From my Hide: A tragic report back…

OVER the years I have brought you many updates on the work of that amazing young Australian working with the Presidential Elephant Herd in Zimbabwe, Sharon Pincott.

Sharon gave up her life and career in Sydney to settle in Zimbabwe, where in 2001 she launched and has run ever since the Presidential Elephant Conservation Project, based in the Hwange National Park in western Zimbabwe.

For 13 years Sharon has struggled against a lack of funding, government disinterest and then direct interference, rivalries among poachers, conservationists, officials and politicians, intimidation and bullying, and finally land grabs in Hwange itself.

For 13 years she managed to keep the Presidential Herd, which has been under constant threat but which in theory at least enjoyed special status for many, many years, safe from major poaching efforts.

But even Sharon has had enough. She has announced her resignation from the project with immediate effect and when last I had contact with her she said that she was almost certainly leaving Zimbabwe.

The final straw has been a land grab in Hwange which has left the Presidential Elephants wide open to threats of hunting by the new people who have moved in. The worst news is that it may already have begun.

There have been reports of gunfire and hunting activity around the new lodge in the disputed area claimed, specifically at a water hole used by the Presidential Elephants. A sad tale indeed.

The other bad news is Japan’s whaling antics. I recently wrote with considerable excitement about a decision by the United Nations International Court of Justice banning Japan’s notorious whale hunts in the Antarctic. The court’s decision is binding and at the time Japan said it would abide by the ruling.

However, within a couple of weeks of all this, Japan has already gone back on its word. One of its whaling fleets has left for its traditional hunting grounds in the north-western Pacific, an area much closer to home that the Antarctic and one where they have, in the past, killed more whales than during the Antarctic hunts.

They did say this time that the north-west hunt would be ‘scaled down’. They have also announced that they will resume their Antarctic hunt next year, but a more scaled down version of it.

Japan has claimed for years that its continued whaling activities in the face of an international ban on whaling is for scientific research purposes, but there are few who believe this, seeing it as a poor excuse for purely commercial hunting. The Japanese were once a great whale meat eating nation, but no longer – just 14 percent of them are reported to still eat it.

Two tragedies, involving the biggest animal on land and the biggest in the sea. There can be no happy ending to either story, it would seem, although I’m sure the struggle on both fronts is far from over. Cheers.

Sources: savetheelephants.org News Service and News24.com.