South African Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Marthinus van Schalkwyk dismissed reports that Zimbabwe’s Gona-re-Zhou National Park — which forms part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park across sections of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique — has been plagued by a huge amount of poaching.
He said a Zimbabwean government minister had assured him of this last week.
He also said that after flying over the park, he was convinced there were no cases of land invasion, except for communities living on the fringes venturing inside.
”I can testify to that,” he told a press conference at the Johannesburg International airport on Monday, following a high-level meeting of Southern African countries on how the 2010 Soccer World Cup and transfrontier parks could benefit tourism in the region.
”We haven’t seen any large-scale invasions.”
Zimbabwe’s Education, Sports and Culture Minister Aeneas Chigwedere said the Zimbabwean government has been taking very tough measures against people ”in the wrong places … whoever is not supposed to be in a place is moved out to an appropriate place or to wherever he or she came from.”
Asked what ”an appropriate place” was, with regard to evictions in the country’s urban areas, he said: ”There is nobody in Zimbabwe who does not have a rural home.”
Chigwedere said people who believed the victims of the evictions were helpless and homeless on the streets of Zimbabwe’s cities and towns were hearing ”the propaganda of people who are anti the Zimbabwe government”.
Van Schalkwyk said if politics interfered with the transfrontier park initiative, it would be threatened.
”Our job is to make sure we succeed with conservation,” he said. – Sapa