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In early December 2007 another very successful Rhino Survival 4 x 4 Challenge took place in Zimbabwe and raised the equivalent of about US$300 for The Zambezi Society's rhino conservation programme in the Matusadona National Park Black Rhino Intensive Protection Zone, south of Lake Kariba. This is the second year this popular event has taken place, spearheaded enthusiastically by Pete Jenkin and members of the Zimbabwe 4 x 4 Club. It is their intention to make it an annual fund-raiser. This year's competition took place on Taveydale Farm in Concession. The weather was extremely wet and the terrain difficult and muddy - an ideal combination for 4 x 4 enthusiasts, who enjoyed themselves immensely. Seven teams took part. The event was won by the "Benrose" team of Mark Benzon and family, with Mike Gill's "Kalahari" team raising the most money.
Zambezi Society member and 4 x 4 enthusiast, Neil Greenway, reports: "The concept for the Challenge was borrowed from the Kenyan "Rhino Charge". The winner of the day is the vehicle with the shortest logged distance after all of 10 pre-set checkpoints have been visited. The position of the check points varied: some were on the top of kopjies (rocky hills) while others were on the edges of river lines, others in thick Msasa woodland scrub. "Degrees of difficulty" included avoiding 'panner' dug mining shafts in river lines into which vehicles could fall and "disappear". Fortunately nobody took that route!! Vehicle casualties for the day included a LandRover team "running out of fuel", a burst Jeep fuel pipe, a Cournil with both steering arms bent and torn off when stumps magically jumped into the bush that it was being driven over in thick country and a LandCruiser team who failed to locate check point One! A good "WET" weekend was had by all, with distances covered by the winning team amounting to 23 kms and the tail end Charlie clocking up over 31 kms.
Pictured here is one of the competing vehicles in very typical thickly wooded countryside north of Nyabira. The navigator using the GPS needed to walk the last 50 metres to identify where the check point was in this instance. However this gully only got steeper and impossible to drive up. The vehicle was forced to "retreat" and attempt to reach the check point from a different entry."
The Zambezi Society would like to thank Pete and all the participants and
sponsors for the extraordinary amount of effort and organisation that went
into this event. We look forward to the 2008 Rhino Survival 4 x 4 Challenge.
(Photo ©
Neil Greenway) .
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ANTI-POACHING SUPPLIES DONATED
As a result of an extremely generous response from the British Embassy in Harare to The Zambezi Society's recent appeal to help support anti-poaching efforts in Zimbabwe's Zambezi Valley National Parks this summer season, The Society has been able to purchase and donate the following supplies to support anti-poaching teams during the rains:
MATUSADONA NATIONAL PARK: 30 raincoats, 30 x mosquito nets and 30 x sets of
ammunition webbing
MANA POOLS NATIONAL PARK:
500 litres of diesel coupons, 40 x mosquito nets, 40 x raincoats and 40 x
sets of ammunition webbing.
(Photo
©
Godwin Vhurumuku)
Further fuel donations
will be handed over later in the year. The Society is extremely grateful for
the support it has already received in response to this appeal and urges donors
to continue to come forward generously. The threat to wildlife in Zimbabwe's
state-protected areas remains high, especially during the rainy season and
the need to protect it from poaching is increasingly urgent under the current
economic circumstances.
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RESPECT THE WILD CODE OF CONDUCT
The Zambezi Society is in the process of developing a simple, attractively presented and easy-to-follow Wilderness Code of Conduct entitled "Respect The Wild" which will be made widely available to the public in all major tourism areas in the Zambezi region in the form of leaflets, posters and CD-ROMs. The aim of this Code is to encourage people to appreciate the unique values of wilderness (as exemplified by the Mana Pools World Heritage Site) and to influence their behaviour in wild areas so that everyone is able to enjoy and benefit from wilderness without destroying it. The Society is most grateful to the British Embassy in Harare which has provided funding for the design, production and distribution of this Code.
A few years ago The Society
undertook a questionnaire consultation which enabled us to assess people's
perceptions about Zambezi wilderness and its value to them. The "Respect the
Wild" Code has developed as a process from the results of this consultation
and from feedback from participants funded by the Society to undertake training
in Wilderness Awareness and Management. We intend to consult widely in finalizing
the Respect the Wild Code, and will shortly be contacting our members, colleagues
and friends in the environment and tourism industries with a draft, asking
for comments, additions and constructive suggestions. We hope that this consultation
will be interesting and meaningful to many Zambezi Society members, and look
forward to their active participation in the exercise.
