Batoka Dam project secures US$6M funding from World Bank

Source: Financial Gazette (Zimbabwe)
Date: 05/12/13

ZAMBEZI River Authority (ZRA), a company which manages the water resources of the Zambezi River on behalf of Zimbabwe and Zambia, has secured US$6 million from the World Bank for the updating of feasibility studies for the proposed Batoka Gorge Hydro-electric dam.

ZRA’s public relations and communications manager, Elizabeth Karonga said ZRA would next week announce the winning bidder to update the feasibility studies. Work would start in February 2014.

“Yes, the US$6 million funding required for the updating of the feasibility study has been secured from the World Bank,” she said in a telephone interview from her base in Lusaka, Zambia. We will evaluate the bids submitted by the six shortlisted companies and the winning bidder is expected to be announced next week and work will start in February next year.”

ZRA is also evaluating the bids for six shortlisted consultants for the Environmental Social Impact Assessment (ESIA). It is also evaluating bids submitted by shortlisted transaction advisors. The company said only after the above processes have been completed would it inform those who expressed interest to develop the Batoka project on a Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) basis. The companies involved were 26 and have since been ranked but not yet informed about the results.

The US$2.5 billion Batoka project is expected to generate 1,600 megawatts (MW) of electricity to be shared equally between Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Should captive animal interactions be allowed in National Parks?

Captive animal interactions aimed at tourists, such as elephant-back safaris and 'lion walks' have been popular tourism activities in Zimbabwe and Zambia in recent years.

Despite obvious concerns over the welfare of animals kept in captivity and exploited for financial gain it appears that tourists leave their moral and ethical compass at home when they travel. Many of these captive animal interactions claim 'conservation value' in their work, however the merit of these projects is highly debatable (see for example the debate on captive lion interactions or 'lion walks') and their methods controversial.

National Parks, on the other hand, are designated to protect and conserve wild animals in their natural habitat. Occasionally, such as the case of the Elephant Orphanage Project in Kafue, Zambia, captive animal facilities may operate within National Parks. The EOP is a legitimate wildlife sanctuary, rescuing injured and orphaned elephants in extreme cases of hardship and rehabilitating wherever possible. It is operated as a charity, and in no way profits financially from the animals.

Against this background, tourism operators in Zimbabwe have in the past even captured baby wild elephants from the wild, removing them from their maternal herds and enslaving them into captive operations. Operators using lions have large-scale breeding programmes to supply a constant production line of young lion cubs suitable for walking with tourists and resulting in large numbers of adult lions being condemned to spending the rest of their lives in captivity.

Do either of these types of captive-animal tourism interactions have a place in National Parks? One would have thought that the answer was an obvious 'no', but two operators in Victoria Falls are currently trying to obtain concessions in the Zambezi National Park, Zimbabwe, to operate their captive elephant and lion interactions within the National Park itself. The ALERT Lion Encounter and Shearwater Adventures both have controversial histories (see links below).

There are many and detailed arguments against the operation of captive animal interactions within National Parks, and it remains to be seen if these two operators will be able to bend rules and entice National Parks with their promises of financial returns and other sweeteners in order to achieve their aims. However, the fact that both these operators are pursuing this course of action suggests that they are confident that they have a chance of success.

As increasing pressures drive Africa's prized wildlife resources towards extinction, the value of our National Parks to protect and conserve species diversity for the future increases. National Parks need more legal, financial and human resources to protect increasingly threatened wild animals. The challenge for conservationists is to connect protected areas, not divide them with fences, excluding wildlife from tradition seasonal movements.

The operation of captive animal interactions within National Parks should not be seen as a short-cut to delivering conservation aims or a 'safari experience' to tourists - indeed many tourists can go and see elephants and lions in captive game parks in their home countries - and are certainly not in keeping with the wild Africa which the tourism industry promotes so strongly as a drawcard for tourism to the region. Safari tourists want to see wild animals in the wild - not captive bred or trained animals in a captive environment.

