US$18 million Santonga construction begins

Tourism company Africa Albida Tourism has started the construction of a US$18 million education and entertainment Park in Victoria Falls dubbed Santonga.

Construction of the 80-acre eco-park, adjacent to Victoria Falls Safari Lodge began last month. Santonga will interactively tell the story of Victoria Falls through its history as well as culture and nature.

Africa Albida chief executive Ross Kennedy said construction was delayed because of the lack of a conducive economic and lending environment.

He said the construction of the park would take two and half years to complete and create 150 jobs as well as downstream employment benefits.

The park which is expected to draw 120 000 visitors each year is scheduled to be opened in June 2016.

The site is currently being rehabilitated with more than 600 tonnes of topsoil, 6 000-plus indigenous trees and shrubs as well as the construction of a road, waterholes, weirs and a fence.

“Santonga is a product that will appeal to everybody,” Kennedy said.

“The tours at the park will take between four and half to seven hours and could add half a day’s stay in Victoria Falls.”

He said this extended stay would significantly boost revenue inflows.

Kennedy said improved tourism arrivals had been recorded as demonstrated by the increase of room nights sold this year compared to the same period in 2010.
 
He also revealed that they had carried out a US$1 million upgrade of the 66 rooms of their flagship property, the Victoria Safari Lodge which was completed in July this year.

He said the hotel group was poised to take advantage of the construction of the Victoria Falls airport which was expected to boost tourist arrivals into the resort town.

Africa Albida Tourism has a portfolio of hotels and restaurants in Victoria Falls including its flagship property, the Victoria Falls Safari Lodge.

Source:  US$18 million Santonga construction begins

Chief Mukuni opposes the commercialisation of Victoria Falls

SENIOR Chief Mukuni of the Toka-leya People of Kazungula District in Southern Province has opposed the calls to commercialise Victoria Falls as a way of attracting more tourists to the site.

He said there was need to maintain Victoria Falls in the natural form so that visitors get the real taste of the natural wonder of the world.

In an interview in Livingstone, Senior Chief Mukuni noted that tourists around the world were interested in viewing Victoria Falls in its natural form as opposed to viewing an imitation of the Falls.

“In my opinion, we should keep the Falls as natural as possible and not commercialise it.

In any case the Falls is already commercialised because you can get internet in the nearby hotels.

There is nothing wrong in having moonlight to visit Victoria Falls in the night and still keep it as natural as possible,” he said.

Last month, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) Chief Executive Karikoga Kaseke said in an interview in Harare that Zambia and Zimbabwe should commercialise the Victoria Falls destination like the case for Niagara Falls in United States of America (USA) to attract more tourists across the globe.

Niagara Falls, which is smaller compared to Victoria Falls, attracts about US$ 30 billion earnings yearly while both sides of the Victoria Falls in Zambia and Zimbabwe only attracts an income of less than US$ 500, 000 annually.

Mr Kaseke said there was need to commercialise Victoria Falls by electrifying the premises, putting up modern infrastructure and ensuring that water flows were reasonable throughout the year.

He said Victoria Falls, which is not open to the public in the night, could not attract more tourists in its current state because it was a seasonal activity and it lacked modern infrastructure.

Mr Kaseke said Niagara Falls had been commercialised and it was attracting US$ 30 billion earnings annually compared to less than US$ 500, 000 earnings recorded at the Victoria Falls for Zimbabwe and Zambia.

“By any measure, Victoria Falls is far much bigger than Niagara Falls. But look, we have tried to make Victoria Falls remain as natural as possible.

This is good for other purposes but what it means is that we have not fully commercialised the Falls. We need to electrify Victoria Falls and start running it on 24 hours basis instead of closing the premises in the night,” he said.

Mr Kaseke said Victoria Falls had potential to raise more revenue from tourists if the area had electricity, steady water flows, restaurants,accommodation facilities and other modern amenities like the case at Niagara Falls.

“We don’t need the Falls to remain a natural world heritage site as stipulated by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO).

We need to go the Niagara Falls way and make money for our people and our economies. We can gain a lot of benefits if we commercialise it,” Mr Kaseke said.

