Zimbabwe: Don't Turn Victoria Falls Into Concrete Jungle

The Herald (Harare)

OPINION
January 24, 2007
Posted to the web January 24, 2007
Harare

THE Victoria Falls is Southern Africa's top tourist destination and there needs to be development near the falls to ensure that tourists are adequately catered for. But it must be emphasised that the day when the whole Falls area becomes a concrete jungle, and where nature takes a back seat to buildings and roads, the tourists will stop coming. After all, they have enough concrete jungles in their home countries, which explains why they travel thousands of kilometres for a glimpse of nature. Let us not forget that the Falls also lie on an international boundary. This means there will always be an element of rivalry between the two countries to see how they can get a fair share, or a little bit more than their neighbour when it comes to tourism dollars. No wonder the experts in both Zimbabwe and Zambia pressed so hard for the Falls to be registered as a World Heritage Site with Unesco.
Once that designation was won, the two countries would be forced to co-operate to retain the status. It is sad that since the day Zimbabwe and Zambia signed up with Unesco, the standards laid down and the requirements for maintaining the status have been ignored on both sides, or at least been very laxly enforced.

A Unesco team has returned, and neither country's planners have escaped the acid pen of the international experts. Of even greater concern was the placing on the back burner of a joint plan. Everyone agreed it was a good idea, everyone agreed it was vital, but no one actually seems to have started drawing it up. Now both countries have six months to do this. It will not be that difficult.

Everyone knows that development close to the Falls now has to be banned and that as much as possible has to be done to the south of Victoria Falls town on the Zimbabwe side and north of Livingstone on the Zambian side. This is what the two national plans already in existence already infer, and all that is really required is amalgamating them. In other words, the area between the existing zones of development must be left alone. At the same time there is need to create clearly demarcated zones of development so as to reduce the burden on the Falls.

Visitors coming to the Falls area can, after all, only spend a limited amount of time gazing at millions of litres of water cascading over a cliff. They want to round off their holiday with game viewing, fishing, boating, whitewater rafting, and having fun. There is no need for much of this activity to be done within sight or even sound of the Falls. Correctly planned, new development can dramatically increase tourism revenue while reducing human pressure on the area near the Falls. But a far larger area needs to be incorporated into the plans for this to be possible.

Both Zambia and Zimbabwe are aware of what is required of them and have both already started applying the brakes. Zimbabwe has suspended all development plans for some islands and Zambia has told a major hotel group that they have to dramatically reduce and modify plans for a new mega hotel. What is now required is a joint team of professionals to put together a sustainable development plan, one that can be extended and modified as time goes on. This plan will formalise and harmonise the existing national plans. It will also help identify which areas can be developed for the benefit of the tourism industry along the common border. Most importantly, the plan should ensure that the great falls remain one of the seven natural wonders of the world, rather than come to look like something in Las Vegas.