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One Park, Three Countries |
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By Moyiga Nduru*
The
creation of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, one of the world's
largest nature preserves, involves South Africa, Mozambique and
Zimbabwe. It is hoped that the park will eliminate the need to cull
the elephant population to prevent overcrowding in concentrated
areas.
JOHANNESBURG - Hope for the survival of many
of Africa's unique animals lies in multinational cooperation initiatives
like the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, although the challenges
remain enormous, say conservationists.
The park, situated on the South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe
borders, is one of the world's largest, with an area of 35,000 square
kilometers, almost the size of Israel.
The treaty to create the parks was signed in Xai-Xai, Mozambique,
in December 2002, bringing together some of the region's best and
most acclaimed national wild game parks: South Africa's Kruger,
Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou, and Mozambique's newly developed Limpopo.
The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park ''represents a pragmatic approach
to managing and conserving wildlife in the region,'' Jason Bell-Leask,
southern Africa director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare
(IFAW), told IPS in a telephone interview.
''We support it. It's achievable. But it's a huge challenge,'' he
added.
These challenges include training game wardens, building infrastructure,
as well as enacting laws to combat poaching and to protect the environment.
Furthermore, a great deal of work remains in the transfrontier park,
such as building roads, hotels and accommodations for more than
20,000 villagers living inside the Mozambican sector, say experts.
Under the terms of the Great Limpopo transfrontier park treaty,
South Africa will gradually dismantle its 120-kilometer electric
fencing that separates it from Mozambique to allow animals to move
freely across the border.
Zimbabwe says it will open its borders for human movement before
opening it to animals.
Yoarn Fredmann, of the Endangered Wildlife Trust, an organization
based in South Africa's commercial hub of Johannesburg, believes
the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park will, at least temporarily,
ease problems related to the elephant population explosion in the
Kruger National Park.
The Kruger is home to 11,000 elephants, but the park's capacity
is just 7,000.
Park authorities in the past have resorted to culling as a way of
stabilizing the animal population. But with the formation of the
transfrontier park, conservationists believe that the elephants
will now have the habitat space they need.
However, ''It's not a permanent solution,'' Fredmann told Tierramérica,
because they will not necessarily spread out evenly over the park
area. ''Recently 40 elephants, taken to Mozambique from South Africa,
returned home,'' Fredmann said. ''Animals, like human beings, love
home.''
Visitors will also enjoy the freedom of moving across international
borders within the park and between the three countries, and without
much fuss, according to a document prepared by the Great Limpopo
Transfrontier Park.
IFAW's Bell-Leask says ''tourism potentials in Zimbabwe and Mozambique
are huge.''
Opening up the borders also comes with the problems of poaching,
especially in Mozambique and Zimbabwe, where prevention structures
are still weak compared to South Africa's.
''In Mozambique, we are not only faced with big animal poaching,
but also with prevalence of bushmeat selling. There are reports
that when you drive around Mozambique you see bushmeat being sold
along the roads,'' said Bell-Leask.
Fredmann, however, sees little danger in controlled community and
subsistence hunting, ''which has been happening for centuries. It
doesn't harm much,'' he said. But sales of bushmeat -- a word commonly
used in Africa to describe the meat of any wild animal -- are becoming
big business on the continent.
According to the Nov. 12 edition of the U.S.-based Science magazine,
bushmeat trade is on the rise in West Africa because over-fishing
by European Union-subsidized trawlers, has deprived coastal populations
of the fish they normally eat. Thus villagers resort to bushmeat
from elephants, antelopes, monkeys, gorillas and rats.
The EU maintains the biggest foreign presence off the West African
coast, says the magazine, with fish catches increasing 20-fold from
1950 to 2001, and financial subsidies jumping from six million dollars
in 1981 to more than 350 million dollars in 2001.
Conservationists say the smooth running of the transfrontier park
will take some time, because the issue of basic needs always takes
the priority in Africa. ''Wildlife issues usually take a back seat
in the region,'' said Bell-Leask.
Even so, Fredmann has described the treaty as a ''huge success...
although implementation is going to be difficult.''
The three countries -- South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe --
will have to harmonize their laws, including those relating to immigration
and animal welfare, if the park is going to serve as a model for
up to 21 others being planned across the African continent.
* Moyiga Nduru is an IPS correspondent.
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