AR-News: "end for Zimbabwe's wildlife"

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_http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=269&fArticleId=2106426_ 
(http://www.capetimes.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=269&fArticleId=2106426) 
 
    New Zimbabwe land  shock  June 9, 2004

By  Tony Weaver and Basildon Peta

In what has been described as "the  end of the end" for Zimbabwe's wildlife, 
President Robert Mugabe's  government has announced it is to nationalise all 
wildlife conservancies  and productive farm land.

In an interview with the state-owned  Herald newspaper, the Minister of 
Special Affairs in the Office of the  President in charge of lands, land reform and 
resettlement, John Nkomo,  said the government wanted to abolish all title 
deed holdings. 

"In  the end all land will be state land and there will be no such thing 
called  private land." 

Title deeds are to be replaced with 99-year leases  for farm land. 

But, in a move that has sent shockwaves through the  community of 
conservationists, who have been fairly immune to land grabs  because of their importance 
to the economy, leases on nationalised  conservancies are to be limited to 25 
years. 

This would open the  "lucrative" game sector to "many more people", Nkomo 
said. 

Eddie  Cross, finance spokesman for the opposition Movement for Democratic  
Change, told the Cape Times by e-mail "this will mark the end of private  
conservation in Zimbabwe". 

"The majority of the conservancies are  foreign-owned and therefore protected 
by investment guarantee agreements  with foreign governments. French, German, 
American and British interests  are involved, as are several South African 
investors. These people have  bought into these conservancies with certificates 
of 'no interest' by the  state (and have) made huge investments in 
infrastructure ... and in  wildlife."

At stake were hunting and ecotourism revenues of around  US$50 million a 
year, investment inflows of around US$6m a year and the  "survival of certain 
species that have virtually been wiped out in other  areas".

Cross alleged that "indigenous participation", as mentioned  by Nkomo, did 
not mean peasants participating in conservation, but  "selected Zanu-PF 
officials and others connected with the Mugabe  regime".

Zimbabwe's government has quietly accelerated the seizure  of commercial 
farms, despite assurances by Mugabe that this had ended. At  the weekend, the 
government gazetted 259 more farms for seizure, bringing  to 918 the number listed 
since January for compulsory acquisition. Another  245 farms have been 
acquired since January.      
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Of a  long list of farms gazetted since April, most are in mainly game  
conservancy areas.

Nkomo has advised private landowners to  surrender their land immediately. He 
said the process of acquiring it  under the Land Acquisition Act was too 
involved and no longer necessary in  view of the move to nationalise all land. 

"The state should not be  made to waste time and money on acquisitions," he 
said. 

The Cape  Times spoke to a number of leading Zimbabwean conservationists, 
several of  them involved in the conservancy movement, which protects vast 
wildlife  areas outside the national parks. None was prepared to be named because,  
as one put it, "the climate of fear here now is all-pervasive - this is  the 
end of the end for Zimbabwe's wildlife".

Johnny Rodrigues,  outspoken chairman of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task 
Force, was the only  conservationist prepared to speak on the record.

"The period of 25  years is ridiculous. It will take 15 to 25 years just to 
get the wildlife  to recover. The wildlife situation is terrible, it really is 
disastrous.  

"The army is involved in a lot of the poaching. We are getting  reports of 
(soldiers) using landmines to kill hippos for meat near Binga  (on Lake Kariba). 
There are trophy-hunters coming in with no legal quotas.  Three Americans 
recently shot 38 trophies without proper  permits."

Rodrigues said he and others suspected wildlife areas had  not been earmarked 
before because of international sensitivity about  conservation.

"Now the quickest way left to get rich is through  wildlife - everyone's 
saying that's where the money is, let's go the whole  hog and take the lot. That's 
the mood in Zimbabwe ... get rich as fast as  possible. All the wildlife 
people need to get together fast, to preserve  what we have left before it's too 
late."

Another leading  conservationist, a pioneer of the conservancy movement, 
said: "I don't  think I can take it any more. 

"This is the  end."


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