Chronicle Editor
Leonard Ncube, [email protected]
A VICTORIA Falls based environmentalist Mr Nqobile Mkwananzi has started a 472km fundraising solo walk from Matopo National Park in Matabeleland South to Victoria Falls to raise awareness against littering.
This is Mr Mkwananzi’s 5th sponsored walk on the same route since he started in 2016.
He stopped because of the Covid-19 pandemic and resumed last year.
Mr Mkwananzi started his walk on Sunday and was joined by three volunteers from Matopos to Bulawayo.
He departed Bulawayo from the Large City Hall on Monday morning and expects to sleep over at Tyce Hurst, better known as Benice along the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls road.
He said the theme for this year’s walk is “Perpetuating heritage preservation through clean highway servitude.”
“The aim is to encourage travellers not to litter our highways as tourists drive along these roads giving negative reviews about the country’s cleanliness. It is also an opportunity to do a feasibility study to find a way to organise a highway clean-up and come up with a long term plan to maintain it clean,” said Mr Mkwananzi.
He said the walk is an annual event on Mkwa Conservation education calendar to raise awareness and funds for next year’s programmes.
His mission is to revive environment/conservation clubs in schools.
“All in all it will be 472 km,” he said.
A former teacher, Mr Mkwananzi started the More Knowledge With Action (MKWA) initiative to raise awareness on climate change through eco-environment clubs, debate, and public speaking in Schools in and around Victoria Falls.
The walk involves sensitizing people against throwing litter anywhere besides in bins especially out of moving vehicles.
The Bulawayo-Victoria Falls highway is littered with garbage that includes empty water and soft drink bottles, fast food packaging and other plastics thrown through the windows by travellers.
Most of the garbage makes its way into water bodies such as rivers and dams while animals also are in danger of feeding from such.
Government has tried to promote cleanliness through the National Clean-Up Exercise conducted every first Friday of the month since introduction by President Mnangagwa in 2018.
Mr Mkhwananzi has been an environmentalist and nature lover for years.
He was born in Filabusi, Insiza district and trained as a teacher but fell in love with nature as a young herd boy in his rural home.
He left teaching in 2011 and started helping schools to teach conservation in Bulawayo.
He rejoined the service a few years later and was posted to Hwange when he scaled up conservation work.
In 2016 he had a solo walk from Matopos to Victoria Falls and along the way met Kenyan environmentalist Jim Justus Nyamu who was walking across the continent.
-@ncubeleon
Online Reporter