Parks, bankers meet

From The Herald April 19, 2007

By Enacy Mapakame

THE Parks and Wildlife Management Authority this week met top local bankers to source funding to fend off an anti-ivory trade campaign that is being championed by Kenya and Mali.

Parks spokesperson Retired Major Edward Mbewe told the Herald Business that the authority was targeting to raise several millions of dollars that would help see the campaign through.

Although the outcome of the meeting with bankers, including the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe, was not immediately clear, the authority says its pro-ivory trade crusade would be tabled at the crucial Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species to be held in June in Netherlands.

"We are talking to bankers over possible financing that would help us tell the ivory story to the world," Rtd Major Mbewe explained.

He has previously said such a campaign would milk the authority’s weak finances.

Kenya and Mali have prepared a 62-page document for presentation at the Cites meeting seeking to justify their proposal to impose an international ban on ivory trade.

Calls for an international ban on ivory trade have been fuelled by the need to curtail poaching.

Botswana, Namibia, Malawi and Zimbabwe are expected to come up with a common position ahead of the proposal by Kenya and Mali. The four Southern African countries have very high elephant populations.

If adopted, the ban will seriously affect hunting which is a major source of foreign currency for the region.

Zimbabwe is battling to control its ballooning elephant population despite having the highest hunting quota of 500 in the world.

As a result of the out of control population, human elephant conflicts have been on the increase with lives being lost while in areas such as Dande and Matabeleland areas destroy vegetation and crops.