THE story of our natural resources in Zimbabwe and Africa never changes.
The script, with regards these resources, continues to read the same since time immemorial.
Africa is awash with highly valuable flora and fauna.
And the West continues to desire and come after these resources, brazenly and unashamedly.
In this edition, we write about the forthcoming Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) meeting where well-placed sources said the anti-international trade in ivory policy might be forced through at a meeting to be held later in the month.
Indeed the anti-trade and anti-hunting influences which still circulate around CITES is an extension of why the agency was founded in the first place — to protect ‘white world’ interests in the management of Africa’s wildlife resources.
It is time that Africa decides, on its own, what it must do with its animals.
Whatever CITES has decided has not been in the interest of Africa.
How can an organisation invest millions of dollars to shut down all Asian ivory markets?
Clearly the move is aimed at ensuring that Africa has no alternative markets for its vast ivory stocks.
It is time that Africa speaks with one voice that does not seek to please the West as far as managing its resources is concerned.
Itsitsi dzei tsvimborume kubvisa mwana wemvana madzihwa?
Why should a bunch of white people decide how we manage our elephants and other animals.
Prior to independence of our States, white hunters carted away tonnes of ivory and trophies that up-to-day adorn Western capitals.
But now that they cannot do so freely since we all attained independence, they are now enforcing unreasonable rules to stop us from benefitting from our animals.
Under the cover of a maze of legal documents and complex regulations that boggle the layman’s mind, Africa cannot make millions of dollars from its abundant animal resources.
For how long shall we continue to be economically suffocated by the West?
We should not be dictated to with regards how we manage and dispose of our animals.
It is the paternalistic attitude of the West that is disturbing.
How can the West celebrate the burning of our ivory stocks?
These are stocks, a majority of which comes from elephants and rhinos that have died of old age.
If these stocks are traded, money from the sales could go towards conservation programmes and improving communities that host these animals as well as reduce human-wildlife conflict.
Claims that legal wildlife trade continues to push thousands of species closer to extinction each year are unfounded as they offer no details nor any proof for this assertion.
Indeed, the goal may be to put the idea of banning wildlife trade out there so it doesn’t seem so radical or outlandish when it is pushed for keeps at the 19th CITES Conference of Parties in 2022.
The elephants and other resources are ours.
These belong to us and the West cannot dictate to us how we manage our resources on the surface of the land and below it.
Africa must unite and speak with one voice or lose out.