Latest news with #Hwange
Zawya
3 days ago
- Climate
- Zawya
Ingenuity helps Zimbabwe weather drought – and US aid cuts
Suanyanga villagers put up a water tank for a borehole that will be powered by a solar system. The Ilaja Permaculture Garden and solar system was donated to the community through a collaboration between Soft Foot Alliance, Painted Dog Conservation, and Mother Africa. 7 May 2025. Lungelo Ndhlovu/Thomson Reuters Foundation What's the context? Chicken wire, jars, sand and cement – how to harvest rain and survive Zimbabwe's new norm of drought Last year's drought hit harvests hard US aid cuts deepen challenge of climate change Zimbabwe seeks home-grown solutions to water shortages HWANGE – Last year, Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park fed villagers who were starved by drought with elephants they had culled to reduce overpopulation. This year, the nearby community of Mabale is banking on rain-harvesting to help locals grow enough food, using chicken wire, canvas and cement to get through the extreme weather that has become Zimbabwe's new norm. President Emmerson Mnangagwa declared a state of disaster last April because of the drought and climate experts say this kind of extreme weather is only going to get worse. 'Zimbabwe is a country highly affected by climate change, and looking ahead, science tells us that the situation is likely to become worse,' said Mattias Söderberg, global climate lead at DanChurchAid, a Danish humanitarian organisation. In 2024, Zimbabwe was hit by southern Africa's worst drought in 40 years. Harvests failed and water reserves dried up in a country where 70% of people rely on subsistence agriculture. The unprecedented drought was fuelled by El Niño, a climate phenomenon that can exacerbate drought or storms – weather that is made more likely by climate change. Last year, the United Nations said Zimbabwe was among 18 locations that risked a ' firestorm of hunger ' absent aid. But now aid has been heavily cut worldwide after President Donald Trump gutted the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) on taking office this year. U.S. funding supported a range of projects in Zimbabwe in agriculture, health and food security. The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has received termination notices for more than 100 programmes, with Africa the worst hit, a Rome-based spokesperson said via email. It couldn't come at a worse time for Zimbabwe, as it counts the cost of its latest drought – and readies for the next one. 'Without funding, important efforts to increase resilience, and to adapt to the effects of climate change, may never become reality,' Söderberg said. Layiza Mudima, a 49-year-old mother from Mapholisa village in Mabale, about 2 km (1.24 miles) northeast of the park, said her community was facing 'a severe water challenge'. A group of women collect water from a hand-dug well to irrigate their community garden in Suanyanga village. 7 May 2025. Lungelo Ndhlovu/Thomson Reuters Foundation. Around Hwange, last year's drought dried up the boreholes and waterholes, threatening wildlife in the park and depriving people in Mabale of drinking water. And although rainfall from December to February this year was normal or above, fallout from the last drought persists. 'Despite this year's rains, we had to close one of our boreholes,' Mudima said, explaining how water table levels were still very low. 'Because there are too many people in my village and not enough boreholes, people walk 5 km to a neighbouring village with a solar borehole,' she said, referring to a borehole pumped by solar power. Faced with these recurrent water crises, people in Hwange have started building rainwater tanks, helped by the Soft Foot Alliance, a community-based trust registered in Zimbabwe. Constance Ndaba, 75, who lives in Masikili Village 2, said the tank harvesting system saves her walking 2 km to the next village. 'For a family of seven, drinking water from the rainwater tank lasts us up to three months. I'm not sure when I last went to fetch water from a borehole.' Constance Ndaba poses next to a giant rainwater harvesting jar at her home in Masikili Village 2. The jar helps her family cope with water shortages when nearby boreholes and rivers run dry. 7 May 2025. Lungelo Ndhlovu/Thomson Reuters Foundation Self-sufficiency Rainwater is collected in giant jars made by moulding canvas and chicken wire around sand. A thin cement plaster fixes the form, then the inside is plastered. The jars are placed near house walls to collect run-off from the roof. Their simplicity makes for an easy upkeep – a key benefit in remote communities. 'We use chicken wire, plain wire, four bags of cement and 24 buckets of river sand which is locally available. To build the jar tank takes four days and it can collect up to five drums of water, which can last up to three months,' said Austin Nkomo, one of the builders of jar tanks based in Hwange. Msungwe Sithole, a creative facilitator at the Soft Foot Alliance, said the project aimed to build resilience to drought and help people live sustainably in a depleted landscape.