Conservation of Africa's valuable wildlife resources depends on the protection of large, inter-connected natural areas which need to be actively managed to protect and promote wildlife. The establishment of captive animal interactions does nothing to help achieve these aims, and even undermines them. For this writer there is no place for profit-based captive animal interactions in Africa's National Parks, and those who believe there is are promoting a future where Africa's great wildlife treasures will exist only behind fences and in captivity.

Let's hope that Zimbabwe's Park and Wildlife Authority see through the charade and reject these proposals. If not, their reputation, and that of Zimbabwe, for wildlife conservation and as a top African safari destination will surely be negatively affected. As will, of course, the conservation of wild animals in the Parks themselves.

Time for tourists to vote with their feet and stop supporting operators and agents who promote captive animal interactions and instead visit national parks for a true safari experience and witness the majesty of Africa's wildlife in the wild. You'll be doing more to help conserve Africa's wildlife just be being there than these captive animal operations will ever achieve.

Further information:
Keeping lions wild
Wild elephants captured for elephant back safaris

Bear Grylls survival academy to launch in Zimbabwe

Source: Telegraph Travel (UK)
4 December 2013
Bear Grylls, the adventurer and television presenter, will launch a new ‘Survival Academy’ in Africa
The academy will give intrepid travellers the chance to learn the same techniques used by the Briton in shows such as Born Survivor, which was screened for several years by Channel Four, and Get Out Alive, which aired this year on Discovery Channel.
The first academy will take place in January at the Stanley & Livingstone Private Game Reserve near Victoria Falls. Participants will learn survival techniques such as fire lighting, emergency shelter building, knife skills, foraging for grubs and rodents, as well skills including rappelling, river crossings, and white water rafting.
The course has been designed by Bear Grylls, and will be run by a team of highly-trained experts. It follows the launch of a similar academy in the Scottish Highlands last year, and one in the United States in November.
“The greater Victoria Falls area provides the perfect backdrop for Bear Grylls Survival Academy course to launch,” said Scott Heffield, lead instructor. “Topography, the rivers, the incredible Victoria Falls, extreme weather conditions and African wildlife are all important factors to consider when looking to recreate an environment that simulates real life Bear Grylls survival situations.”

Botswana accused of allowing fracking in national parks

Source: LA Times
Date: 3 Dec 2013

The government of Botswana has quietly allowed international companies to explore for natural gas in some of the country's most sensitive national parks using the controversial drilling method of hydraulic fracturing, according to a new documentary released in South Africa.

American filmmaker Jeffrey Barbee obtained a government map that appears to show that authorities in Botswana allocated vast exploration concessions in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Kgalagadi Transfrontier National Park and Chobe National Park without a public debate about the possible environmental and health consequences.

After initially denying the claim, Botswana’s government last week admitted that some hydraulic fracturing -- known as fracking -- had taken place during coal-bed methane exploration.

“There are currently no fracking operations going on in the country except exploration drilling by various exploration companies,” the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources said in statement.

Government spokesman Jeff Ramsay said prospecting licenses had been granted in many parts of Botswana, including in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, but did not elaborate. He acknowledged that fracking had occurred in some areas in the past, but offered no details about when or where. He said authorities were adhering to environmental regulations.

Botswana runs Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park jointly with South Africa, but a spokesman for that country's environment department had no knowledge of exploration concessions in the park.

Among the companies granted concessions are South African energy giant Sasol, whose spokesman told Barbee that the company was not required by Botswana to produce an environmental management plan, although it considers the practice worthwhile. Other companies include Anglo American, Tlou Energy, Exxaro, Kalahari Energy and Tamboran Resources.

Fracking involves shooting water infused with sand and chemicals at high pressure into coal beds or shale formations to unlock reservoirs of natural gas. The practice is the subject of intense debate in the United States and elsewhere, with activists citing methane leaks from gas well heads and possible contamination of the air and groundwater.

