Adding meat to the refugees' menu may solve the problem of illegal hunting of protected animals
Since 1961 - the independence of Tanzania - about 20 refugee camps have been established there. Today there are 12 camps that, according to traffic, consume about 7 tons of game meat per week.
According to the UN: Tanzania has about 400 refugees living in permanent camps and another 100 living in temporary camps. Most of them are refugees from the wars in Rwanda, Burundi and Congo, therefore most of the refugees are in the western border area of Tanzania (close to the countries they came from), an area that until not long ago had no human influence. That is, an area rich in wildlife.
The residents of the camps survive mainly on donations, food provided by aid organizations, mainly the "World Food Organization" World Food Program (WFP) The distributed food contains basic products such as: rice, flour, oil, grains, legumes, some of the prepared food has supplements and vitamins, and so The distributed food should satisfy all the needs of the refugees.
In Tanzania, the relief organizations manage about 400 refugees living in camps. And according to the organization's employees: since the food provided contains everything necessary, "the refugees should not have a problem" but it turns out that "there is a problem - a serious one", the camp residents are not satisfied with the distribution, most of the refugees come from rural areas where they engaged in small-scale agriculture and raising domestic animals which were a source of protein from animals (what to do? "Vegetarian culture" is unknown to them, the vegetarianism of the modern world has not reached their territories and they continue as usual from day to day to enrich their menu with meat whose origin was mainly pigs, goats, cattle and poultry) in the camps the refugees do not have farm animals and therefore they "enrich" the Their menu is fishing and hunting around the camps. When you add to this the cutting down of the trees for burning for cooking and heating, you get a worrying picture of serious damage to the biological diversity/wildlife and vegetation around the camps. The main victims are buffaloes, zebras, various antelopes and chimpanzees.
To illustrate the impact, Trafik brings an example from one reserve: in 1994, following the fighting in Rwanda, about 600.000 refugees were pushed to the vicinity of the Borigi reserve (Tanzania). The result: the number of buffaloes in the reserve fell from 2500 to 44! Horse antelopes were - 450 there are - 45! Zebras were - 6500, there are - 600. Antelope-bobels were - 325, there are - 0! A similar trend - almost complete extermination of wild animals - was seen in other reserves.
Traffic's report constitutes an "indictment" against the organizations that supply food, with the main accusation being that there is no supply of meat. According to the report: "The amount of (wild) hunter's meat that reaches the camps causes to mask the failure of the organizations and the world community to provide the refugees with their basic needs." The aid organizations turn a blind eye to the illegal hunting and trade in hunting meat, hunting and trade caused by a constant lack of meat!
To overcome the problem and to prevent the extermination of wild animals in western Tanzania, Trafik proposes to provide the refugees with preserved meat and to encourage the breeding of domestic animals, especially chickens, that is, to allow the refugees to "produce" legal sources of livelihood that will provide them with animal protein.
According to the World Food Organization WFP, implementing such a proposal would double the cost of providing food to refugees. In other words, the economic value of nature reserves must be calculated again. In East Africa in general and Tanzania in particular, the tourism industry is of great economic importance, tourism as a whole relies on wildlife, reserves, and nature. Therefore, it would be right for the aid organizations and the authorities to invest more in enriching the food for refugees with meat and preventing poaching.
The time has come that instead of controlling the environment for the sake of the human population, there will be control of the human population for the sake of the environment.
Dr. Assaf Rosenthal, ecologist,
Tour guide/leader in Africa and South America.
For details: Tel. 0505640309 / 077-6172298,
Email: assaf@eilatcity.co.il
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age:
I am responding to your words even though they do not deserve a response simply because I feel guilty towards Yehuda.
Just now I sent a comment attacking him for writing comments that are not interesting enough and it is not possible that after I attack such an innocent thing I will ignore your comment which simply arouses disgust.
It's amazing how easy it is for people to alienate themselves from other people, and in vain to pass a death sentence on tens of thousands of women, old and young.
And all this, of course, in order to preserve the wild animals. Because there are only 45 antelopes, but there are too many people who know how to laugh, be happy and cry. who love their children and the world around them, just like any western person.
What a shame there are too many of them.
If they continue to provide them with food, within two years there will be a million apes and zero wild animals.
The solution is to stop providing them with food at all
thus forcing them to return to Rwanda and Congo.
The wild animals must be taken care of and preserved first, not the great apes.
Michael,
No, I don't know. I assume (and assumptions can always be wrong) that with all the good will, it is not possible to provide all the plant food required to maintain the quality of life of 600,000 refugees in one camp.
Even if it is possible and done, I agree with you that such a diet will not prevent them from hunting wild animals to enrich the menu. For this, careful laws and special education and advocacy are needed.
Roy:
I don't know if they tried to push them into some kind of diet.
It is possible that no one thought about their diet and they were given what was convenient to give and it is possible that they would have managed without the meat of the wild animals but preferred to hunt them because they were used to eating meat (and maybe even without them they would not have suffered from malnutrition). It is possible, in this case, that another solution to the problem could have come from the field of education or the field of law enforcement.
I emphasize - I say my words out of ignorance and not out of knowledge.
do you happen to know?
This is indeed a problem, when trying to push people to a vegetarian diet while ignoring the conditions of the existing reality.
An interesting article, describing a sad situation.