Tourism players clean up Vic Falls

Leonard Ncube, Victoria Falls Reporter
TOURISM stakeholders in Victoria Falls on Wednesday embarked on a clean-up exercise along the highway from the Victoria Falls Rainforest to the airport more than 20km away.

The idea is to keep Victoria Falls in its pristine state and press towards the goal of making the resort city the cleanest destination in the world.

The exercise was coordinated by the Pristine Victoria Falls Society (PVFS) an initiative established by tourism players last year with the goal of making Victoria Falls the cleanest city in Africa, in line with modern trends of greening tourism.

Organisations were allocated portions of the Victoria Falls-Hwange highway from the mighty Victoria Falls Rainforest to the airport, picking litter and all garbage in sight.

This comes in the wake of concerns by environmentalists and some tour operators about deliberate littering along the country’s highways which is an eyesore to the environment and health hazard to people and wildlife.

Tourism executive Mr Mike Davis who is one of the leaders of PVFS said the biggest objective is to work with Government agencies and local authorities to introduce a total single use plastic ban pilot scheme in Victoria Falls.

Plastic waste constitutes over 80 percent of litter mass, he said.

“The Victoria Falls City footprint is only about 2 000 hectares, but it is not only home to one of the World’s Seven Natural Wonders, but also a wildlife paradise with presence of the Big Five. So, we believe we need to get this right for the sake of future generations and to set an example to the rest of the country,” said Mr Davis.

“Today’s great Rainforest to airport clean-up involved the following organisations: Victoria Falls City Council, Victoria Falls Investments, Shearwater, Wild Horizons, Elephant Crew, The Travel Company, Three Choirs, Condev, Safari Lodge, Ilala Lodge and the Victoria Falls Round Table.

“Between them, they deployed 70 people and collected almost 200 bags of rubbish at roughly 10 bags per km, mostly plastic.

“These were today’s heroes, but there are many others that have taken the pledge to keep areas of the town clean daily.”

He said while the clean-up exercise is important, there is a need to promote sustainable waste management by addressing littering at the source.

This involves change of behaviour and can be done through education in schools and communities, upgrading by-laws to deter litter bugs, strengthening the council’s collection facilities, building rubbish cages in the high density areas for residents to deposit rubbish, encourage recycling and tree planting as well as discourage tree cutting and dumping litter.

Victoria Falls is located within a national park and according to Unesco regulations, it should be preserved in its natural state with minimal human activity.

The overriding goal of the clean-up activities, over and above the National Clean-Up exercise coordinated by Government, is to work with all stakeholders towards making Victoria Falls a clean and green city in Africa and remain attractive to tourists. – @ncubeleon