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Blessings Chidakwa, Herald Reporter
FIFTY people died last year due to human-wildlife conflict, with elephants and crocodiles accounting for the major incidents, Zimparks revealed yesterday.
Further, livelihoods were also lost as livestock and crops were destroyed.
These statistics were released yesterday as the country hosted the first tourism and conservation interactive meeting to explore and address problems affecting the sectors.
Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA), in partnership with Wild Africa, was spearheading the event graced by several key stakeholders at a local hotel in Harare.
The conference ran under the theme, “Making tourism easier and bigger through wildlife”.
Speaking during a panel discussion on the convergence between tourism and conservation, Zimparks director services, Professor Edson Gandiwa, urged the tourism and environmental sector to scale up efforts to curb future dangers.
Prof Gandiwa thanked the Government for reviewing the Campfire, as the solution to conservation and human and wildlife conflict lies in significant roles played by the communities.
“Fifty people were killed in the human wildlife conflict by animals that will always attack people, the elephants, crocodiles and other animals,” he said.
Speaking on behalf of Wild Africa chief executive Peter Knights, the coordinator, Guy Jennings, said Zimbabwe has probably one of the biggest problems with wildlife conflict.
He said elephants are a major drawcard to the country because of the conservation techniques that have been developed over the years in Zimbabwe.
“But obviously, there’s a lot of people. Again, there’s more people around, people are all striving for the same food and water. And we are trying to come up with mitigating circumstances to help communities with that.
“Rather than just having to euthanise animals, there are other ways that we can adopt to live peacefully with animals and coexist, and communities can benefit from that,” he said.
Mr Jennings said to avoid human wildlife conflicts some are using elephant repellents as chillies, trenches and bee fences among all sorts of different things.
“We are partnering at the moment with Save the Elephants and they have a huge manual on different ways that communities can use to deal with human-elephant conflict and other animal conflicts as well. We’ve got mitigating circumstances.
“We partner with a wonderful Zimbabwean lady called More Angels, who has provided us with incredible information that we are disseminating now through communities and on social media and broadcast partners of how people can live peacefully with these animals.”
Online Reporter