Parks delegation off to US

New Ziana.

THE Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority will on Monday next week lead a delegation from the hunting industry to the city of Reno in Nevada, the United States, for the annual Safari Club International Convention.

Parks director-general Dr Morris Mtsambiwa said the delegation to the convention, which runs from January 21 to 24, would be made up of the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources, the Safari Operators’ Association of Zimbabwe and officials from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe.

"It is the biggest convention in America for marketing hunts," he said.

"Every year our tour operators go there to market the hunting quotas that we would have allocated them," he added.

Dr Mtsambiwa noted that the US was Zimbabwe’s largest clientele base.

A hunter pays at least US$25 000 to kill an elephant and take its tusks, which are known as "trophies".

He said the authority was attending the convention mainly to get a better understanding of marketing the hunting business, which it planned to carry out on a larger scale.

In the past, the authority had concentrated mostly on conservation and supporting sustainable utilisation of wildlife resources but would soon be opening Unit 5 of the Matetsi Game Park in the Zambezi Valley to hunting.

Dr Mtsambiwa said the authority also wanted to use the convention to assess relevance of regulations governing hunting in the country on such issues as import and export of guns as well as movement of foreign currency from export of hunting quotas.

He said the authority would also attend to queries and disputes between operators and clients over export of trophies.

"We have been receiving complaints from clients over such issues," he said.

Zimbabwe earns large amounts of foreign currency from safari hunting, also known as trophy or sport hunting.

Animals that are hunted as trophies include elephants, lions, leopards and other small game.

Campfire issues tour operators with licences to sell hunts on behalf of communities that live adjacent to national parks.

The Zimbabwe Government introduced the Campfire concept soon after independence as a way of encouraging communities living adjacent to national parks to conserve natural resources, including wild animals, some of which attacked them as well as destroyed their crops.

Communities use revenue generated from Campfire activities, which include safari hunting, eco-tourism, fish farming and arts and crafts, to build infrastructure such as roads, bridges, schools and clinics.

The concept, which was started as a pilot project in three districts, has proved to be successful resulting in all rural district councils in the country joining as well as other countries in the region and abroad, including Russia. — New Ziana.

He said the authority was attending the convention mainly to get a better understanding of marketing the hunting business, which it planned to carry out on a larger scale.

In the past, the authority had concentrated mostly on conservation and supporting sustainable utilisation of wildlife resources but would soon be opening Unit 5 of the Matetsi Game Park in the Zambezi Valley to hunting.


How they turn things so they sound differnt than they were.

Anyone reading the above for the first time would get the impression that Zimbabwe had very little hunting.

Only now they are opening things up, so line all the antis!

Feed soldiers...Kill and elephant...

Mike

And who was it that had
Matetsi before this? Saeed you want to answer this one? Screwed some fine people they did.

I wonder how many Z dollars their tickets and associated expenses added up to? Where are these folks, given the financial state of the country, getting the $$ for this trip and is it the best use of the funds?

quote:

Originally posted by Mike Smith:
And who was it that had
Matetsi before this? Saeed you want to answer this one? Screwed some fine people they did.

Care to elaborate, I must have missed it.

Maybe they really came over to hold up licker stores to take US $'s back to Zimbabwe!

Think they'll find a US bank to exchange their Zim dollars for them? And, if so, how much luggage will they be allowed to bring it over?

quote:

Originally posted by Bwanna:
Think they'll find a US bank to exchange their Zim dollars for them? And, if so, how much luggage will they be allowed to bring it over?

Ahhh, Very much so!
In the end of this year the excange rate will be 1:1 USD/Zim dollar