ZimConservation

POWER tussles between two rival Zanu PF factions are threatening the viability of a wildlife-rich conservancy in Marondera after the party’s government ministers failed to evict supporters who invaded the animal sanctuary this week, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. Authoritative sources told the Independent yesterday that Wildlife and Natural Resources minister Francis Nhema, Parks and Wildlife Management Authority director-general Vitals Chadenga, and Campfire director Charles Jonga visited Domersville Farm in Marondera on Wednesday to resolve the issue, but failed. Nhema had reportedly asked for the intervention of Mashonaland West governor Aneas Chigwedere, the area legislator and Deputy Minister of Labour and Social Welfare Tracy Mutinhiri and Zanu PF Mashonaland East chairman Ray Kaukonde, to evict the invaders. Read more: http://www.theindependent.co.zw/local/27807-zanu-pf-power-tussle-chokes-conservancy.html

THE government has ordered licenced domestic ivory traders to stop issuing Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) export documents after it emerged that some traders were using them to facilitate the smuggling of raw ivory. The announcement was made through the Cites Secretariat in Notification to the Parties No. 20010/024 of 16 August 2010. The directive says those wishing to take ivory carvings out of the country were now required to seek permission from the Cites Management Authority of Zimbabwe to obtain an export permit. Read more: http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-08-27-government-tightens-ivory-trade-controls

Marauding lions have wreaked havoc in Mashumbi Pools where they have mauled to death five people, including a hunter, and and have also killed scores of livestock, NewsDay has learnt. Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Authority spokesperson Caroline Washaya-Moyo confirmed that the felines had become a menace, saying the authority had this year received reports of four deaths. Villagers said parks rangers from the area had developed cold feet in dealing with wild animals after a professional hunter was killed by the lions in January this year. The hunter had been engaged by the Mbire Rural District Council to kill the man-eaters. Read more: http://www.newsday.co.zw/article/2010-08-22-lions-kill-5-people

ZIMBABWE has announced it is imposing a phased ban on plastic shopping bags, a minister said, “for causing pollution, killing wildlife, and using up precious resources of the earth.” Environment Minister Francis Nhema recently held a meeting with the large supermarket chains and representatives from the plastics industry to discuss the proposals. Read more: http://www.newzimbabwe.com/NEWS-3087-Zim+to+ban+plastic+shopping+bags/NEWS.aspx

Some conservation organisations in Africa are operating a shoot-to-kill policy against poachers, to protect endangered species, a study says. An academic from the University of Manchester told the BBC that private security firms and mercenaries were being used to train game rangers. Prof Rosaleen Duffy has researched the issue for 15 years for a book to be published this month. She said these military-style campaigns were occurring across the continent. Read more: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-10992502

Zimbabwe has made tremendous infrastructural developments in the Gonarezhou National Park, setting the tone for the full rollout of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park with South Africa and Mozambique. Environment and Natural Resources Management Minister Francis Nhema said this on Saturday after touring some of the projects that are being rehabilitated at Chipinda Pools. Read more: http://www1.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=846&cat=1

Read more: http://nehandaradio.com/2010/08/14/renowned-wildlife-activist-killed-by-buffalo-in-charara/

JOHANNESBURG – A South African civil rights group this week called on that country’s government to engage other nations, including Zimbabwe, in its on-going efforts to stop rhino poaching, cases of which are escalating by the day. Civil rights group AfriForum said early this week that the recent arrest of seven rhino poaching suspects from Vietnam, Zimbabwe and Mozambique was once again proof that good border control is essential, hence the call by the organisation for the South African government to discuss the issue with the governments of the other countries concerned, especially the government of Vietnam, in order to determine the origin of the poaching problem. Read more: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=33205:porous-borders-aid-rhino-poachers–afriforum&catid=32&Itemid=34

Harare — AS the four-seater Cessna flew low over the carcasses of two huge jumbos slain by poachers a week before, an eerie nauseating atmosphere filled the stuffy interior of the small aircraft. A short distance ahead, vultures were feasting on yet another dead elephant, a dinner that could last days for the scavengers if not disturbed. Death is the price that the world’s biggest land mammals are paying for their tusks, which have a lucrative international market. The question that was on everyone’s mind aboard the aircraft was: Is Zimbabwe’s parks authority sufficiently equipped to effectively curb poaching activities, especially given the fact that poachers are coming into the country with far more sophisticated weapons than the rangers’ archaic looking Russian-made AK47 rifles? Read more: http://allafrica.com/stories/201008040413.html

A HIGH-LEVEL taskforce comprising police, National Parks investigations department, police units from neighbouring countries and Interpol has launched investigations into operations of tightly-knit syndicates that are believed to be behind large- scale poaching of animals in Gonarezhou National Park. In the past five months, six white and two black rhinos have been killed and dehorned while last year’s statistics indicated that Zimbabwe lost about 70 rhinos to poachers. Rhino horns are particularly in high demand in Asia where they are believed to be essential in curing cancer and fever-related ailments. Read more: http://newzimsituation.com/62885mx/gonarezhou-under-spotlight.htm

