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Mail & Guardian
07-05-2025
- Mail & Guardian
Lawsuit targets Big Conservation over deadly elephant translocation in Malawi
A UK lawsuit accuses conservation fund Ifaw of negligence after elephant relocations led to human deaths, injuries, crop destruction, and people being displaced Photo: Rudi van Aarde The midmorning sun casts lazy shadows across the cracked earth of Chafwamba village in central Malawi's Kasungu town. Chickens peck at the base of a withering pumpkin vine. Barefoot children clamour around their father who sits on a veranda slicing a pumpkin. If life were to imitate Big Conservation's marketing photography, a magnificent but peaceful Jumbo would appear on the edge of the frame, indifferently co-existing with the people living in the area. In this real life picture, the children are motherless. Jumbo killed their mother. On 3 February 2023, 'everything fell apart' for 35-year-old Kannock Phiri, the pumpkin-slicing father. 'She went out to fetch vegetables for lunch. They found her body in the maize field later that day.' Strapped to Masiye Banda's back was the couple's one-year-old daughter Beatrice, who survived with injuries. Eighteen months before the tragedy, journalists from around the world were in Kasungu snapping pictures as elephants were lifted by industrial cranes into the national park. Malawian wildlife authorities, with funding and expert advice from the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), were giving 263 elephants a new and larger home. Since then, 10 people in the area have been killed by elephants, or in circumstances the residents blame on their sudden influx. Limbikani Kayedzeka's brother, John, was one of the earliest victims. He was trampled by an elephant in Tsumba village in September 2022, three months after the big translocation. 'It started like any normal day. My brother went to the garden. Suddenly, people were shouting: 'Elephants!' He tried to run, to hide in a bush, but one was already there,' Kayedzeka says. John was survived by two children aged five and three: Nicholas and David. Kayedzeka has tried to help their mother to support them but says that elephants are also destroying the cassava and cabbage he would share with them. 'I try to help. I am failing.' Many more people are facing hunger because of what the huge herbivores do to their gardens. 'Last night, we heard dogs barking,' said Rodwell Chalilima, a father of six in a border village called Chisinga. Residents who dared to go out found a large herd of elephants in the fields. 'We couldn't do anything. We just watched,' he says. Before the elephant influx, Chalilima's maize field yielded more than 250 bags a year. Now? 'Between 50 and 60, if I'm lucky,' he says. 'It's hard to pay school fees. It's hard to feed my household.' A lawsuit being prepared by UK firm Leigh Day alleges that more than 12 000 people in 1 684 households have suffered injury, death, displacement and starvation because of the translocation. Leigh Day is presenting 10 complainants who want to sue Ifaw for negligence, causing a nuisance, and certain constitutional violations. Ifaw didn't respond to request for comment, but issued a statement last June which said it was the government of Malawi that 'chose to relocate elephants' and its own input was financial support and conservation expertise. But at least one conservation insider suggested the fund's role was more than simply passive. Mike Labuschagne was the law enforcement director at Ifaw where he says he 'helped arrest hundreds of poor villagers for wildlife crimes' before switching sides to work with families affected by conservation efforts. He argues that Ifaw fundraised by selling 'a fantasy' to its donors in the West 'that elephants and humans can coexist on the same land, peacefully'. 'That's not Africa,' he says. 'That's Disneyland.' Ifaw's statement in June appeared to defend the translocation, saying the elephants were moved 'from one park that was at capacity, to another park that had space — a decision determined by scientific reasoning'. Historical reasoning could have predicted that an elephant influx would lead to violent conflict between people and pachyderm. Kasungu park was once home to at least 1 200 elephants but people hunted them down so much in the 1970s and 1980s that at one point there were only 50 left alive. By July 2022, the population had recovered to about 120 elephants, which largely stayed in the park's protected area. Then it tripled in a matter of weeks. The translocation tripled that number in a matter of weeks. History teaches that a binary us-or-them choice can be avoided. The 263 elephants were translocated from the much smaller Liwonde National Park, which used to be notorious for human-animal conflict until a 1.8 metre electrified fence was built around its 130km perimeter. But the lessons of Liwonde were not applied to Kasungu before the translocation. In Tsumba, Kayedzeka points out a section of park fencing that ends abruptly at the Malawi Zambia boundary. 