Hammer Simwinga
San Francisco
San Francisco
In North Luangwa National Park there once roamed great herds of elephant making up a population of a hundred thousand – by the end of the 1980’s there were virtually none left, except fragmented families, wary inexperienced and young, the majority of the elders of the Elephant families killed for their tusks.
Mark and Delia Owens came to the valley in the early 1980's in search of a pristine wilderness to study lion. They found that one of the most beautiful places on earth was in trouble. Mark and Delia spent years fighting the poachers, setting up sustainable development projects to provide viable alternative income to the local poachers and conservation education programmes. All against a backdrop of large scale poaching operations being run by corrupt government officials and local big men. Their story in Zambia finished because of threats made against their lives. Whilst visiting the US they heard from a reliable source that they should not return to Zambia if they wished to survive.
Working with Mark and Delia Owens, Hammer Simwinga was left without funds or infrastructure when the ‘difficult’ times besieged the Luangwa Valley, years of work was thrown into disarray. Undaunted by the massive task in front of him, Hammer continued to work with the people in the villages where he and the Owens had created viable and sustainable alternatives to poaching. You can read more about Hammer’s Goldman Prize and the Owens’ work via links at the end of the interview.
Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation - FWHC is a newly formed non-profit organization which will now operate elsewhere in Zambia as need arises. Hammer Simwinga, recent recipient of The Goldman Environmental Prize 2007 is the Founder and Chairman of this new foundation with a vision to address critical environmental issues that affect wildlife and its habitat.
In this exclusive Safaritalk interview with Jude Price, Hammer Simwinga opens the window on life in the Luangwa Valley, his work, the people who live in the villages, previously sustained only by poaching – and his challenges and vision. Hammer shares with us the remarkable difference his work has achieved - one woman, one man, one village, at a time.
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Hammer Simwinga receives the Goldman Environmental Prize 2007
for his sustainable development work in Zambia, Africa
for his sustainable development work in Zambia, Africa
Hammer, I have read about the recent award of the Goldman Environmental Prize for your work in the North Luangwa valley – What kind of difference will the prize make to your work with the communities and people here?
There is already HUGE difference, the increased demand for the same activities I have been doing in the North Luangwa to be replicated in the Bangweulu Wetlands and Lavushi Manda National parks. This is another area in the western side of Mpika that covers part of the Great Rift Valleys’ plateau and the lowlands. This area has experienced a lot of illegal poaching and cutting of forestry timber.
The local traditional leadership has invited the Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation (FWHC) to go and start a livelihood program as an alternative means of living for its people
- The award has and will help to draw public attention on critical global environmental issues
- Inspire others to emulate the examples set by the 6 recipients’ of the Goldman Environmental grass root prize winners
- It will also enhance Zambia’s credibility towards environmental issues
Demand to raise more money to meet new challenges. More and more people are coming for consultations, seeking partnerships other smaller community based tribal groups are requesting for natural resource management training. These are challenges of my work that have come along with the award prize.
More than before, people have become conscious of their environment and want to do something to make it better and are now looking forward to someone who can help solve some of their critical environmental concerns.
Prize winners participate in a 10-day tour of San Francisco and Washington, D.C, for an awards ceremony and presentation, news conferences, media briefings, and meetings with political, public policy and environmental leaders – What was your experience of this tour and what was it like meeting with other Goldman Environmental Prize winners?
The 10 days tour was both educative and entertaining. More exciting is that we shared the joy of the trip and the award ceremonies with our spouses. We instantly become one unit of a family. The Goldman Foundation Prize team was so nice that, the first meeting or contact at the airport gave us confidence and assurance that all was well set and taken care of.
Other Goldman prize recipients were simple and very basic, coming from Africa and meeting others from different nations, especially from Islands and island nations down to the Amazon region and up into the Canadian forest where Sophia came from, it was just electrifying, we became one... we became a family, we wept together when Willie Cardiff told us about how his family, friends and the community have been struggling to keep the land safe from oil pollution.
I also learnt a lot from experienced environmentalists like Orr Vigfusson, the chairman for North Atlantic Salmon Fund. His work and my work had a lot of similarities and I enjoyed the joint press interviews where we had to share our work with almost the same approach and almost getting the same results. This gives us hope as a people of one world that we can achieve better results if we all can cooperate to make this world a better place for every one and the future for our children’s children.
