News / National
Muchinguri in Chiredzi as $0,5M worth of cattle are killed by wild animals
05 Sep 2016 at 16:33hrs | Views
The Minister of Environment, Water and Climate, Oppah Muchinguri Kashiri has expressed shock that 1 000 cattle with a value of around $500 000 were killed by wild animals in Chiredzi District between January and June this year.
Kashiri said this was a huge loss to the farmers and the country and there is need to quickly resolve the issue of human-wildlife conflict in the area.
However, Chiredzi District Administrator, Ndeya Nyede said the figure could be an understatement as many cattle that are killed by wild animals are not reported.
Kashiri directed owners of conservancies to fence off their areas and ordered illegal settlers to move out of conservancies as a measure to curb human-wildlife conflict.
The Minister was speaking at an all stakeholders meeting aimed at finding lasting solutions to human -wildlife conflict in the district held at South Eastern College last Friday. She said she receives reports daily from Parks and Wildlife Authority and it was appalling that communities were experiencing such big losses.
It was for that reason that she came back to Chiredzi a few months after another visit, she said.
She said there were two factors that contributed to the huge loss of cattle, conservancies were not fenced off and the issue of illegal settlers.
"I watch on TV and receive reports from Parks everyday that cattle are being killed by wild animals and since January 1000 have been killed so far. Calculate that with the price of cattle these days and you will see that we are losing millions of dollars.
"I am here to tell conservancy owners that we will not give them hunting quotas if they do not fence their areas, we cannot continue to have these loses," said Kashiri.
She however urged conservancies' owners not to fence off rivers and water sources which are not under their areas as this deprives villagers and their animals of water adding that she had received complaints to that effect.
"I am also the Minister responsible for rivers and I am ordering that no fence should cover rivers, wildlife farmers should find ways to take water from the river for their animals. If these conservancy owners don't have money they should tell us so that we increase animals on their hunting quotas to increase their revenue thereby enabling them to buy the fence," said Kashiri.
Kashiri said this was a huge loss to the farmers and the country and there is need to quickly resolve the issue of human-wildlife conflict in the area.
However, Chiredzi District Administrator, Ndeya Nyede said the figure could be an understatement as many cattle that are killed by wild animals are not reported.
Kashiri directed owners of conservancies to fence off their areas and ordered illegal settlers to move out of conservancies as a measure to curb human-wildlife conflict.
The Minister was speaking at an all stakeholders meeting aimed at finding lasting solutions to human -wildlife conflict in the district held at South Eastern College last Friday. She said she receives reports daily from Parks and Wildlife Authority and it was appalling that communities were experiencing such big losses.
It was for that reason that she came back to Chiredzi a few months after another visit, she said.
She said there were two factors that contributed to the huge loss of cattle, conservancies were not fenced off and the issue of illegal settlers.
"I watch on TV and receive reports from Parks everyday that cattle are being killed by wild animals and since January 1000 have been killed so far. Calculate that with the price of cattle these days and you will see that we are losing millions of dollars.
"I am here to tell conservancy owners that we will not give them hunting quotas if they do not fence their areas, we cannot continue to have these loses," said Kashiri.
She however urged conservancies' owners not to fence off rivers and water sources which are not under their areas as this deprives villagers and their animals of water adding that she had received complaints to that effect.
"I am also the Minister responsible for rivers and I am ordering that no fence should cover rivers, wildlife farmers should find ways to take water from the river for their animals. If these conservancy owners don't have money they should tell us so that we increase animals on their hunting quotas to increase their revenue thereby enabling them to buy the fence," said Kashiri.
Source - Masvingo Mirror