The Independent
18-05-2025
- The Independent
Zimbabwe has a deadly elephant problem
Capon Sibanda races against time, his bicycle a blur against the backdrop of Zimbabwe 's landscape. His mission: to warn villagers near Hwange National Park of approaching elephants. Armed with GPS-triggered alerts from a new tracking system, Sibanda disseminates warnings through WhatsApp groups and pedals to remote areas where phones and internet access are scarce. This innovative system, launched last year by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, tracks elephants fitted with GPS collars. The goal is simple but crucial: prevent dangerous encounters between humans and elephants. These encounters are becoming increasingly frequent as climate change exacerbates competition for dwindling resources like food and water. 'When we started it was more of a challenge, but it's becoming phenomenal,' said Sibanda, 29, one of the local volunteers trained to be community guardians. For generations, villagers banged pots, shouted or burned dung to drive away elephants. But worsening droughts and shrinking resources have pushed the animals to raid villages more often, destroying crops and infrastructure and sometimes injuring or killing people. Zimbabwe's elephant population is estimated at around 100,000, nearly double the land's capacity. The country hasn't culled elephants in close to four decades. That's because of pressure from wildlife conservation activists, and because the process is expensive, according to parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo. Conflicts between humans and wildlife such as elephants, lions and hyenas killed 18 people across the southern African country between January and April this year, forcing park authorities to kill 158 'trouble' animals during that period. 'Droughts are getting worse. The elephants devour the little that we harvest,' said Senzeni Sibanda, a local councilor and farmer, tending her tomato crop with cow dung manure in a community garden that also supports a school feeding program. Technology now supports the traditional tactics. Through the EarthRanger platform introduced by IFAW, authorities track collared elephants in real time. Maps show their proximity to the buffer zone — delineated on digital maps, not by fences — that separate the park and hunting concessions from community land. At a park restaurant one morning IFAW field operations manager Arnold Tshipa monitored moving icons on his laptop as he waited for breakfast. When an icon crossed a red line, signaling a breach, an alert pinged. 'We're going to be able to see the interactions between wildlife and people,' Tshipa said. 'This allows us to give more resources to particular areas." The system also logs incidents like crop damage or attacks on people and livestock by predators such as lions or hyenas and retaliatory attacks on wildlife by humans. It also tracks the location of community guardians like Capon Sibanda. 'Every time I wake up, I take my bike, I take my gadget and hit the road,' Sibanda said. He collects and stores data on his phone, usually with photos. 'Within a blink,' alerts go to rangers and villagers, he said. His commitment has earned admiration from locals, who sometimes gift him crops or meat. He also receives a monthly food allotment worth about $80 along with internet data. Parks agency director Edson Gandiwa said the platform ensures that 'conservation decisions are informed by robust scientific data.' Villagers like Senzeni Sibanda say the system is making a difference: 'We still bang pans, but now we get warnings in time and rangers react more quickly.' Still, frustration lingers. Sibanda has lost crops and water infrastructure to elephant raids and wants stronger action. 'Why aren't you culling them so that we benefit?' she asked. 'We have too many elephants anyway.' Her community, home to several hundred people, receives only a small share of annual trophy hunting revenues, roughly the value of one elephant or between $10,000 and $80,000, which goes toward water repairs or fencing. She wants a rise in Zimbabwe's hunting quota, which stands at 500 elephants per year, and her community's share increased. The elephant debate has made headlines. In September last year, activists protested after Zimbabwe and Namibia proposed slaughtering elephants to feed drought-stricken communities. Botswana 's then-president offered to gift 20,000 elephants to Germany, and the country's wildlife minister mock-suggested sending 10,000 to Hyde Park in the heart of London so Britons could 'have a taste of living alongside elephants.' Zimbabwe's collaring project may offer a way forward. Sixteen elephants, mostly matriarchs, have been fitted with GPS collars, allowing rangers to track entire herds by following their leaders. But Hwange holds about 45,000 elephants, and parks officials say it has capacity for 15,000. Project officials acknowledge a huge gap remains. In a recent collaring mission, a team of ecologists, vets, trackers and rangers identified a herd. A marksman darted the matriarch from a distance. After some tracking using a drone and a truck, team members fitted the collar, whose battery lasts between two and four years. Some collected blood samples. Rangers with rifles kept watch. Once the collar was secured, an antidote was administered, and the matriarch staggered off into the wild, flapping its ears. 'Every second counts,' said Kudzai Mapurisa, a parks agency veterinarian.
