Wildlife Crisis in Zimbabwe

 

The findings of Washington-based C4Ads’s April 2014 report, which was commissioned by Born Free USA, an animal advocacy group, to better understand the role that organised crime and corrupt government officials play in ivory trafficking across Africa, highlighted the escalating wildlife crisis in Zimbabwe..

 

“Across Zimbabwe, economic operations on wildlife range areas are being seized by Zimbabwe’s political-military elites, including several on the United States’ sanctions lists,” the report noted.

 

It warned that “a wave of land seizures since 2008 (had) coincided with an upsurge in poaching and over-hunting” and that these had serious implications for the wildlife conservancies.

 

The authors also noted that “resettlements around conservancies (were) on the rise, as (were) land invasions by ‘war veterans’ that often resulted in violent slaughters of wildlife” since “safari [operations] and game reserves (were) one of the few remaining lucrative sources of income, whether through legitimate hunting operations or the illicit harvesting of elephant ivory.”

 

To indicate the scale of the problem, the report noted that: “In modern Zimbabwe, a small coterie of Mugabe associates and cronies control nearly 40 percent of the 14 million hectares of land seized from farms and conservancies, which has long been a key component of Zimbabwe’s patronage machine.”

 

Those which have resisted take-overs have been subjected to sustained and often brutal harassment.

 

One such example is Denlynian Game Ranch, a private game reserve in the dry, drought-prone Beitbridge district southeast of Bulawayo, close to the border with South Africa and widely recognised as a prized tourist destination.

 

Owned by a South African citizen, Ian Ferguson, and purchased legally after independence in 1980, Denlynian fell victim to the initial land grab of 2000.  Eventually the invaders were ejected and Ferguson and his family attempted to continue operations on their property.

 

Since then, the Fergusons have been subjected to constant harassment and the slaughter of their game, despite the country’s urgent need of tourism revenue in the wake of the virtual collapse of the agricultural sector, the collapse of industries country-wide and the devastating economic crisis.

 

PHOTOS OF DENLYNIAN RANCH