Wild animals under threat from Mugabe land seizures

Tens of thousands of wild animals face annihilation in a wave of land takeovers in southeastern Zimbabwe by politicians of President Robert Mugabe’s party, a consortium of wildlife ranchers has said.

The Save Valley Conservancy said thousands of people’s livelihoods also are threatened in the 1,000 square mile nature preserve and surrounding districts after hunting permits and land leases were granted to 25 leaders of the Zanu-PF party under a black empowerment program.

In Zimbabwean newspaper advertisements yesterday, the consortium said “greedy individuals” – including a provincial governor and a cabinet minister – wrongly claimed it was white dominated. The conservancy said Mr Mugabe had used colour as “a racial tool” to collapse world-renowned conservation efforts for short-term gain.

“When humans behave like animals, we destroy not only each other but generations to come,” the group said.

The advertisements, the most strongly worded statements in the dispute so far, said politicians “want to destroy agreements and policies that have made Save the world leader in conservation management.”

Save, pronounced Sa-veh in the local Ndebele language, is a habitat for elephant, zebra, giraffe, as well as the nation’s second largest surviving population of endangered black rhinoceros. The area also supports an array of African antelope and most species of birds and small animals.

Several Western investors, the World Wildlife Fund and conservation groups in Europe and the United States have funded breeding and animal research programs in Save.

The state Herald newspaper, controlled by Mugabe loyalists, reported on Saturday that the new conservancy members linked to Mr Mugabe’s party fired the consortium’s long-serving chairman Basil Nyabdaza, an agricultural estates executive, and his deputy, rancher Willy Pabst.

A Mugabe party MP was chosen to replace Nyabadza, the paper reported.