Barbee's film, “The High Cost of Cheap Gas,” contends that natural gas extraction is “dirtier than the industry will admit.”

But for Southern African countries struggling to provide adequate affordable electricity to their populations, promises from energy companies of jobs, hefty returns and reduced dependence on coal-fired electricity are galvanizing. Botswana imports half its energy from neighboring countries.

“This [film] is for the people across the region to know what this industry might entail, so that they can take the best decision,” said Richard Lee, a spokesman for the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa, a governance group that funded Barbee's project.

Excerpts from the film were screened Sunday night on South Africa's popular investigative news program, Carte Blanche.

Barbee, who now lives in Johannesburg, was exposed to fracking in his home county of Garfield, Colo. He said some of those who once supported fracking there now wish it had never come to Garfield.

When energy companies proposed fracking in Southern Africa, he decided to make a film -- a kind of letter from Garfield, one of America’s most intensively fracked areas, to southern Africans.

“Where I come from in Garfield, Colo., the gas industry came into the area with very little fanfare," Barbee said in an interview Thursday. "Fifteen years later, we are left with an environmental problem in our valley so huge that we don’t yet understand what has been harmed and what has been lost.”

Barbee spoke to activists in Garfield and elsewhere and also interviewed experts from the University of Colorado who cast doubt on assertions of how clean natural gas extraction is, because of emissions and leaks from well heads.

A 2012 Colorado School of Public Health report cited “acute and chronic health problems for those living near natural gas drilling sites.” The study focused on toxic emissions in Garfield County from 2008 to 2010. Drilling in Botswana's national parks, where tens of thousands of elephants roam, is causing particular concern.

Barbee interviewed Botswana farmer Ben Moller, who said the elephants depend on clean water from bore holes along their migration route.

“These elephants bank on these bore holes. If it happens that these bore holes get contaminated, it will be a huge disaster for the elephants,” Moller said in the film.

Coal-bed methane extraction requires pumping large amounts of water out of the ground. The water can be clean, but can also be highly saline or radioactive, according to studies cited by the film.

Fundraiser survives white water rafting drowning terror

Fundraiser Stuart Foulstone says he is lucky to be alive after being sucked into a whirlpool, being under water for almost three minutes during a white water raft challenge in Africa.

As time ran out Mr Foulstone, 45, did not think he would surface and in his mind had said goodbye to his wife and three children but, incredibly, he escaped.

Mr Foulstone’s near drowning happened as he and nine other members of the public were coming to the end of a four-day extreme white water rafting challenge on the Zambezi River in Africa.

They were negotiating the final rapid, Ghost Rider, a notorious grade five rapid involving three large waves.

Mr Foulstone, who was taking part in the challenge to raise money for Wiltshire Air Ambulance, and had trained for six months, was in the second raft.

Both rafts were turned upside down by the rapid. Everyone but Mr Foulstone was able to get to safety with the help of the guides accompanying them.

Mr Foulstone, a civil engineering consultant who lives in Roundway Village, said: “We were not quite square on and we were literally flipped over.

“I was under the raft and the water was very fast flowing and powerful. It has sub-currents and there was a whirlpool which sucked me straight down.”

He said: “I held my breath and I was expecting to bob up after 20 seconds but that didn’t happen. The water held me down and I was spinning. The situation became more desperate and I got to the point where my lungs started to become painful. It felt like it was a lifetime. I was thinking ‘don’t breathe in because you will take water into your lungs’.He was wearing buoyancy aids and held on to his wooden paddle hoping he would re-surface.

“My lungs felt like they were on fire and I just had to hold on and forget about the pain and keep that air in my lungs. I stopped trying to get to the surface to try and preserve the oxygen in my body but n From Page 1

it got to the point where I didn’t think I was going to get out and I said goodbye to Sandra and my children in my head.”

