Addressing journalist in Harare, Gnodke said the article was “misleading and not correct” saying Zimbabwe had instead violated a crucial international agreement that protected Germany investors and used a policy called “Wildlife Based Land Reform”, which the European giant did not recognise, to destabilise Germany investors in the Save area.
Germany and Zimbabwe have a Bilateral Investment Promotion and Protection Agreement in place.
Operations in the Save Conservancy had also been hamstrung by government’s defiance to abide by a 2011 High Court ruling that directed the Parks and Wildlife Management Authority must re-issue hunting licences that had been stopped, said the Germany diplomat.
Gnodtke warned that the failure by Zimbabwe to abide by international agreements could seriously undermine foreign investment inflows into the southern African country, which has been desperately drumming up Foreign Direct Investment to rebuild its economy following a decade of recession that ended in 2009.
“FDI inflows depend on “how serious a government is willing to respect international agreements,” warned Gnodtke. “If a country is not serious about respecting international agreements it will not attract investments,” he added.
Last year, the Save Valley Conservancy turned into a hotly contested economic spot which spilled into a public spat between Environment and Wildlife Management Minister, Francis Nhema, and Tourism Minister, Walter Mzembi, after Zanu (PF) big wigs moved into the park and took over conservancies, destabilising existing investors and triggering rampant poaching which threatened the delicate animal sanctuary.
Germany, which said yesterday it had strong interests in the park because the largest investor there was its national, has courted the ire of communities in that province following reports of the planned translocations.
“This is utter nonsense,” Gnodtke told reporters in reference to reports that Germany would fund the controversial translocations.
“This is polemic; I don’t want to get to that level of polemic. German has been approached by an organisation called Peace Parks Foundation in South Africa, which has suggested that we have over-population in certain species there (Save) and there is under-population of the same species in Gonarezhou.
Post published in: News