The Zimbabwean government is investigating illegal hunting by South Africans in the south of the country.
The Mail & Guardian reported in August that South African hunters were exploiting the land chaos in Zimbabwe to hunt without any restriction on redistributed farms and former conservancy areas.
Since then, a damning report on illegal hunting compiled by wildlife activists including the Zimbabwe Wildlife Task Force has been released. It named illegal South African hunters and their collaborators in government.
The state-owned Herald reported last week that the National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority will investigate Zimbabwean safari operators who allegedly assisted the hunters in ”abusing hunting licences, a development which has prejudiced the country millions of dollars”.
Five national parks officials have been suspended. Two are senior employees of Hwange National Park in Matabeleland. The suspended officials allegedly allowed the South African hunters to kill animals not on their permits and to export trophies without clearance, wildlife authority director Morris Mtsambiwa told the Herald.
Movement for Democratic Change MP Trudy Stevenson, who raised the matter in Parliament, said it was ”wonderful” that action had been taken. But, she said, the fact that ruling party ”big fish … and their relatives and cronies have been allocated farms in Gwayi Conservancy should indicate that there is a huge scam going on”.
Stevenson said that in the conservancy wildlife had been decimated and infrastructure and habitat destroyed.
A South African safari operator accused of poaching, Dawie Groenewald of Out of Africa Adventures and Safaris, said he was aware of the investigation, but that it was business as usual. ”Our paperwork is in place,” he said, adding that in his view the investigation was ”to determine if the money we pay is given to the Zimbabwean government”.
But he admitted the investigation has made life harder. ”Suddenly every hunter in the report is under scrutiny.” He accused dispossessed farmers of running a smear campaign.