'That's the problem, that's where they come through.' Nearly three years after suddenly tripling the Kasungu elephant population, Malawian authorities are building a 135km fence. 'It is now 84% complete,' said Joseph Nkosi, the spokesperson of the wildlife ministry. Even when completed, the fence is unlikely to cover the entire park. Kasungu is four times the size of Liwonde. And the Kasungu fence is unlikely to be as robust. 'Building the fence is participatory in nature,' says Nkosi, explaining that local residents are being trained to construct it themselves — in contrast to the $1.6 million investment that the nonprofit African Parks (linked to British prince Harry Windsor) put into the Liwonde fence in 2015. Less 'participatory in nature' is the park authorities' approach to responding to marauding elephants. Wildlife rangers have chili bombs and firecrackers to chase off elephants when sighted outside the protected area. Even though they are non-lethal, the tools are not given directly to the people who live near the park. Instead, Ifaw said in June that response teams are 'strategically located in the park and deploy at short notice when required'. Labuschagne interprets such decisions as being informed by 'contempt for Malawians and Zambians' and says he warned Ifaw years ago that 'their contempt' would land them in court. 'Now it has.' He believes the complainants in the UK lawsuit could seek as much as £4 million in damages, and that the fund could also face criminal proceedings in the United States. This article first appeared in The Continent, the pan-African weekly newspaper produced in partnership with the Mail & Guardian. 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Daily Maverick
22-04-2025
- Daily Maverick
Zambian villagers turn to eating elephants that ate crops in fallout from translocation project
A conservation project has become a nightmare. Locals near an unfenced park are burying loved ones, butchering elephants – and preparing to sue. Warning: Sensitive readers may find some of the photographs below disturbing. At least three elephants from Malawi's Kasungu National Park were shot dead at the end of March and early in April on the Zambian side of the reserve, and impoverished farmers have started butchering the pachyderms for food – a jarring case of people eating the very animals that have been eating their crops. This is according to Warm Heart, an NGO formed in response to the often lethal conflict raging along Kasungu's boundaries since an ill-conceived translocation of 263 elephants to the largely unfenced park in 2022 that was spearheaded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw). Warm Heart has a network of volunteers and informants in Zambia and Malawi in the communities bordering the park, and they have been painstakingly compiling information about the damage that farmers have suffered since the translocation. The NGO has also recorded several elephant deaths, but this is the first time that there have been reports – with photographic evidence – of a slain elephant being butchered for food. There have also been reports of dead elephants on the Malawian side being butchered. This image will be shocking to many, but for the rural poor in the region who have been terrorised for almost three years it represents one less elephant to contend with and a welcome source of food. The elephant being skinned for food was reportedly shot by Zambian rangers on 31 March. 'It was charging them when they were trying to chase it away from a village,' Christabel Chikwikwi, a Warm Heart volunteer who compiled witness testimony, told Daily Maverick. Two elephant experts consulted by Daily Maverick said the animal appeared to be about 15 years old and was most likely a cow. Another two elephants were reportedly killed by poachers on the Zambian side of the park on 2 and 3 April. Zambian wildlife officials did not respond to Daily Maverick queries, and a senior official with Malawi's parks said he was unaware of the incidents. Ifaw responded to Daily Maverick's request for comment by saying queries should be directed to the Malawi Parks department. Daily Maverick was on the ground in the region in 2024 and our observations corroborated Warm Heart's assertions, which have laid the groundwork for a looming group action suit in the UK against Ifaw. The suit is led by Leigh Day, a law firm that focuses on human rights. It seeks compensation for people whose loved ones have been killed by the elephants and those who have suffered crop and property damage. The lawsuit is also aimed at obliging Ifaw to take remedial action such as building a fence to contain the elephants. Kasungu lies completely in Malawi but the park's western side borders Zambia and it has no fence. The border is marked by a treeline running along fields cleared for subsistence farming on the Zambian side – making those fields a tempting source of food and water for hungry and thirsty elephants. Much of the park's boundary on the Malawian side also lacks proper fencing. Ifaw has denied any wrongdoing. 