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Isdore Guvamombe
Since the Hwange Ecological Disaster announced itself with the death of more than 100 elephants through cyanide poisoning in September, the corporate world has swiftly moved in and made very meaningful contributions towards re-capacitating National Parks and Wildlife Management Authority.

It must be understood that National Parks is mandated through an Act of Parliament, with managing the country’s wildlife on private and Government land, making it a vital cog of the tourism and hospitality industry.

The thousands of tourists who throng Zimbabwe every year do not come here for the comfort of our hotels and lodges — there are plenty of those and extremely good ones too in Europe — they come here for our wildlife.

More than a decade of economic hiatus left service delivery at national parks teetering on the blink of collapse, giving poachers an advantage over ill-equipped rangers.

While Mbada Diamonds, Econet and others have made giant contributions, the Government itself needs to come up with very serious support from the fiscus because over reliance on donors is not sustainable.

Government needs to commit itself to re-kitting, re-tolling and reinvigorating national parks in order to teeth the organisation and enable it to sustainably manage the country’s wildlife resources. Enough support from the fiscus guarantees continuity in prgrammes and projects.

According to a joint national parks and World Bank needs assessment survey, national parks requires at least US$60 million to get back on track and deliver meaningfully.

Mbada Diamonds have donated more than 20 off-road vehicles and while that is a serious commitment by the diamond miners, by all imagined standards, the Government itself must translate the effort it showed in getting to the bottom of the cyanide poisoning through high level ministerial visits to Hwange, into tangible action.

As Finance Minister Cde Patrick Chinamasa does his national budget it is critical to implore him to seriously consider national parks in terms of fiscal support given that with increase sophistication in poaching, parks must be equipped to move with time and stand up measure for measure with the poaching syndicates.

Given that the Government has identified tourism as one of its four main pillars of economic national recovery, it places national parks in as very critical role in ensuring that the wildlife is managed for the benefit of the country.

The sustainable management means sustainable funding and the most reliable funding should come from the Government itself. The good thing about Government funding is that it does not have any strings attached.

Cyanide poisoning is the latest tactic being used by poachers and is more subtle than gun shots, making it compulsory to change the size of the area covered by a wildlife ranger. It also requires the use of the state-of-art tracking systems and Geographical Positioning Systems.