Conservation of Biological Diversity through Hunting

CIC Markhor Award

Tanzanian villages and the Niassa Game Reserve in Mozambique receive the “Markhor Award” from the CIC at the 9th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn.

The International Council for Game and Wildlife Conservation (CIC) has awarded the “Markhor Award” to two conservation bodies from Tanzania and Mozambique. The award ceremony took place on Tuesday, 27 May 2008, during the Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bonn. The recipients are the Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor and the Niassa Game Reserve. The latter is Mozambique's largest conservation area, funded mainly through sustainable hunting tourism. The Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor links this reserve with Tanzania's Selous Game Reserve. The corridor is a settlement of 29 villages, intended to secure genetic exchange and migratory movements of elephants, antelopes, African wild dogs and other wild animals between the two reserves. Here, too, hunting tourism will be the principal source of income for the villages. In this way transboundary conservation of biodiversity is achieved in an area of more than 120.000 km2.

The CIC was founded 80 years ago and has members in 84 countries today. It is an intergovernmental organisation, working in the public interest, worldwide active as advisory body. Its prize was awarded for the first time at the occasion of the CBD Conference of the Parties (CoP). The “Markhor Award” will be given every two years at future CoPs. The prize is intended to recognize outstanding conservation performance through sustainable use of wildlife, including hunting. The name “Markhor” comes from Pakistan's threatened mountain goat species, which population numbers have been multiplied 25 times in recent years through sustainable hunting tourism. Hunting income benefits the local population and arouses its interest in conserving wildlife.

Parliamentary State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection, Ursula Heinen, stressed during the award ceremony at the Ministry in Bonn the importance of sustainable use, which forms the second pillar of the Biodiversity Convention, in the conservation of natural resources.

Dr. Sigurd Lehman-Tolkmitt, Head of the German CIC Delegation, thanked Tanzania and Mozambique for their outstanding conservation performance. He stressed that CIC feels strongly connected to conservation efforts in Africa and highlighted the importance of hunting principles that are guided by the sustainable use of natural resources. He pointed out that “in Germany, we have learned many lessons due to mistakes that have been made in the last 100 years”. He stated that German hunters can learn many lessons from the experience achieved by the people in Tanzania and Mozambique.

Robert Hepworth, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS) based in Bonn, underlined in his keynote speech the efforts of the local communities of the Selous-Niassa Wildlife Corridor and the Niassa Game Reserve in the conservation of nature including migratory species through transboundary cooperation: “Not unlike the Markhor project in Pakistan, both use hunting and sustainable use of wildlife for their own benefit and for the alleviation of poverty and so create strong incentives to protect nature.”

Ana Paula Samo Gudo Chichava, Minister for the Coordination of Environmental Affairs, Mozambique, welcomed the Markhor Award as recognition of her country’s efforts to meet international obligations, including the expansion of their protected areas to 15.5% of the land base.

CIC President, Dieter Schramm handed over the CIC Markhor Award to Gilberto Vincente, Mozambique, and David Ngalla, Tanzania, appreciating their work in the implementation of this unique transboundary cooperation in wildlife conservation in Africa and emphasized that peace underlies conservation. "In many African countries, sustainable hunting and hunting tourism have increased populations of wildlife and secured species diversity. Hunting bans have achieved the opposite." He called upon African governments to use revenue from hunting tourism to benefit the local people who live side by side with wildlife, and to reinvest in game conservation. "Only then will hunting really become sustainable!"

The Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Ahmed Djoghlaf, characterized the CIC in his message as a leading organisation in conservation of biodiversity and appreciated the newly created award: "The sustainable use of renewable biological resources is one of best ways to ensure the continued conservation of biological diversity. (...) The CIC Markhor Award for Outstanding Conservation Performance Through Sustainable Use is a unique award, in that it recognizes and celebrates the efforts of personalities, institutions and conservation projects who and which link the conservation of biodiversity and human livelihoods through the application of the principles of sustainable use including hunting.”

Further information: www.iisd.ca/biodiv/cop9/enbots/pdf/enbots0918e.pdf