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Isdore Guvamombe Reflections
Back in the village in the land of milk, honey and dust or Guruve, although the hare is known for its proclivity for tricks, it has never mastered the art of climbing up a tree. When it comes to climbing up trees, it becomes useless. Its bag of tricks empties, promptly.

In Victoria Falls – our famous prime tourist resort – a storm has brewed between Africa Albida Tourism on one side and all and sundry on the other, over the construction of a zoo, dubbed the Santonga Project.

Everyone else, except Africa Albida Tourism itself and a few officials of questionable character in the Victoria Falls municipality, is against the project. They disagree with its concept, its destructive effect and manipulative prognosis.

The sad development (the unfortunate intention to construct a zoo) comes at a time when Zimbabwe is battling a bursting elephant population which is forcing the country to sell the huge mammals to other countries. Progressive thinking informs the sane mind that a zoo is a non-starter to a country that has a bursting wildlife population. It works for archaic Europe, which has decimated its own wildlife population to extinction.

We still want our wildlife to roam wild and free. It defies logic that the Victoria Falls municipality, which should be the vanguard of this World Heritage Site, was hoodwinked by Africa Albida to allow it to close the last wildlife corridor that allows the teeming wildlife to have access to the life-saving water of Zambezi River. Inexplicably silly!

This is contrary to the continued assertions by Tourism and Hospitality Industry Minister Walter Mzembi that Victoria Falls must remain as natural as possible to the point where if explorer David Livingstone and the Tonga who lived in the area more than a century ago, were to rise from their graves, they would find their way with much ease.

It must remain as natural as possible! Unless someone had his hands oiled to blinding levels, this project was never supposed to be approved by a council like Victoria Falls municipality. But as it appears, the council lost its marbles.

A bit of statistics will tell you that more than 7 000 people are on the housing waiting list of Victoria Falls municipality, but the town’s fathers brazenly allocate 80 acres of communal land to one Africa Albida at the expense of all these people. Yes, 80 acres for a zoo and not people! We want that corridor open and this is why people have not been allocated that land. Why Africa Albida?

There are thousands other people subscribing to various co-operatives in the town in pursuit of land and this has forced the Government to contemplate building a satellite town, some 40km outside Victoria Falls in a quest to protect the Falls. And, and, and, contrary to this, the Victoria Falls municipality is defacing the Falls by blocking the last standing animal corridor? Stinking bad!

What does it do to the land tenure of Victoria Falls? Is Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe or not? The council must explain. One does not need rocket science to understand that the municipality is out of sync with the reality of Government policy. They are day-dreamers.

To be honest, this villager must be forgiven for thinking that we might have entrusted the World Heritage Site in the hands of goat skinners masquerading as councillors.

The exciting game drives will disappear, workers in that industry will be retrenched. Wildlife itself will be in captivity and not roaming wild and free. Blocked wildlife will spill into residential areas while looking for alternative routes to the drinking places on the Zambezi. It is a Eurocentric project that does not recognize the Afrocentric nature of the Victoria Falls.

The Government of Zimbabwe is very much aware of the need to preserve the Victoria Falls in its most natural state to the point where it has allocated itself land for a major tourism development project, far, far away from the Falls and the Zambezi River. And Africa Albida cannot read that?

Back in the village, elders with cotton tuft hair say, a famous animal does not fill the hunter’s basket. The wise create proverbs for fools to learn, not to repeat.

To be honest, this villager must be forgiven for thinking that we might have entrusted the World Heritage Site in the hands of goat skinners masquerading as councillors. We might have entrusted the town to the hands of the kind of people who, back in the village, we would send goat-skinning while others deliberate on matters of State and governance.

Yes, Africa Albida has been a trickster, like the proverbial hare, but where is the credible Environment Impact Assessment Report? Who did it and where? Is the Environment Management Authority (EMA) in the loop and in approval? The tricks end here.

This villager, the son of the soil, will argue to eternity that the project is patronising to some corrupt senior Government officers in the Physical Planning Department and corridors of power, who have been seen supporting it without looking at its manipulative, destructive, unrealistic nature. Indeed, without looking into the future of our tourism. In short, this project will destroy Victoria Falls.

The exciting game drives will disappear, workers in that industry will be retrenched. Wildlife itself will be in captivity and not roaming wild and free. Blocked wildlife will spill into residential areas while looking for alternative routes to the drinking places on the Zambezi. It is a Eurocentric project that does not recognize the Afrocentric nature of the Victoria Falls.

The Government of Zimbabwe is very much aware of the need to preserve the Victoria Falls in its most natural state to the point where it has allocated itself land for a major tourism development project, far, far away from the Falls and the Zambezi River. And Africa Albida cannot read that?

Back in the village, elders with cotton tuft hair say, a famous animal does not fill the hunter’s basket. The wise create proverbs for fools to learn, not to repeat.