The Livingstone experience
Ryder Gabathuse | Monday June 10, 2024 06:00
LIVINGSTONE, ZAMBIA: So, I shared my ill-fated experience with a friend back home (Mmamokete Molefhe) how incessant power outages were disruptive with their 10-hour blackouts that we experienced. A prompt riposte from Molefhe came in through a WhatsApp conversation: ”Sometimes travelling to some of the neighbouring countries could leave you thanking your own country for the good uninterrupted services like electricity and others.” “Thank your country!” the messages were duplicated thoughtfully, in case I had missed them. I couldn’t agree more in the end.
Power outagesWhat the unremitting power outages meant was that when we arrived at our lodging at Trenchtown Guest House around 18:00 hours from the Summit venue at the plush Avani Hotel with colleague Sunday Standard editor and publisher, Outsa Mokone (and other government officials who were also with us), we were diametrically crippled and could not work after hours as power would only return the next morning at around 04:00 hours or so. Sometimes we would wake up in the wee hours tormented by darkness, which compelled us to use our mobile phones to provide the requisite lighting as we prepared for the inaugural Heads of State Summit, almost daily during our stay. Tuesday morning after one of the longest power outages, I found myself under a cold shower, as I could not attend the Summit without bathing. It was tortuous.
This is a city that competes with others within the Kavango Zambezi Trans Frontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), which comprises five countries of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. And, in a dog-eat-dog competitive world, Zambia is set to suffer if the energy problem persists as tourism, which employs a good number of people and a foreign exchange earner, just like other industries, is powered amongst others by a stable supply of electricity.
It was the Zambian Minister of Tourism, Rodney Sikumba, who summed up the dire situation his country finds itself in especially as a result of the El Nino, which has resulted in the Kariba Dam, the source of the country’s hydro-powered electricity supplies suffocating. Water levels at the Dam, according to Sikumba have plummeted and without further inflows into the dam, the situation is destined to get worse and further cripple many sectors due to energy deficiencies. He was even worried about the looming food crisis in the region as a result of the poor rains, which the Heads of State and government in SADC recently discussed and duly declared. He bemoaned that 2.2 million hectares of grains planted was lost as a result of the El Nino effects.
The Zambian story was so sad that due to the effects of El Nino, which has created crisis around energy and food provision, Zambia is struggling to provide sufficient energy due to recent poor rains.
TourismThe city of Livingstone is Zambia’s tourism hub and also a UNESCO Heritage site along the Zambezi River known as Victoria Falls or Mosi-oa-Tunya in the local language.
Amidst the shriek noise of birds of the Zambezi River as they reconnected with their nestlings and fledglings after a hard day’s pursuit for feed and the relaxing sounds of a somewhat pregnant Zambezi River, a young bartender who was setting up some space near the river bank opened up a conversation on the best site for the falls. She claimed the Zambian site was actually akin to the face of a woman whilst the Zimbabwe side was the back of a woman. Her contention was that Zambia had the best site.
All in all, the Zambezi River was a marvel to watch with its picturesque. Just a stone’s throw from our site, where we snapped ourselves, a beautiful bird was flapping its wings in its endeavour to catch a fly from the blossoming flowers of the reeds that seemingly danced as a soft breeze shook their green leaves and white flowers side by side. It was the beauty of nature at its best.
Mokone and I found a young hotelier giving a biased analysis to Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana (HATAB) CEO, Lilly Rakorong and Professor Joyce Lupetu, of the Botswana University of Agriculture and Natural Resources (BUAN). This debate would later on a Friday form part of the speech of the host Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema as part of his Summit address. The Zambian helmsman and his Zimbabwean counterpart, Emmerson Mnangagwa, had had lighter talks on a similar subject.
As for the inaugural Heads of State Summit, it has come and gone. It was held under the theme: “Leveraging KAZA’s national capital and cultural heritage resources as catalysts for inclusive socio-economic development of the eco-region.”From the conversations at the Summit, Botswana’s standing position with the largest population of elephants in the world, which exceeds 150, 000 including the country’s southern and central parts, which are not in the KAZA area, was reiterated. Botswana’s areas in KAZA still stand out with an elephant population exceeding 130, 000.
Whilst the elephant populations formed the bulk of the discussions, this time around, talks deliberately shifted to communities sharing the space with wild animals. Since KAZA has an estimated population of 2.7 million, what stood out were challenges to wildlife and humans as they compete for limited resources in the semi-arid landscape.
KAZA treatyThe KAZA treaty was signed by five countries in 2011 amongst others with the notion of maintaining and managing the shared natural and cultural heritage resources and bio-diversity of the KAZA to support health and viable populations of wildlife species.
Sustainable use of resourcesOf all the topics discussed, proper use of wildlife in a sustainable way was a hot potato. Whilst countries seemed committed to the cause, some dissenters felt that there was no way the topic could be done justice without the communities themselves articulating their issues of concern.
