Director’s Statement

I will proceed to sabbatical leave in 2000. While this will be a welcome break away from many activities, I will still be in close contact with IES through the projects I am currently co0ordinating, in particular the DFID funded “Micro-Catchment Management and Common Property Resources” and two projects carried out in conjuction with CIFOR. Plans are at an advanced stage to appoint an Acting Director for 2000.

Integrated Natural Resources Management (INRM)

While the ideas about INRM have been around for many years, the implementations of INRM is piece meal. A small group of researchers from IES, CIFOR and CIMYTT met to discuss INRM and how the success of INRM could be measured. A paper will be forhcoming.

Rebecca Polland Environmental Prizes

The Rebecca Polland Environmental prizes were announced at a ceremony on the 24th of November and televised on National Television. A joint first prize for the scientific paper was shared by Dr Richard Hoare and Mr Alois Mandondo. Richard’s paper was on the co-existence of elephants and humans in communal lands in Zimbabwe, while Alois’s paper was on the problems of defining boundaries in common property resource management in Nyamaropa Communal lands. For the poster prizes, the first prize was given to Mr Dominic Kwesha fo his poster mapping land coverm while the second prize was given to Ms Bev Sithole for her work on CAMPFIRE. The posters and papers submitted were judged by acclaimed national and international scientists namely Prof W. Derman, Prof. S.Feresu, Prof M.Luckert, Mr G.Mudimu, Prof M.Murphree, Dr N.Moyo, Ms S.Shackleton and Dr W.de Jong.

Governance, Property Rights and Rules for Wildlife and Woodlands

A seminar on this topic was held in Harare in December. A wide range of topics were presented and then the policy messages were distilled from group discussions for presentation at a policy forum. Key topics included devolution of “traditional rules and the role of social learning in Managing Natural Resources. It is hope to publish the papers from the seminar in a special issue of a journal. The seminar was sponsored by the WWF/IUCN/ART NRM programme, the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Finnish Academy.

African Hunting Dog Research Project

This project is being carried out by Alistair Pole from Aberdeen University It is being carried out in the Save Valley Conservancy. After close to a year and a half trying to dart wild dogs with no success, in the past three months six radio collars have been put on the wild dogs in five different packs. The approach to monitoring and darting at the den sites was different this year. Instead of trying to out smart the wild dogs by sitting in hides and blinds there has been concentration on habituating the dogs to a landrover. Having located the den sites, a road was built in to it and the landrover was taken in. The dogs quickly habituated to the vehicle and in nearly all cases, the dogs were easily darted within a week by getting close enough to the vehicle. Little analysis has been carried out because of the busy schedule with the demning season.

The team was join by two Veterinary students, one from Tufts in USA and the other from Ireland. They were carrying out a study on the prevalence of certain diseases in the communal lands surrounding the Save Conservancy so that a better idea of the risk factor facing the wild dogs in the conservancy could be established. The researchers were particularly interested in rabies, canine distemper and parvo virus. The students went into the communal lands and collected blood samples from approximately 160 domestic dogs which were then analysed in Harare. The results were interesting in that close to 100% of the domestic dogs had been exposed to canine distemper. The results for the rabies are yet to be received from the lads.

For more information on the project contact Alistair Pole at: Alistair@svc.icon.co.zw

Wild Dog Seminars in Lowveld

On May 15th Alistair Pole (Co-ordinator of the African Hunting Dog Research Project) organized a series of talks on wild dogs for the members of the wildlife industry in the lowveld of Zimbabwe. The seminars were also attended by Dr Gus Mills from Kruger National Parks in South Africa, an expert in African Predators and Andy Searle from National Parks who has developed the helicopter capture technique for wild dogs. The aim of the seminars was to provide people with the information to allow them to make their own minds about the pros and cons of wild dogs, moving away from the negative old stereo types surrounding the species. The talks were attended by close to a hundred people. It is difficult to judge the success of such an event with regard to people changing their perceptions towards the wild dogs. However, a great deal of interest was generated at both the talks and later which is a very good indication that attitudes might be changing.