Dear All

My header was taken from Gorges Lodge in Zimbabwe. Notice the lone raft pottering down the river towards the rapid in the distance.

Many of the rapids have names as shown in this map by Zambezi.com. They are great names like The Washing Machine, Commercial Suicide and Overland Truck Eater.

The rafting and canoeing fraternity are making a lot of ‘noise’ on the internet about the proposed Batoka Dam which will see the drowning of this beautiful gorge and the end of whitewater rafting. I have reproduced an article later in the newsletter.

Mukuni Big 5

Mukuni Big 5 are sad that their calf died.

Basically, the calf died from a serious gall bladder infection caused by eating a specifi c poisonous plant only found by the Zambezi River. The Bladder was 3 times the normal size and unfortunately doesn’t exhibit any noticeable symptoms. Whether it was with its mum roaming free or in our care, the calf was going to die regardless. That’s mother nature and her choice of natural selection.This is the report we received from the Zambian Wildlife Authority Vet.

Tour D’Afrique

The Tour D’Afrique is a cycling expedition of 12,000 km down the length of Africa. It started in Cairo in January and will reach Cape Town in May. The journey takes them through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and fi nally to South Africa. This is the thirteenth year of the event. Along the route the participants donate bicycles to worthy causes. Over the 13 years of the expedition they have donated over 2,500 bicycles. Tour D’Afrique will be in Livingstone on 8 April. Please give them a cheer when they ride through town. They leave Livingstone on 11 April to Kazungula, down to Nata, then Maun.

Below are some pics from their website:

LIVINGSTONE

ZAMBIAZambezi River Authority

There was a meeting of the members of the Zambezi River Authority last week in Victoria Falls Town. The ZRA was jointly formed between Zambia and Zimbabwe to oversee the usage and care of the river.

It was decided at the meeting to limit the weight of vehicles crossing Kariba Dam Wall. The work on repairing the dam wall will commence in September this year. Interestingly, too, the ZRA informed the media that the Batoka Hydro Power Scheme will go ahead and that January 2016 is the date, hopefully, for its commencement ...

Gill Comment: What has happened to the ESIA??? Surely we should know their fi ndings fi rst????

Edible Oil Imports SuspendedZambia Weekly

Government has suspended import of edible oil with effect from 14 March 2015. The objective is to allow the Finance and Commerce Ministries as well as the Zambia Revenue Authority to study the impact of the import on the Zambian market, Minister of Agriculture and Livestock Given Lubinda stated. Traders predicted that the ban would lead to a shortage.According to Zambeef, Zambia consumes around 90,000 tonnes of cooking oil per year, but only 25,000 tonnes is produced locally, reported the Times of Zambia.

Gill Comment. I hope this does not include Olive Oil ...

MFEZ in LivingstoneZambia Weekly

Government intends to set up a Multi-Facility Economic Zone (MFEZ) in Livingstone.The aim is to boost economic activities in the tourism capital, after the provincial administration was moved from Livingstone to Choma. The MFEZ is somehow linked to the Triangle of Hope promoted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency. The Triangle of Hope is aimed at developing Zambia’s economy through trade and investment, utilising knowledge from Malaysia, which has overcome the economic problems faced by Zambia. It emphasises three forces as prerequisites for economic development, including political will, civil service effi ciency and private sector dynamism.Zambia has six existing MFEZs.

Lion Walks to be Discontinued

From a statement from Lion Encounter:

The Directors and Management of Lion Encounter have agreed to suspend lion walks in Livingstone as of November 2015, acting on recommendations by, and in consultation with, ALERT’s Executive Committee. The main objective of this decision is to reduce the number of lions entering into the African Lion Rehabilitation & Release into the Wild Programme, until lions have been successfully released into the wild from the Programme.

The decision, made in late February 2014, was advised to members of the African Lion Working Group the following month, and to the Zambia Wildlife Authority in October 2014, in accordance with the stipulations of the Tourism Concession Agreement under which Lion Encounter operates. A public announcement was delayed until nearer the effective date to enable Lion Encounter to put in place alternative strategies. These aim to provide job security to Lion Encounter’s staff, whilst continuing to raise fi nance to support the Release Programme, as well as ALERT’s broader conservation and community development programmes; many of which are operated in partnership with Lion Encounter.

