Dear All

My header is the car park at Mosi-oa-Tunya Square. It is now taxi-free. The taxis have to park on the roadside by the Catholic Church. This came about because of the taxi drivers unacceptable behaviour during the past few months when they were seen clogging up the car park.

Orphaned Elephant

On Monday a young elephant was seen by the fence at Sun International. It was rescued by the staff and taken to the stables where it was cared for. It appears that the orphan had been seen near Waterberry Lodge on the Friday and ZAWA had been called.

Eventually ZAWA found it. The orphan had been beaten on the back. They picked it up and took it to the Game Park and left it there with the intention of going back the next day. But when they returned the elephant had gone … and that was how it eventually found itself by Sun International.

Sun International did what they could. First call was to Clover at Elephant Trails who said she had an elephant baby bottle which they could use. Next call was to Rachel at Camp Phoenix, the elephant orphanage, who gave the instructions for mixing the milk formula. Rachel put one of her elephant keepers, Kelvin, on the bus immediately and he arrived the following morning.

The vet came and treated the gash on the elephant’s back. It was thought that the gash had been caused by an axe and had cut the nerves in the spinal cord. One back leg was being dragged around.

On Thursday Sport Beattie arrived with Harvey, their vet, on a Royal Air Charters flight. The orphaned elephant was tranquilised, rolled onto a cargo net and carried to the truck and then on to a flight to .

The chances of its survival are very slim. Although the latest updates is that the orphan is receiving physiotherapy and is responding well.

How many questions does this story raise? Plenty.

We are now in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. And yet we have villagers who obviously looked upon the young elephant as a source of food and tried to kill it. It is shocking that someone could kill an orphaned animal like an elephant; it is also illegal. We need an awareness campaign to sensitize villagers.

ZAWA initially rescued the elephant but, without permission from Chilanga, they could probably not do anything. (I once saw an impala in the park with a snare around its neck and half of a leg missing. It was in terrible pain. I went to the Scout at the gate and told him. He told me that he could do nothing without permission from Chilanga.) So I assume that it was the same story with the orphaned elephant.

The only way forward, as I see it, is for our parks to become public-private partnerships. Private enterprise does not suffer from government bureaucracy – if a job needs to be done, it is done without a mass of meetings and paperwork. Having said that, ZAWA does need to undo some of those bureaucratic knots – we are looking after wildlife not pieces of furniture.

ZAMBIA Domestic Tourism

The government is keen to promote domestic tourism but how is that going to happen? Domestic tourism can be either citizen or resident. Many residents visit the parks and go on holidays. So we need to look at citizens.

The other day I read an article in a newspaper about Kafue National Park. THE Kafue National Park is the largest in , covering an area of about 22,480 square kilometres. It is the second largest park in Africa and is home to more than 55 different species of animals. … “Kafue National Park is the oldest and largest national park in Zambia. It was proclaimed on April 28, 1950 by Government Notice Number 108 of 1950 under the Game Ordinance, Chapter 106 of the Laws of Zambia. Its National Park status was underlined on February 25, 1972 under the National Parks and Wildlife Act and the original proclamation was revised on April 16, 1993, in Statutory Instrument No. 58 of 1993 establishing it as National Park No. 11,” according to Zambia Wildlife Authority, 2010…. The article went on for ages about 2½ pages in the same vein … Absolutely no-one who reads the article is going to be enthused about a visit to Kafue National Park. So our first job is to get journalists into the parks so that they can write from the heart and not garbage that they regurgitate from stock articles.

The second, and biggest problem, is that most of our parks have lost their low-cost facilities. Most parks used to have camps like the ones in . But they have gone – they have all become ZAWA Camps. Notable examples are Lochinvar Lodge and Ngoma Lodge. I have met very few Zambians who will happily pile a tent into their car and go off into the bush. In fact, when I chat to friends they laugh at me and my trips. It is totally beyond their comprehension that I can pitch my tent in the middle of the bush and have a good time.

So, we need low-cost chalets to be constructed in the parks. The Wildlife Society has a few camps which are generally used by school children … from private schools …, but we need more.