'Before, during and after the translocation, Ifaw has worked alongside its partners, including the relevant authorities, in support of the two governments to undertake a proactive approach to human-wildlife conflict, which continues to date,' Ifaw said when Daily Maverick first reported news of the looming group action suit. 'The work to which Ifaw provides financial and technical support includes community sensitisation and engagement, physical- and virtual-fencing monitoring and capacity building for rapid response teams consisting of volunteers living in the area.' Despite such measures – if they are indeed being implemented, which Daily Maverick cannot verify – human-wildlife conflict in the region is clearly spiralling out of control. Warm Heart receives reports almost daily of incursions and conflict, and the toll among people and pachyderms is rising. At least 10 people have been killed by elephants in Zambia and Malawi since the translocation and at least two others have been killed by a hippo and hyenas in incidents that possibly stemmed from the project. More than 50 children have been orphaned as a result. Millions of dollars in crop and property damage are also estimated to have been inflicted on mostly subsistence farmers who were also hit hard last year by a drought triggered by El Niño. The elephant death toll is not known but Warm Heart estimates that dozens of elephants have been shot or poisoned or have died from stress, hunger and thirst. And now rural people in the region are eating the source of their terror – a state of affairs that was clearly not part of Ifaw's vision for the project. For Ifaw, the debacle has been a public relations nightmare. After Daily Maverick, the Financial Times and other media reported on the issue in 2024, Ifaw clammed up and said it would not be entertaining any media queries on the matter – a highly unusual policy for an NGO that relies on donor funding and is not known for being media-shy. Ifaw, which in its last financial year saw its revenue fall by about 20%, according to its published financial reports, pointedly no longer refers to the recent reports of conflict around Kasungu on its website. The NGO proclaimed on the main page of its website recently that Giving Day for Elephants was 15 April. 'The funds raised on Giving Day for Elephants will go toward projects that are critical to the survival of these gentle giants – safeguarding them from poachers, rescuing and caring for orphaned calves, and creating safe landscapes for elephants to roam. 'By preserving a network of protected lands, we can protect elephants and all the other animals who share their habitats,' Ifaw says. 'When you join us, you'll help support Ifaw's efforts to heal and reconnect crucial wild areas, prevent conflict between people and wildlife, and preserve the biodiversity.' Dispatched down the memory hole in this appeal is the inconvenient fact that the Kasungu translocation in which Ifaw played a major role has uncorked a tsunami of conflict between people and elephants – elephants that are now sadly on the local menu. DM
Daily Maverick
21-04-2025
- Daily Maverick
Malawian villagers turn to eating elephants that ate crops in fallout from translocation project
A conservation project has become a nightmare. Locals near an unfenced park are burying loved ones, butchering elephants – and preparing to sue. At least three elephants from Malawi's Kasungu National Park were shot dead at the end of March and early in April on the Zambian side of the reserve, and impoverished farmers have started butchering the pachyderms for food – a jarring case of people eating the very animals that have been eating their crops. This is according to Warm Heart, an NGO formed in response to the often lethal conflict raging along Kasungu's boundaries since an ill-conceived translocation of 263 elephants to the largely unfenced park in 2022 that was spearheaded by the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw). Warm Heart has a network of volunteers and informants in Zambia and Malawi in the communities bordering the park, and they have been painstakingly compiling information about the damage that farmers have suffered since the translocation. The NGO has also recorded several elephant deaths, but this is the first time that there have been reports – with photographic evidence – of a slain elephant being butchered for food. There have also been reports of dead elephants on the Malawian side being butchered. This image will be shocking to many, but for the rural poor in the region who have been terrorised for almost three years it represents one less elephant to contend with and a welcome source of food. The elephant being skinned for food was reportedly shot by Zambian rangers on 31 March. 