Seizure of Save Valley Conservancy, time to draw the line
Clifford Chitupa Mashiri, 3rd September 2012.
The goings on at Save Valley Conservancy are disturbing and it is time the
coalition government drew the line before the country loses its endangered
species and direct foreign investment
The GNU should know that the whole world is watching how it is trying to
restore order and sanity at Save Valley. Any half measures will be
catastrophic.
If the coalition government allows partisan politics to take the centre
stage, then the crisis is likely to worsen with far reaching implications.
Of major concern is the dithering by the coalition government on stamping
its authority to protect wildlife, livelihoods for thousands of families and
indeed local and foreign investors in the Save Valley Conservancy area.
It is disappointing to watch people aligned to political groupings fighting
each other for the control of natural resources and meat for braais at their
weddings.
Curiously, the regime suddenly wants to indigenise Save Valley Conservancy
(SVC) when the Conservancy started a more meaningful form of indigenisation
well, well before Kasukuwere drafted his destructive regulations.
Formed 11 years after independence with the approval of the Zimbabwe
Government, National Parks, assisted by the WWF and Beit Trust, the Save
Valley Conservancy says, “Opportunities to invest were open to all and in
fact the government took the opportunity through Arda (a parastatal).”
SVC also notes that an IFC Loan, approved and supported by Government, was
negotiated in order to purchase wildlife as a severe drought meant that
there were no cattle or animals left in the area.
Community Trust Predated Indigenisation Laws
The Save Valley Conservancy goes on to disclose that it has “long held the
view that indigenisation would take the form of community involvement and
benefit.”
As a result they formed the Save Valley Conservancy Community Trust, which
incorporates five neighbouring Rural District Councils. “This was achieved
between 1996 and 1998 predating the current indigenisation act by some
years,” says the SVC on its website.
Continued engagement with authorities
It is arguable that the Conservancy’s own indigenisation drive from 2006 to
2009 aimed at increasing benefit to neighbouring communities and increasing
indigenous shareholding appears to have been was frustrated by self-seeking
regime loyalists.
What happened?
It is very distressing to note that Conservancy supplied the “requested
documentation” to the Ministry “on many occasions without any formal or
directional feedback being supplied by either Ministry of Environment or
National Parks.”
Steering Committee
Again as the regime’s real intentions appear to have been exposed when a
steering committee was formed to guide the legal, accounting and business
processes that would be necessary to ensure smooth transactions, the whole
thing ran aground in July 2011.
What happened?
What is shocking is that “would-be partners stated they had no intention of
investing but wanted “cash on the table” according to the Conservancy.
In typical Zanu-pf vindictive style, hunting safaris throughout the
Conservancy were cancelled by the authorities, while hunting quotas for
properties in the Conservancy have since been issued to the would-be
partners from Masvingo.
Reports say the ban deprived the Save Valley Conservancy of vital income.
However, the Save Valley Conservancy and its members remain “committed to
proactively seeking realistic and viable solutions to the situation.”
This talk of indigenisation is so upsetting when it is reported that Robert
Mugabe and his cronies own 5million hectares of land that was seized from
white commercial farmers since 2000 (The Zimbabwean 01/12.10).
The seizure of Save Valley Conservancy by Robert Mugabe’s loyalists will
have serious implications for Zimbabwe and wildlife.
Serious Implications
Already the world is abuzz with news of the destruction of wildlife and the
environment with the European Union threatening to stop funding the
forthcoming UNWTO general assembly.
Surely, such a drastic move by the EU would be collective punishment for the
sins of a few Zanu-pf loyalists. Instead the EU should be more selective and
slap the culprits with targeted restrictive measures.
Clifford Chitupa Mashiri, Political Analyst, London,
[email protected]
Clifford is commencing fulltime doctorate studies on forced migration at
the London South Bank University on 24th September and would appreciate any
well wishers willing to support him to contact him directly as he is
struggling to raise the initial fee of £5000 for year one.