AR-News: Zimbabwe - Breaking news

Thu Jun 10 16:20:07 EDT 2004

From: ECOTERRA Intl. 

Sent: Thursday, June 10, 2004 12:55 PM
Subject: Zimbabwe - Breaking news -

Zimbabwe - Breaking news - 10. 06. 2004
All wildlife conservancies to be nationalised 

President Robert Mugabe's government has announced it is to nationalise 
all wildlife conservancies . 

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 will abolish 
all title deed holdings. 

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

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, saidl "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". 

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. 

A number of leading Zimbabwean conservationists, several of them 
involved in the conservancy movement, which protects vast wildlife areas 
outside the national parks were interviwed. 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. 

Source: Atta / ATTAK: 1088
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