Sindisa Foundation - Save Heal Protect
Donations and Funding
The Expedition Diary
At a General Meeting of the Save Valley Conservancy (SVC) on Friday 17th October, the Conservancy formally agreed to support the establishment of the Leadwood Institute and have requested Sindisa to assist by facilitating its planning, registration and funding. A 100ha site leased by the SVC from one of the Conservancy members for 30 years has been made available for the same period.
The Institute aims to initiate and support projects within the Zimbabwe section of the Greater Limpopo Trans Frontier Conservation Area under four programmes. These programmes include environmental education, vocational training, research and conservation and natural resource based rural development.
The planning of the facility has been well advanced during my recent visits - a bit premature perhaps given the political issues, but it now allows us to prepare funding applications for the means to develop the facilities and to establish partnerships with academic and other organisations. We can now also become directly involved in supporting specific projects from wild dog conservation to rural community land-use planning.
To that end I shall be based in the UK for the month of November. If anyone would like to meet to discuss the Zimbabwe and Namibia programmes, please do drop me a line or call me on my UK mobile and I shall be happy to do so.
The Ministry of Environment and Tourism in Namibia have begun the process of reviewing the National Rhino Conservation Strategy - a process which they hope will be completed early in 2009. Nevertheless, the black rhino conservation efforts continue unabated with some final moves, for this year, of animals due to take place in the next few weeks.
Everyone involved in wildlife conservation in southern Africa is worried by the surge in poaching on rhino over the last two years. Although Namibia has been relatively unaffected so far, they are doing everything possible to improve their security systems.
Zimbabwe, on the other hand, has not been so lucky. The SVC, which was a highly successful black rhino conservation project, is now in the thick of it. A number of rhino have been lost in the last two years with the majority in the last six months. This poaching is undoubtedly orchestrated from a high level within the country and the current national law enforcement and justice systems are part of the problem. An urgent effort to raise the funds to engage professional legal help and to upgrade the privately funded anti-poaching effort has been launched.
Within the SVC general poaching is also at a high level, driven in many cases by poverty and the lack of food in the country. Unfortunately much of it is done with snares and is thus indiscriminate and wasteful. The result is that species like wild dog are losing ground. The solution is not just in increased anti-poaching but has to be more directed towards finding viable alternatives and education for the people surrounding protected areas. That is what the Leadwood Institute about - positive, holistic conservation and development.
Monday 17th November
News just in from Save Valley is that two more rhino were poached last week and the need to initiate the rhino anti-poaching unit is now critical. I am in the UK to review and extend the Sindisa administration and fund raising effort. Finding funds to help meet the immediate threat to rhino in the SVC has become a priority.
Donations can now be made ONLINE by going to our secure donations site www.justgiving.com/sindisa or www.justgiving.com/saverhino.
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