He asked Zambia and Zimbabwe to forgo the US$ 25, 000 which UNESCO gave them per year to maintain the Falls as a natural heritage site.

Source: Chief Mukuni opposes the commercialisation of Victoria Falls (13/11/14)

Zimbabwe’s baby elephants getting sold to China zoos

Source: Zimbabwe’s baby elephants getting sold to China zoos Nehanda Radio Online (28/11/14)
The group says that they first highlighted this issue when they encountered an Australian and Zimbabwean looking to earmark elephants in Hwange for Chinese zoos.

Now they claim that tourists are witnessing blatant live captures of baby elephants. They are then taken to Mtshibi Capture Unit about 7 kilometres from Hwange’s Main Camp.

“So far 34 baby elephants between the ages of 2 ½ and 5 years old, 7 lions and about 10 sable antelope have been rounded up for shipping but investigators were not allowed to get close enough to the compound to photograph as security there has become extremely tight,” the group claims in a media statement.

These are then trucked to Maputo in Mozambique, where they begin their arduous trip to China.
In 2013 three young elephants were shipped to China, only to be exposed to freezing weather conditions and confinement resulting in the death of one, and the other two getting sick.

China and the ivory trade

Last year poachers in Hwange National Park started poisoning water holes with cyanide in order to kill elephants for their tusks.

According to a report in December, more than 300 elephants fell victim to this.

The Environmental Investigation Agency issued a report earlier this month that found when Chinese government and business delegations arrived in China prices on the local ivory market doubled to $700 (or R7,727) a kilo during their visit.

“The [delegation]… used the opportunity to procure such a large amount of ivory that local prices increased,” the report says according to the BBC. “When your president [Xi Jinping] was here… many kilos go out… many kilos. Half of his plane go with that,” one of the traders told EIA investigators.

Source: Zimbabwe’s baby elephants getting sold to China zoos Nehanda Radio Online (28/11/14)

Tourism chief mulls night tours at Vic Falls

Victoria Falls should be commercialised to attract more tourists according to Zimbabwe Tourism Authority chief executive, Karikoga Kaseke. Ideas suggested by Kaseke include electrifying the premises, putting in modern infrastructure and running it on a 24-hour basis.

According to the Times of Zambia, Kaseke made the suggestions during a welcome dinner for the Sanganai/Hlanganani World Travel and Tourism Africa Expo. He mentioned that the highly commercialised Niagara Falls in the US attracts US$30bn (R331bn) earnings annually, whereas the both sides of the Victoria Falls combined only attract US$500 000 (R5,5m) annually. 

“We have only tried to make Victoria Falls remain as natural as possible, which is not helping us. We need to electrify Victoria Falls and start running it on a 24-hour basis instead of closing the premises at night,” Karikoga was quoted as saying.

Ross Kennedy, ce of Africa Albida Tourism and Southern Africa Director of the African Travel & Tourism Association (Atta), says progress, development and new ideas are usually driven by market demand and market forces, and Victoria Falls is no exception. He adds, however, that the region should certainly adhere to UNESCO rules and conditions and ensure that Victoria Falls retains such important status.

Emmanuel Fundira, group ce for the Astoc Leisure Group, says accommodation in Victoria Falls is operating at 50% capacity. He says the country’s strategy is to achieve 100% capacity but unfortunately this is still constrained by challenges including access issues.

However, Emmanuel warns that the Victoria Falls thrives as an unpolluted environment and that commercialisation could potentially take away the natural attractiveness. He says Unesco would have to approve and sanction any proposed developments at the Victoria Falls and due process would have to be followed. “I can’t see a situation where the authorities would ignore compliance issues as the attendant costs would be devastating.”

Source: Tourism chief mulls night tours at Vic Falls (26 Nov 2014)

Zambian mine threatens world heritage site

The high court in Zambia is hearing an application from civil society organisations that are trying to stop the granting of a licence for a copper mine in the Lower Zambezi National Park.