Lion walks will continue in the immediate future at Lion Encounter Victoria Falls and at Antelope Park, but at a reduced level. Suspension of lion walks at these locations will also be considered in light of progress made on releasing lions over the next two years.

Two great photographs taken at Shentons Camp in Luangwa by Tony Mckeith

Batoka DamFrom www.canoekayak.com

Victoria Falls is one of the seven natural wonders of the world, a spectacular 1.8-kilometer-wide cascade of water plunging into a 108-meter chasm. The spectacle is so awe-inspiring it famously moved Scottish explorer Dr. David Livingstone to proclaim “scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their fl ight.” Known to the local Toka-leya people as Mosi-oa-Tunya, or “The Smoke That Thunders,” this UNESCO world heritage site situated on the international border between Zimbabwe and Zambia stands as a breathtaking gateway to the Batoka Gorge of the middle Zambezi–arguably the fi nest one-day whitewater rafting trip on the planet.

The fi rst descent of the Zambezi in the Batoka gorge took place in 1982 by Mountain Travel Sobek, on a trip that included a landmine disposal unit of the Zimbabwean National Army and a wave off from the then Zambian President Kenneth Kaunda. Since that trip the Zambezi has become an institution in the world of big water paddling, for commercial Class V rafting operations, as well as providing the ideal training and proving ground for whitewater paddling legends such as Steve Fisher, Alex Nicks, Nico Chassing, Pete Merideth and Stanford Ricketts, to name only a few.

Affectionately known as the “Slambezi” for its huge features, big fl ips on the run are the norm as opposed to the exception. From the 14,000 novice clients who raft the Zambezi commercially each year to professional kayakers, the river literally has something for everyone.

The quintessential Zambezi run is the one-day trip from Rapid One in the “Boiling Pot” to Rapid 25, access is straightforward along this stretch, with various entry and exit points, there is even a cable car at Rapid 25 on the Zambian side and a multitude of companies offer trips. Four- and seven-day expedition style trips offer exceptional, unbelievably scenic, isolated and remote wild camping on pristine beaches with some huge Class V whitewater thrown in for good measure.

Generally the river is relatively forgiving Class IV-V, with warm water and calm pools below the rapids. Intermediate kayakers with a solid roll (and the daring to give it a go) can easily navigate the day run.

Unfortunately, this unique World Heritage site is about to be fl ooded to provide hydroelectric power to the Southern African Power Pool (SAPP). Originally proposed in the 1970s, the fi rst attempts at damming the river in the 1990s wereheaded off by a strong ‘no’ vote from local communities and a political détente between Zimbabwe and Zambia, over the debt Zimbabwe had fallen into with a past dam project. Recently, a shift in the political landscape led to a decision to go ahead with the project, and the two governments signed a memorandum in February 2012. Now the social and environmental impact assessment studies are near completion, an unusually quick turn around for such a large-scale project. “It usually takes far longer to get large hydro projects rolling” said Rudo Sanyanga, the Africa program director for International Rivers.

The World Bank has been a key player in bringing together the two countries in signing this memorandum. Using an investment vehicle known as “Cooperation in International Waters in Africa” (CIWA), co-funded by the governments of Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom, the World Bank has funded the initial stages of the project to the tune of $6 million. (You may recognise CIWA from the dam controversy on the White Nile in Uganda; it is the same body.)

Since the memorandum, the companies conducting the Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) accompanied by the Zambezi River Authority have conducted two stakeholder meetings in Livingstone, Zambia, on the project.

The fi rst meeting held in October 2014 was absolute chaos; “It was glaringly obvious that the proponents of this project had no idea that anyone would attend, much less object,” said Cooper Freeman an international river guide who attended the meeting.

International pressure and incredulity at the fi rst meeting resulted in a second stakeholder meeting in January 2015, which was well organized and informative. The language of the consultants had changed, and the ESIA staff referred to the project as “the proposed Batoka Dam Hydro Electric Power Scheme” (previously the “proposed” part of the title had been omitted). Despite this, there was a strong sense that the proponents of the project are arrogantly confi dent that the project will be green lit.

If the environmental departments of Zimbabwe and Zambia approve the project, the Batoka Dam is scheduled to be completed and generating power by 2025. The ESIA staff indicated that the project is already behind schedule.