Arab News
16-05-2025
- Arab News
Zimbabwe is full of elephants and conflict with villagers is growing. A new approach hopes to help
HWANGE: When GPS-triggered alerts show an elephant herd heading toward villages near Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, Capon Sibanda springs into action. He posts warnings in WhatsApp groups before speeding off on his bicycle to inform nearby residents without phones or network access. The new system of tracking elephants wearing GPS collars was launched last year by the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It aims to prevent dangerous encounters between people and elephants, which are more frequent as climate change worsens competition for food and water. 'When we started it was more of a challenge, but it's becoming phenomenal,' said Sibanda, 29, one of the local volunteers trained to be community guardians. For generations, villagers banged pots, shouted or burned dung to drive away elephants. But worsening droughts and shrinking resources have pushed the animals to raid villages more often, destroying crops and infrastructure and sometimes injuring or killing people. Zimbabwe's elephant population is estimated at around 100,000, nearly double the land's capacity. The country hasn't culled elephants in close to four decades. That's because of pressure from wildlife conservation activists, and because the process is expensive, according to parks spokesman Tinashe Farawo. Conflicts between humans and wildlife such as elephants, lions and hyenas killed 18 people across the southern African country between January and April this year, forcing park authorities to kill 158 'trouble' animals during that period. 'Droughts are getting worse. The elephants devour the little that we harvest,' said Senzeni Sibanda, a local councilor and farmer, tending her tomato crop with cow dung manure in a community garden that also supports a school feeding program. Technology now supports the traditional tactics. Through the EarthRanger platform introduced by IFAW, authorities track collared elephants in real time. Maps show their proximity to the buffer zone — delineated on digital maps, not by fences — that separate the park and hunting concessions from community land. At a park restaurant one morning IFAW field operations manager Arnold Tshipa monitored moving icons on his laptop as he waited for breakfast. When an icon crossed a red line, signaling a breach, an alert pinged. 'We're going to be able to see the interactions between wildlife and people,' Tshipa said. 'This allows us to give more resources to particular areas." The system also logs incidents like crop damage or attacks on people and livestock by predators such as lions or hyenas and retaliatory attacks on wildlife by humans. It also tracks the location of community guardians like Capon Sibanda. 'Every time I wake up, I take my bike, I take my gadget and hit the road,' Sibanda said. He collects and stores data on his phone, usually with photos. 'Within a blink,' alerts go to rangers and villagers, he said. His commitment has earned admiration from locals, who sometimes gift him crops or meat. He also receives a monthly food allotment worth about $80 along with internet data. Parks agency director Edson Gandiwa said the platform ensures that 'conservation decisions are informed by robust scientific data.' Villagers like Senzeni Sibanda say the system is making a difference: 'We still bang pans, but now we get warnings in time and rangers react more quickly.' Still, frustration lingers. Sibanda has lost crops and water infrastructure to elephant raids and wants stronger action. 'Why aren't you culling them so that we benefit?' she asked. 'We have too many elephants anyway.' Her community, home to several hundred people, receives only a small share of annual trophy hunting revenues, roughly the value of one elephant or between $10,000 and $80,000, which goes toward water repairs or fencing. She wants a rise in Zimbabwe's hunting quota, which stands at 500 elephants per year, and her community's share increased. The elephant debate has made headlines. In September last year, activists protested after Zimbabwe and Namibia proposed slaughtering elephants to feed drought-stricken communities. Botswana's then-president offered to gift 20,000 elephants to Germany, and the country's wildlife minister mock-suggested sending 10,000 to Hyde Park in the heart of London so Britons could 'have a taste of living alongside elephants.' Zimbabwe's collaring project may offer a way forward. Sixteen elephants, mostly matriarchs, have been fitted with GPS collars, allowing rangers to track entire herds by following their leaders. But Hwange holds about 45,000 elephants, and parks officials say it has capacity for 15,000. Project officials acknowledge a huge gap remains. In a recent collaring mission, a team of ecologists, vets, trackers and rangers identified a herd. A marksman darted the matriarch from a distance. After some tracking using a drone and a truck, team members fitted the collar, whose battery lasts between two and four years. Some collected blood samples. Rangers with rifles kept watch. Once the collar was secured, an antidote was administered, and the matriarch staggered off into the wild, flapping its ears. 'Every second counts,' said Kudzai Mapurisa, a parks agency veterinarian.
