and by their very nature so does poaching. Additionally,
such schemes require that all participants be able to offer
the same standards of amenities and services and initially
these standards will be laid down consensually by all
parties. Zimbabwe’s big failure to date centres around land
invaders in Gonarezhou, and unless that matter is resolved,
Zimbabwe may very well be excluded from the project. It
would be a pity, because aside from the prestiges associated
with such a venture, the financial rewards from tourism
could be great.
in February of 2014, and the government evacuated several
thousand villagers from below the wall.
In actual fact, the much publicised “disaster” is virtually
insignificant. Despite reports of cracks on the dam wall,
Champions Insurance operations director Munyaradzi
Kativhu said the dam wall was not collapsing but a huge
volume of water forced itself through the dam wall that is
still under construction. “We carried out a risk management
analysis and the dam wall is not collapsing. The dam wall
was built through compacting rocks and these rocks have
not been plastered. So the floods were caused by huge
volumes of water which percolated through the dam wall.”
There has been much speculation in the news recently
about what fate has in store for the Tokwe Mukorsi Dam,
which is a concrete-face rock-fill dam on the Tokwe
River near Masvingo. Construction on the hydroelectric
dam which is slated to contain almost two million cubic
metres of water was started in 1998 and underwent a hiatus
between 2008 and 2011. Heavy flooding in February 2014
caused a partial failure on the downstream face of the dam
I J Larivers
On Target
Dear Editor
Can anyone ID where these elephants
were taken - either by the people in the
photos, the elephant or maybe even
the habitat? A friend of mine says a
company registered in Mexico was
claiming they were shot in the northern
Uganda/South Sudan border region,
while offering safaris in this region
before the latest conflict broke out.
Andre DeGeorges
USA
The company that I’m sure he’s referring
to is Bahr El Jebel Safaris S.A. de C.V,
whose web site is http://www.bahr-eljebel-safaris.com/.
I have recently been in contact with them
about safari operators in that region,
and also trying to find out what happened
to the old Nile Safaris, and they have said
that they have suspended operations as
a result of the current conflict, but were
very helpful.
I was in that area some thirty years
ago, and the bush in some of the photos
doesn’t look quite right, but I am not
sure about that after all this time. What I
would find really amazing about animals
that size coming out of that area is
African Hunter Vol. 19 No. 4
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that animals that size came out of that
area! Going up the Nile on a riverboat
in 1983 we came under sporadic small
arms fire, and although construction on
the Jonglei Canal was still ongoing, that
was the start of the civil war in Sudan.
I find it hard to believe that tuskers like
that could have survived three decades
of lawlessness and poaching. Glance
further South and you come to Gulu
in northern Uganda, which is Joseph
Kony’s Lord’s Resistance Army territory,
and they openly acknowledge ivory
poaching to support their war effort.
Though I don’t want to suggest that the
photos are in any way not what they
represent, and no one would be happier
than I should animals like that still
survive in that region.
The question of ‘when’ also comes to
mind, though the photos look digital.
I think your friend’s best bet would
be to post the query on the Accurate
Reloading website, as it’s probably the
most encyclopaedic source of that kind
of information there is. He will probably
hear back from the hunters themselves.
And on another note, does anyone out
there have any information on whatever
became of Nile Safaris? - Editor
Dear Editor
Recently, from the Reserve Bank:
[email protected]
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