Thirdly, the costing structure has to be revised. For years the rates have been ‘designed’ to maximize income. Residents are classed as ‘foreigners’ and are expected to pay more. Other countries put residents and citizens together which is much fairer. Residents live and work under the same economic conditions as citizens. There is no reason to class them differently. In fact, for us in Livingstone, residents tend to feel offended when we are expected to pay US$15 per person to go into the Mosi-oa-Tunya Park for a couple of hours. It is residents who are likely to bring ‘friends and family’ to Zambia to visit, so their appreciation of the parks has to be promoted by lower fees.

Mulobezi Railway

The Mulobezi Railway line was constructed in the early 1900s by Zambesi Sawmills. It was used to bring logs from the teak forests to Livingstone. Later, as an afterthought, it took passengers too. It was the longest private railway in the world.

At Independence the Zambian government took over the running of the line and it slowly collapsed through lack of maintenance. The trains which run along the lines often come off the rails and the journey of around 160 km takes, according to reports, about 2 days!

It is, though, an essential lifeline to the people who live in Mulobezi. The alternative to using the train is a long route on a dirt road – one road is seasonal, the other longer one is an all-year road.

Western Province is in the news recently with their calls for some attention to be taken of their plight. At Independence, Western Province was a rich part of Zambia, the Litunga ruling over a vast area. Barotseland, as it was called, became Western Province and joined Zambia with an agreement being drawn up called the Barotse Agreement. Mulobezi is in Western Province.

With this as a backdrop, Obvious Mwaliteta, Minister of Southern Province, went to have a look at the state of the railway line last week. He was accompanied by Mwenya Musenge, Deputy Minister of Transport, Works, Supply and Communications. They were not impressed. According to the report the railway line has been managed by a company, Larsons General Contractors Limited, which has been given K368 million (US$73,000) per year by government.

The Ministers took a ride on the train to see for themselves. I am wondering if they were told that the first stretch of the line has been rehabilitated by The Royal Livingstone Express. I expect so. They rode the train for 25 km so they would have experienced the good, the bad and probably the ugly too.

Let’s hope that the railway line is rehabilitated. Railways should be the cheapest and safest way of moving people and goods from one place to another and some African countries are finally getting to grips with the idea and actually constructing new routes.

The railway is just one aspect of life in Mulobezi. The town has little industry and therefore few jobs. I think that the sawmills is limping along, but I am not totally sure. In the past the railway was known as a conduit for bushmeat as the people poached in the nearby GMAs and National Park.

If the government is to look at the railway line, it needs to look at employment too. Although it won’t be a major employer, maybe tourism can provide jobs. In the past, a couple of steam trains have reached Mulobezi. The trains were full of international tourists but the ride was not good – steam trains need water and all the water depots along the line had gone. Anyhow, I feel sure that steam safaris to Mulobezi could work.

Mulobezi is now within KAZA. It is near to Sichifulo and Mulobezi Game Management Areas. Both of these areas a beautiful wildlife areas and could be used, not for hunting, but for photographic safaris. And, of course, Mulobezi is only 60 km from Kafue National Park.

The photos are some old ones of mine: Top: Bridge over the Ngwezi River, Middle: Mulobezi, Bottom: Sign to GMAs by the railway line. New Rhino in Mosi-oa-Tunya Park From Africa Wildlife Foundation

AWF celebrated a new arrival recently, with the birth of a white rhino in Zambia's Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. Less than three years ago, poachers had killed all but one of Zambia's rhinos so this is a major conservation milestone. AWF knows there's far more that needs to be done to combat the horrific rhino poaching epidemic that is plaguing Africa and that is why AWF has convened a high-level rhino summit this week—of wildlife authorities, NGOs, private reserves, and other important conservation players—to develop a comprehensive solution to the rhino crisis. We look forward to sharing outcomes from the summit soon.

Extreme Kayaker Prepares For The 'Seven Plummets' by Kraig Becker (RSS feed) on Apr 1st 2012 at 8:00AM

In mountaineering circles the Seven Summits refers to the tallest mountains on each of the seven continents and, over the past few decades, climbing those peaks has become quite the badge of honor in the adventure community. Now self-proclaimed extreme kayaker Bob "Gnarly" Goldstein has come up with a similar rite of passage for paddling sport that is equally challenging and dangerous. Goldstein says that he intends to paddle over the biggest waterfalls on each of the continents, an endeavor that he has dubbed "the Seven Plummets."

