Balancing between African cultural-religious demands and wildlife conservation

Displayed on stalls in the herbs section of Harare’s main farmers’ market in Mbare is anything from animal skins, skulls, bones, claws, dung, furs, scales, fat and various other paraphernalia. As they try to lure customers, the stallholders claim they have something for any condition, from backache to erectile dysfunction to cancer, HIV/Aids and everything in-between. They also claim they can make people rich, powerful, feared, lucky or anything humans may desire to be. 

This scene can be observed throughout most of Africa, where the use of African Traditional Medicines (ATM) is prevalent. However, most ATM originate in animals, birds, reptiles and marine creatures, which, given the high demand, is driving some of these creatures towards extinction.

“It’s a huge industry that operates completely in the shadows, intersecting heavily with, if not abetting, the snaring of big cats in Zimbabwe, South Africa, Botswana and Namibia among other range states,” Oscar Nkala, an investigative journalist who tracks illegal wildlife trade across Africa told FairPlanet in an interview.

According to his research on ATM, animals that are in high demand by African traditional healers include lions, hyenas, leopard, cheetah, elephant, buffalo, rhino, vultures, eagles, hornbills, puff adders, tortoise and several other marine species.

Various uses for wildlife body parts

The uses of these animals’ body parts by ATM practitioners vary. 

“I have been approached by budding traditional healers seeking to strengthen themselves, politicians gunning for higher office, priests seeking promotions or supernatural powers to woo crowds or magic muti (medicine) portions to perform ‘wonders’ like healing the sick,” one of the ATM practitioners told Nkala in one of his researches. 

“This group is primarily after power-giver medicines derived from lion, puff adder or leopard and others that command both fear and respect in the jungle. We use lion [or] puff adder fat for powers to command fear and respect,” the traditional healer explained. “Some also want concoctions made of lion or leopard throat, dried or burnt in a fire and crushed into incense. Priests, politicians, company managers and even directors of non-governmental organisations seek this service. To have a voice that invokes respect and fear, we mix lion phlegm with concoctions to be drunk or smeared bodily.

The second group, he added,  includes business owners in highly competitive sectors like retail, public transport, and commodities. Their aim is twofold: to attract customers using lucky charms, and to cast spells to undercut their rivals.

High demand across Africa

Such an array of uses corroborate the findings of a recent continent-wide study that concluded that the use of wildlife products for cultural and religious purposes is widespread among ordinary tribespeople, religious groups and politicians in Africa. The the demand, the study finds, is so high that it has a bearing on the survival of some wildlife species, especially members of the carnivore family.

ATM is practiced in at least 90 per cent of African countries. Unlike elephants, rhinos, giraffes and other large animals, most of these endangered animals, birds and reptiles cannot be fenced off in protected game parks, making them easily available to feed ATM demand. 

According to Nkala, there are more than 200,000 registered traditional healers in South Africa, 100,000 in Zimbabwe and others in many other countries; but the bulk of them are not registered or regulated, making it near impossible to quantify the extent of the devastation that they cause on wildlife. 

Experts fear that, if left unchecked, this demand has potential to decimate entire wildlife species. This has prompted some conservationists to engage user groups and educate them on the need to conserve these wildlife species, while also developing alternative solutions that reduce demand as a way to both conserve the animals and preserve Africa’s rich cultures.

One such initiative is by Panthera, the global wild cat conservation group, which started a Furs For Life programme that is based on promoting culturally sensitive behaviour change campaigns as alternatives to prosecution and the criminal justice system. The initiative, which was launched in 2013, involves the adoption of Heritage Furs, high-quality synthetic fur, alternatives to authentic animal furs that have traditionally been used in religious and cultural attire across many African communities.

Tristan Dickerson, Panthera’s Furs for Life Programme Coordinator, told FairPlanet that through this initiative over 22,000 Heritage Furs have been supplied to southern African communities consisting of over seven million members. In the process, they reportedly saved the lives of thousands of wild cats. The success of the programme has seen some of these wild cat populations stabilising, and in some cases, even increasing.

“We started with leopard furs and now we are doing other cat furs; we got some lion mane we have done in Zambia, and we now are working on creating a Heritage Fur for serval for the Ngoni (tribe) in Zambia and Malawi,” he told FairPlanet. This tailored conservation initiative, he added, works with cultural traditions rather than against them, ensuring the sustainable preservation of both heritage and biodiversity. 

The programme began with a collaboration with the Nazareth Baptist Church eBuhleni (Shembe Church), a South African Christian church denomination with a membership of over 20,000, which uses leopard skin attire. It later signed up the African Congregational Church, a million-plus member church which uses leopard skin hats for its ceremonial regalia.

The programme has expanded from South Africa to Zambia and Malawi, where some tribes use various wild cat furs for their cultural attire.

“It’s all about developing a relationship with the leaders or leader groups or committees so that we work together to create the correct Heritage Fur garment and when we introduce it to the followers, its adoption rate is high,” Dickerson explained. “Now we are looking at scaling up throughout Africa.

“We are looking at what other cultures, religions, tribes are using furs for, if they are impacting on leopard populations or other wild cat populations and we target those.”

‘Working with traditions, not against them’

Professor Vivienne Williams, a freelance academic and ethnoecologist, based at the School of Animal, Plant & Environmental Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa, who was involved in the Africa-wide study on the extent of the use of wildlife products for cultural and religious uses, says programmes such as Furs For Life are essential to conservation. 

“Despite use and trade being more widespread than previously thought, tailored conservation efforts can absolutely work with cultural traditions, rather than against them, ensuring the preservation of both heritage and biodiversity for generations to come,” said Prof Williams, whose work largely focuses on the intersection of cultural practices, trade, and conservation challenges.

Nkala emphasized that since not all uses of wildlife products have viable alternatives, it’s essential to work toward long-term shifts in cultural attitudes.

“We have to accept the fact that our cultural practices are continuing at the expense of wildlife,” he said, adding that there needs to be a balance - one that recognises that for these cultures to endure, wildlife must too. If species are depleted, he argued, “we can’t expect the cultures that depend on them to survive.”

Still, he acknowledged the difficulty of this task, given that much of the trade happens outside formal regulation, making it incredibly hard to monitor or control.

“There also has to be political will to deal with the problem, and it is lacking in many African countries. Maybe it’s because most African leaders are themselves users of these ATM products.’’

‘Tackle larger structural forces’

Dr Stasja Koot, Assistant Professor at the Sociology of Development and Change Group at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and the University of Johannesburg, South Africa, believes that although demand reduction initiatives work, the challenge of fighting wildlife extinction requires a more radical approach that tackles the bigger structural forces behind it.

“I think the main threat behind extinctions and the reduction of species is not the use of wildlife products, although this definitely contributes, but larger, structural, political economic forces that may at times be integrated with the use of wildlife products,” Koot, who has been working with indigenous groups in southern Africa, mostly in Namibia and South Africa, told FairPlanet. 

For example, power relations, often rooted in colonialism, he said, are reflected in land use practices like land grabbing and green grabbing, while proposed solutions increasingly rely on market mechanisms that are part of the problem, ultimately deepening class and racial inequalities.

“Focusing on wildlife products as the threat that needs to be addressed may also serve as a distraction from these much larger problems that are much harder to tackle.”