Hunting licences for Zim cronies
August 12 2012 at 01:10pm
By Peta Thornycroft
Harare – Zimbabwe’s Zanu-PF-controlled wildlife ministry has handed out a
clutch of hunting licences to its cronies to shoot game in several wildlife
conservancies.
The move has raised fears among conservationists that the new hunters will
decimate the game and also that the take-over by Zanu-PF cronies will deter
regular foreign hunters.
The conservancies are mostly owned or managed by groups of foreigners and
white and black Zimbabweans who control hunting and subsidise the
conservancies from their other businesses to protect the animals. There was
no tender procedure for the licences handed out this week and Zanu-PF says
the new deal came about because the present conservancy owners and managers
refused to “share”.
One of the conservancies, the Save Valley in the lowveld, has now granted
hunting licences to 25 senior Zanu-PF officials. Poaching is rife in Save
Valley, despite the best efforts by the conservancy owners to combat it.
National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority director general Vitalis
Chadenga issued the hunting permits to the new black farmers, as they are
called, last week.
Chadenga said the farmers who were issued with hunting permits had been
allocated 25-year land leases.
He told the new farmers that his organisation expected orderly hunting to
take place. He
said measures were under way to bring to book those hunting without permits.
He expressed concern over an upsurge in poaching, especially the black
rhino.
Wilfried Pabst, the vice chairman of the Save Valley Conservancy, and a
German citizen, said the new “partners” in the conservancies have neither
capital nor cash for running costs to protect the wildlife and maintain the
infrastructure.
“The hunting community will shun Zimbabwe and this will be a grave fallout
for tourism,” Pabst said.
He expects there will be immediate travel warnings by the EU and US as many
regular hunters will now be seen as hunting without permits. “What visitor
will come with the threat of arrest?”
Weekend Argus