The dam will require a 176-meter radial impoundment wall to be located at Chabango Falls approximately 50 kilometers from the Victoria Falls. On a maximum power generation policy the water will fl ood the gorge back to Rapid Six. This level is referred to as the 757-meter contour line. A potential compromise is to allocate a lower contour line path known as 740-meter contour line, fl ooding back to Rapid 13 “The Mother”. This would theoretically allow a low-water rafting trip for some of the year. The second contour line option only appeared after the dam builders gauged the level of opposition to the project, but it doesn’t address most of the local tourism industry’s concerns as both levels will not allow sustainable, year-round rafting and will result in the fl ooding of a World Heritage site and the biodiverse Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park.

Livingstone’s tourism industry has been built on the back of the whitewater rafting industry. Rafting companies migrated from the Zimbabwean side of the river to the Zambian side in the early 90s to accommodate increased demand for the river trips. Currently there are twenty-three other activities offered, and the area is marketed as the “Adventure Capital” of Southern Africa. Since rafting employs thousands of local people directly and indirectly, the eradication of this industry will be economically catastrophic to the area as a whole.

What’s more, climate models call the dam’s very ability to produce consistent power into question. As Sanyanga explains, “Under future climate scenarios based on a 2012 study of the hydrological risks to hydropower dams on the Zambezi, the proposed Batoka Gorge Dam is unlikely to deliver the expected power over its lifetime”.

The dam’s construction will not employ unskilled labor from the local communities, and the Zambezi River Authority noted that as little as fourteen people could operate the entire dam. Additionally, the dam will not provide electricity to rural, local population as the power is purely for export to the Southern African Power Pool.

Any short-term revenues generated by the Batoka Dam would not make up for the loss of an existing, operating tourism industry–an industry acknowledged as Zambia’s third biggest contributor to the economy.

Local residents, NGOs and paddlers are continuing to lead the fi ght against this ill-conceived project. The Batoka Dam may be in the best interest of a wealthy few, but it is incredibly threatening to the well being of local communities. There are better ways to generate renewable power than the destruction of one of the world’s greatest whitewater wilderness rivers.

ZIMBABWEElephant Export

We all know that young elephants have been abducted from the wild in Hwange to be sold to foreign countries as exhibits in zoos (and goodness knows what else). Notably, China is on the list of recipients. Conservationists throughout the region (and the world) are shocked and horrifi ed that this sort of action can be condoned by the government of Zimbabwe, let alone encouraged. The fate of the present bunch of captured young elephants is unknown at the present time.

CITES: (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) is an international agreement between governments. Its aim is to ensure that international trade in specimens of wild animals and plants does not threaten their survival.

It seems that CITES does not have any law in place to stop this atrocity. The Zimbabwe government therefore intends to go ahead and has actually blamed the United States for banning the import of elephant ivory from hunts in Zimbabwe! They say that they have lost revenue and that the sale of the young elephants will compensate ... for their conservation projects ???? The mind boggles ...

In an article in News 24, Environment Minister Savior Kasukuwere, stated that there were 53,000 elephants in Hwange National Park. I looked up on the internet and estimates of the number of elephants in the park ranged from 20,000 to 40,000 except in one article in The Herald which stated there were 120,000 ... In actual fact, no-one really knows and ...

And, something which has always bothered me ... who owns the elephants which are in Zimbabwe? Between Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana there are no fences. The elephants have long migration routes which can take them to all three countries in one year. They move according to the knowledge of the older elephants who know where to fi nd food and water. They do not know about borders. Similarly we have had in the recent past at least one lion and some wild dogs which have crossed over into Zambia from Zimbabwe. Do these animals belong to Zimbabwe or Zambia? It seems to me that we need a new international law to protect wildlife which moves from one country to another and is known as an iconic species. Elephants, wild dogs, lions are all in need of protection and we need a law similar to the law which protects the Victoria Falls under UNESCO. Surely CITES can draw up a document which protects wildlife which moves from one country to another. No-one should own them. Our countries are merely custodians of them and their environment for the world. That’s what I think!

Sanyati-Hwange Biological Corridor

Last year the World Bank committed US$28.81million to the Sanyati-Hwange Corridor Project as a grant. From the World Bank information it is not quite clear what the corridor is supposed to achieve but I guess that it is to allow elephants to move between Hwange National Park and Matusadona/Chizarira. The project includes aspects of wildlife-human confl ict, forest protection.