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ZAMSOC MAKES INPUTS INTO VICTORIA FALLS MANAGEMENT PLAN
Zimbabwean and Zambian participants in the Zambezi Society's first Advanced training course in Wilderness Awareness and Management undertaken in September 2006, (including senior Parks Authority officers) undertook various practical planning exercises as part of the course. One of these was to zone the trans-boundary area around Victoria Falls in terms of conserving its wilderness quality. Wilderness-sensitive land planning theory learned during the course was applied, together with visitor management criteria, and zonation lines were demarcated on a map.
This training exercise has proved to be invaluable from more than just the training perspective. The Society has provided the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority with the draft zonation map from the training exercise and a copy of the background planning manual used during the course. This is being used to assist with the production of a Management Plan for Victoria Falls as required by the UNESCO World Heritage Site Committee.
Media reports
from Victoria Falls last year drew attention to the fact that the Victoria
Falls/Mosi-oa-Tunya World Heritage Site was in danger of losing its special
UNESCO protected status because of unsuitable developments taking place as
a result of poor planning and unco-ordinated management of the area. UNESCO
has demanded better planning as a condition of renewing the World Heritage
Site status of this important Zambezi River tourist attraction.
(Photos © Sally Wynn)
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EMERGENCY RHINO MEETING DEC 2007
Recent alarming incidents of poaching prompted The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority to call an emergency rhino meeting in December 2007, so that the National Steering Committee (of which the Zambezi Society is a member) could discuss development of a combined and effective strategy to tackle the situation.
Through a facilitated
process and with the combined efforts of all the participants, including Senior
National Parks officers and conservancy representatives from all rhino sanctuaries
in the country, we identified key areas that needed immediate attention. An
action plan is in the process of being drawn up for endorsement by the Parks
Authority Board, with improved security and stronger collaboration amongst
the various stakeholders in rhino conservation being highlighted as some of
the priorities that need attention.
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CLARIFICATION OF RHINO COUNT FIGURES
It has recently been brought to the attention of The Society that there has been some mis-interpretation of the figures published in our last Bulletin with regard to numbers of black rhino counted during our August 2007 spoor-count exercise in the escarpment hills section of the Matusadona National Park.
In our November 2007 Bulletin, we stated that "The most important success was that ten spoor sightings were made, although one sighting was on the valley floor section of the park that was being monitored because of its proximity to the escarpment. During analysis, some of the sightings were assumed to be of the same animal, which reduced our number of possible sightings down to six. We are now looking at follow-up procedures to investigate further."
(Photo © Duncan Purchase)
This statement has been taken out of context by the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force which subsequently issued a public statement that there are "only six black rhino left in the Matusadona National Park". Whether deliberate or not, this is a gross distortion of the truth and fails to take into account that these results only reflect information in the escarpment mountains of the Matusadona National Park and NOT on the section of this park that lies on the Zambezi valley floor, where the Society's rhino conservation team continues to monitor the remainder of the black rhino population in the park, as it has done for several years.
Zambezi Society members
who receive this Bulletin on a regular basis, and 50 of whom who took part
in the counting exercise as volunteers, will be aware of the facts, and will
no doubt ensure that such distortions of the truth do not go unchallenged.
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Dr. Gianetta
Purchase represented the Zambezi Society at a recent regional Cheetah and
Wild Dog strategy workshop in Botswana. Through Dr Purchase's work, the Zambezi
Society has accumulated a significant amount of information regarding the
distribution and status of cheetah in the Zambezi Basin. This is featured
prominently in a recently-published special issue of CAT NEWS (the newsletter
of the World Conservation Union's Cat Specialist Group) and is entitled An
overview of the status and conservation needs of cheetahs in Southern Africa.
We were also able to contribute information about the Wild Dog to the workshop
as a result of the Society's most recent carnivore project, the results of
which have been published as A review of the status and distribution of carnivores,
and levels of human carnivore conflict, in the protected areas and surrounds
of the Zambezi Basin.
Click image to go to report
CHISIPITE JUNIOR SCHOOL DOES IT AGAIN!
The Zambezi Society once
again thanks the Grade 6 teachers and girls at Chisipite Junior School, Harare,
who, in their 2007 l fund-raising effort, raised a magnificent sum equivalent
of more than US$700 for the Society's rhino conservation programme in the
Matusadona National Park. This is the 21st year that the school has made a
donation to this worthy cause and this extremely important learning exercise
in environmental responsibility has now become a school tradition. We hope
sincerely that it will continue into the future.
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Please don't forget our limited, but exclusive range of Zambezi Society gifts available online at http://www.zamsoc.org/html/shop.html
Sample products © Zambezi Society