Both the media and the other meetings were very good. They helped me understand the society better. Simply by managing our waste plastic papers, dispose them in the right place, have them collected and recycled, avoid unnecessary smoke emissions into the air, plant more plants and let water run fresh then we will be all contributing to good environmental management.
It is very rare to find a passion for both wildlife AND people in one person, Hammer – Can you describe what motivated you as a young man to focus on BOTH of these issues? Or did the work choose you?
Wildlife and people have lived together for many, many years before man became more and more greedy. When man started looking at his own welfare first, what to eat, what to push in the industrial revolution, then he started looking at a policy of expansion and began grabbing land from his neighbours, the wildlife and in some cases man wanted to even reclaim land from bodies of water like lakes, seas and oceans for his own need.
We are forgetting at times that the balance of the eco-system does not centre on man alone. May be I will be a bit religious on this, before God created man he put in a good environment first and then pushed man into it in order to take care and tend it well. Before any one became a Goldman environmentalist, God himself did and showed as the best way to do it. (Ref: Genesis chapter 1 v 24 to 27)
Combining the two for me has been both my Christian and social responsibility. As a steward of other living things its my duty to see that other species are protected and let to live on in the environment we all share, the winged of the sky, and those on the land that craw, walk or limp.
My family background has had some influence on my life and nature. My father is now retired after spending half of century working in rural clinics and mission hospitals (formerly Church of Scotland mission Hospitals in central Africa).
Sunday school lessons talked about how we should love what God has created and most of the times were spent outdoors for me after school working in the garden and keeping small birds that I could go and capture in the forest to keep at home in a cage and release them when they have fully put on the feathers. I thought that way my friends would not have access to their nests in the bush to steal from the mother birds.
All this combined and I have developed the passion to be closer to the wilderness life.
Later, the project I worked for left an indelible mark to love the wildlife and how to find a sustainable way to live with wildlife as a people and a nation. Mark and Delia Owens projects in Africa and the privilege to read about their work in Kalahari and Zambia and to work in their project, that alone fulfilled my long desire to contribute to mother earth for the betterment of humanity.
What happened and how were you received when you commenced this work in the North Luangwa National Park and surrounding villages?
In the early times of the project working to help save North Luangwa National Park from complete destruction, we were confronted with two major concerns which the project had to address and address it quickly if we were to save the wildlife and its habitat. These were food and income insecurity in the community.
Secondly, the National Park was being trespassed at will without immunity, people harvested what ever was of value to them to come and sell in the township. And wild animals were the most vulnerable - especially the elephant and its tusk.
Every one, at that time was enjoy the selling and eating of the bush meat. At times I faced great opposition with the alternative livelihoods we tried to bring to the community. They thought we were just trying to be clever so that we could remain selling the bush meat for ourselves to increase profits. We provided other sources of protein like vegetable in the class of beans, groundnuts, Soya beans, peas and sesame as alternative dietary protein.
As usual they have been meat eaters and would always want the taste of blood meat. The project started helping the people with fish farms, small livestock, like chickens and ducks including sheep.
Do you hold a belief that there is an inherent need in people to share their world with animals? I am interested in whether you think that people NEED other species, not just for food but for human development and enrichment?
Imagine living in the world without any other form of living organism on earth. We many not necessary say we need to share, we depend on the most minute living species than we normally realize it. People have looked at the “big five’ and other sea animals and have formed big multimillion foundations to protect them. It is also fine, but what have we done to protect and promote the multiplication of micro- organisms that help soil decomposition for farmers’ crops to grow well?
In Mark and Delia Owens book “Secrets of the Savannah” they tell us about the difficulties faced when the corrupt Government Officials closed down their operations and you were on your own. What did you do to keep your work going and what do you attribute your drive and determination to?
When the project closed, I depended much on the co-operation and trust from the community who allowed me to operate in the village without any monetary support to them.
The poverty and the opportunities found within our communities persuaded me to continue to work in the villages. And already I had started seeing signs of development coming to individuals and communities. I didn’t want to see the work that took many years of pain staking strides, our sweat, nearly to the extent of losing our lives in trying to restore dignity for the local people and the animals in my community.
I simply love the people and the work I was doing and nothing could have separated me, it’s like the people and the Luangwa valley habitat were part of my blood stream.
Nature bestore upon me immeasurable peace of mind, every thing is so innocent, we worked with people with so much ease and trust. Every one in the village depends on each other and life does not belong to an individual but it’s the role of every one to care for one another. My life has been of the village.