In an article in The Herald we are told that US$5.6million had been released for the project. Environment, Water and Climate Minister Saviour Kasukuwere was there at the launch and re-iterated his stand that there were 53,000 elephants in Hwange and that the park only had a carrying capacity of 12,000. Again he informed the people that the sale of the young elephants was a result of sanctions by The West ... (This reminds me of a quote that if we say something often enough we begin to believe it ...)

The project has the support of World Wildlife Fund which will work with CAMPFIRE - Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources. CAMPFIRE was started in 1982 around Gonarezhou and ensured that communities around wildlife areas gained an income from hunting. It worked really well for many years; the communities did not go hungry and they were also able to build schools and clinics for their villages. CAMPFIRE is not working so well since the redistribution of land in Zimbabwe. The area of Tsholotsho, south of Hwange, was the home of the people who put cyanide in pools to kill the wildlife in Hwange – obviously they were hungry ...

It will be interesting to see how this project works and whether it does benefi t the communities. When the government utters negatives about elephants and Sanctions from The West it does not bode well for the project. It is The West that is giving the money ...

TWO RHINOS POACHED AT OL JOGI THREATEN THE SURVIVAL OF THE CONSERVANCY

(Posted 15th March 2015 reporting from the Mombasa Serena Resort & Spa)

Only a few hours ago was an article posted here about the renewed poaching in the Tsavo area of Kenya where over the past few days 7 elephant overall were killed for their tusks.No sooner was the article posted did messages arrive of a yet worse poaching case, where on the Ol Jogi Conservancy on the Laikipia Plains in Central Kenya two rhinos were killed for their horns.This is a repeat case on Ol Jogi where last year a ranger was killed in a gunfi ght with poachers in June and where four rhinos were poached in one single night a month later in July.The earlier article focused on the Kenya Wildlife Service and their struggle to make fi nancial ends meet, fi nd enough resources to add manpower and new equipment and this latest case seems to confi rm that the organization is not able to prevent such cases as with the elephant a few days ago and now the two rhinos.‘I know it is not legal but a shoot to kill policy would be a good start to give those criminals a dose of their own medicine’ said one regular Nairobi based source who passed on the bad news. He then continued: ‘There has been a lull for several months in poaching and it is of absolute importance that the government, KWS and the conservancies redouble security efforts. It is also high time that the conservancies are allowed to fl y drones to monitor in real time what is going on especially at night. Infrared sensors show movement of people and security teams can be deployed to ambush poachers and deal decisively with them. But with all the other trouble we have in Kenya we cannot afford to be seen abroad as a country where our rhinos and elephant are literally mowed down at will. Much of our business is wildlife based and without wildlife why would people come for safari?’.Another source however described government bodies as utterly complacent, reminding this correspondent that commitments were made last year to strengthen surveillance, monitoring, intelligence gathering and response tactics only to have within the space of 9 months a further two rhinos killed at the same location. Not long afterwards were the usual threat tactics employed by government talking of auditing the conservancies and pulling licenses if not found to work within guidelines and regulations, a threat rejected by most of the conservancies talked to at the time as baseless and ultimately the topic seemed to have returned to the bottom drawers of the bureaucrats who came up with the idea.At the time of going to press no comments were received from offi cial sources and much of Kenya is to this moment unaware of the incident with the mainstream media yet to write about it.

