David Gleason, former Chairman of WECSZ, slates Legacy in his weekly column..www.gleasontorque.com

Anything for money
4 December 2007

Readers will recall that I wrote some months ago about the travesty being visited on the Victoria Falls and Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park by Bart Dorrestein and his Legacy Hotels Group. He brushed this aside in a particularly one-sided radio interview.

But it hasn’t gone away. In fact, it has escalated. The London newspaper The Times carried the story under the headline “Victoria Falls hotel fury” (December 2) and highlights concerns expressed by UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee. It met two weeks ago and is expected to issue a statement after the Zambian government makes its own position known, expected to be around December 15. Unless there is a sharp reversal of the policies the Zambians have pursued, the chances must be good that the much-prized and long sought after World Heritage status will be removed.

What exactly is at stake here? The Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park is tiny. It is about 6km from the main Victoria Falls and falls across pathways traditionally used by elephant herds on their way to the river. The Park has World Heritage status.

Dorrestein and Legacy plan to build two five-star hotels on 220ha of park land, along with a golf course and 400-odd cluster homes. Offered land further away, they turned down the alternative.

An Environmental Impact Assessment study has been carried out by Legacy. Guess what – it was headed by one R Mushinge, a director and shareholder of Legacy (I presume Legacy’s Zambian company). Mushinge also happens to be the brother of the Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) official who issued the lease to Legacy. Intriguingly, the EIA says bluntly that the natural vegetation on the 220ha site will be removed and that there will be “irreversible ecological damage.”

What kind of crap is this? I really do not understand how Dorrestein can lend his name and that of his company to dealings of this kind.

Little wonder then that The Times reports that seven UK African specialist travel companies and organisations have signed up to a boycott of the Legacy hotel chain. “The travel industry must get together to protest,” said Amanda Marks, MD of Tribes [a specialist African travel company]. “If we do not, it will set a dangerous precedent in Africa.”

The Times reports that a number of tour operators are refusing to send clients to Legacy’s 21 African properties. According to Andrew Anderson of travel firm African Insight, quoted by The Times: “We cannot support the principles of responsible tourism and still be seen to be doing business with the Legacy Group.”  

It is the relationship between Legacy and the Zambian wildlife institution ZAWA that needs to be investigated. In fact, what has been happening in Zambia is nothing short of a maelstrom of ineptitude, incompetence, inefficiency and corruption.

Between 1973 and 2002 more than 20 000 rhino were killed for their horns. That’s almost the country’s entire rhino population. Between 1994 and 2002, when millions of dollars were being invested by donors in conservation projects and the Norad-funded Luangwa Integrated Rural Development Project, about 23,5 tonnes of ivory – that’s 14 600 dead elephants by the way – were smuggled through Malawi and South Africa to Singapore. ZAWA, whose job is to protect and preserve the country’s natural wildlife, cannot, or so I understand, account for the department’s finances.

Dorrestein, who had the bald nerve to tell a Zambian public meeting that he likes to leave a lasting footprint, might like to consider just what kind of footprint this will be. I am particularly sad that a South African company, whose executives should know better, have allowed the greed motive to overwhelm them to such a degree.

It’s a disgusting story.