIC, WWF According to findings of a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network, and WWF, a well-managed wildlife trade has the potential to deliver significant development benefits for the world’s poor. The report shows that wildlife trade offers opportunities to the poor and benefits to local communities, but these are threatened when illegal or unsustainable trade is allowed to flourish. This is an interesting finding for Kenya where trade in wildlife and wildlife products was banned in 1977. Kenya has since maintained a restrictive non-consumptive utilisation policy and has interestingly lost over 60 % of its wildlife within this time and illegal and unsustainable exploitation of wildlife for bushmeat has reached alarming rates. The legal, international trade in wild plants and animals and the products derived from them was estimated as worth close to USD300 billion in 2005, based on declared import values-and the value is rising, according to this report. The report finds that well-managed, legal and sustainable trade can also have a significant impact on all eight of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the globally agreed road map for development, which lay out targets on poverty and hunger reduction (MDG1) access to education (MDG2), health care (MDGs4, 5 and 6), environmental sustainability (MDG7) and good governance (MDG8). For Kenya, such a trade will help our country achieve the Vision 2020 goals by economically empowering the poor and giving land owners additional sources of income from their land. Wildlife products traded include medicines, food, clothing, ornaments, furnishings, pets, ornamental plants, zoological and botanical display, research, manufacturing and construction materials. As well as contributing to the incomes of the poor, many also contribute directly to their housing, health and other needs. According to Dr Susan Lieberman, Director of WWF International’s Species Programme: “Trade in wildlife products can have a significant positive economic impact on people’s livelihoods, childhood education, and the role of women in developing countries, provided it is legal, well-managed and sustainable.” The report recommends governments explore semi-intensive production methods, experiment with management regimes that support sustainable off-take levels for species in trade, develop ‘pro-poor’ approaches to standards and certification schemes, and explore co-ordinated approaches to different components of wildlife trade, such as balancing commercial and subsistence interests. Unlike in Kenya where wildlife utilisation have mostly favoured the rich and those with access to capital resulting in resentment against wildlife and revenge killings of endangered species by poor communities to prick where it hurt most. Iregi Mwenja USFWS MENTOR Fellow
Th US Deputy Assistant Secretary, Fish and Wildlife and Parks of the Department of Interior Mr Kaush Arha yesterday visited CAWM Mweka and had a meeting with the MENTOR Fellows. He gave an inspiring address to the MENTOR Fellows, sharing with us the conservation challenges wildlife managers in America had faced in the past, most of which are similar to what we are facing here in East Africa today. This was after he carefully listened to each MENTOR Fellows who shared with him the bushmeat challenges in their respective countries. The MENTOR (Mentoring for ENvironmental Training in Outreach and Resource Conservation) Fellowship Program was established by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the College of African Wildlife Management- Mweka, Tanzania, and the Africa Biodiversity Collaborative Group to train and build the capacities of emerging conservation leaders in order to build a network of eastern Africa wildlife professionals who can lead efforts to reduce illegal and unsustainable bushmeat exploitation at local and regional levels. The USFWS have generously provided the funds for this program.
After the meeting he agreed to join us for dinner at the college cafeteria, to the surprise of many of us. The easy going Senior US government official was at home eating food prepared for the students as you can see in the photo below.
It was a great honour meeting and talking to such a senior US official. I was elated by the fact that he was interested in my project on wildlife policy review in Kenya. That motivates me. Iregi Mwenja USFWS MENTOR Fellow
I would like to thanks my first donor on this blog Miss JFN for her generous donation of $20. My blog is less than a month old and I very grateful to Miss JFN for this generous donation. The money will be used to facilitate my blogging by buying mobile phone credit since I am using a wireless modem.
Iregi Mwenja USFWS MENTOR Fellow
I have been attending the Sullivan Summit which started on Monday. The facilities were congested especially on Monday and we could only follow the proceeding from big screens outside the conference hall. Discussion on environment will start tomorrow and this is where I expect to fully participate. However, despite the congestion I managed to capture some images which I want to share with you.
Iregi Mwenja USFWS MENTOR Fellow
I have just arrived in Moshi, a small Town in northern Tanzania where our college is located, on the slopes of kilimanjaro. I have returned for a four months final semester after which I will return to Kenya for 10 months of fieldwork on bushmeat. Everything here is excellent but not the internet services! Connections are slow, prohibitively expensive for mobile phones and unreliable. This means reguler posting will not be possible. Internet at the college is even worse and I have to travel to Moshi, 14km away to publish a post! On Monday I will attend the Sullivan summit in Arusha. I hope to do a post on the proceeding especailly discussions on environmental issues. Iregi Mwenja
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Iregi Mwenja is one of the 8 USFWS MENTOR Fellows from E. Africa studying a post-graduate course on Bushmeat in CAWM Mweka. He is a leading wildlife biologist with 8 years field experience in East Africa