Goldstein claims he first came up with the idea while in Base Camp on Mt. Everest last spring. He was there attempting to become the first person to ride a mountain bike to the summit of the world's tallest peak – an attempt that ultimately ended in failure – when he heard other climbers discussing the Seven Summits. Intrigued with the concept, he never the less soon discovered that mountaineering might not be for him. "Turns out riding a bike up Everest is really hard," he says without a hint of humor in his voice. "I learned pretty quickly that it is much easier going down than up."

Defeated on the slopes of Everest, Bob returned home to Topeka, Kansas, where a new idea began to slowly germinate in his head. "I wanted to do something that combined my love for the outdoors with my natural talent for going down something," he explains. "This seemed like an obvious way to combine those two things and I'm looking forward to having gravity work in my favor this time." From that simple idea the concept of the Seven Plummets was born and Goldstein immediately began researching the biggest waterfalls on each of the continents. That list includes the massive Niagara Falls in North America, Iguazu Falls in South America and Victoria Falls in Africa. He also plans to take on Europe's Langfoss Falls, Jog Falls in Asia and Sutherland Falls in Oceania. "For some reason I haven't found the largest waterfall in Antarctica yet," Bob says, "I think it's because it hasn't been completely explored yet."

With his research complete, Bob set about gaining the skills that he would need for the successful completion of the Plummets. "I'd never even been in a kayak before," he says. "So I enrolled in a class down at the YMCA and learned to paddle in the pool." That led to some weekends out on the duck pond in his backyard where he further honed his abilities. "I've come a long way in a short time," he says. "I'm now quite comfortable paddling Class II waters. Class III if the wind isn't blowing too hard."

Bob is quick to point out that he is taking his training much more seriously than he did last year when he was preparing for Everest. Not only has he been spending time in his kayak, he's also hitting the gym at least two or three times a month and watching a lot of paddling videos on YouTube. "I've even switched to light beer!" he declares proudly.

In May, Goldstein will travel to upstate New York for his first challenge, the 165-foot drop over Niagara Falls. That's just a tuneup for what comes next, however. If he survives Niagara, he plans to go to Africa in June and take on Victoria Falls. That will be a staggering 355-foot drop. More than twice as high as the previous record kayak drop. From the Kasanka Trust Newsletter

With the arrival in November of our new project manager work has now started in earnest at Lavushi Manda National Park. A temporary base has been established at Africa Parks HQ in nearby Nkondo and great strides have been taken to upgrade the main access roads. Work starts soon on a permanent base within the park and a picturesque location for the park’s first campsite has been identified. Key stakeholder liaison is going well and we are already seeing a significant improvement in anti-poaching results.

Lavushi Manda’s new tractor hard at work grading existing roads We had another amazing bat migration at Kasanka this year. Things started a little quietly, with numbers being a little less than usual for October, but by mid-November we were back up to an estimated 8 million bats with the last bat not leaving until the new year. This is truly one of the world’s most spectacular wildlife events. …

The annual migration of straw-coloured bats haven’t been the only stars of the show in recent months with the Kasanka elephants making a determined effort to take top billing. It started with an elephant calf being born at Pontoon campsite early one morning in August. It is a rare privilege to witness such an event and the campers couldn’t quite believe their luck. One of our visitors was very misty eyed when she described the moment immediately after birth when the other elephants in the group gathered around to gently help the new arrival to its feet with their trunks. This maternal group plus an impressive looking pair of males have also been making regular visits to Wasa Lake, giving lodge guests some excellent sightings. They have also been making regular dawn and dusk appearances at the bat forest. It’s almost as if they are as amazed as us humans are by the sheer numbers of bats. It made for some great game viewing for our guests. …

To read the rest of the newsletter, go to: http://www.kasanka.com/frameset.htm

ZIMBABWE Africa Travel Association

The 37 th Annual World Congress will be held in Victoria Falls from May 18-22. The theme is Africa Tourism: Partnering for the Future.

Registration for the congress is now open. Go to: http://africatravelassociation.org/congress_reg.html

Chinese Cooperation

The Chinese government has signed an agreement worth US$180 million. The money will be used for economic and technical cooperation (US$5 million), an outside broadcasting van (US$715,000), neonatal equipment and the upgrading of Vic Falls airport (US$164 million).

The mind boggles at the outside broadcasting van! But, the point of the story is that the money is now available for the renovations at the airport. .

