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ZimConservation Newsletter March-April 2006
ZimConservation
May 08, 2006

30 April - Zimbabwean Police Bust Elephant Poaching Syndicate... Zimbabwean police have bust a poaching ring suspected to have killed elephants in the Mukwichi Game Park, about 200 kilometers northwest to Harare, the capital city of Zimbabwe, the state media reported on Sunday.

29 April - Culling: The reality... From the 1960s to the mid-90s, culling was the principal tool of wildlife managers across most of Southern Africa. Vegetation needed to be maintained and culling was believed to be the only solution to prevent some species from compromising others. Methods varied from country to country - in Zimbabwe highly skilled sharpshooters tracked elephants on foot; in South Africa, culling teams relied more on helicopters.

27 April - Matobo National Park: History And Nature In Harmony... Bulawayo, April 27 (Bernama) -- One of Zimbabwe's main tourist attractions is the Matobo National Park, where the Matobo Hills that depicts some of the world's majestic granite scenery, is located.

[Ed: Nice PR piece on Malaysian news service, is this part of the look east policy?]

22 April - Harare investigates Chelsy Davy's father... The father of Prince Harry's girlfriend, Chelsy Davy, is facing the threat of punitive fines and even possible imprisonment as well as financial disaster after the Zimbabwean government announced it was investigating him for illegal currency dealing. Charles Davy has accumulated a multimillion-dollar fortune through his big game hunting business, HHK Safaris, which survived the wholesale seizure of white-owned farms and game conservancies under the Zanu PF government.

21 April - Free market says "Happy Earthday"... Max Borders: Another year, another Earth Day. It's also the fifteenth anniversary of the publication of Free Market Environmentalism, the book that changed the way many people look at environmental issues. Joining us today is Terry Anderson, co-author with Don Leal of the book that defined a generation of newer environmentalists, a generation that is friendly to markets, to green values, and to the idea that these are not mutually exclusive. Welcome, Terry.

[Ed: Interview covering hunting, property rights and conservation].

21 April - Zimbabwe: Mujuru, Shamu Cross Swords... Unrelenting interest in HHK Safaris, the hunting business linked to Policy Implementation Minister Webster Shamu and Charles Davy, has led to revelations about a fallout with the powerful retired general Solomon Mujuru, who charged that HHK was part of a consortium that sought to monopolise the arcane but lucrative industry.

20 April - Zimbabwe: Families to Be Relocated... Over 750 families living in the Gonarezhou National Park since the days of the land occupations, are finally set to be relocated after the Government clinched a deal with their representatives.

13 April - Zimbabwe: Parks Hunting Season to Begin Next Month... THE Parks and Wildlife Management Authority hunting season -- which begins next month -- is expected to be a success, says the authority's public relations office. "We are expecting to have a transparent hunting season this year as we are going to closely monitor the hunts by allocating rangers to accompany the hunters," said spokesman Retired Major Mbewe. "In the past year we have experienced situations where people granted hunting concessions overhunted, that is to say they killed more animals than they were allocated.

10 April - 241 Poachers Arrested Countrywide in March... 241 Poachers were arrested countrywide in March as the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority intensifies efforts to curb illegal hunting and fishing in Zimbabwe, Parks public relations manager Retired Major Edward Mbewe has said.

3 April - Zimbabwe: Poachers Kill 209 Jumbos in 4 Years... There was an increase in poaching activities between 1996 and 2000 with the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority having experienced high incidence of the scourge, the House of Assembly heard last week. This resulted in the loss of 209 elephants, 138 buffaloes and 108 impalas. Chairperson of the portfolio committee on Public Accounts, Ms Priscilla Misihairabwi-Mushonga, who is also MP for Glen Norah (MDC), told the House last week that an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor-General had shown an increase in poaching.

[Ed: I'd love to know how they got their numbers: these reported poaching incident numbers are potentially skewed by factors such as fuel availability, manpower and thus are not comparable between years]

30 March - Zimbabwe: Tourism Registers 49 Percent Decline... The tourism industry has again failed to live up to expectations, registering a 49 percent decline in earnings in 2005 to US$98 million. Last year the sector earned US$198 million.

