Killing the Shepherd

A remote African community, led by a woman chief, attempts to break the stranglehold of absolute poverty by waging a war on wildlife poaching. For decades illegal wildlife poaching by subsistence and bush meat gangs has led to the government declaring this community's homeland "depleted" of wildlife.The chief finds help in the form of a safari operator and they work together to bring stability to the community. But all was not well. Disease, food stability, and rampant alcoholism...
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A remote African community, led by a woman chief, attempts to break the stranglehold of absolute poverty by waging a war on wildlife poaching. For decades illegal wildlife poaching by subsistence and bush meat gangs has led to the government declaring this community's homeland "depleted" of wildlife.The chief finds help in the form of a safari operator and they work together to bring stability to the community. But all was not well. Disease, food stability, and rampant alcoholism hamper basic needs like health care and education. Even young girls, just after reaching puberty, are sold by their parents as child brides to feed their family for one year. Dark forces including South African land speculators, criminal poaching gangs, and her people conspire against the chief. Even elements from the modern world work against the chief's wishes.Will the chief and her community see success?Filmmaker Thomas Opre's three-plus-year effort to document the heroic effort by the people of Shikabeta with help from a third-generation white Zambian family to restore wildlife populations in the remote Lower Luano Valley was selected by over forty film festivals worldwide winning twenty-one major awards including best social justice, indigenous, and human rights film. The book Killing the Shepherd, Beyond the Film, fills in all the gaps and expands on many of the issues presented in the film which were left on the film cutting room floor. The author takes the reader on a day-by-day account of raids on illegal gold mining, a fish festival conducted in crocodile-infested waters, and the dangers of anti-poaching efforts. In the end, he creates a blueprint for saving Africa's wildlife and habitat which heavily relies on long-term, transparent development and management agreements between all the stakeholders -- the hunting safari companies, National Parks, and local communities. This book is a must-read for anyone who really cares about wildlife in Africa.