NGOs continue to complement government’s quest to raise awareness of wildlife poaching and trading
A Chinese organisation, China House embarked on a wildlife conservation campaign to educate the Chinese community in the country, to raise awareness on wildlife poaching and reducing the Chinese nationals involvement in the illegal wildlife trade.
The campaign was conducted from 23 April to 11 May and the organisation managed to visit different companies across the country, from Swakopmund, Walvis Bay and the northern parts of the country.
The organisations Project Design Manager, Zoe Huang said her dedicated team was able to reach out to the different companies through various means which included, lectures, wildlife conservation material and wildlife conservation films.
According to Huang, the team managed to influence 81 Chinese staff at those companies, and indirectly influenced more than 650 locals on wildlife conservation. Huang said part of programme was to get feedback from the participates of which she said most of them responded well to the campaign.
“We targeted most of the construction firms because most of them usually do not have time to do their own research on wildlife conservation as the industry is a round the clock job,” she said.
Chinese firms visited during the campaign include; China Railway Seventh Group Corporation, China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation, China Jiangsu International Economic and Technical Cooperation Group, the Zhongmei Engineering Group and China Harbour Engineering Company.
China Railway Seventh Group Corporation, Site Agent, Yang Haitao, who attended one of the lectures said that through the initiative they learned a lot of technical aspects which they can now apply to conserve and protect wildlife.
“Most of the workers at construction sites do not know and not privy to the conservation laws due to lack of awareness. This campaign was an eye opener and hope we get to learn more in the near future on the issues of wildlife protection and conservation,” he added.
According to Haito around 32 people from his company, were enlightened and are now aware of wildlife poaching and conservation issues, which are likely to assist them in working with the local authorities in this field.
The Ministry of Environment and Tourism spokesperson, Romeo Muyunda said that since Namibia can not battle wildlife crime alone, the initiative by China House will go a long way in protecting wildlife.
“The organisation’s initiative is most welcome as they are able to interact with Chinese nationals and well as locals. We are going to further engage with the organisation on the out come of the campaign and assist each other in every possible way,” he added.
Huang meanwhile said that China House will conduct the campaign every year to continue to raise awareness on wildlife poaching and reduce the illegal wildlife trade.
China house was formed in 2014 and have an African base in Nairobi Kenya, and focus on similar initiatives in East and other southern African countries.