Australian-owned mine Zambezi Resources Limited was given a 25-year permit in 2011 to prospect and mine in the Lower Zambezi National Park. The Kangaluwi Copper Project will see an opencast mine being built in the park, which is a formally protected area and part of the Zambezi River’s catchment zone.

It is also across the river from Mana Pools in Zimbabwe, a world heritage site.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the Lower Zambezi National Park as a category two protected area. This means it must be maintained for “ecosystem protection” and recreation. In 2011, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation encouraged the Zambian government to apply to make the park a world heritage site – this would then create a trans-boundary park with Mana Pools.

Compromising ecological value
The park stretches along 120km of the Zambezi River, and the government’s tourism agency says it is the fourth most visited park in the country. In 2012 the Zambian Environmental Management Authority rejected the mine’s environmental impact assessment.

“The proposed site is not suitable for the nature of the project because it is located in the middle of a national park, and thus intends to compromise the ecological value of the park as well as the ecosystem,” it said.

But in February the mine was given permission to go ahead by Zambia’s minister for Lands, Natural Resources and Environmental Protection. But this was temporarily halted, thanks to a court challenge from the Zambia Community Natural Resources Management Forum.

The mine has said it will make a mine that does not damage the ecosystem in the park. Earlier this year it released a statement saying, “Zambezi Resources promises to build the world’s greenest copper mine.”

Negative consequences
Groups opposing the mining say it is within the middle Zambezi elephant corridor. This was created to allow the herbivores to move freely along their traditional migratory routes. It is also home to several endangered species, such as the African wild dog.

One of the principal opposition groups, the Zambian Community Based Natural Resources Forum – a grouping of non-governmental and community organisations – said the mine would “generate negative impacts” beyond Zambia’s borders. It would lead to “significant alteration of the area’s hydrological system”.

This would threaten Mana Pools in Zimbabwe, and was therefore threatening to create conflict between the states, it said in a statement last week. It would also be in contravention of regional water sharing agreements, it said. “The mining operation is likely to increase surface and ground water contamination in the Zambezi River and other local streams.”

It said that while the mine would create 250 jobs, more than 800 people were employed in local tourism. The mine would “lead to significant loss in tourism operations”.

Given the mine’s sensitive location and potential adverse impact on tourism, the group said it should not go ahead. “There is no feasible scenario under which the proposed project would proceed without causing severe and far-reaching environmental and geopolitical impacts.”

‘Stop the mine’
A discussion document paper on best practice for mining in the whole Southern African Development Community region, drafted by mining consulting firm Estelle Levin and released two months ago, found that Zambia’s “strong legal framework” was not being implemented. 

It used the Kangaluwi Copper Project as a case study. “Flaws have resulted in expert advice being disregarded and mining developments permitted in protected areas of high biodiversity call,” it said.

A comprehensive report by independent reviewer Dr Kellie Leigh, done for opposition groups, and released last week, proposed that the mining be scrapped. “There is considerable risk of long-term damage beyond the life of the project, to the health and well being of communities, wildlife and the environment.”

It also said that if the mine went ahead, it would set a dangerous precedent for other mining in national parks.

Last week a coalition of Zimbabwean civil society groups called on their environment minister to put pressure on his Zambian counterpart to stop the mine.

Source: Zambian mine threatens world heritage site (Mail & Guardian, SA, 23/11/14)

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Can Zambia save its environment with marijuana?

Green party’s presidential candidate Peter Sinkamba is promising voters to cut country’s dependency on mining – by growing and exporting marijuana

For decades, Zambia has staked its economic fortunes on copper mining. But when voters in this southern African nation go to the polls in January to select a new president, at least one candidate will be looking to send that tradition up in smoke.

On Friday, Peter Sinkamba will announce his candidacy on the Green party ticket to replace the late President Michael Sata, who died on 29 October from an undisclosed illness. Sinkamba, regarded as Zambia’s leading environmentalist for his battles against the country’s big copper mines, is running on an unlikely platform, especially in this socially conservative nation: legalising marijuana.

His plan, first announced in April, calls for cannabis’ legalisation for medicinal use in Zambia, which would be a first in Africa. The surplus crop would be exported abroad, earning Zambia what Sinkamba claims could be billions of dollars.

