Rural Africa Weekly Report: How Hunting Bans in Africa Affect Rural Residents and Other Reports
Every week, Rural Reporters collates a report on development in rural Africa and its environs. The reports include are some of our top picks of recent must-read research, interviews, reports, blogs and in-depth articles to help you keep on top of global crises. Here are some of the updates you may have missed from the previous week.
Hunting Bans in Africa Affect Rural Residents, Create Havens for Poachers
Calls for hunting bans in Africa are not a new phenomenon, yet with recent events such as the death of Cecil the lion, a popular male lion that the Zimbabwe government claims was poached, many anti-hunting groups are once again urging African nations to close their doors to hunters. In the past these petitions have been mostly ignored, except for a few notable exceptions such as Botswana. Two years ago the southern African nation surprised many of its neighbors when it announced a blanket ban on trophy hunting. Yet instead of increasing populations of wildlife, many critics of the hunting ban said it will instead lead to unemployment, economic turmoil, increased poaching, and perhaps worst of all, even endanger the very wildlife that the ban was trying to protect.
Building the Resilience of African Rural Communities to Disasters and Crisis
In 2015, a large number of Zimbabweans, especially in the southern parts of the country, have been facing food security crisis largely as a result of drought and scarce rains. To cope adequately with the cause of food insecurity in Zimbabwe, the Livelihoods and Food Security Programme and other programmes are moving from a reactive response to a proactive and prevention-focused response with a particular focus on community level actions to strengthen resilience.
This ‘Droneport’ Is Designed to Save Lives in Rural Rwanda
A proposed project could make Rwanda the first country with an operating “droneport”. Yes, that’s an airport for drones. Its designers say the unmanned aircraft would carry food, blood, and other vital supplies to infrastructure-challenged regions that sorely need them.
Ghanaian appointed as World Bamboo Ambassador
The World Bamboo Organization has appointed Bernice Dapaah, the Executive Director of Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative, as a World Bamboo Ambassador.
Addressing the 10th World Bamboo Congress in Damyang, South Korea, Bernice Dapaah, paid tribute to the institutions who have helped transform the vision of Ghana Bamboo Bikes into reality.
According to her, the Ghana Bamboo Bikes Initiative has created employment opportunities for 35 people “whose incomes have lifted them out of poverty and allowed them to invest in a wide range of social benefits such as better nutrition and education”.
Study links dams to rising cases of malaria in Africa
A new study has linked the rising cases of malaria in most parts of sub-Saharan Africa to construction and sitting of dams as well as flooding. According to the study published in this month’s Malaria Journal, over one million people in sub-Saharan Africa will contract malaria this year because they live near a large dam, which, for the first time, has correlated the location of large dams with incidence of malaria and quantified impact across the region.
