Chronicle EditorTawanda Mangoma in CHIREDZI
More than 1 500 villagers occupying the southern part of Save Valley Conservancy in South East Lowveld are resisting plans to erect a $30 million boundary fence that will help limit wildlife and human conflict. The Parks and Wildlife Management Authority of Zimbabwe wants to relocate the villagers to pave way for the erection of the fence around the park. The development comes after the European Union availed $30 million dollars last year for the establishment of the fence to curb control conflict between wildlife and humans.
The EU has already indicated the bloc’s intention to withdraw their funds from the Save Valley Conservancy boundary fence project if they are not utilised by February next year.
Last week, villagers in Chiredzi North constituency refused to entertain ZimParks officials who wanted to table a proposal outlining how they were going to be relocated to allow the erection of a boundary fence.
The constituency’s Member of Parliament Cde Robert Mukwena said if Zimparks was serious about erecting a boundary fence, they should have started the programme last year in areas which had no boundary disputes.
“These villagers are not new occupants of land in Save Valley,” he said. “We cannot have whites coming to dispossess us of our pieces of land which we benefited during the land reform programme.
“We cannot entertain people who initiate plans to move us from one place to another.”
Cde Mukwena said villagers occupying parts of Save Valley were legally settled after moving onto the land during the days of the Fast Track Land redistribution programme in 2000.
According to a proposed map outlining the planned relocation of the villagers from Save Valley, settlers who are staying in areas such as Angers, Chegwite, Mkwasine Ranch and Lavanga should be moved to Masapasi Ranch.
The villagers have been promised irrigation land at Masapasi, while every settler would be allocated a 6-hectare plot for their farming operations.
The stand-off between ZimParks and Save Valley settlers come as sugar cane farmers in the Pore Pore area of Mkwasine in Chiredzi continue to complain over destruction of their crop by wild animals from Save Valley that are roaming freely in the area.
Villagers occupying parts of Save Valley also lose their crops every year to wild animals such as elephants and buffaloes that are abundant in the sanctuary.
Save Valley is one of the biggest wild-life sanctuaries in the Lowveld, but the perimeter fence around the conservancy was vandalised by poachers, increasing cases of conflict between villagers in surrounding communities and wild animals.
Preliminary estimates put the money required to restore the battered perimeter fence around Save Valley conservancy at $4 million.
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