Marco Pani from Conservation Force, an Italy-based outfit that provides assistance on elephant management plan and wildlife technical documents, held a view that community-based conservation should be a priority. He was concerned that NGOs were eroding the space of the communities. The Italian-based consultant feels the poor rural-based communities should have benefits from sustainable use of wildlife. He was also elated that Botswana was improving in terms of Community-Based National Resource Management, which has been improved through a new legislation that is going to Parliament soon.
The conspicuous absence of communities from a table of discussions, according to Pani, would leave officials trying to take the praise of the communities. He was insistent that good discussions would give more space to the communities. To him, it was also important to develop a framework within the trans-boundary area for the movement of the people and not necessarily of elephants. Emphasis was made for the KAZA region to uniformly come out with policies and legislation that will leave the communities completely in control.
Raising a concern, the Zambian President voiced out that whilst there were no problems with them culling the trees within the KAZA area, it was deemed to be a problem when they cull the animals as a conservation method to control populations of certain species from growing out of control. He felt they should be left to do what is good for their countries and not necessarily the wishes of their sponsors.
UniVisa
The UniVIsa, which has been piloted in both Zambia and Zimbabwe, was also a topical issue that was discussed to determine its advantages and disadvantages. Statistics were provided denoting that in the piloted countries, records show that 29, 000 and 179, 000 travellers from Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively utilised the UniVisa. It was agreed that the piloting exercise was bearing fruit.
Politics around the UniVisa amongst others was that with Zimbabwe having placed a good number of countries on the Visa requirement, it could not help tourists from the West in particular to enjoy visiting the country as they wish, as they will obviously be subjected to multiple visa requirements to enter the KAZA areas. There was also an issue of revenue collection model with claims that it is the first area of entry that benefits mostly from the entry visa than other secondary states as they only enjoy crumbs.
Some members of the Botswana technical team had issues with the regime of revenue collection in the piloted countries, which they feared was cumbersome and strongly advocated for a polished model favourable to all the five states.
Road infrastructure was another concern that countries have to contend with especially after it was noticed that some countries still have bad roads especially for self-driven travellers. Even some airports apparently do not have capacities to manage large inflows of travellers.
Some Batswana Summit delegates were also worried that some neighbouring countries kept travellers to themselves to the extent that the country only gets crumbs especially when tourists are driven into the game parks during the day with packed meals and others only to do short stays and back. Their contention was that Botswana game parks offered irresistible game viewing and the country has to enjoy more through accommodation bookings and meals as a full package.
There were also concerns about the situation in Angola, a country that post its liberation struggle found that part of the elephants range was infested with landmines, which makes life difficult for the wild animals. Of course, a lot is being done to try and demine some areas to make them accessible even by the wild animals.
MealsThe city of Livingstone has limited eateries especially for lovers of your Chicken Licken, Nandos, and KFC amongst others, which are popular in Botswana. Hungry Lion came out as the main chicken outlet. Of course, there are hotels of various standards where one can enjoy a meal, albeit not everyone can afford a meal at a hotel.
StampedeThere was a near stampede situation at the entrance of the Zebras conference hall at the Avani Hotel when media practitioners from Botswana especially got a shocker that even though we had all accredited with KAZA secretariat, the Zambian authorities did not have anyone of us on their lists of accredited journalists, which moved Botswana’s Deputy Permanent Secretary (Information and Broadcasting), Oshinka Tsiang, seething with anger. Tsiang defied even the armed security men who manned the screening machine at the entrance by pushing for all Botswana journalists into the hall, whether they were on the list or not.
If it were not for him, the man we popularly addressed as Mokwena, none of us would have really covered the Heads of State on Friday. At one stage, I saw Setshege Baruti, Botswana Television camera operator attempting to push and shove through the melee but the weight of his equipment forced him out of the stampede. He was then followed by Deputy Press Secretary at the Office of the President with his broadcast equipment lifted high and he could not break even with the Zambian woman who was evidently in charge shouting that anyone who was not on the list must go back. Tsiang insisted he wanted his men into the hall. He would later win the fight. And his triumph was indeed a win for the press.
Tsiang’s quick analysis of the situation was that, “the Zambians were trying to control the narrative of the coverage of the Summit by denying Botswana media from covering the event.” The Zambian female officer who had a list of delegates tried hard to prevent us from entering the conference, but could not win the game against Tsiang. The stampede was not even good in this era of post-COVID-19 as cases of the virus are reportedly rising.
“You probably do not have an idea of the politics that is playing itself at the entrance. “These Zambian colleagues started off by delaying issuance of the press cards and now our names are missing from their lists, this is deliberate and an attempt to deny you coverage,” a visibly flustered Tsiang told journalists from Botswana. He really saved our day just when we were on the verge of abandoning the coverage out of frustration.
But, the group that took the beating the most was the donors and partners who mostly funded the inaugural KAZA Heads of State Summit. They were told to their faces that if they ever thought they were going to control the narrative of the Trans Frontier Conservation Area, it was unfortunate for them.
Sponsors on the Summit included amongst others German Cooperation, African Parks, Peace Parks Foundation, European Union, WWF, Panthers, The Nature Conservancy, GIZ, KFW, IFAW and ZANACO.