At stake is an opportunity to diversify Zambia’s economy while beginning to clean up the environmental degradation left by close to a century of intensive opencast mining.

Copper has long been Zambia’s national treasure, having fired the country to middle-income status in the 1960s and 70s. But by the late 1990s, tumbling copper prices sent the country’s mining income to its lowest levels since independence from the UK in 1964.

Mining has since rebounded. In 2012, copper exports amounted to $6.3bn (£4bn), or nearly 70% of Zambia’s total export market. But many Zambians now find their country’s dependency on copper stifling. Local communities suffer from environmental impacts like toxic sulphur dioxide emissions from refineries.

In an interview with the Guardian in his hometown of Kitwe, the Copperbelt’s largest city, Sinkamba said his marijuana proposal would wean Zambia off its addiction to mining by prioritising its fledgling agricultural sector.

“Historically, we’ve been the kind of people that have consumed a lot of marijuana,” said Sinkamba. “It is massively cultivated across the whole country [for the black market] … So what we’re saying is, look, let’s come out of it and legalise it.”

Sinkamba reckons that Zambia could capture up to 10% of a global marijuana market – estimated at $140bn by the UN in 2005 – which would make it more lucrative than copper mining. In a shadow budget released earlier this year, the Green party claimed marijuana exports would boost GDP by over 68% by 2021.

Experts on the international drug trade, however, caution that Sinkamba’s scheme might be half-baked. According to John Collins, an international drug policy researcher at the London School of Economics, the export of marijuana for recreational use would run afoul of the 1961 UN single convention on international narcotics control.

Nor would marijuana exports necessarily be all that profitable, added Jon Caulkins, a cannabis expert at Carnegie Mellon University, who pointed out that it would take less than 10,000 acres to grow all the THC (the main constituent in marijuana) consumed in the US. Zambia has about 87.4m arable acres.

However, Collins called Sinkamba’s plan “entirely doable” if he can take advantage of loopholes that exist in international drug law for medicinal drugs. Israel, for example, last year considered a plan to export medicinal marijuana to the Czech Republic, but shied away out of concern that becoming an international drug dealer would look bad politically.

“I think the key for Zambia is that they may view the economic returns from the industry as outweighing political concerns which would limit countries like Israel going too far down this route at the moment,” he said.

In any case, Sinkamba is a dark horse in the election. But he insists that his proposal has struck a chord with a disillusioned, and very young, electorate.

On the streets of Kitwe, Sinkamba is greeted by young people with cries of “Legalise!” belted with the same vigour as anti-apartheid activists in South Africa once chanted “Amandla! [power].”

“When we look at the trends, the world is going in the direction of legalising marijuana,” said Sinkamba. “But we don’t want to be the last ones. We want to be the first ones.”

Source: Can Zambia save its environment with marijuana? The Guardian UK (14/11/14)

Zimbabwe & Zambia to launch UNIVISA on November 28

Zimbabwe and Zambia will this month introduce a joint travel visa to ensure international tourists visit both countries without immigration hassles, state media reported Sunday.According to the Sunday News, the Kavango Zambezi (Kaza) universal visa (UNIVISA) would be launched in Victoria Falls on November 28 as part of measures to facilitate tourist arrivals and increase revenue.

(with thanks to Ilala Lodge Facebook Page) Quoting Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi, the paper said the proposed UNIVISA is expected to benefit tourists from 40 countries.
“The UNIVISA project is being pursued by Zimbabwe and Zambia and it is being funded by the World Bank,” Mzembi is quoted as saying.
Under the new system, tourists would acquire visas at ports of entry for US$50 each.
The visas would be valid for 30 days and would allow holders to tour Zimbabwe and Zambia without restriction.
The arrangement is expected to be expanded to include Namibia, Botswana and Angola following a six-month pilot phase.
Presently, tourists have to secure separate visas to enable them to enter Zimbabwe and Zambia and are subjected to conventional immigration procedures.
Source: Zimbabwe, Zambia to launch UNIVISA project on November 28 (09/11/14)