Wildlife, too, under siege in Zimbabwe.

AuthorAnderson, Terry L.
PositionRobert Mugabe assault on private property takes toll on wildlife - Brief Article

Recently elected Zimbabwean president Robert Mugabe has clearly indicated that he has no intention of respecting property rights or the rule of law. His "terror teens" have brutally killed innocent people, and his "land reform" plan demands that mare than 20 million of the 23.5 million acres under private ownership be surrendered without compensation. He has sent his thugs into the hinterlands threatening farmers and pressing squatters to take over the land. Insecure property rights have left Zimbabwe's economy in shambles.

Mugabe's assault on private property has also taken a toll on wildlife, for without landowners there is no one to protect them from poachers. Before Mugabe's attack on private property, Zimbabwe had demonstrated how wildlife could be privately protected. The CAMPFIRE program, for example, championed by the World Wide Fund for Nature, allowed local communities to manage wildlife. Hence wildlife became an asset as villagers in communal areas profited from hunting and photo safaris. Elephant populations mushroomed and poaching plummeted.

Stimulated by growing demands for hunting and tourism, private landowners also got into the wildlife business by combining small ranches into single units called conservancies, encompassing thousands of acres. The Save Valley Conservancy, for example, put together over 850,000 acres for wildlife management and reintroduced rare species such as black rhinoceros and roan antelope. Throughout Zimbabwe, 64 percent of kudu, 63 percent of giraffes, 56 percent of cheetahs, and 53 percent of sable antelope and impalas were on private ranch properties.

Unfortunately wildlife is under siege by Mugabe. Photos of mutilated animals in the February 2002 issue of African Geographic paint a sickening picture, and the statistics tell the rest of the story. To clear the land, squatters have burned more than...

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