ZIMBABWE - Destruction of wildlife, the environment and sensitive eco-systems

Invaders and invaded cont...

We went on down the road to find a dead impala that had been snared and left to rot, maggots seething out of its belly. Surrounding the dead animal in an area no bigger than 3 hectares the scouts had found 26 snares and a dead baby zebra. This was a typical day on Chiredzi Conservancy.

Clem Coetsee was recently forced off his land in the north of the Chiredzi Conservancy, which has been invaded by members of the surrounding communal land. Coetsee has been involved in wildlife conservation for 40 years, first as a warden for the country's National Parks and later responsible for most of the relocations of endangered elephant and rhino during the poaching of the 1980s and drought of 1992. After 18 months of pressure and intimidation, Coetsee has abandoned the property as he can no longer afford its upkeep as a result of the invasions. 'There are big pockets of people on the land now. Houses that they're not living in as they already have land in the communal areas. They are just bringing their cattle in for the graze and chopping down trees to take the wood out into the communal land for firewood.

Whatever poles they can get, and my fencing, all goes into building homes on the communal land. I'd asked them not to cut the fence, and that I'd put gates in, but they still destroyed it. The fencing costs about Z$110,000 (US$2,200) per kilometre and just on the one side there's 12 kilometres of game fence and 9 kilometres of buffalo fence. Even if we could afford the wire they've stopped manufacturing it in Zimbabwe so we'd have to import it. They've destroyed the borehole and pump. I have a dam with a 4 kilometre pipeline which they're also digging up and stealing. There's nothing left there, not even a duiker.