30 March - Hippos Destroy Crops in Masvingo... Rampaging hippopotamuses have destroyed crops belonging to resettled and communal farmers near Mutirikwi River in Masvingo over the past few weeks.The worst affected farmers are in the Hwendedzo and Mazare resettlement areas to the east of Masvingo District and Zano in Chikwanda communal lands in Masvingo Central. The hippos also damaged irrigated maize and beans at Stanmore Resettlement Scheme in Masvingo, leaving most plot holders facing food shortages. Some farmers at the irrigation scheme yesterday said they had now lost hope of harvesting anything this season after the hippos destroyed most of their crops.

29 March - Zimbabwe: Settlers Burn $62 Billion Timber ... Timber could join the growing list of materials in short supply in Zimbabwe after Border Timbers Limited (BTL), the country's top timber producer, lost 3 000 hectares of timber at its Eastern Highlands estates.

25 March - Fish Poachers, Co-Operatives in Running Battle... Poaching of fish has reached alarming proportions at Lake Chivero, where registered co-operatives are fighting running battles with poachers, whose clandestine activities are threatening to wipe out the fish population. With tonnes of fish being poached daily for ready markets in Harare and beyond, registered co-operatives have now taken it upon themselves to protect the dam after seeing that law enforcement agents were failing to cope. As a result, physical fights have broken out between co-operative members and poachers over the past few days.

25 March - Zimbabwe: Police Round Up Panners, Impound 40kg of Gold Ore... Police rounded up 85 gold panners in Mazowe on Thursday night and impo-unded 40 kilogrammes of gold ore and an assortment of mining equipment, as they intensify their campaign against illegal mining. The panners, who included nine women, were arrested along Mazowe River under an operation code named "Operation Environment Friendly," which was recently launched to curb rampant gold panning. Among the impounded mining equipment were 20 shovels, nine steel rods, five axes, eight hammers, 12 picks, one chisel, two wooden panning dishes, one plastic bucket, one steel tube and two ropes.

24 March - Zimbabwe: Promote Tourism, Ambassadors Told... Zimbabwean ambassadors based in various countries should make a greater effort to promote tourism, Ambassador Tendai Mutunhu has said. He made the remarks during a three-day Fifth Annual Review Conference organised by the Centre for Peace Initiatives in Africa last month.

11 March - State to ban gold panning... Government will soon come up with legislation banning gold panning, which has resulted in serious environmental degradation in some parts of the country, chief mining commissioner Mr Fredson Mabhena has said.

10 March - Zim gold panners die in heavy rains in Mozambique... At least seven illegal gold panners have died in the past week just over Zimbabwe's border with Mozambique after heavy rains brought chaos to the area, reports from eastern Zimbabwe said on Friday. There are fears the casualty figure could be much higher.

10 March - National parks blocks 11 billion equipment... THE Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority has blocked the distribution of equipment worth over US$60 000 ($11 billion) donated by an international organisation to Hwange National Park where dozens of elephants died last year due to water shortage.

9 March - The Lion's Share... While most of the world's tourists have been giving President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe a miss for the last five years, nothing stops the hunters. About 300 operators flooded into Harare last week from America, Britain, South Africa, Spain and Zimbabwe for the government's annual auction of hunting concessions.

9 March - Zim Appointed Secretariat to Conservation Project... Zimbabwe has been appointed the secretariat to the Okavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, a new concept that will see the improvement of wildlife conservation in five Southern African countries. The project, which is expected to gobble up millions of dollars in foreign currency, will make an immense difference in the protection and management of wildlife and environment in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

7 March - Showdown Looms in Chimanimani... A showdown is looming between the Chimanimani Rural District Council and the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority over the council's decision to peg alluvial gold mining claims within a wildlife sanctuary. On Tuesday last week, council employees were barred from entering Chimanimani National Park to peg mining claims and were again blocked for the second time two days later.

3 March - 'Cropping Threatens Wildlife Conservation'... Government is seeking ways to make the land-based wildlife policy effectively operational by banning extensive cropping that stalls proper wildlife management in various conservancies countrywide.

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