Livingstone
Sven, a Danish citizen whose knowledge of the Zambezi below the Victoria Falls is legendary, is the person appointed by the Livingstone water rats industry to be its safety officer, marshalling the many rafts and canoes down what they tell me is the best bit of white water in the world. But he too has received one of those notices from the Immigration Department informing him that his self-employed permit has not been renewed because
‘his business is not viable’.
So Sven, who had made Livingstone his home, will be off, perhaps to Uganda where so many experienced Livingstone river rats have gone because of similar Immigration Department problems. In Uganda, apparently, they welcome the Livingstone fundis with open arms, issuing them immediately with five year, renewable work permits. And so the Livingstone industry declines, not helped by the fact that Zambia is very expensive, that they have just had ten days in Livingstone without water and are assailed by frequent attacks of power cut blight, the killing of the second last white rhino - its mate hiding away with a shattered leg and no means to perambulate in search of grazing here in the dry season, and the town being steadily destroyed by endless growling streams of mega trucks coming through the border. Reports from the river rats is that business is in decline and that their struggle with Immigration, with rapacious revenue collectors, with labour officers, makes them think of other more hospitable climes.
Mfuwe, Luangwa
A week ago a group of 27 residents went down to Mfuwe to visit the South Luangwa Park. They were advised to pay $30.00 each per day to enter the National Park. As one of the group had already been charged this fee some months back, he had armed himself with a copy of the page from SI 73 of 2004 (Statutory Instrument) which clearly states that for residents, 174 fee units at 180.0 per unit is payable. For three days they tried to enter the park and were refused entry at the legal fee because no one at ZAWA could confirm what the correct charges were. It appears that they were being charged according to the new SI not yet signed into law. They left Mfuwe without having entered the park.
It seems clear that, in addition to the Tourism and Hospitality bill before the National Assembly, which in the form I had studied and commented on over a year ago would have ensured that villagers could not join the tourism industry easily, a raft of long overdue SI’s are about to appear on the Government Gazette editor’s desk. These are regulations on prescribed fees, Game Management Areas, hunting, National Parks and game ranching, which have not been signed off by their respective stakeholders. One of these stakeholders writes: “The alarming part of this is that we have been asking for a copy of this draft for over 10 months. Many letters have been written to ZAWA and phone calls made yet it has been impossible to get anything. It is clear that there are things in the SI that ZAWA does not want to be known until it is too late. I have established that the fees for "residents" to enter National Parks are slated to go up substantially and it also looks like the reason the resident hunting quota for wetlands has not been sold is because these fees have gone up substantially also. What else is in it; who knows.”
The Kafue National Park
The bush telegraph delivered some further disquieting news: there is to be a large game capture exercise in the north, and a translocation to Liuwa Plain National Park. I hope that the Environmental Council of Zambia will insist on an EIA. We all remember the previous translocation, the effects of which are felt in the Kafue today. Has this Park not suffered enough?