Mr Foulstone blacked out and he re-surfaced. The guides saw him lying face down in the water. He was unconscious and wasn’t breathing but his heart was still beating.

He was rescued, still clutching his paddle, and his next memory was being shouted at to open his eyes and to breathe.

He came round after five minutes and was told that he had been under the water for nearly three minutes. He did not need hospital treatment although when he returned to England he felt unwell and was prescribed antibiotics.

Since the incident, at the end of September, it took him several weeks to get his hearing back due to water in his ears and he took a week off work.

Mr Foulstone has nothing but praise for the company, Water By Nature, which ran the white water rafting adventure and said his near-death experience has not put him off white water rafting.

He said: “I couldn’t fault them at all. We were looked after superbly. The whole experience was really quite remarkable. I loved every second of it, regardless of what happened at the end.

“I was very unlucky to get sucked into a whirlpool but I was fortunate that it spat me out and the guides got to me in time. I think my fitness played a part, I trained for six months at St Mary’s sports gym in Calne.”

Source: Devizes fundraiser survives white water rafting drowning terror (28/11/13)

Chinese tourist rescued after falling into Falls (Zambia)

Chinese tourist rescued after falling into Victoria Falls Gorge from Knife-edge Bridge(Zambia)

On 26 November a team of Livingstone Fire Brigade servicemen, together with Zambia Police Service and staff from the Victoria Falls Bridge Bungee, rescued a 45 year old Chinese national who fell into gorge near the knife-edge bridge as he was taking pictures.

Both Southern Province Commissioner of Police Charity Katanga said Wang ShunXue, a Chinese national aged 45, was retrieved alive after he fell into the Victoria Falls Gorge as he was taking pictures.She said ShunXue, who was lodged at Zambezi Sun Hotel, was retrieved around 09:30 hours with no serious injuries and he was taken to the Hotel’s clinic for medical checkup.

Mr Sikanyika said officers from the Livingstone Fire Brigades officers received a call yesterday (Monday) around 08:23 hours that a Chinese national fell into Victoria Falls and rushed to the scene to rescue him.

“From what they saw, the victim sustained some bruises and he was rushed for medical check-up and treatment. The Chinese national... was rescued at the edges of the Falls cliff,” Mr Sikanyika said.

He urged tourists and other visitors to the Victoria Falls to follow guidelines and markings at the site saying they should not be overexcited when viewing one of the natural wonders of the world.

Source: Lusaka Times (27 Nov 2013)

