A MOSI-OA-TUNYA VIGNETTE

As a Livingstone City councillor for 8 years (declared redundant last week when the councils were dissolved) and resident of Livingstone for 26 years, I have been aware of developments with regard to the national park and the impact on the people of Livingstone.

In the 1980s, we used to take our children (also visitors, church youth group, etc.) for picnics by the Zambezi, sometimes near the Falls, or near Maramba River mouth and along Riverside Drive. We saw many Livingstone residents fishing to supplement their diet, especially at weekends. Riverside Drive was then outside the game park and we could watch the animals through the fence without having to pay to go in.
Then ZAWA decided that everyone fishing in a national park had to have a licence, which was valid for one week and obtainable only at their officenear the Falls. They started arresting all the Livingstone residents (mostly children) catching a few fish on a Saturday for home consumption.

Then the game park was extended to the river, depriving us of Riverside Drive and the picnic sites - you could go only if you had a car and could pay to go in and you were not allowed out of the car.

Then Sun hotels were built and cut off public access to the river above the Falls and the picnic sites that used to be there. But at least before the hotels were built, there were a number of public and stakeholder meetings in Livingstone where we could say what we thought about their plans. They submitted their plans to Council for approval before building started.

Subsequently they changed their plans and disregarded environmental agreements such as building close to the river, public access to the river frontage, and animal corridors. But at least we do not have the 12-storey hotel originally planned.

Then there was more development around Maramba River mouth, including Waterfront, which was built before any environment assessment or approval of plans by the council, and again is built right up to the water's edge. There is also development in other parts of the national park, but all supposedly justified on the grounds that there was previous development, such as at Maramba River Lodge, Susi and Chuma Lodge (for which council has just approved the plans, years after it was built) and Thorntree Lodge. Now there is David Livingstone Safari Lodge being built.

Meanwhile there were various studies on the national park, including a number of workshops which I attended, and reports and management plans produced (I have copies of some). We were told that a lot of development was to be moved out of the park, especially the ZESCO houses, and Council allocated a lot of housing plots in Livingstone to ZESCO to enable them to move their staff out, I don't know if any ZESCO houses have been demolished. Palm Grove School was to go, but is still there. So is the clinic, and both have staff houses. A farm which had been given out within the park (to the then Commissioner of Lands!) was to be reclaimed - but it now has a helicopter operator on it.

There was to be a buffer zone around the park, but people have been allowed to build right up to the fence (mostly illegal, but Council has failed to stop it) and more farms have been given out within the park and in the buffer zone.

When the World Bank funded SEED programme came, there were consultations about improving the national park, and we were told that the wholenational park was now to be game park, and electric fences were erected around the western part and the old game park fences were removed. This was badly done and the fences were not even electrified before the elephants demolished a lot of them.

We councillors were called to a workshop under SEED, to talk about resettlement, mainly concerning the residents of Imusho, a village in the western end of the park which had been there for many years. It was agreed that the people would be moved and compensated, to maintain the integrity of the park. Subsequently one group of them refused to move but their headman was taken by a crocodile.

In the last year we have heard rumours that ZAWA was giving out 7 or 9 hotel sites in the national park but nothing came officially to the council. We assumed that the area concerned would be the high land towards Mukuni. It was only recently that it came to light that they had given away the only remaining bit of river frontage available to the people of Livingstone and the animals. I hear they have also given away for another hotel the part where Imusho village was - where the people were moved out to make way for the national park!

I believe ZAWA has been told by government that they must be self-sustaining. Obviously they have decided that hotels have more value than animals and the environment and the local people, not to mention the future of tourism around the Falls.

The museum has also told it should be self-sustaining. Maybe they should sell off their valuable artifacts to other museums. Next will be the Forest Department, who will sell off all the trees. Then National Heritage, who will sell pieces of national monuments to American collectors.

I believe ZAWA has recently sold a lot of the animals from the game park without properly checking their numbers, and there are now not enough of some species to sustain the population.

Livingstone people need jobs, and we need tourism. But there is plenty of other land for building hotels, and as our historical Livingstone Golf Club has just undergone major renovations, we do not need another golf course.
This whole Legacy project has been done in secret, disregarding the interests of the 120,000 people of Livingstone, legal procedures and any consideration of the impact on our environment and the future of tourism in this area.
Margaret Whitehead