ZIMBABWE - Destruction of wildlife, the environment and sensitive eco-systems

The Peace Park cont...

On our drive through the park, the entire area from Chipinda pools to the foothills of the Chilojo cliffs, a distance of about 40 kilometres, lay burning or burnt. Countless numbers of the taller, older trees had been burnt through to their roots and several had crashed to the ground over the road, forcing us to drive around the

At night we could see new fires starting on the hills. The next day I asked one of the game scouts who had started the fires and he said 'poachers'. He went on to tell me that they didn't have the resources to fight the fire and that this was one of the worst years he'd ever seen - 'it's been very bad and lots of animals have died'. We saw one Parks' vehicle over the 2 days that we were in Gonarezhou. It was a pick-up with 3 people in the front and 3 in the back, they were off-road and appeared to be chasing a herd of impalas. On seeing us they stopped and waved, and waited for us to go out of sight.

Raoul du Toit of the WWF Zimbabwe office has pointed out that while this threat to the integrity of the National Park is a real and alarming one, the issues involved are far more complex. The Shangaan people do have a serious land claim to this area but, du Toit emphasises, 'The issue needs to be assessed in the context of the land crisis which is engulfing the nearby conservancies. The biodiversity value of the basalt plain that has been invaded within Gonarezhou is relatively low. If this land claim is to be resolved, this may act as a pressure relief valve that would reduce the land invasion threat in conservancy areas with higher biodiversity value. However, the resolution of this land claim within Gonarezhou must take into account the constraints on dryland agriculture and a wildlife-based land reform model must be considered. The other crucial factor to take into account is that any resettlement must not cut off the wildlife corridors between the park and adjacent private wildlife areas such as Malilangwe and Save Valley.'

On the northern border of the park is land owned by the Malilangwe Trust. The aim of the Trust is to restore and maintain the area's biodiversity as well as make a material and lasting contribution to the development of the lowveld. It has already made a recognised contribution to the conservation of habitat and wildlife (especially endangered species), and its promotion of sustainable development within the communal areas has been significant.

Malilangwe, Save and Chiredzi are key areas adjacent to Gonarezhou. They, and the communities involved in the various CAMPFIRE and trust projects, all stand to benefit from the GKG project as long as the corridor that joins them with the park remains free of human settlement. Most importantly, when considering the success of the Peace Parks initiative, you have to realise most of the wildlife in this corner of the country is not in Gonarezhou, it's in the conservancies. Most of the people who could benefit from the TFCA are in areas surrounding the conservancies. Most of the investment into tourist facilities won't be from the National Parks it'll be by private individuals in the conservancies and on the surrounding community lands.

Derek de la Harpe explains, 'Gonarezhou is a park on paper and not much else. It's desperately in need of restocking. There's absolutely no infrastructure there. Poaching is out of control and it only receives 5,000 visitors a year. In the short term, the reality is the TFCA needs us - the wildlife and the tourists will have to come from us and our neighbours. In the long term, the lack of infrastructure can all be sorted out by the TFCA. We've never been given an opportunity like this - it's critical to take advantage of it now. By putting peasants on land where they're going to have food aid for 3 out of every 5 years is no solution. The land grab is not for the benefit of the poor, it's rather destroying the country's agricultural and wildlife base.'

However these issues are clearly not being debated - or even considered - in Zimbabwe's political scramble for land. Instead of limiting the invasion to a controllable area, it has now been extended along the park boundary, past the Sangwe Communal Land and Chizvirizvi Resettlement Area, and along the boundary with Malilangwe. On our visit, the boundary fence on the Gonarezhou side had been taken down, the land burnt and cleared. As well as cutting off the corridor to Malilangwe, the resettlement is successfully isolating Chizvirizvi from the park. The community had been hoping to involve themselves in a wildlife project based on the proposed TFCA. If their land does not adjoin the park there is little chance of that happening. They will be just one of several communities which will suffer from the development as it currently stands.

Overall the invasions into Gonarezhou and into key areas on the conservancies are now threatening the objectives and success of the TFCA. The corridor through to Malilangwe has been significantly reduced; the invasions on Chiredzi block animal movement from Malilangwe to the North; and the invasions into the interior of Save isolate 50% of that conservancy from the Parks. Rob Style points out his concerns, 'Buffalo Range is central to the Peace Parks deal, if we go, the rest of the conservancy land won't benefit as the corridor to the north will be blocked. On Save, Humani is also central to making the TFCA work. If the aim was to prevent the country from benefiting from the Peace Parks project, it couldn't have been better planned.'

The invasion into Gonarezhou has other serious implications. If the settlers remain in the park without proper fencing or control, inevitably there will be conflict with the animals and the threat of disease to livestock. There is only one dry season water source along the Guluji River and it is likely that this will lead to a human-animal war which will invariably result in an increase in the numbers of 'problem animals' being shot.

An article in the Zimbabwe Independent dated November 9th states that the settlers are now 'asking the government to grant them 'appropriate authority' status giving them the right to exploit and sell the park's natural resources including it's abundant wildlife.'

As we left the park I couldn't help reflect on the irony of the sign at the park gate: 'Take nothing but photographs, leave nothing but footprints, kill nothing but time'.