Land Committee in Bid to Boost Tourism

Source: The Herald (Harare)

Date: 6 August 2007

Author: Anon

The Provincial Technical Land Committee said they were working towards coming up with organised settlements in and around conservancies to boost tourism and achieve a lucrative wildlife production. The land committee, comprising senior police officers, provincial administrators, officials from Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, World Wide Fund for Nature, and the Environment and Tourism Ministry, agreed that the implementation of the wildlife land reform policy was long overdue.

Implementation of the policy, they said, would help deal with various conflicts brought by some "imperfections" that occurred during allocation of land in wildlife rich areas. They said the implementation would also help close all loopholes causing poaching in some protected areas. Parks and Wildlife Management Director General, Dr Morris Mutsambiwa said the committee's major concern was on more than 10 000 families settled in animal territories. "As much as we are concerned, we are not recommending the removal of the families settling on animal lands.

We are considering other options, which include incorporating these families in our new management plan and giving them an opportunity to make a significant input in wildlife management," Dr Mutsambiwa said. He said the families would have to understand that there were some areas where they could practice cropping and had to consider either moving to areas where they could still grow crops or abandon it to wildlife management. Dr Mutsambiwa confirmed that the committees' mandate included re-modelling the wildlife land reform programme, as this was a fragile area, which demanded expertise and settlers passionate about wildlife farming. "It is critical for people to understand that each time a programme starts, at times it is misinterpreted. Conservancies were not supposed to be targeted during the land reform programme due to the sensitivity of the sector. But since mistakes were made, there is always a chance for modelling a new plan that rectifies errors initially made," he said.

Dr Mutsambiwa said the committee, which would assess Matabeleland North and South provinces would soon take a different approach to every case. "We would like to assure residents of areas we are to assess that no one will be targeted or victimised and each case will be dealt with in accordance with its circumstances. We will try as much as possible to incorporate everyone," he said. However, from the long discussion the committee still does not have answers as to how they are going to tackle issues pertaining to "wrong" demarcation of conservancies. Conservancies are supposed to be large tracts of land run by several shareholders in a serious business like type.

Matabeleland area, for instance, is a hot spot where residents have taken over and went to settle deep into haven of wildlife and therefore disturbing the sizes of land that had existed. "We are also faced with an uphill task on how we will deal with issues of co-existence. Indigenous farmers have a right to land and at times they are clashing with old farmers who feel they are not doing enough to protect the resource base," Dr Mutsambiwa said.

Wildlife expert from the World Wide Fund for Nature, Mr Raoul Du Toit said Zimbabwe should seriously consider the economic advantages in wildlife production. "Crop production in Southern Africa is under threat from climatic variability. Wild life production is, however, an ideal option because animals can adapt to climatic changes and can resist diseases." Mr Du Toit said.