Urban Sprawl Threatens Vic Falls

Source: The Herald (Harare)

Date: 29 October 2005

Author: Wisdom Mdzungairi

Tourists with binoculars scan the thickly-wooded banks of the mighty Zambezi River for crocodiles, hippos and elephants.

Giraffes munch lazily at an acacia tree. Buffaloes graze on an open plain that breaks the woods.

Other game frolic, rumble, snort, rock and roll.

Mighty animals with celebrity status - Lion the King - trek the landscape, offering one a ringside seat at nature's game show.

It may look like a typical view of an idyllic African safari, but Victoria Falls, the country's premier tourism resort, in particular the Rainforest in the Victoria Falls National Park, is rather different.

Just yards behind the safari park outside the country's premier tourism centre, a factory belches grey smoke into the sky while in the overcrowded Chinotimba high-density suburb, lodges and hotels push ever closer to the park's fence.

An unprotected dumpsite in the middle of the wildlife territory perpetually burns while baboons and other scavenging animals forage for scraps in the filth.

Aircraft roar over the park from an airport and at a heliport close to the Elephant Hills Hotel, though there is barely a rustle from the animals below, so used are they to noise pollution.

The helicopter companies offer a panoramic view of the Victoria Falls during the 12 to 13 minute flights and a close up view of the mighty falls or combines it with a 30-minute game flight into the Zambezi National Park.

Flying at an altitude of 1 000 feet, a mandatory regulation by the aviation authorities, the helicopter is slow enough to present an eagle's eye view of the whole length of the falls and its elegant bridge, built as part of the Cape to Cairo route. This, though at the expense of the environment.

"There's a lot of history down there," declared one excited German tourist.

On the other side, where the park melds into the plains of the Zambezi Valley, hundreds of homesteads, lodges and hotels dot the landscape, blocking the migration in and out for thousands of game from any side.

The town council grappling with a shortage of residential properties last year imposed stiff penalties to deter the construction of shacks in the resort town.

However, at the time the executive mayor, Mr Wesley Sansole, said the local authority would only allow each household to have a maximum of two shacks. He said the move was meant to deter the proliferation of shanty houses that could develop into squatter camps.

"While the local authority is trying by all means to address the shortage of accommodation . . . there is also need to look at the consequences that may be brought through random construction of shacks," said Mr Sansole.

"There has been an influx of various people from different parts of the country in search of employment in the tourism related industries and this has indirectly resulted in the need for accommodation."

Over 10 000 people were on the council's housing waiting list whose population is estimated to be more than 85 000 people.

This means that the expansion of Zimbabwe's premier resort town has been hampered by the shortage of land, as it is surrounded by Zambezi, Victoria Falls National Park and Matetsi Safari area, which stretches from the country's major animal sanctuary - Hwange National Park.

Because there is no land for expansion, shacks, which sprung in the early 1990s despite strong resistance in the tourism sector and environmentalists, now seem to be acceptable in the town.

Environmentalists warn that Zambezi and Victoria Falls national parks - one of the Seven Wonders of the World and most unique - may soon go out of existence if the urban sprawl continues and tourists are put off by falling animal numbers.

In a recent interview, Environment and Tourism Minister Cde Francis Nhema said having accepted that the march to progress was inevitable, Zimbabwe should face up to the fact that manmade hazards, such as population encroachment and pollution, would continue.

Cde Nhema, however, said there was need to educate newly-resettled farmers near Victoria Falls and Hwange on the value of wildlife and the need for tourism industry to safeguard the environment to derive more benefits from it.

In a recent interview, Secretary for Environment and Tourism Ms Margaret Sangarwe said there should be annual environmental audits to reduce pollution in the Victoria Falls.

"There was that concern (environmental damage). So we feel there should be a Master Plan for the whole area. The one that was funded by the Canadians died a natural death. But certainly there is need for stakeholders to come together and see how best to fund the implementation of the Master Plan.

"The Victoria Falls could be one of the few natural parks, and World Heritage Sites right next to a town on earth. But the problems it faces are immense. The future of the park is under threat if we do not take serious measures now," Ms Sangarwe added.

"So we are working out a counter-strategy to sustain the wildlife habitat . . . If no action is taken now, this wonderful heritage could be lost for ever."

Any developments within the Victoria Falls should be guided by the Tourism Master Plan, she added.

After donors pulled out of the project to come up with a Master Plan for the area, there was another initiative between Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and Zambia Wildlife Authority to protect the environment and wildlife heritage from collapse. Ms Sangarwe said nothing much has been done due to under-funding.

She said although the tourism receipts have declined, there was potential for a major spring for the tourism sector in future.

A combination of diverse factors including pollution, population growth, lack of political will by the local town authorities and poaching, have left the park in a precarious situation with animal numbers dwindling drastically.

Once teeming with animals, and famous for its unique gnu population, buffaloes and elephants, the park is already becoming a shadow of its former self as a major tourist attraction and animal sanctuary. Gnu numbers have dropped, so have buffalo, zebra, elephant and impala populations.

Parks and Wildlife Management Authority operations director Mr Tapera Chimuti added that his organisation has begun aggressive measures to save the sanctuary and ensure all game corridors are not settled either by tourism businesses or human settlements.

Mr Chimuti said they have avoided putting fences - where animals used to migrate in huge numbers and were also negotiating with tourism stakeholders - to at least avoid fence structures on their land.

There is also the perennial problem of poaching for lucrative game meat and wood especially in Zambezi National Park.

Poachers fortify the park with snares towards Kazungula/Matetsi and also use torches at night to daze animals.

The park faces a vicious circle in the name of tourism expansion - to boost foreign currency inflows - if matters do not improve.

Although there has been an increase in the number of visitors from all parts of the world - with their all-important revenues to finance improvements - these are unlikely to grow if the park's wildlife stock becomes more depleted and the rainforest loses its splendour due to overcrowding.

There is no doubt that the world-famous Victoria Falls has been Zimbabwe's contribution to the world's great attractions, and miles and miles of film and videotape are gobbled through cameras every year here.

Victoria Falls was built on tourism and has now developed into an archetypal tourist trap. Fortunately for now, the star attraction is safely cordoned-off by a real jungle of its own creation.

To walk along the paths through the spray-generated rainforests that flank the gorge, one would never suspect the existence of anything other than the monumental waterfall that gives one such a good soaking.

Heart-stoppers include scenic flights, whitewater rafting, one of Africa's highest bungee jumps and parachuting. If one is feeling low, a walk along the Zambezi River above the Falls - with its wide array of wildlife - is an excellent elixir.

In no time, however, the park could vanish hence the need to save it from becoming just a sick and mismanaged relic