Then what kept me on was not to let the opportunity of development that was brought by the Owens Foundation for Wildlife to elude us in the midst of the project shut down. That was not supposed to be the case. I remember one day sited in our project village "Nsaka” a small evening resting hut, when Dr. Owens looked at me and said,” You know Hammer, this project has to be run by an indigenous person and we can only support from home in USA. But for some time many have failed as, very few have remained trustworthy to the cause of this project and probably that is what will delay the hand over of the project to you guys,” then he took a long look into the far mountains of the Muchinga Escarpment.
When the Owens left, this remained like an indelible mark inside my heart, soul and body. I could feel my heart beat saying "Go on, Hammer, go! Its not yet. Its not over until its over, go son. I’m seeing what you are doing and others will see." And I think this is the beginning of my work that came into light after the award.
Mark and Delia Owens started this work in the 1980’s – and your development and dedication to the work has seen some real changes in the lives and livelihoods of Zambians living in North Luangwa valley. In the early days what kind of resistance did you meet from villagers? What were the objections raised as to why they might not be able to get involved in your project and how over the years has that changed in attitude and involvement of the original resisters?
They did not believe that any livelihood alternative can ever be as lucrative as bush meat poaching for sale.
They did not understand the industry of agriculture and small business development or that it can bring both individual and general development in the area.
They thought our approach could only work with people of higher education and that they can never access inputs for production. No one had ever kept fish as a business and source of food. Production of cooking oil in the village was like a tale of the past world were only angels or ancestors lived.
Peoples attitudes have changed. They have seen their friends, who took up the initiatives to work with the project, improve their living stands. Conservation education in schools also helped the community change their minds on the way they looked at the natural resources found in their communities.
Hammer working with villagers
Photo by John Antonelli
Photo by John Antonelli
Your work has provided alternative employment and raised living standards for many people in North Luangwa, Hammer. Has there been other people from the villages that have come forward to assist you in your work? Are their “leaders” within the villages that ensure the focus of sustainable practices, farming methods and income generation succeed – or do you think that if you were not there to promote the ongoing projects that the villagers would succumb to pressure to return to poaching if approached by unscrupulous people?
I have four major requests to go into four big communities and work with them and replicate the North Luangwa model of community natural resource management and utilization. Saving the wetlands of the Bangweulu swamps and restoring Lavushi Manda National parks is now my biggest challenge. It requires both small and huge support for me to go ahead.
The community has come up with their own management structures that supervise development at the local level.
At this level I do not think any one who has come into contact with the project can ever go back for poaching.
Alexandra Fuller the Zambian author said "Simwinga has recognised that women are the backbone of a community. By empowering them, he has helped villages grow strong…Empowered villages do not breed poachers". What special attention do you focus on women’s needs and their influence in the villages and how do you go about working with women to promote alternative livelihood and what is the reaction of the men in the villages to this approach?
I look at their vulnerability to many social and economical injustices, then look for their potential for development and explore opportunities which they can easily get hold of without any of the above mentioned factors affecting the process of implementation.
We have succeded to work with single young mothers and other women in that they have more power of concentration. This comes from the background that they have to support their children in school and provide food for them. This is the only avenue from which they can have a chance of owning a capital item. Asset ownership is more biased to men. Women now have small cottage business like tuck shops and cooking oil hand operated machines (presses).
Women have started becoming more respected by men. The children of single mothers are excelling in school and fees for medical care and other essentials are easily managed by the women who have worked with the project.
About four women's groups that were previously composed of women only, known as the ”womens club”, now have some men members. The women know for sure that men can easily dominate. So they have carefully selected and created positions in their groups that can only be given or remain open to men. Generally these position are limited to a number that can not detract from the women's decisions or hold influence over the women, nor change the way they have been running things. All leadership roles are reserved for women.
What role do you see community tourism playing in rural areas of Zambia? And how can smaller villages attract tourists and thus benefit from the income that safari tourism provides?
Until the time when the tourism industry will deliberately ask the industry operators to include village tourism as part of the package, I see the community tourism still suffering neglect. By all standards communities have very little influence on tourist destinations. Preference of big game in national parks with little access given to indigenous population automatically disfranchises them from participating in this unique and multimillion dollar industry.
The only chance of communities to benefit is to partner with local safari tourism providers in their area.
