The New Nation - Internet Edition

Joao Pedro Galhano Alves

It will be a major problem, if the lion vanishes-goes a popular saying in Moli Haoussa-Gorma village in Niger. Beliefs such as this are significant in making the W National Park amongst the rare strongholds of the African lion. At a time when the lion population is declining alarmingly in Africa, W National Park is haven to 200 lions, according to a 2001 estimation by the ecologist Mossa Alou.

Moli Haoussa, among the few African villages where human beings co-exist with the carnivore, is located 15 km from the park's boundary in Tamou Wildlife Reserve.

W National Park is spread over 10,000 sq km in Niger, Burkina Faso and Benin.

Alou estimates that 70 of the 200 lions in the park are found on the Niger side. Local people, however, have higher figures. They say there are about 100 lions on the Niger side.

Besides, there are two residual populations of about 20 lions each. Wild herbivores include elephants, buffaloes and antelopes. The reserve also has a fair number of primates. Ecologists say that the national park's savannah ecosystem maintains a "total biodiversity state".

At the core of such biodiversity is a complex relationship between human societies and nature. Let's go back to Moli Haoussa to understand the intricacies of this relationship. It's a village of 400-odd people, most of them from the Gourmantché tribe. Some of the village's inhabitants are from the Hausa community; there are herders from the Peul community, besides.

Agriculture in Moli Haoussa is mostly for self-consumption, though some crops are sold. Cattle grazing is free in the savannah and herders from the Peul community graze bovines for sale in markets. The villagers also graze some goat and sheep and a few donkeys.

Hunting is strictly with bows and arrows and only for self-consumption. More importantly, people are selective when they hunt, taking care not to upset the carrying capacity of the environment.

The villagers never hunt lions, fearing reprisal from the animals' "spiritual beings".

The big cats are considered a heritage. The people of Moli Haoussa believe that the

lion's spiritual power pervades the village's surroundings, and is a source of power

for them. The lion is regarded as a "guardian animal". The animal is a justice-

maker and its presence is said to discourage outsiders from coming to steal cattle

from Moli Haoussa

Wildlife, particularly the lion, are recurrent subjects of traditional art. For the Gourmantché-as well as for the other groups-animals, plants or minerals have spiritual beings, the fuhaly who follow and guide them, exercise powers, and regulate natural and human relationship. The villagers believe that "one can't hunt many animals of a herd, because its fuhaly would take revenge".

The fuhaly of the sage-like lion, found in the animal's parts, is said to cast a beneficial influence. So lion parts are used as ingredients of gris-gris, amulet thought to ward off evil. People of Moli Haoussa obtain lion parts from corpses found in the forest. Lion parts are also used in African traditional medicine, mainly for lung diseases and rheumatism. But such uses never lead the villagers to poach, since they usually gather the parts from dead lions.

The Gourmantché believe that they are linked to the lions by an old alliance made between a Gourmantché royal family and a lion clan. They use lion-like facial tattoos and file their teeth to show their identification with the big cat.

Newborns are fed a piece of dry meat from a dead lion's heart to link them with the species.

Gourmantché do not hunt lions because they do not consider carnivores as food. Hunters from the community, in fact, regard the lion as a fellow hunter, a companion. Pugmarks and other signs are deemed as the lions' "advice" when the Gourmantché go out hunting.

The reverence for the lion has fostered a deep understanding of what western science describes as lion morphology, biology, ethology and ecology. The Gourmantché have detailed knowledge of the lions' reproductive, sexual, social, affective, hunting and territorial behaviours, and the animals' links with other species.

They believe that the animals communicate with sounds, postures and other signs. The understanding of the villagers seems remarkably akin to that of any so-called sophisticated ecologist. They believe that the lion prevents epidemics in herbivores by killing sick animals. So, the saying in Moli Haoussa is "if the lion vanishes, there will be too many herbivores".

The lions are said to regulate herbivore populations, thus avoiding vegetation erosion and reducing crop losses. Peul herders, for examples, say that lions eliminate excess wild herbivores making sure that natural pastures are not eroded. This 'ecological' understanding is secured by the belief that "the lion's genie haunts any villager who kills the animal".

In recent times, inhabitants of Moli Haoussa have come to attribute another value to the lion. They consider the animal a tourist attraction and an income sources: some villagers get seasonal employment as guides in the park and some others get jobs as watchmen.

Encounters between Moli Haoussa inhabitants and lions are frequent. In such situations, the villagers repeat a sequence of sounds and postures in to keep safety. Hausa cultivators look the lion straight into its eyes and shout "uah, uah". If they happen to have a stick, they beat it on a trunk, then move back. They say that this makes the lion lie low or go away.

Peul herders have a more confrontational behaviour, quite understandable since they must keep theirs as well their cattle's safety. They run towards lions screaming and knocking their sticks on the ground. Most Gourmantché do not react much when they encounter lions, just walk on, or let the lions pass.

On an average 2-4 per cent of the villagers' cows and 7 per cent goats and sheep fall prey to lions every year. Sometimes a lion gets into the village, jumps on the brushwood protection fence of a house and takes a sheep or goat away. Defences against such attacks are village dogs and fences. When lions kill grazers in the jungle, the villagers try and retrieve the carcasses as soon as possible to make sure that the animal does not develop a taste for cattle. There is no indemnity for cattle loss and the villagers feel that compensation would improve matters.

Lion attacks on humans are rare but clashes are often deadly. In 2000, a Peul herder survived a hand-to-hand fight with a lion, which attacked when his fellow herders tried to frighten the lion away from a cow. The park's director Bello Nakata points out that "lion respects humans. But that does not mean he fears humans". Between 1989 and 2004, only three people were killed by lions. Park officials attribute these attacks to an old lion that "had gone mad".

It's not just the lion. People of Moli Haoussa and other nearby villages respect large herbivores as well. They believe that wild and domestic herbivores species complement each other in vegetation regulation. They also regard the wild herbivores as tourist attraction.

But it's not always an easy relation. According to experts, large wild herbivores and birds destroy about 8 per cent crops. To avoid excessive losses, inhabitants use innocuous techniques to frighten the creatures away. They keep regular vigil, deploy scarecrows, fire lighting, battery torches, and fence vegetable gardens.

In contrast to traditional hunters, professional poachers have links with large international networks. Most of these poachers come from neighbouring countries. They employ both traditional and modern weapons to kill large fauna, though it's for a lion to be poached. Commercial poaching has not reached alarming level yet, but must be checked.

In the past, controversial wildlife policies have led to people being violently expelled from the park area, without any compensation. At present park officials have few means to support villagers, even if they so desire. Inhabitants of Moli Haoussa and other villages in the vicinity of W National Park, are largely on good terms with the park authorities. Nevertheless, there are latent conflicts. Villagers complain of restrictions on their activities and lack of social development programmes.

In spite of their environmental richness, the societies in the vicinity of W National live in difficult conditions, deprived from contemporary facilities and afflicted with nutritional scarcity. Legalisation giving joint control of the park to forest authorities and local inhabitants can improve matters. Tourism can supplement the incomes for local inhabitants, but mass tourism should be avoided in the interests of biodiversity conservation.

Social security programmes should be centred on providing food security to the people of villages in the vicinity of W National Park. But these programmes should take care to maintain the agrarian land use levels. Natural vegetation cover should be restored in large area around the W National Park. This will allow fauna dispersion and will increase wildlife population and also forest resources for inhabitants of villages around the park.

(CSE/Down To Earth Feature Service, New Delhi India)