{UAH} Giants Club: After wholesale butchery of Idi Amin's regime, Uganda’s giants flourish once again

OLIVER POOLE

Tuesday 4 August 2015

Giants Club: After wholesale butchery of Idi Amin's regime, Uganda's giants flourish once again

Uganda has seen the largest increase in its elephant herds of any country in Africa -  Oliver Poole reports

SHARE

4

6

1

11

At its worst, the soldiers roaming through Uganda's national parks were killing elephants with hand grenades: taking turns to pull the pin and toss their little bombs into the herds cowering amid the remaining undergrowth. Then the troops would drive up to the carcasses to hack out the ivory with machetes.

That was when the country had fallen into a state of near anarchy following the ousting of Idi Amin by the Tanzanian military in 1979. Soldiers from both sides were camped out across the country, killing the wildlife for food and profit.

The remaining rhinos were hunted down for their horns, which were sold as an aphrodisiac in Asia, or to make dagger handles in the Middle East. By 1985 not a single one remained in the country.

The decline in elephants was similarly precipitous. Before Amin's rule, and the civil war that followed, they had been so numerous visitors would describe seeing herds cover the lush savannah stretching either side of the Nile. Some 35,000 were believed to populate the country. By the mid-1980s around 1,000 were left.

"There was a total breakdown of conservation," Dr Akankwasa Barirega of the Ugandan wildlife ministry explained. "Elephants were being killed to trade the ivory; for food. There was no governance. It was chaos."

READ MORE FROM THE GIANTS CLUB INIATIVE: 
UGANDA'S ELEPHANTS BACK FROM THE BRINK
THERE IS HOPE THAT THE TIDE CAN TURN

Today, Uganda has seen the largest increase in its elephant herds of any country in Africa: an 800 per cent rise to a population that presently stands at around 8,000 and is growing steadily. The herds are husbanded in the country's 10 national parks and the government has a zero tolerance to any form of poaching. So determined is Uganda to ensure there is no return to the free-for-all that a new wildlife act is being debated that would introduce a 20-year sentence for anyone caught trading animal parts.

It is a remarkable turnaround; a conservation success story almost unprecedented across a continent where the trend in elephant populations has too often been one of steady and tragic decline. It is one with lessons that can be learnt in other countries presently bearing the brunt of the poaching crisis that is causing more than a 100 elephants a day to be killed across the continent. It is also one that has produced a wildlife service keen to adopt the latest techniques  to ensure the revival of Uganda's wildlife continues. That is why it is so important that the country's leader, President Yoweri Museveni, has become the latest African head of state to join the Giants Club.

President Museveni signs the Giants Club declaration (Valentina Morriconi)
The President signed our wildlife pledge, in which he committed to enforce a ban on the trade in ivory for at least 10 years and continue to stamp down on anyone involved in the smuggling of elephant parts, at a special ceremony held at his official residence in Kampala. It was attended by senior officials for wildlife and tourism as well as Dr Max Graham, the chief executive of the elephant-protection charity Space for Giants.

"After Idi Amin many species were almost extinct," President Museveni said on joining the presidents of Kenya and Gabon in the new pan-African project. "Now we are working to improve things. We arrested the poachers. The national parks are now teeming with elephant, buffalo and other animals."

Amin had not only turned a blind eye to poaching but positively encouraged it. Shortly before Amin, who was the army chief-of-staff, seized power in a coup, he had been caught as part of a group smuggling ivory and gold out of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo).

Once in power, he bought his officers' loyalty by allowing them to enrich themselves through the trade. At one point, when encamped outside Queen Elizabeth National Park with his retinue, he happily ordered his men to go into the protected area to slaughter game for them to feast on.

The system of national parks established by the British early in the 20th century was in total disarray when President Museveni took control of the country in 1986. Since then the Uganda Wildlife Authority, which barely existed as a functioning entity by the end of Amin's rule, has nursed them back into such a state of health that international tourism has become the country's largest foreign exchange earner.

The Wildlife Authority said that the biggest conservation challenge the country faced today was not poaching but smugglers trying to transport tusks from the neighbouring Democratic Republic of the Congo across Uganda and into Tanzania so that they can be ferried to markets in Asia.

It is why, following Uganda's Giants Club pledge, conservationists from Space for Giants are to work with the country's border guards.

"Uganda demonstrates the critical role African leaders can play," said Dr Graham of Space for Giants after the signing ceremony. "When there is leadership from the top wildlife can be saved. President Museveni's joining the Giants Club is a major milestone in the battle to save the continent's elephants."

_________________________________

Gwokto La'Kitgum

"Even a small dog can piss on a tall Building", Jim Hightower

"But this I know, UPC believed and still believes in very high education. We can call Obote all bad names we have, but the bottom line remains that he got more scholarships for Buganda than all previous Uganda leaders combined. That includes Sir Edward Mutesa, President Lule, President Binayisa, up to and into Ssabasajja Mutebi. Who all happen to be Baganda leaders." Mulindwa

--
Disclaimer:Everyone posting to this Forum bears the sole responsibility for any legal consequences of his or her postings, and hence statements and facts must be presented responsibly. Your continued membership signifies that you agree to this disclaimer and pledge to abide by our Rules and Guidelines.To unsubscribe from this group, send email to: ugandans-at-heart+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com or Abbey Semuwemba at: abbeysemuwemba@gmail.com.