CONGO TURNS INTO THE ODD MAN OUT AMONG THE GTVC PARTNER COUNTRIES

(Posted 29th March 2015)The three day meeting last week in Kigali between the Greater Virunga Transboundary Cooperation countries failed to make progress towards the signing of a new treaty and close observers blamed the Congolese delegation for being the main obstacle to progress. Congo is already known in the wider Great Lakes region as a habitual spoiler, ever seeking to needle her neighbours and harbouring groups hostile to Rwanda and Uganda, intent to overthrow the respective governments and in the case of Rwanda relaunch another genocide round.The Congolese team arrived a day late when the other two partners in the GTVC had already started their meetings and then reportedly holed themselves up in separate rooms to discuss internal issues rather than engaging with their partners. GVTC staff reportedly tried to put a brave face to the alarming developments, one quoted as saying that the fact that all delegations were in Kigali was already progress of sorts, but unable to confi rm that an agreement towards a new gorilla conservation and protection treaty had been reached. Others tried to blame the limited time of the meeting for the lack of progress but in the past were three days more than enough to discuss contentious issues and map out a way forward.One other observer from Kigali squarely laid the blame on the Congolese delegation for what he said was a state of confusion and lack of preparedness for the Kigali meeting and for offending their hosts by turning up a day late.The Virunga massif is home to the last population of the mountain gorillas and spans across three countries, namely Rwanda, Uganda and Congo. While Rwanda and Uganda have made great strides in gorilla protection and to commercially exploit their populations of mountain gorillas for tourism purposes has Congo lagged behind largely for security reasons.The park, now under renewed threat of additional oil and mineral exploration and for being dissected even further to escape UNESCO sanctions – the park is a World Heritage Site – has been a roaming and staging area for militias. Park staff have in fact in the past died in both cross fi re and through targeted attacks, having tourists largely stay away from tracking on the Congolese side for reasons of insecurity.Congo oh Congo, when will you ever come to your senses?

EAST AFRICA NEWS FROM WOLFGANG THOME

Climate Change in ChinaFrom the BBC

Climate change could have a “huge impact” on China, reducing crop yields and harming the environment, the country’s top weather scientist has warned, in a rare offi cial admission.Zheng Guogang told Xinhua news agency that climate change could be a “serious threat” to big infrastructure projects. He said temperature rises in China were already higher than global averages.

China, the world’s biggest polluter, has said its emissions of gases that cause climate change will peak by 2030. How-ever, the country has not set a specifi c target for cutting emissions of the gases, mainly carbon dioxide.

Mr Zheng, the head of China’s meteorological administration, said warming temperatures exposed his country to a grow-ing “risk of climate change and climate disasters”. He said temperature rises in China had already been higher than the global average for the past century.

These are rare admissions from a Chinese offi cial, BBC Asia analyst Michael Bristow says.

China’s leaders have acknowledged the damage from global warming but they usually do not lay out the full scale of the problems.

Mr Zheng warned of more droughts, rainstorms, and higher temperatures, which would threaten river fl ows and harvests, as well as major infrastructure projects such as the Three Gorges Dam. He urged China to pursue a lower-carbon future.

“To face the challenges from past and future climate change, we must respect nature and live in harmony with it,” the Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying.“We must promote the idea of nature and emphasise climate security.” ...

Gill Comment: Considering that Chinese companies are all over the world cutting down forests (especially in Africa) we need their government to put an end to supporting these companies ...

OTHER STUFF

Forest RestorationEnvironmental News Service

BONN, Germany, March 23, 2015 (ENS) – New forest restoration initiatives were announced by Latin America, Southeast Asia and Africa at the second international Bonn Challenge conference on forest landscape restoration taking place in Germany on the weekend.

With these announcements, a total of 61.9 million hectares have been contributed to the Bonn Challenge – a global movement to restore 150 million hectares of degraded and deforested land by 2020.

The conference brought together environment ministers and government representatives from China, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Guatemala, Indonesia, Liberia, Republic of Korea, Sweden and the United States, along with representatives from key donor countries, such as Germany and Norway, business leaders and nature conservation organizations.

To mark the International Day of Forests, proclaimed by the United Nations on March 21, the Bonn Challenge participants planted a maple tree together as a symbol of their joint efforts.

The Bonn Challenge was launched in 2011 at an event co-hosted by Germany and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, IUCN. It was endorsed at the 2014 Climate Summit and supplemented by the New York Declaration on Forests with a goal to restore an additional 200 million hectares by 2030.

According to IUCN, achieving the 150 million hectare challenge could bring more than US$85 billion per year to local and national economies and US$6 billion in additional crop yields. ....

Gill Comment: I can see Ethiopia and Liberia are part of this project. Where are we????

Have a good two weeks

Gill

EXCHANGE RATES

US$1 K7.60

P9.98

Nam$12.12

WEATHER

Min Temp Max Temp

20°C 25°C

I found this website: Africa Gag. Funny photos for Africa. This one is named: Too much sun in the air.

THE SMILE

After thinking that our rains had gone, we are in the middle of a load of drizzle. It won’t do much for the crops which have long-ago died but it may do something for the water table.