Hwange San claim persecution by authorities in seach for poachers

Source: AllAfrica.com (18 October 2013)
By Zenzele Ndebele
The Hwange National Park cyanide poaching incident has brought international reaction.
But what is even more shocking is how the authorities have reacted - by targeting the San living outside the park, who have accused game-rangers and the police of brutal harassment following the poisoning of the park's waterholes.
And how little local or international attention has been focussed on the plight of the San - as opposed to the fate of the unfortunate elephants.
Take for example Linah Tshuma's son, Dedani. Employed as a domestic worker at the time of the poisoning, he was recently sentenced to 16 years in prison with an additional fine of US$200,000 after being convicted of involvement in the elephant slaughter.
"We are victims of poverty. My son is in jail because we are poor people," said Linah, who is adamant that her son was treated unfairly. "I don't know what happened but he was employed by a businessman, who I believe was the one dealing in ivory because he is on the run."
Linah says what pains her most is that her son was sentenced within a few days of his arrest in a remarkably swift legal process, yet those who were arrested for supplying the cyanide - including the manager of the company that provided the poison, who has been charged with contravening some sections of the Environmental Management Act - were given US$100 bail.
"I don't even have a single cent to go and visit my son in prison and I hear the police beat him and one of his eyes was bleeding," said Linah, with tears welling up in her eyes. "His friends also told me his private parts were burnt."
She accuses law enforcement agents of targeting the San, who are poor, while letting the rich - the real beneficiaries of ivory poaching - go.
And the vast majority of the San living with her in Cawuna village - about 220 km west of Bulawayo near the border of Hwange National Park - are extremely poor, uneducated and excluded from society. Just like the rest of the 1,200 San still living in western Zimbabwe.
For a long time, the San in Zimbabwe have complained that the government marginalises them and has done nothing to improve their lives. And now they are bearing the brunt of the authorities' reaction to the elephant massacre.
Christopher Dube, a vocal member of the San community, says that what is happening now is very sad because it is a clear violation of human rights - and yet no one seems to care.
"We are living in fear because rangers can come here at any time and harass us," he said. "A few days ago they wanted to arrest me because they alleged it was me and my neighbours who went with the poachers to help carry out the operation. They came to me and said my neighbour confessed that we collaborated in the crime but it isn't true."
Dube says two members of the community have fled their homes and are now hiding in the bush, as they fear victimisation by the rangers, who allegedly met them near the park and started assaulted them after accusing them of being involved in poaching.
But this is not an isolated incident. Dube says the oppression of the San people started way back in 1928 when the Hwange National Park was established and they were evicted by Ted Davison, who was the first Warden of Hwange.
"Our grandfathers suffered under Davison," said Dube, adding that "each time our donkeys strayed into the national park, they were taken by the colonial government and were fed to the lions and we were not compensated."
And after independence, the new Zimbabwe government did not make any efforts to help them. Indeed, the introduction of laws banning hunting forced them to abandon their traditional life as hunter-gatherers and take up subsistence farming. But most of them do not have cattle so they use their 'bare hands' to plough and usually they harvest little or nothing.
The San provide also cheap labour for the Ndebele and Kalanga communities in exchange for food. Sometimes they cross the border into Botswana in search of employment.
And it is possible that some of them were involved in the poisoning. "Poverty is the problem here," explains Dube, "Poachers target our people because they know they are poor. We are told that people were promised US$20 per tusk."
But the authorities seem intent on targeting whole communities - aware that they have no money, no voice and little outside support - rather than pinpointing individual suspects.
For example, the government has given the people in the village of Tsholotsho, which is on the border of the Park, until the end of this month to surrender any cyanide to Chief Siphoso or face arrest.
Unsurprisingly, the villagers are fearful about what will happen at the end of October as they all appear to have been declared guilty by the authorities - without any proof whatsoever.
"We were given a month and we do not know what will happen after that. Maybe the police will come and arrest us all or they will come and beat us up," said Sihle Ncube. "We are living in fear and a number of villagers are thinking of crossing into Botswana before the ultimatum is up."
Davy Ndlovu, a human rights activist who advocates for the rights of the San, said that the government has always put elephants before the San. "Every year, at least one person is killed by an elephant here but nothing is done," said Ndlovu. "During the farming season, elephants destroy their crops and the same rangers who are harassing the people now are nowhere to be seen when they are called to drive the elephants away."
And then he asked a question which goes to the heart of the poaching debate in Zimbabwe and elsewhere. "Who benefits from these animals because these villagers are poor although their area is rich in wildlife?"
Surely this is an incentive for the San to poach - to make a profit out of the elephants that live around them? Maybe. But would they really use cyanide to poison waterholes? Would they really use a poison that might well find its way - now that the rainy season is here - into local rivers and into their drinking water?
Indeed, this is a real fear. And villagers are not convinced the government is going to take the necessary measures to clear the cyanide from the National Park and surrounding areas - leaving them in danger in the months ahead. And leaving them feeling traumatised, vulnerable and even more marginalised than they were before.
Source: AllAfrica.com (18 October 2013)
Read more: AllAfrica.com Hwange Disaster - What Will It Take to Stop the Poaching? (20 October 2013)
AllAfrica.com Bigwigs Fingered in Hwange Elephant Poisoning (20 October 2013)