Zambia is to lift a ban on the hunting of lions and leopards in an attempt to raise funds, a move critics describe as “extremely outrageous”.



Jean Kapata, the tourism and arts minister, said profits from hunting the big cats could benefit wildlife conservation as well as the livelihoods of rural communities.

“I am lifting the ban on the following conditions: the guidelines are drafted into a statutory instrument so that they become part of the wildlife law,” she was quoted by the Zambia Daily Mail as saying. “Lion hunting should only resume in the 2016-17 hunting season and not this year. Leopard hunting can resume this year – 2015-16 season – but with very cautionary quotas.”

Rules against hunting big cats were imposed in January 2013 because of declining lion populations in some areas due to over-harvesting, hunting of underage lions and depletion of habitats. Kapata said the government’s move that year “had a good basis with a background of weak regulatory mechanisms”. But she said the suspension seriously affected wildlife resources and the livelihoods of local people in the game management areas.

Based on fresh information from the field, the government would adopt prescribed guidelines, she said. “Some of the regulatory methods are currently being used in Tanzania, Mozambique and Zimbabwe. These have been found to be effective.”

But the decision was condemned by the Green party of Zambia. Its president, Peter Sinkamba, said the ban had been introduced when leopards and lions were facing their biggest threat since the 1980s. “We all know that the number of lions and other big cat species in Zambia’s major parks is depleted and limited due to poaching and other anthropogenic activities,” he told the Lusaka Times.

The population of lions in the country in 2013 wasestimated to be between 2,500 and 4,700, Sinkamba said. “Much as we are aware that the PF [Patriotic Front] government is facing serious budget deficit challenges, it is extremely outrageous to resort to unleashing safari hunters on to limited populations of big cat species, regardless of the fact that safari hunting is allegedly most profitable.

“This type of approach is definitely awful. Posterity will judge our generation harshly for having been responsible for depletions of rhinos, black lechwes and other species.”

Last month the American ambassador to Zambia, Eric Schultz, visited the country’s biggest national park and called for wildlife to be protected from poachers. “Zambia has the chance to benefit from wildlife tourism for generations to come if conservation efforts are successful,” he told the Zambia Daily Mail. “The poaching crisis in southern Africa is a growing international concern.”

Neighbouring Zimbabwe has been criticised for selling baby elephants and other wild animals to Angola, China, France and the United Arab Emirates, but argues it is preferable to culling surplus populations and that the money is needed for conservation efforts.