MUNICIPALITY of Kariba says the economic meltdown over the years has increased poaching activities which have claimed over 10 lives this year alone, NewsDay can report.
The economic hurdles had resulted in the decline in tourism activities, resulting in massive losses of jobs in the resort town, which has resulted in residents resorting to poaching, especially fish and wildlife.
Speaking to NewsDay on the sidelines of the Waste to Energy Conference in Kariba last week, mayor Ralph Maoneyi attributed 80% of these accidents to the economic turmoil Zimbabwe has been enduring for years.
The conference was organised by The Standard, a weekly newspaper published by Alpha Media Holdings, which also publishes another weekly Zimbabwe Independent and the daily NewsDay, as well as operating an online telecast station HStv.
Maoneyi said employment opportunities become a struggle for most of the people, with tourism activity having dropped by 50% since 2008.
“80% of it is as a result of the economic situation. Before 2008, there was quite some significant activity in terms of tourism, which would translate into jobs, opportunities and more money circulating locally.
“But those activities, a lot of them, have over the years been struggling. So you will discover that, for instance, we had some companies that were actually demolished and people became jobless,” he said.
“It becomes problematic when properties are demolished or businesses where operations were stopped.
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“Just last week, we lost a life when one person was killed by an elephant on their way to try and earn a living. He is the 14th case this year, with these accidents being aligned with poaching.”
Maoneyi said the fishing industry had also seen a number of kapenta fishing companies and co-operatives halting their operations.
“Jobs have been lost. The next option was for people to go into the market looking for ways to survive and the low-hanging fruit for us here is fishing,” he said.
“But how to get into the water is not always easy. For somebody to be fishing the right way, the hurdles that come with the payments process, the cost of the payments and so forth has found a lot of people just getting in there most of the times illegally or sometimes in ways that obviously are not the safest.
“So because of that, you then get a lot of these accidents. The population in what we call the fishing camps has increased significantly since 2008 to date.”
The Kariba mayor said the fishing camps used just accommodate a few Tonga families.
“Now you have hundreds of households or people pitching up their small temporary structures right in the middle of the lake,” Maoneyi said.
“There are islands and those islands make up what are called fishing camps. Some of these islands in the past were nice tourism spots.
“They’ve been invaded and they are now launch bases for people who are into fishing. There has not been any investment in terms of the security of these people.
“And people have been bitten by crocodiles and it is a sad situation. No one wants to just get in the lake.”
Maoneyi said while tourism at large was mainly affected by global publicity, which soiled Zimbabwe’s image, Kariba had also lost some significant business to Victoria Falls as a tourism destination.
“Our offerings I think are almost the same. Our natural resources, they compare to some extent. We feel what has been evidently different in the amount of attention that we had by central government and other bigger private business players which has also certainly affected us,” he said.
Maoneyi said the local authority was making frantic efforts to revive tourism in the town under the Kariba Tourism Revival Strategy with the hope that this would reduce poaching activities.
