Zim instability halts peace park project

Source: SW Radio Africa

Date: 21 September 2007

Author: Anon

President of Botswana Says Zim-Botswana Peace Parks "On Ice"

WASHINGTON DC - Responding to public questions at the National Geographic Society yesterday the president of Botswana, Festus Mogae, said that implementation of Peace Parks between Zimbabwe and Botswana were 'on ice' primarily due to concerns about uncontrolled poaching and foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Zimbabwe.

The President said that the peace park on Botswana's southern border with Zimbabwe (Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area) was facing implementation problems related to foot-and-mouth disease outbreaks in Zimbabwe that required the construction of a disease control fence along the border, while the Northern (Zambezi-Okavango Transfrontier Park) was 'on ice' primarily due to poaching concerns in Zimbabwe.

Many conservationists regard the peace parks concept as a visionary and innovative approach to conservation. The peace-parks ideal acknowledges that animal movements should not be constrained by artificial human boundaries and aims to restore large contiguous habitats as mega parks for wildlife conservation and to attract tourism to the region that can generate sustainable development revenues for these often under-served rural communities.

The President's response, however, highlighted an issue that many conservationists have fretted about privately. If one country sharing a peace-park descends into civil war or chaos that undermines of sustainable management practices of those areas, then it places the whole mega-park at risk.