The Sunday News
Nkosilathi Sibanda, Business Correspondent
RAMPANT poaching in the Hwange National Park in Matabeleland North can easily be curbed if villagers living around the wildlife protectorate are assisted with farming skills and implements to help them be food sufficient.
Poaching activities have hampered efforts to conserve wildlife species in what players in the industry attribute to the illegal activity to poverty and joblessness in marginalised communities that live nearby national parks countrywide.
A leading tour and safari operator, African Safari Walks, after doing a needs assessment in areas near the country’s largest game reserve, has committed to buy farming equipment in form of ploughs for villagers. In an interview with Sunday Business, the director of African Safari Walks, Mr Kaz Dube, said an improvement in the farmers’ yields could stop poaching activities.
“We want to stop poaching by enabling villagers to improve their crop yields. We believe that food production can change the focus from poaching to sustainable farming. We will be giving ploughs to the villagers and help them get well prepared for the oncoming season.”
He said although the programme was still in its infancy, they had projections of seeing lives changing for the better. Mr Dube said funding for the farming implements was from tourism, meaning that villagers will get to appreciate the value of wildlife conversation.
The African Safari Walks Initiative has been praised by the Zimbabwe Tourism Association.
“Community support, finding solutions and sustainability are issues that we have always talked about in the industry. ZTA applauds the community engagement that African Safari Walks is doing to address issues to do with poaching and food security. Tourism in the country needs such initiatives that helps our people appreciate the importance of wildlife conservation,” said the ZTA spokesperson Mr Godfrey Koti.
