Reforming Poachers: From Guns to Tools

Thompson Tembo, from Chief Chifunda's area, killed his first animal, a warthog, when he was just 8 years old. His father was poor and his only livelihood was poaching, which he passed on to his son. At the age of 14, Thompson witnessed his father killed by an elephant that his father had wounded. Years following this tragic experience, he became one of Luangwa Valley's most notorious poachers, killing 100s & 100s of elephants and untold number of black rhino throughout much of his adult life. Despite a busy career of ivory trading and selling game meat, he never accumulated significant wealth for his family. Middlemen often cheated him and running from the law was expensive. Today he lives a very different life. Thompson has surrendered his guns and now owns 26 bee hives and earns $300 to $400 annually from selling honey through the COMACO trading center in Lundazi. Moreover, he has learned improved farming and poultry husbandry skills through the COMACO program and is able to keep his family food secure while selling 30 to 40 surplus chickens each year. During the dry season he works as a tourist guide at a community-owned tourism bushcamp. In Thompson's own words, I never knew any other way of supporting my family than poaching until COMACO turned my life in a new direction. I now have to spend the rest of my life saving animals to repay for all the animals I killed. Thompson in one of 334 poachers COMACO has reformed through its Poacher Transformation Program.

In the words of Isaac Chilanga, 42, poacher turned carpenter, Manga (Chikwa chiefdom)

Mostly I liked hunting elephants, leopards, and lions. These were my best animals. I learned to hunt from my family. I sold to buyers like those who buy gemstones - all illegal. These things are not sold as you sell groundnuts. For a leopard skin we would get maybe four blankets. Or exchange for some clothes. I didn't understand how destructive it was.

Those things [poaching] we did in the past - we were not profiting. And we had a lot of problems: fear of being caught, fear of the animals we were hunting, fear of the gun blasting in our faces. Now we [the transformed poachers] have a garden. Before, our garden was the bush! Now we have enough so that we can sell something and still have some money, unlike in the past days of poaching when we gained nothing.

In the past a young boy of 14, if he killed a buffalo people gave a lot of respect to that one. But it was not easier then. Life was hard. Those things you must sell at a cheap price because you can always be caught. With a table, I can sell it to any person who wants it. Carpentry is enjoyable. Now I work with people in the open. Now we are very, very clean. Before, our parents told us, "hey, bring that knife," and in that way we were trained until we were of the age to hunt. Now I tell my children, "bring that saw." My sons will learn these good skills, my sons will be carpenters, and life will be better for them.

The Poacher Transformation Program is able to convert a person from poaching to an alternative livelihood at one third the cost it takes to arrest the same person and take him to court. COMACO is pioneering this new approach to help make wildlife protection in Zambia more cost-effective. With 334 poachers now reformed, Wildlife Conservation Society estimates the number of wild animals saved annually exceeds 2000 animals.

>> Read further more details about the program