Feature: Mozambique strengthens its fight against poaching under challenging situation

Mozambique strengthens its fight against wildlife trafficking in the context of a new law passed in last June and great attention being paid by authorities.

The southern African country had been under growing pressure to take a tougher stance against poachers.

Earlier in 2013, Mozambique was singled out at the international meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), for its lack of action on poaching, followed with a wave of criticism from international organizations including the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the next year.

The former Portuguese colony began to show its determination by passing a law last June, toughening penalties for poaching, including hefty fines and jail terms up to 12 years for killing protected species.

Before that, poaching was not considered a crime in the country, and anyone arrested often got off with a fine for illegal weapons possession.

Recently, Mozambique's former president Joaquim Chissano joined actively in the fight against poaching through his foundation Joaquim Chissano Foundation to stop the slaughtering of elephants.

The foundation is leading campaigns aimed at disseminating information mostly to the community about the importance in the conservation forest and fauna not only for the good sake of the environment but also in collecting profits to the nation.

"Elephant is a source for tax to the development of the country, it is a rare animal, visitors come and pay to see elephants so it is a precious animal that we need to preserve, there is no tourism if we don't have elephants," said Chissano.

The authorities felt it worth to join the fight, following the alarming news released by a reserve park saying that the park has so far lost 50 percent of its elephant population, as a result of poaching in the last couple years.

"Our last data indicates that at least 5 to 6 elephants are slaughtered daily, from the census we carried in 2011 we estimated at 9,000 to 11,000 elephants, but the latest data collection we did showed that we have around 4,000 to 4,500 elephants left at the reserve," said Carlos Perreira from the Niassa Reserve Park.

According to Perreira, the poaching increases the vulnerability of the ecosystem and delaying the socioeconomic development of the communities and the country as a whole.

The country's biologist, Mia Couto says that there is a need to do more than environmental sensitization campaign.

"This attitude or desire to give an end to everything we have failing to think of what will be there for tomorrow must finish, and the poaching will not be stopped with environmental sensitization campaigns only, this alone will not solve the absence of the authority," said Mia Couto.

The Minister of Education and Human Development, Jorge Ferrao, who is also an environment researcher, says that it is the responsibility of all the Mozambicans to preserve elephants.

"Killing an elephant is to destroy an important part of our wealth, the beauty of our country. It is to kill part of our soul, we have the responsibility to preserve the elephants and every living creature in our reserves," said Ferrao. Endi