adminlucrative business opportunities if fully supported but the illegal sanctions are impeding full recovery of the sector. Our reporter Tendai Mugabe (TM) talks to Parks and Wildlife Management Authority director-general Mr Vitalis Chadenga (VC).TM: What is your vision for the industry?
VC: First and foremost, my vision is to see Zimbabwe being a world leader in sustainable conservation with a mission to conserve the country’s wildlife heritage through effective, efficient and sustainable protection and utilisation of natural resources for the benefit of the present and future generations and stakeholders.
As director-general, my major aim in this sector is to restore and maintain National Parks and Wildlife estates and wildlife resources in general to their prime conditions as a sanctuary of the nation’s wildlife heritage and bio diversity.
TM: You were appointed director-general at the height of hyperinflation. What challenges did you face and how did you overcome them?
VC: I was appointed director-general during the period of serious economic challenges. One of the painful challenges that I faced was to stabilise and focus our activities, particularly our field operations in an inflationary environment.
Another area of concern was to maintain credibility in our wildlife activities – how we can mitigate some of the challenges we were facing.
What we did was link up with other law enforcement agencies such as the police and army because our priority was to extend protection to wildlife.
We also linked up with other countries under the Transfrontier Conservation so that biodiversity can be exercised on a wider area across boundaries. Zimbabwe continues to play a significant role in Transfrontier Conservation programmes that we are running together with other countries in the region.
TM: Did you get positive results from such efforts?
VC: I am happy to report that the response was tremendous from the police and members of the army. In fact, the results are clear for everyone to see. Actually, we could not succeed in apprehending every poacher but the long custodial sentence for poachers is a clear warning to would-be poachers. For instance we have one poacher who was sentenced for 27 years in jail in Masvingo and we want to give a special thanks to our Judiciary system.
This has enabled us to bring sanity to what was likely to be a chaotic situation.
TM: Wildlife management is a risky job, especially for game rangers who have to come face-to-face with armed poachers. What measures are you implementing to motivate them?
VC: One of the issues that I had to deal with when I was appointed director general was the problem of jittery staff over the issue of salaries and working conditions.
The work they do is hectic and sometimes dangerous and if you put people’s lives on line you have to motivate them. So I make it a point that we have to deal with the issue of salaries and incentives and we are managing. Right now we have a staff complement of 2000 employees.
TM: In which area are you excelling in your conservation activities?
VC: We are doing relatively well in all facets, but I should mention that as a country we continue to have a robust population of elephants in the region. We currently have about 120 000 elephants and in our view such a number is beyond our carrying capacity because the elephants are even a danger to themselves. However, it is important to note that the presence of such a huge population is an indicator of success in our management regime.
The Rhino population however, continues to be under threat.
TM: Do you have partners whom you are working with in your operations?
VC: We are working with a few non governmental organisations, but their impact is not that significant as compared to support given to this organisation before the year 2000.
All hell broke loose in 2000 when our detractors imposed sanctions on us.
All people who used to support conservation activities turned their backs on us and from there we are on our own. We do not get any money from the fiscus so we have to eat what we kill as it were.
Our major source of income is hunting. We also offer accommodation, but we are not generating enough revenue to fund the full spectrum of our activities. Most of our vehicles are now old and we need close to US$100 million for recapitalisation.
TM: Can you explain further how illegal sanctions have impacted on your operations?
VC: We have a number of Transfrontier Conservation activities that we are implementing with other countries in the region. These other countries are receiving money to develop these conservation areas and Zimbabwe has been excluded. The most notable exclusion is to do with the Okavango Trans Frontier Areas.
We have been informed that funding will not be extended to Zimbabwe. We also used to get money from the European Union and this is no longer the case. We also used to get funding from the United States of
America to conduct aerial count of our animals and we even used to get loans from the World Bank but that is now all history. The point here is that we are a viable business entity and all we want to have things right so that we can be able to sustain our operations and repay our loans.
TM: Earlier on you mentioned that you have a high number of elephants, why are you not selling ivory to fund your operations?
VC: We are sitting on 44 tonnes of ivory, which we are unable to dispose. This is an issue of greater concern to other Sadc countries and myself. The decision not dispose this ivory is made elsewhere and in some cases by countries that do not have a single elephant. The argument being advanced is that selling ivory will fuel poaching and in my own view poaching is happening at a bigger scale with or without a ban. The only way of managing this situation is to make sure that we have a robust law enforcement unit that is able to react and meet poachers head on. This cannot happen if countries do not have adequate resources hence our desire to dispose our ivory. We are not asking the world to feel sorry for Zimbabwe but we are simply saying we have resources that we can use sustainably to fund our conservation programmes.
If we are allowed to do this we can ask people to keep their aid. The problem is there is no agreement within CITES about the disposal of ivory stocks. There is even no agreement on the sale of ivory among African countries at CITES meetings. Africa is found to be talking tongues at CITES meetings on an issue, which I think is aimed at our communities and conservation areas. As Sadc, we find ourselves on our own and other members of the international community fail to support us because there is no consensus among ourselves as Africans. The common position that we have in Sadc has so far not been enough to sway the opinion of other member states and as a result we are stuck with our tonnes of ivory.
TM: From your explanation it seems things are not well in your sector. Is there any hope that the wildlife sector can rebound?
VC: Oh yes, it is not all doom and gloom because we have identified a number of joint venture programmes with a number of institutions and we are seeing a very significant interest in investors wanting to partner us in the management of our Parks estates.
We are currently evaluating some of these submissions and certainly the future belongs to us and workers of this authority. In the next three to five years we will be somewhere as a conservation authority.
TM: What are you doing to protect people who live near conservation areas?
VC: We remain alive as an institution to the fact that we have to protect our communities from wildlife. Wildlife and human conflict continue to rear its ugly head throughout the country. I am happy to say that we have a unit specifically tasked with the responsibility of formulating policies towards mitigating human and wildlife conflicts. In this regard, we have received assistance from the Food and Agricultural Organisation.
TM: The country has embarked on an indigenisation and empowerment programme. What are you doing in your sector to conform to the policy?
VC: We are implementing what is known as the Wildlife based land reform policy. The motive is to ensure that resources are shared among all Zimbabweans and to ensure that we introduce other players in the wildlife producing business. This area has been a preserve for a very few people for a long time and in my opinion such a state of affairs is not politically, economically and socially sustainable hence the need to ensure that indigenisation also visits this sector of the economy.
The way we have done it is that, through the Ministry of Environment and Wildlife Management, beneficiaries are given 25-year leases and are supposed to work with the sitting white farmer and agree on the production of a business plan.
That work plan will then guide the operations of a given wildlife production farm. However, currently we have serious co-existence challenges with beneficiaries complaining that the farmers who are already on the land are refusing to engage them and there is a stalemate which I think in my own view is contributing to poaching on these private farms. It is my hope that these challenges will be addressed for the sake of the industry and I hope sanity and stability will prevail in this very important sector.
Online Reporter
Sidumisile Mabena