'It was charging them when they were trying to chase it away from a village,' Christabel Chikwikwi, a Warm Heart volunteer who compiled witness testimony, told Daily Maverick. Two elephant experts consulted by Daily Maverick said the animal appeared to be about 15 years old and was most likely a cow. Another two elephants were reportedly killed by poachers on the Zambian side of the park on 2 and 3 April. Zambian wildlife officials did not respond to Daily Maverick queries, and a senior official with Malawi's parks said he was unaware of the incidents. Ifaw did not respond to Daily Maverick's request for comment. Daily Maverick was on the ground in the region in 2024 and our observations corroborated Warm Heart's assertions, which have laid the groundwork for a looming group action suit in the UK against Ifaw. The suit is led by Leigh Day, a law firm that focuses on human rights. It seeks compensation for people whose loved ones have been killed by the elephants and those who have suffered crop and property damage. The lawsuit is also aimed at obliging Ifaw to take remedial action such as building a fence to contain the elephants. Kasungu lies completely in Malawi but the park's western side borders Zambia and it has no fence. The border is marked by a treeline running along fields cleared for subsistence farming on the Zambian side – making those fields a tempting source of food and water for hungry and thirsty elephants. Much of the park's boundary on the Malawian side also lacks proper fencing. Ifaw has denied any wrongdoing. 'Before, during and after the translocation, Ifaw has worked alongside its partners, including the relevant authorities, in support of the two governments to undertake a proactive approach to human-wildlife conflict, which continues to date,' Ifaw said when Daily Maverick first reported news of the looming group action suit. 'The work to which Ifaw provides financial and technical support includes community sensitisation and engagement, physical- and virtual-fencing monitoring and capacity building for rapid response teams consisting of volunteers living in the area.' Despite such measures – if they are indeed being implemented, which Daily Maverick cannot verify – human-wildlife conflict in the region is clearly spiralling out of control. Warm Heart receives reports almost daily of incursions and conflict, and the toll among people and pachyderms is rising. At least 10 people have been killed by elephants in Zambia and Malawi since the translocation and at least two others have been killed by a hippo and hyenas in incidents that possibly stemmed from the project. More than 50 children have been orphaned as a result. Millions of dollars in crop and property damage are also estimated to have been inflicted on mostly subsistence farmers who were also hit hard last year by a drought triggered by El Niño. The elephant death toll is not known but Warm Heart estimates that dozens of elephants have been shot or poisoned or have died from stress, hunger and thirst. And now rural people in the region are eating the source of their terror – a state of affairs that was clearly not part of Ifaw's vision for the project. For Ifaw, the debacle has been a public relations nightmare. After Daily Maverick, the Financial Times and other media reported on the issue in 2024, Ifaw clammed up and said it would not be entertaining any media queries on the matter – a highly unusual policy for an NGO that relies on donor funding and is not known for being media-shy. Ifaw, which in its last financial year saw its revenue fall by about 20%, according to its published financial reports, pointedly no longer refers to the recent reports of conflict around Kasungu on its website. 'Giving Day for Elephants is 15 April,' the NGO now proclaims on the main page of its website. If you donate early, by the way, your gift will be matched. 'The funds raised on Giving Day for Elephants will go toward projects that are critical to the survival of these gentle giants – safeguarding them from poachers, rescuing and caring for orphaned calves, and creating safe landscapes for elephants to roam. 'By preserving a network of protected lands, we can protect elephants and all the other animals who share their habitats,' Ifaw says. 'When you join us, you'll help support Ifaw's efforts to heal and reconnect crucial wild areas, prevent conflict between people and wildlife, and preserve the biodiversity.' Dispatched down the memory hole in this appeal is the inconvenient fact that the Kasungu translocation in which Ifaw played a major role has uncorked a tsunami of conflict between people and elephants – elephants that are now sadly on the local menu. DM This story first appeared in our weekly Daily Maverick 168 newspaper, which is available countrywide for R35.
