By Myles Matarise
Whilst beekeeping is a sustainable practice that improves livelihoods through the selling of honey and beeswax, in Hurungwe district’s Nyamakate area in Mashonaland West Province, it has also helped in managing human-wildlife conflict.
This comes as human-wildlife conflict remains a problem in some parts of Zimbabwe especially among wildlife-reliant communities as well as those adjacent to protected areas.
Director of Zimbabwe Apiculture Trust, Selina Chitapi told the Daily News yesterday during a tour of beekeeping projects in Nyamakate that the industry was significant both for sustaining livelihoods and as well as a mechanism to manage human-wildlife conflict.
“Beekeepers in Nyamakate are in a profitable honey and wax business but the area in which they are located has prevalent human-wildlife conflict.
“Elephant corridors are common in the area and that causes a problem for villagers and their crop produce which can be prone to being disturbed or attacked.
“We have now adopted a more sustainable way of managing human-wildlife conflict by setting up beekeeping projects around village homesteads to limit and prevent cases of human to wildlife conflict since bees and elephants are eternal enemies,” Chitapi said.
According to Chitapi the beehives act as bio fences, which in essence are barriers or boundaries that protect homesteads and their farm produce from wildlife.
She said beekeeping had significantly grown in Zimbabwe, with over 50 000 beekeepers thanks to high domestic demand for honey as a food, for medicinal uses and beeswax used for making candles.
Raymond Phiri, a beekeeper in Hurungwe told the Daily News that besides profit making, they had also seen a major decrease in human-wildlife conflict as a result.
“We are able to send our children to school from the profits that come from selling honey and beeswax.
“However, it’s also important to note that villagers no longer live in great fear of wild animals like elephants affecting their crops and at times being attacked as it’s been limited as a result of these beekeeping projects supported by the government and UNDP.
“For us it’s a step forward, we hope that human-wildlife conflict becomes a thing of the past in our village,” Phiri said.
Human wildlife conflict is common in the country, involving mainly elephants and lions and especially in the cropping season in communal areas where elephants are responsible for up to 75 percent of all wildlife crop damage.
Communities adjacent to protected areas are frequently pitted against large herbivores notably elephant, buffalo, hippopotamus, which raid crops, compete for pasture and water or, spread diseases and, large carnivores, which attack livestock or humans.
According to the Campfire Association, human-wildlife conflict in Zimbabwe’s communal areas resulted in the loss of over 88 lives, 5 000 livestock, 6 000 hectares of crops, and damage of irrigation and water supply infrastructure during the period 2010-2015.
A recent study by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) of livestock depredation in north-western Zimbabwe clearly demonstrated the severity of the problem.
Based on reports at three study sites on communal land covering 3,306 km2 from 2008–2013, 1,527 carnivore-related human-wildlife conflict incidents were recorded, broken down as 2,039 animals killed and 306 injured.
Lions and spotted hyena contributed to the largest proportion of this with cattle and donkeys being most frequently attacked.
