Veld Fires Destroy Sugarcane, Forests in Masvingo
George Maponga
1 October 2010


Masvingo — Rampaging veld fires, believed to have been sparked by poachers, have destroyed nearly 100 hectares of forestry and sugarcane in the Masvingo Wildlife Conservancy and Mkwasine sugar estates over the past three days.

In Masvingo Wildlife Conservancy, which is an almagamation of more than 15 conservancies allocated to new farmers resettled under the land reform programme, the fires destroyed vast swathes of forestry.

It is believed the fires were started by game and wood poachers in the peri-urban conservancy.

At Mkwasine the fires, believed to have been started by a cigarette stub, reportedly torched a young sugarcane crop at sub-division 11A.

Masvingo Wildlife Conservancy co-ordinator Mr Isaiah Muzenda on Wednesday appealed for stern action to be taken against poachers.

"We continue to lose more and more of our forests in the conservancy to veld fires whose outbreaks have significantly increased over the past week.

"We believe that the raging fires are being sparked by game and wood poachers. So far we have lost more than 80 hectares of forests and a sizeable number of game.

"Our fear is that this area will soon become a desert. Very strong action should be taken against those who start veld fires," said Mr Muzenda.

In Chiredzi, nearly 20ha of sugarcane was destroyed. Some of the affected farmers said the whole farming season was now under threat due to the premature loss of their crop.


"We are in a very difficult situation because we need to urgently look for cutters and haulage equipment to ferry the burnt cane to the mills within three days otherwise we will lose everything we have worked for this whole year," said Mr Mufaro Nyanyiwa.

Another farmer, Mr Admore Hwarare, said the fire burnt about 16ha of cane at his farm in Mkwasine and appealed to the main sugar growing companies -- Hippo Valley and Triangle -- to assist them.

Mr Hwarare is the chairman of the Commercial Sugar Cane Farmers' Association of Zimbabwe.

"Once the cane is burnt it must not spend more than three days before being delivered to the mills otherwise it will lose all the sugar in it.

"We are appealing for haulage assistance so that affected farmers can transport their cane for milling," he said.

That is mostly stolen land, ripped from the hands of white owners. It once held good numbers of wildlife..doubt that anymore.

Seems it's been burning everywhere, have not seen a blue sky in the last week.
Big fires in and around Windhoek and the Kavango with fires in Angola and Zambia.