Back to Index

IUCN launches documentary examining conflicts between governments, communities and wildlife in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park
IUCN - The World Conservation Union - Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA)
April 16, 2004

Harare - IUCN has launched the "From the Shade into the sun" - a documentary that explores what effects the introduction of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) will have on communities living in and around the parks of Kruger (South Africa), Gonarezhou (Zimbabwe) and Limpopo (Mozambique).

Transboundary Initiatives such as the GLTP are expected to significantly boost regional economic growth and increase tourism inflow. This comes at a price and the people mostly affected are the communities.

Thirty thousand Mozambicans live in the area targeted for the mega park. They do not want to move. The Zimbabwe part of the Great Limpopo Park hinterland is also bitterly contested. The Chitsa people, evicted from their homeland thirty years ago, have already resettled in the park, claiming the land as their natural birthright. Also in Zimbabwe, the people of Sengwe Communal Lands, living in an area where a new corridor joining Gonarezhou National Park to the GLTP is proposed, cannot see any benefit from moving. If the GLTP project proceeds without the collaboration of these communities, poverty, anger and frustration may well lead to further conflicts between the communities and the new Transfrontier Park

Despite these and other issues, the governments of Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa and other stakeholders are fully behind the implementation of the GLTP and see it as an initiative that holds hope for the greater challenge of supporting the livelihoods of communities living in and around this mega park.

This documentary is available at IUCN Regional Office for Southern Africa. For more Information contact:

Caroline Gwature
Media and Communications Assistant
IUCN ROSA
Tel. + 263 4 728 266/7
Fax: +00 263 4 720 738
E-mail: carolineg@iucnrosa.org.zw
Web: http://iucnrosa.org.zw

Visit the IUCN fact sheet

Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.

TOP