The Sunday News
Bruce Ndlovu, Sunday News Reporter
ZIMBABWE will host Africa’s Wildlife Economy Summit in the resort town of Victoria Falls from 24 to 25 June, with dignitaries and wildlife conservation champions from around the continent set to utilise the event to thrash out how to conserve Africa’s natural environment while extracting the maximum economic value from it.
The summit will draw participants from over 30 countries. Environment, Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Prisca Mupfumira said the holding of the summit was opportune, given the country and some of its neighbours’ vast elephant population. Zimbabwe has the second highest elephant population in the world.
“We’re happy that we’re going to host the first ever Wildlife Summit and focusing on economies. It will be held in Victoria Falls on the 24th and 25th of this month. It is an AU and UN environment sponsored summit and Zimbabwe is hosting. We’re looking forward to having a successful conference and as you know Zimbabwe is in the KAZA (Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area) region and as you’re aware KAZA boasts of having over 60 percent of the world’s elephant population,” she said.
Minister Mupfumira said summit discussions will cover issues that range from Africa’s wildlife economy to the problems brought about by human and wildlife conflict.
“There are issues that we need to discuss about the economies, how wildlife affects ordinary people and how we can manage human and wildlife conflict. We want to come up with resolutions which will be good for conservation, looking after our wildlife and also making sure that people living with wildlife also benefit and their livelihoods will be improved. So these are some of the issues that we’re going to discuss. We have various international speakers and of course our own Zimbabweans are going to contribute in the deliberations,” she said.
Minister Mupfumira said the summit will go a long way in selling Zimbabwe as a viable tourism destination, with the importance of deliberations at the event underpinned by the presence of President Mnangagwa and potentially other heads of state.
