Abstract
The preservation of the wildlife is necessary in order to ensure that the animals are protected from being killed hence they do not become extinct as many other animals have furnished due to lack of rules and regulations to check the activities of the hunters and hunters. Wildlife are very to beneficial to many African countries in that they are source of the foreign exchange through attracting tourists, source of food, hide and skins etc.
However, many African countries encounter many challenges in their attempt to preserve wildlife. This include: lack of funds to establish game parks and reserves by fencing the area to avoid poachers getting in or the animals getting out of the reserves. Secondly, the invasion of wildlife habitats by farmers for grazing land or farming land has led to extinction of some of animal reserves in many African countries. In addition, the corruption in many African countries has seen the poachers bribing the wildlife wardens in order to obtain the wildlife products such as leopard skins, rhino horns and elephant tusks among others. However, the game reserves and p0arks have been established with the assistance of international; bodies and countries.
Introduction
Wildlife involves all untamed plants, animals and other living organisms. The main aim of taming this plants and animals is usually for the purposes of preserving and sustaining the environment. However, the preservation of animals has both positive and negative effects on the environment and the people’s life. The preservation of the wildlife in Africa has been affected by human activities in Africa such as farming, grazing of animals etc. The wildlife is preserved in game reserves and parks where they are guarded by the game wardens to ensure their safety from poachers.
In addition, in many African countries special bodies have been established to oversee the preservation and maintenance of the wildlife for instance in Kenya there is Kenya wildlife services (KWS) that is served with the mandate to ensure that the preservation is up to the international standards and check on the animal rights. In addition, the preservation of the wildlife is not practiced by the government but there are authorized private bodies and individuals that also preserve this animals in their private lands for their personal benefits such as for food, game hunting sports and to attract tourists.
The main body
The preservation of the wildlife has many benefits to the people and the environment. For instance, wildlife is the source of food to many people in Africa. There are communities that still practice hunting and gathering as their main economic activities making game meat and plants source of their livelihood. Game meat is also available in many African hotels where tourists visit frequently. However, in many cases game meat is not easily available because one has to obtain license to hunt the wildlife, in many cases private individuals who preserve animals in their farms are the main suppliers to this hotels.
Secondly, many African countries depend on preservation of animals as their source of foreign currency through the tourists they attract hence they bring with themselves the foreign currency necessary for ensuring the balanced balance of trade. Many of the tourists frequent Africa to see these animals making preservation of animals is a vital economic activity necessary for economic growth and development. The tourism industry has been a source of livelihood of many Africans as it offers employment in tourist hotels, game parks and transporting tourists and the main attraction of these tourists is the wildlife. Therefore, wildlife has both direct and indirect benefits to the Africans.
Thirdly, the television has been airing programs on wildlife behavior, survival and co-existence in their habitats. These programs have offered recreational pleasure to many Africans who have been able to visit the game parks and reserves. In addition, one understand the main facts about the wildlife behavior and conservation, this assists individuals who may be interested in preserving animals in their private lands as the programs acts as a source of essential information.
Negative effects of animal preservation
On the other hand, preservation of animals has also the negative effects to the environment, this include: they cause soil erosion in their habitats especially during the rainy season. These animals include the wildebeest, elephants etc. They destroy the plants that hold the soil together through their hooves leaving the soil bare. In addition, the browsers destroy the back of the plants making the plants dry up leaving the habitat with no shade during the dry season. This causes the death of the animals that cannot access the available shades mainly because strong animals occupy all the available shades.
In addition, many animals attack the adjacent farms to their reserves causing loss of life and destroying food crops and livestock. In many African countries there have been cases of animals escaping game parks and reserves attacking people either they kill or injure them such as cheetah, lions etc. Others like elephants attack farms and destroy the crops and homes as the local people lack the necessary facilities to chase them away.
Main challenges
The main challenges to preservation of animals include lack of funds to maintain and sustain the game reserves and parks in many African countries. For instance, many game reserves are not fenced in many countries hence the poachers can move in and out of the reserves as they wish. In addition, the game wardens are few to monitor big reserves making the illegal activities of the poachers uncontrollable. On the other hand, animals can move out of the reserves causing destruction of the adjacent farms.
Secondly, the destruction and the division of the animal habitats by the farmers and private developers as they look for more land for farming or grazing has made the game animals vulnerable to being killed and migrating from their habitats. In other cases, the land meant for game reserves has been sold to the private individuals due to soaring cases of corruption in Africa. In other cases, game wardens have received bribes from poachers to allow them to kill the animals for their products. More so, the money allocated for maintaining and sustaining game reserves and parks has been misused by the managers due to presence of corruption that allows such actions as there are no legal actions taken to end corruption.
The way forward
The success of the preservation of animals in Africa requires establishments of bodies that will be left with mandate to check on animals’ rights and protection. In addition, it requires the establishments of well formulated rules and regulations that will curb the illegal actions of the poachers who tend to overkill these animals. In addition, the African governments ought to check on the increasing cases of corruption in many sectors of the economy. This will see the corrupt managers and wardens being charged in courts for their illegal actions.
In addition, the international bodies and countries ought to intervene and assist the African countries where poaching is threatening the extinction of animals for instance in DRC Congo where chimpanzees’ and gorillas numbers have reduced in recent years in large numbers. However, the assistance ought to be extended to other African countries that need financial support for better preservation of animals. However, this bodies and countries ought to give funds to those African countries where corruption cases have been dealt to avoid the same cases of the public being used by private individuals.
References
Sapolsky Robert, primate memoir: neuroscientist unconventional life among the baboons, McGraw-hill publishers, London, 2001.
Diamond, J. M. Overview of recent extinctions: Conservation for the Twenty-first Century. Oxford University Press: New York, 1989.