Problems for African Sun

Dawn Properties which owns some of the hotels which are managed by African Sun are becoming anxious about the rent payments due to them and are threatening to end the leases of the hotels if African Sun does not make moves to pay. The hotels are Hwange Safari Lodge, Holiday Inn Mutare, Carribea Bay Sun in Kariba, Elephant Hills Hotel, Crowne Plaza Monomotapa Hotel in Harare, Express Holiday Inn in Beitbridge and Troutbeck Hotel in Nyanga.

The matter has been taken to the courts.

NAMIBIA Response to my article about government billing Katima Mulilo

I had an issue with our “vat” office, I keep receiving letters stating that I have not done a vat return since 2009, I have penalties amounting to 2ml N$ because of this. I argued that I pay my vat returns and my husband’s vat returns on the same date, same office but he has no problems. I made a trip to Rundu to see the Deputy Director of Inland Revenue (who is new and has only been there for a couple of weeks); who according to the computer records she is looking at I do indeed have these outstanding returns, she pulls my file and low and behold what does she find! All my returns in the file since 2009 and none of them have been processed. Also what I noted was that there is not a single copy of my copies that I sent as proof was in the file. So yes, we have the same problems.

Ministry of Education gets a Boat

This is a rather confusing story as the Ministry of Education in Katima Mulilo has been given a 15-seater boat by government.

The government officials in Katima are very pleased with their new boat. Caprivi, as we know, suffers badly from floods from time to time and the boat will be used to help people during these times. I cannot, though, understand why it was given to the Ministry of Education. Subiya People in Caprivi

I found this interesting article about the Subiya people. We need to make more of our cultural history, so I print it for interest.

The incumbent Masubia tribal chief is His Royal Highness, Kisco Liswani III, who succeeded his elder brother, the late Chief Joshua Mutwa Moraliswani, and maintained Vwiikalo (Bukalo) as his royal capital.

Early Masubia-speaking people prided themselves on a culture originally known as "Bwinkuhane Bwetu" from along the entire eastern frontiers of the Caprivi Region from as far as Muyako and Mahundu along the Chobe River, sweeping across to Kalimbeza and Schuckmannsburg along the Zambezi plains to Kasika and Impalila Island.

Some Masubia people live across the borders of Namibia, both in Botswana and in villages along the Zambezi River in neighbouring Zambia.

In Botswana, the Masubia people are led and represented by Chief Moffat Maiba Nkokwena.

Chief Liswani III is known for appealing to the entire Masubia kingdom to always take good care of the historical memories, the senior citizens, as well as to cherishing the peace and tranquillity that the country is enjoying.

BOTSWANA Maun Flights

South African Airways (SAA) will from June 15 start a daily flight to Maun from Johannesburg.

THE END LOOMS FOR HUNTING From Ngami Times

The new hunting season in northern Botswana is likely to be the last – and next season will also be the final one for the Tuli Block and southern Botswana.

The government has banned hunting of wildlife, except apparently for elephants and on game farms, in favour of photographic safaris.

It will be losing millions of Pula as a result of the move through VAT payments, training levies, bed night fees, and trophy fees.

Hundreds of people – from hunters to safari employees and taxidermists – are expected to be out of work, and as a result it is widely anticipated that the economy of towns such as Maun and Kasane will be adversely affected.

The government will also no longer be issuing hunting quotas, which is one of the mainstays of rural communities. …

MOZAMBIQUE

Coal Transport on the Zambezi River

Mining companies tend to be a law unto themselves. Whatever they want, they seem to get. As I have reported previously, the Mozambique government is considering Rio Tinto’s proposal to barge coal from their mines upstream on the Zambezi to the coast. The Mozambique government has several concerns about the environment and wants to make sure that there will be no negative impacts.

However, in The Australian newspaper this week, there was an article about Rio Tinto’s plans:

RIO Tinto is sticking with plans to barge 3 million tonnes of coal a year down the Zambezi river from two mines in Mozambique by 2015 and to increase this to more than 20 million tonnes, despite reports the government there will not allow it. …

In presentation slides lodged on its website at the weekend, the mining giant has stuck with its plans for first production from its Zambeze coking coalmine in 2015. …

The slides made no mention of a reported rejection of Rio's plans to barge coal down the Zambezi on the grounds dredging could worsen flooding. Yesterday, a Melbourne-based spokesman for the Anglo- Australian miner said he could not comment on the slides or the Mozambique plans. …