The Guardian
26-03-2025
- The Guardian
Charity faces legal action after relocated elephants in Malawi allegedly kill 10 people
People living on the edge of a protected area in Malawi are taking legal action against an NGO that moved more than 250 elephants into the area, which they say have killed at least 10 people. Villagers near Kasungu national park, which is Malawi's second largest and crosses the Zambian border, say they are living in fear for their livelihoods and safety after 263 elephants were introduced in July 2022, causing a sharp spike in human-wildlife conflict. Ten people claiming to be affected by the translocation from Liwonde national park have begun legal action against the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw), demanding that the conservation NGO construct adequate fencing to protect the 167 villages around the park and compensate local people for the damage caused by the elephants. More than 50 children were orphaned between July 2022 and November 2024 as a result of the translocated elephants, according to local communities. Among the 10 people killed were John Kayedzeka, 31, who was trampled by a herd while working in a field in September 2022 and Masiye Phiri, 31, who died after she was charged by a bull elephant while in the garden with her two-year-old child a year later. One farmer from Zambia said he was walking across his farm when he came across two elephants and a calf, which charged. 'I couldn't run away in time. They stepped on me and then broke off branches and covered me in them,' he said. 'I was in Lumezi hospital for four months while my wounds healed … Since that incident, my stomach is swollen on one side. I don't know what is wrong. I can't straighten my arm, so I can't farm. I depend on the well wishes of others to survive,' the 53-year-old said. 'I am very afraid to move around on my own, so I tend to stay at home alone. I am in pain all of the time.' Two deaths do not directly involve elephants but have been blamed on the translocation: one person was killed by a hippo displaced by elephants and another by hyenas believed to be trailing the mammals out of the park. Local people say that elephants are also routinely raiding their crops and trampling fields, threatening their livelihoods. The UK law firm Leigh Day has been instructed to act on behalf of the 10 people against Ifaw in the UK, Zambia and Malawi, potentially bringing the case to the high court in England. Claimants have not been named so far to protect their identities. While elephants have long been in the park, with populations falling due to poaching, local people said the spike in human-wildlife conflict started after the translocation. 'My farmland has been destroyed five times. Three times in April 2024. Twice in May 2024. I was growing maize, sugarcane, rice and beans. Everything was destroyed,' said one 73-year-old farmer. 'Before the relocation, sometimes I could harvest 35 bags of rice. This year, I have nothing.' Another farmer who lives on the Zambian side of the park, whose father-in-law was killed by the animals, is also part of the case. 'My father-in-law was old and he didn't manage to run away and they trampled him, and he was killed. The news spread across the community and the community members went to help but he had already died,' she said. In a statement, Ifaw said it had received notice of legal action in December and rejected allegations of wrongdoing. 'Ifaw is deeply saddened by all cases of human-wildlife conflict in and around Kasungu, where it has been working to support government and communities develop sustainable solutions for reducing human-wildlife conflict and promote coexistence,' a spokesperson said, highlighting that Malawi's government had overall responsibility for its national parks. Ifaw provided technical and financial support, following international best practice while moving the elephants, they said. The elephant translocation was among the largest of its kind and images of the operation were used for fundraising, with pictures of the mammals being lifted by crane described as 'scenes reminiscent of the Disney classic Dumbo'. It was a three-way operation between Malawi's national park service and two NGOs: Ifaw and African Parks. Another claimant in the case said they hoped to live in peace with the elephants and wanted the NGO to take steps to protect them. 'We need the owners of the elephants to compensate us, they need to barrier the park, if they don't barrier the park, they should find another way to protect us and our crops. We want to claim the damage and barrier the park. If it is like this next year how are we going to live? We can't be removed from this place. These are our ancestral places, inherited. If we moved it would take a very long time to settle and start over,' they said. 'We can't do anything as we are just human beings – we know the law, we can't attack the elephants. We want to ensure there is protection. We are peace-loving people, we don't want to have a war between us and the elephants. We just want peace.' Find more age of extinction coverage here, and follow the biodiversity reporters Phoebe Weston and Patrick Greenfield in the Guardian app for more nature coverage
