Poaching 'hasn't affected peace park'

Date: 31 January 2003

Source: Cape Argus

Author: John Yeld

Horrific scenes of poaching and cruelty to animals in Zimababwe that were shown on South African television at the weekend were filmed in a privately-owned conservancy area, and there have been no such incidents in the Gona-re-Zhou national park in southwestern Zimbabwe, say senior Peace Parks Foundation officials.

Gona-re-Zhou is one of three parks making up the recently proclaimed Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, or "peace park", which straddles parts of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

The other two are the Kruger National Park and the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.

Senior executives of the Peace Parks Foundation told former Rhodes Scholars from around the world that the footage shown on TV was taken outside park borders.

The scholars are meeting for a centenary celebration assembly.

The Peace Parks Foundation, founded by business tycoon and conservationist Anton Rupert, promotes the concept of transfrontier, or cross-border, conservation areas in Africa with a particular focus on southern Africa.

Executive director Willem van Riet said in response to the poaching question that he had spoken to the park warden at Gona-re-Zhou this week, following the airing of the television programme.

"He told me none of these events are taking place in Gona-re-Zhou."

Van Riet acknowledged there had been a "land invasion" in the northwestern corner of Gona-re-Zhou, but said this was a contested area that had been added to the national park only late in its development.

He also said they had been asked by communities living in the Sengwe corridor in Zimbabwe, between the northern border of the Kruger National Park and the southern border of Gona-re-Zhou, to attend a meeting late last year.

At this meeting the communities had asked for the corridor to be incorporated into the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park.

"They called on the Peace Parks Foundation to speed up the implementation (of the park) because they see it as the only opportunity to improve their lives ..."

Van Riet said land use pressure from the estimated five million people living along the western borders of the Kruger National Park was a much greater danger to conservation than the land pressures on Gona-re-Zhou.

Referring to the first of 1 000 elephants that were transported from the Kruger National Park to Mozambique last year, Van Riet said none had been hit by poachers. "There wasn't a single poaching attempt on these elephants."