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Mugabe
presides over decline in Zimbabwe's wildlife parks
Sophie Shaw, Guardian (UK)
May 30, 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/may/30/conservation.wildlife?gusrc=rss&feed=worldnews
"The lions went
into the bush here. They're hungry, so they'll be irritable. Let's
follow them," says Nigel the guide. If it sounds foolhardy
to camp and walk in a big game park, doing so in Zimbabwe must be
crazy as Robert Mugabe's Zanu PF militias roam the country beating
and killing. But Zimbabwe's enormous national parks are generally
peaceful havens from the violence. And with Nigel and Xolani the
bush tracker to look after me, I feel much safer on the trail of
the lions than, say, a Zimbabwean refugee living in Johannesburg.
I've taken the long weekend off to camp in Hwange national park
- a pristine area for wildlife, the size of Belgium, on the edge
of the Kalahari. The "big five" - lions, leopards, elephants,
rhinos and buffaloes - are all here. Yellow-billed hornbills loop
overhead, like whirling bananas. Long-tailed shrikes, dark with
elegant trailing tail feathers, hover like miniature angels of death
over their insect prey.
But, of course, the parks
cannot resist the steady negative effects of the economic crisis.
I hardly see any other people during the weekend - a contrast to
safaris in South Africa or Tanzania where dozens of vehicles form
rings around sightings. Zimbabwe used to attract tens of thousands
of tourists. Now all but a handful are deterred by news reports
of Mugabe's atrocities. Most lodges have closed. Guides such as
Nigel spend much of their time in neighboring countries, where they
can earn a great deal more. The collapse of tourism has destroyed
jobs and denied the country an estimated US$1bn in revenue since
2002. As environmentally minded tourists have looked elsewhere,
Zimbabwean operators have turned to the shadier hunting sector.
According to Nigel, gun enthusiasts will pay up to US$50,000 in
"trophy fees" to slaughter an elephant, in addition to
large amounts for lodges, guides, taxidermy and transport.
Incredibly, lions were
also hunted in Zimbabwe until 2005, when an Oxford University study
demonstrated that populations were declining as a result. Most hunters
are American or Spanish. The US government has reportedly become
concerned about the support the hunters' dollars - usually paid
to operations run by Mugabe sympathizers - give to the regime. The
state department's travel advice for Zimbabwe does as much as it
can to deter hunters, warning them of the dangers of deportation,
political harassment and animal attack. Worse, the collapse of funding
for the public sector is dramatically reducing the capability of
Zimbabwe's formerly prestigious national park rangers, who defeated
a concerted assault from Zambian poachers in the 1980s.
Rangers now lack the
fuel, equipment and training to deal with well-armed poachers targeting
elephants and rhinos. National parks officials do not like to disclose
the number of rhinos poached or their location, but will admit they
have a problem. And rangers themselves - now paid less than £5
per month - have little option but to shoot impala and warthogs
to feed their families. So Zimbabwe's parks are under siege but
hanging on. It is vital for the country's medium-term welfare that
the parks are not trashed further, as tourism is a sector that could
recover quickly and begin generating jobs and export revenue within
months, if only Mugabe is replaced as president in the June 27 presidential
run-off.
Nigel, Xolani and I track
the lions for several hours. Even without seeing the animals, the
experience of walking through African bush, enjoying the sun, listening
for animal sounds, is an antidote to the stress of Harare life.
Ultimately, we do not find the predators, only their prey - a disemboweled
buffalo lying dead by a waterhole. The lions had to abandon their
kill quickly when the herd returned, as if to reclaim the carcass
of their fallen brother. The long weekend cannot last forever and
it is back to the grim reality of Zimbabwe. The opposition leader,
Morgan Tsvangirai, has finally returned to the country and is visiting
his beaten supporters in hospital. It is too late to visit some.
The father of the murdered Movement for Democratic Change activist
Godfrey Kauzani said at his son's funeral: "He did not have
a tongue, his eyes had been plucked out, he was half burned and
had a wire around his neck. I do not know what sin my son committed
to deserve such a painful death."
And, with my
mind still on the impact of Zimbabwe's collapse on animal welfare,
a report from the
human rights monitors Zimbabwe
Peace Project leaps out at me. It recorded 4,359 human rights
abuses in April and has heard of hundreds more incidents that cannot
be readily verified. It reports: "In some cases, perpetrators
kill livestock such as cattle and goats. In one cruel case, the
eyes of goats were poked out before they were killed. The perpetrators
believe that anything associated with the MDC should be killed."
It is an indication of the degree of hatred instilled into Zanu
PF youth militias that their taste for torture extends even to the
animals of opposition supporters.
*Sophie
Shaw is a pseudonym
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