WOLFGANG’S COLUMN

LOCALS ACCUSE TANAPA OF LAND GRABBING Locals between Tanga, via Mwambani to Pangani are up in arms since it became known that TANAPA is clandestinely scheming for the expansion of the Tanga Marine National Park right into the heart of Tanga before then incorporating swathes of inland locations, including villas and existing properties into a revised geographical area aimed to extort park entrance fees for anybody entering villages or residences or restaurants / resorts, be it family members, friends or acquaintances. Intriguingly this is happening at a time when the Tanzanian government seems hellbent to construct a new port inside the same marine national park, where the Coelacanth prehistoric fish has its habitat. No amount of logical argument has yet moved the cast in concrete position by government, which insists that the new port must be built inside the marine park, instead of expanding the existing port in Tanga, reportedly much underutilized. The new traffic axis between Tanga to Uganda – the two countries have signed an MoU just before Christmas last year to develop a rail corridor from Tanga to the Lake Victoria town of Musoma from where rail ferries would take the wagons across to Uganda – is to develop two ports, one in Mwambani / Indian Ocean and another in Musoma / Lake Victoria, linked by a standard gauge railway and a vaguely mentioned routing which could see the railway take the most direct route across the most sensitive and fragile part of the Serengeti, after also linking Lake Natron where a soda ash factory is planned.

Looking at the two developments side by side it would appear that the various organs of government are clearly either NOT talking to each other, or in a worst case scenario attempting to dupe the public into believing that a protected area exists while major construction would be planned inside the marine park with very likely devastating consequences. While that is more distant in the future, though going by government mouthpieces about to happen any time from now, the threat to the locals by TANAPA’s imperial ambitions to incorporate extra territorial land claims into their off shore marine park, is much more real. Said a regular reader and commenter in a direct message: ‘We have been told to apply in advance for any relatives, friends or acquaintances wishing to visit us or else they have to pay park entrance, even though they may not have the least interest of going down to the ocean itself or enter the present marina park. It smacks of desperation by TANAPA to extort money from the public. They claim there are not enough visitors to the marine park but that is all due to the constant rumours about a port being built right in the middle of it. In fact that is why no further tourist investments have come so far because if the area is spoiled by a harbour, there is no way tourists want to visit a national park here and therefore no big hotel groups will invest. But for now we are battling with a TANAPA gone wild, like they did last year when they held tourists and vehicles hostage at the northern parks trying to extort camp concession fees directly from tourists. It gave Tanzania a lot of very negative publicity and with Twitter and Facebook these days, tourists see something bad and it goes instantly on Twitter or they even take pictures of bad scenes and post them. There is no more hiding, it comes out like it or not. TANAPA has to sit down with stakeholders, not give 2 days notice of meetings and then try steamroll over everyone. They might do a lot of good about conservation somewhere else but here, they are the enemy number one now for trying to steal our land. Already the port area has displaced people with little or no adequate compensation, and now this? Where is it going to end, can government organs just decide behind closed doors about grabbing land rights and make our friends pay for visiting? This will go to court for sure and if the Tanzanian courts do not uphold the law, the East African Court of Justice will for sure.’ The dramas in Tanzania surrounding terrestrial national parks and now even marine national parks just never seem to end and it explains why so many questions about the current government’s commitment to uphold the principles of founding father Julius ‘Mwalimu’ Nyerere are circulating in the international arena and have brought vocal opposition to life like the ‘Stop the Serengeti Highway’ group on Facebook, which now is over 45.000 members strong, united in their desire to save the Serengeti from irreparable harm and destruction. Watch this space as a new front is opening up in Tanzania, beyond the already known hotspots in the Serengeti, Lake Natron, the Selous, the Eastern Arc Mountains and now the Coelacanth habitat.

OTHER STUFF Is this the next onslaught? From the National Wildlife Humane Society

Now that the world's wild tiger population has been reduced to fewer than 4,000, wildlife traffickers are turning to lion bones as a substitute in traditional Chinese medine and "wine". http://behindtheschemes.org/2012/03/31/increased-demand-for-lion-bones/

From PlanetSave

This week, tragedy struck in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, where a female rhino was killed for her horn.

The Himalayan Times reports that the rhino’s body was discovered in the western belt of the park, near the Sailimaili River.

It was the first time in more than a calendar year that a rhino was killed in Nepal.

No joke. Haven’t got any …

Have a good week

Gill