Helping communities with small grants, the way big safari operators are helped, can help improve the quality of crafts and other tourism activities in the village. This can help increase sales of their works only if they are also included in the tourism promotions. On their own they stand no chance and this can be a recipe for future conflicts in the tourism industry. At the moment it can be viewed as a ‘Rich white mans picnic time”. I do not want to give an example from our neighbors who are now in great conflict in the land re-location program. Why? Misunderstanding of the whole industry, sharing resources equally because every one should have access to the natural resources.
We can learn from other industries and take good measures to avoid anarchy for the industry that holds a great future for all of us. Tourism is a race unifier; it brings people of all nations together.
I know that you currently ride your bicycle many miles each day to visit the various villages that you work with. How would a truck make a difference to your work?
The bicycle is still good for a small project, but now the project has matured and I’m chairman for a new organization that has been born due to increased popular demand; from the success seen in the villages and the Goldman Prize too, to reach other villages we have never been to before.
The Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation (FWHC) has been formed in order to take up the bigger task to address environmental issues. My former project The North Luangwa Wildlife Conservation and Community Development Programme has continued to run independently and is still pursuing the livelihood activities in the communities of North Luangwa.
The FWHC is now focusing on running multiple conservation development programs in Zambia. This recent expansion attracts more distance to be covered and increased service to be delivered. A vehicle will be now appropriate to carry out the new assignment “today rather than yesterday’.
Mark Owens once said of you "Without a salary, outside funding or transport for almost a year he kept his programs alive by visiting remote villages on foot, bicycle or catching lifts. He has helped locals realize the precious nature of their wildlife heritage and the fragile balance that can so easily be destroyed. He is a modern day hero." Who are your own heroes that inspire you to continue to do your work here?
I have read and worked for the two world renown wildlife researchers and novelist writers; who else, Dr. Mark and Delia Owens - rank number one. Then I think Dr. Leakey from Kenya and the Massai tribesmen always fighting for co-management of National Parks where they have been wildlife custodians for many years. They are a different type of conservationist, they do not promote killing of wildlife to enhance conservation of species. While the other one promotes taking back revenue to communities after killing the animal.
Hammer, you have already achieved so much and made such a difference to people’s lives . What are your long term plans and objectives – what does the future hold for Hammer Simwinga??
Its true, time is running out and I feel my energy is getting lower and lower. I have to do something for my future and for my children.
My desire is to set up a simple conservation school that will promote school children exchange visits into the park and other places for nature walks.
I need the school for promotion of sustainable agriculture practices where we shall endeavor to promote compost making, green manure use, agro-forestry, soil erosion control and integrated pest management. The aim will be to put in place a permanent agriculture system on small holder farms by renewing the soils organic content through ploughing back farm wastes.
If you could say one thing to the young people of Zambia about their lives and wildlife – what would it be?
Wildlife, trees, mountains, rivers, soil (the nation) are like a beautiful person, if the land is mismanaged then the country loses its beauty and the young men and women (travellers) will not visit us any more. We shall be a waste land and no one will look at us twice over their shoulder because we shall be no more as a country.
Let’s keep it in its pristine state, it is our reserve bank, our future.
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Safaritalk and The Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation - FWHC
invite you to be part of the solution
Safaritalk is working in association with The Foundation for Wildlife and Habitat Conservation - FWHC and The Owens Foundation to raise funds for Hammer’s Foundation so the successful solutions implemented and working on-the-ground in North Luangwa can grow into new locations, communites and National Park areas.
The Owens Foundation has kindly agreed to sequester and administer the contributions made specifically for "FWHC (Zambia)". The details of US tax deductability, international donations and how to make your contribution are detailed on their website.
If you decide to be part of the solution and make a contribution towards "FWHC (Zambia)" please indicate when making your contribution that you wish your amount to be earmarked for "FWHC (Zambia)".
You can contribute now by clicking through to The Owens Foundation for Wildlife website: (Clicking on this link does not commit you to making a donation.)
Owens Foundation Website: Donations Page
Even $25.00 can make a difference! From many streams a river grows.
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If you would like to read more about Hammer Simwinga's work click here:
Safaritalk Conservation News: Hammer Simwinga Receives The Goldman Environmental Prize
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QUOTE
Conservation of wildlife communities is not possible in the long term without simultaneously meeting the basic needs of local human communities…
Hammer Simwinga
Hammer Simwinga
Photos used with permission of David Rothschild of The Goldman Foundation
