Elephant Walks

Elephants versus villagers:

In July 2022, IFAW transported the elephants from Liwonde National Park in Malawi to Kasungu National Park, which borders Zambia. Since their arrival, these massive creatures have been responsible for the deaths of at least nine villagers and an estimated $3 million in crop damage. Former IFAW law enforcement officer, Mike Labuschagne, voiced his concerns, asserting that IFAW should compensate those affected by the elephants. He drew a stark comparison: “If an African NGO released 263 hyenas in the suburbs of London and 18 months later nine people had been killed by those hyenas, what do you think the reaction would be?” While IFAW seems not to be addressing any of the villagers’ concerns in their social media posts, their Australian branch shared that they were applying GPS to help warn villagers of impending encounters with the unpredictable animals. This elephant transfer, touted as one of the largest of its kind, was part of an initiative to alleviate environmental stress in Liwonde National Park. However, the fallout in Zambia has been devastating. Locals report that the elephants, each consuming up to 150kg of food daily and weighing up to seven tonnes, have destroyed homes and grain stores in their relentless search for food. .... Farmers like Levison Banda have seen their livelihoods shattered as their fields are ravaged. “Those animals come from Malawi but they bring trouble to Zambia,” Banda stated, highlighting the cross-border implications of the conservation project. Despite the chaos, neither the Zambian nor Malawian governments have provided compensation for the elephant attacks, preferring to emphasize the supposed tourism benefits of such translocations. Meanwhile, local communities are left to fend for themselves, resorting to makeshift defenses like banging pots and lighting fireworks to ward off the elephants.

So much for charity...