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I wonder whom owned or developed these resorts previously ???

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Authority to Commercialise

The Herald (Harare)

March 4, 2005

Harare

THE Parks and Wildlife Management Authority has embarked on an ambitious commercialisation drive aimed at reorienting its operations towards profitability.

The authority said it has already embarked on intensive staff training and restructuring aimed at identifying profitable investment projects.

"The authority will this year focus on training (staff), equipment and conservation of natural resources balancing it with commercialisation," said Dr Morris Mtsambiwa, the authority's director- general.

"As an organisation we will try to balance the main objective of conservation alongside that of profit-making," he added.

The wildlife authority has set out to train more than 1 750 rangers countrywide to give impetus to its new commercialisation vision.

To that end, the first 35 rangers have already been trained and these graduated in the northern region on Tuesday this week. The rest are expected to have done so by July this year.

Investment projects to be implemented include leasing of parks lodges and photographic sites as well as sales of wildlife. Entrance fees would also be raised.

"Lodges and photographic sites of interest in Gonarezhou, Chizarira, Hwange and other places will be leased to individuals to generate foreign currency. "Animals will also be sold to people in local and foreign currency and entrance fees will be hiked to enable the organisation to refurbish some of its lodges," said Dr Mtsambiwa.

In the past the authority, formerly the Department National Parks and Wildlife Management, experienced massive poaching resulting in the organisation losing thousands of animals, notably elephant and black rhino, and revenue amounting to billions of dollars.

The joint Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park that includes Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique is still struggling to take off on the Zimbabwean side as the authority was funding the project from its meagre resources.

Government allocated $1,2 billion to the authority to assist in the tripartite project but the money was used to develop roads and install electricity within its various Gonarezhou facilities.

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John aka NitroX

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Govt get out of our lives NOW!
"I love the smell of cordite in the morning."
"A Sharp spear needs no polish"