BULAWAYO - Black farmers resettled in prime hunting areas in Matabeleland North under the government's chaotic land redistribution have resorted to rearing cattle in the wildlife conservancies.Sources in the wildlife rich Gwayi Intensive Conservation Area said this week that a lot of new farmers were finding it difficult to negotiate the sector formally run by white farmers. “Most farmers are throwing in the towel and have converted their farms into cattle rearing farms,” said Titus Ndlovu, one of the black farmers who was allocated a conservancy in the area in 2003.
Some of the farmers have cut game fences around the conservancies which were erected to prevent foot-and-mouth disease spreading from buffaloes to cattle. Cases of the disease have increased as a result.
“There is an urgent for the government to revisit its policy on conservancies. Wildlife management is highly sensitive sector which needs farmers who really appreciate the importance of our natural resources. The current situation where some conservancies have been turned into firewood ranches and animal ranches do not augur well for the future of this industry,” said Randel Tim who was dispossessed of his Locas ranch by a senior government
official in 2003.
According to investigations carried out by The Zimbabwean, some of the farms in this lucrative industry have also been partitioned into small fields of crops such as maize and groundnuts. There have also been widespread reports of illegal and uncontrolled hunting of game especially buffaloes, elephants, kudu and impala. The meat from the animals is openly sold along the Bulawayo/Victoria Falls highway.
Post published in: News