HARARE – A group of Zimbabwean fishermen have written to President Robert Mugabe to intervene to stop soldiers from beating them and stealing their fish, in a bizarre case that highlights how members of security forces have become rogues that regularly terrorise civilians. In a letter to Mugabe, who is Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, the fishermen based at Darwendale Dam, 60 kilometres south-west of Harare, said they appealed to the President after the latest attack last Thursday, when soldiers raided a fishing cooperative, beat up fishermen, stole their property and burnt their fishing nets. Read more: http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=6223

The Greater Mapungubwe (formerly Limpopo-Shashe) Transfrontier Conservation Area is a vast and hauntingly beautiful site containing evidence of an ancient African civilisation, dinosaur remains and Stone Age and Iron Age archaeological sites. Home to the largest elephant population on privately owned land in Africa, the Greater Mapungubwe TFCA is situated at the convergence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers and borders Botswana, South Africa and Zimbabwe. Read more: http://www.tradeinvestafrica.com/investment_opportunities/220972.htm

The deal to export wildlife to North Korea has been called off in a move described as good news for Zimbabwe by wild life conservationists. Efforts are now underway to urgently raise 18 000 Pounds for funding the immediate release of most of the wild-caught animals and the care for the two young elephants. “Although the cancellation of this deal was in no way dependent upon us raising funds for the fire-breaks, we have also indicated our willingness, subject to the statement of reassurance mentioned above, to support National Parks on this specific issue – as many thousands of wild animals could be affected by devastating fires in Hwange if these fire-breaks are not maintained,” said a spokesperson for Tikki Hywood Trust. Read more: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=32538:good-news-for-zimbabwes-wildlife&catid=32&Itemid=34

Pretoria – Hunting rifles stolen in South Africa are being fitted with silencers and allegedly smuggled into Zimbabwe by a Musina hunter to be used in poaching rhino. A Beeld investigation reveals that ruthless South African hunters and safari-operators are plundering Zimbabwe’s wildlife stocks and making a killing from illegal hunting and the trade in rhino horn. Read more: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Musina-Mafia-arming-poachers-20100708

GOVERNMENT has aborted a wildlife trade deal with the secretive Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (DPRK) amid widespread condemnation from pressure groups, the Zimbabwe Independent has learnt. Sources close to the development said the planned shipment of US$23 000 worth of wildlife to the DPRK in a deal conservationists termed President Robert Mugabe’s “Noah’s Ark”. It has been blocked after local and international natural resources campaigners criticised the destined living conditions of the animals at Pyongyang Zoo. Read more: http://allafrica.com/stories/201006180808.html

HARARE, Zimbabwe — The state wildlife authority says poachers killed 10 elephants in a single attack in southeastern Zimbabwe. All the tusks were removed, leaving the carcasses on a river bank. Caroline Washaya-Moyo, an official of the wildlife department, says heavy caliber cartridge cases were found at the remote scene in the Gonarezhou national park on Zimbabwe’s border with Mozambique. Investigators reported the animals were shot and the ivory was removed in what appeared to be a “quick and professional” onslaught in a single day last week. Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5igdv-WMzwr-A-sGzIFQf-Six8pSAD9G8CMT00

HARARE, Zimbabwe — Starvation Island in northern Zimbabwe is living up to its name for the first time in 50 years as rising lake waters have submerged grazing land for hundreds of animals, conservationists say. Rescuers here are holding exhausted impalas by their horns just to keep their heads above water after the hungry, exhausted animals desperately tried to escape the flooded island. Starvation Island was once a staging post for rescued animals, named after many perished from hunger there during the building of the massive Kariba hydroelectric dam. Read more: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gLSXss_4LW15GwXoFpuiy2NNT-uwD9G37S280

Pretoria – A South African woman who worked at Chipangali Wildlife Orphanage in Zimbabwe was killed when she was attacked by an adult lion on Tuesday morning. Robyn Lotz, 26, from Pretoria, whose life’s mission was caring for and rehabilitating neglected and injured wild animals, was attacked after a worker presumably didn’t close the gate to the lion’s cage properly. Read more: http://www.news24.com/SouthAfrica/News/Lion-kills-SA-woman-in-Zim-20100602

HARARE – About 400 kilogrammes of ivory and rhino horn have been seized from poachers in six southern African countries – including Zimbabwe – under a transboundary operation coordinated by the international police organisation (Interpol), the body announced last week. The France-based organisation said a transnational operation targeting wildlife crime across southern Africa resulted in the location and closure of an illegal ivory factory, the seizure of elephant tasks and rhino horn with a market value of more than US$1million as well as the arrest of 41 people. Read more: http://www.thezimbabwean.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=31166:police-bust-poaching-syndicate-&catid=70:sunday-issue

The Sunday Times reported last week that President Robert Mugabe had ordered that Wildlife Department officials capture pairs of giraffe, zebra, antelope, hyena, monkeys and birds. Two 18-month-old elephants are already being held in quarantine within the game park. Zimbabwean authorities defended the action and said that veterinary experts sent to North Korea were satisfied that it was suitably equipped to house and care for the animals. Read more: http://www.timeslive.co.za/world/article464265.ece/Zimbabwe-wildlife-gift-is-doomed