Online Reporter
Rutendo Nyeve, [email protected]
THE Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has called on Zimbabweans to jealously guard the country’s natural resources, warning that a thriving tourism industry cannot survive without a healthy environment.
Speaking on the sidelines of the recent United Nations Tourism congress in Victoria Falls, EMA Matabeleland North Provincial manager Mrs Chipo Mpofu-Zuze said tourism in Zimbabwe is wholly dependent on the use of natural assets such as water, vegetation and biodiversity.
“We cannot have a booming tourism industry when we do not have the natural resources. So what I’m seeing or what I have learnt is that we are going to be called upon to jealously guard our environment so that we are able to sustain our tourism,” said Mrs Mpofu-Zuze.
The UN Tourism Congress, which brought together global players, also highlighted the role of women in tourism.
Mrs Mpofu-Zuze noted that environmental degradation hits women hardest because their daily duties, fetching water, collecting firewood and basic agriculture all depend on a healthy environment.
“If the environment is degraded, it means our roles as women are compromised,” she said.
Mrs Mpofu-Zuze said the conference had reinforced a critical lesson as protecting the environment now carries a tangible dollar value through tourism, which will make EMA’s work easier when persuading communities to become stewards of nature.
“People have always asked, ‘why should I protect the environment?’ Yes, it gives me basic needs, but this conference has brought to light that tourism is going to bring the dollar value to the need of protecting the environment,” she said.
“So whenever we are going out there, we are going to encourage people to protect the environment and also to venture into tourism as women, as girls, as everyone who has to do with protecting the environment.”
Mrs Mpofu-Zuze said EMA would now broaden its approach, putting value on protection against pollution, land degradation and invasive alien species.
“If we destroy or if we allow our environment to degrade, allow invasive species to grow, it means we are cut on the ‘busy city’ coming to an area full of lantana camara,” she warned.
“So it means people will be forced to remove species to improve specificity. People will be encouraged to protect their wetlands so that they can also attract more biodiversity, and this will also help them attract tourists to our areas.”
Mrs Mpofu-Zuze stressed that the message goes beyond Victoria Falls or major towns.
“The other thing that also encouraged me is we are not only talking tourism in Victoria Falls, a town or another city, but we are talking about tourism. So it means our natural resources in the rural areas are going to have a basis to be protected even more, to be guarded generously even more,” she said.
Turning to gender, Mrs Mpofu-Zuze said empowering women in environmental protection and tourism had a multiplier effect.
“If you capacitate or empower a woman, you have empowered the community, you have empowered the nation, you have empowered the whole world,” she said.
The agency has pledged to broaden its stakeholder participation and put measurable economic value on conservation, turning environmentalism from a duty into an opportunity.
