Tourism and Environment

Droughts or storms? The dire dilemma of Zimbabwe climate migrants

Published

4 years ago

September 17, 2021

BY ANDREW MAMBONDIYANI

A decade ago, Lloyd Gweshengwe migrated to Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands, lured by the region’s abundant rainfall, fertile soils and good grazing land for his livestock.

In the low-lying, parched areas of Gutaurare area in Manicaland province, where Gweshengwe used to live, rain-fed agriculture was longer sustainable.

Recurring droughts would frequently wiped out crops, while clean water sources would dry up.

At first, Gweshengwe was happy with his new life in the Eastern Highlands, where a more prolonged rainy season compared with other parts of the country favours various agricultural activities, including livestock farming and growing orchard and plantation crops.

“I had very good maize harvests here in the past years,” said Gweshengwe, a widowed father of two.

“I have been able to feed my family and sell the surplus food,” added the 38-year-old, one of the more than 20,000 people attracted to the rich highlands from other drier parts of the country during the past decade due to the effects of climate change.

But the dreams of a better life have been slowly turning into another nightmare for Gweshengwe and the other migrant farmers in the region amid increasingly frequent tropical storms and cyclones.

In 2019, Cyclone Idai pummelled the Eastern Highlands, killing more than 300 people, leaving thousands homeless and a trail of destruction.

Tropical Storm Chalane and Cyclone Eloise hit parts of the area in 2020 and 2021 respectively, also causing damage.

“Life here has been good but we are now experiencing cyclones and severe storms each rainy season,” said Gweshengwe.

“We’re losing our homes. We don’t know what is happening; we don’t know what to do.”

Gweshengwe’s homestead in the Buwesunike area is perched on the steep slopes of a mountain overlooking a deep valley and a perennial river.

His small, asbestos-roofed house and a grass-thatched hut stand precariously on the edges of the mountain, exposed to floods, mudslides and landslides.

Thousands of such crudely built dwellings dot parts of the steep sides of the Eastern Highlands, which stretch for about 320km along Zimbabwe’s eastern border with Mozambique.

With the next rainy season approaching in November, Gweshengwe frets about the possibility of severe weather.

“We don’t know what the new season holds but the future does not look good for us,” he said.

Gweshengwe’s fears were shared by Simon Chanakira, who also moved to the Eastern Highlands from Chitora, a drier area to the west.

“We’ve yet to recover from the 2019 Cyclone Idai but there are chances of more cyclones in the coming rainy seasons,” said Chanakira, a 39-year-old father of two, adding that the storms have left huge gullies in the area which have affected their small farms.

“Farming area is increasingly becoming smaller in our area. But I cannot return to my place of origin,” he added.

“We hope that the government could assist us by repairing our roads which were damaged by the cyclone.”

While the Zimbabwean government has repaired major roads in some storm-affected areas and assisted those considered “legal settlers”, including by building new houses, it has long maintained that the migrants are “illegal settlers” occupying state land.

On many occasions, senior government officials have threatened to evict them from their new settlements, but no action has been taken yet.

According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), the lack of an accepted definition of an environmental refugee means that, unless people are relocated by extreme weather events, their displacement does not trigger any access to financial grants, food aid, tools, shelter, schools or clinics.

Charity Migwi, Africa regional campaigner for 350Africa.org, said storms in 2019 afected more than two million people in Zimbabwe and Mozambique, some of whom had to migrate to different regions.

“Yet, the two countries continue with fossil fuel exploration pursuits; coal mining in Zimbabwe and liquid natural gas exploration in Mozambique,” said Migwi.

Migwi noted that migration creates hostile living conditions among communities as they fight for limited resources available to make ends meet and called on governments, public development banks and other stakeholders to help communities to build resilience and adapt easily to the realities of climate change.

“This process may involve projects such as harvesting rainwater to enable irrigation during dry seasons, planting trees, providing drought-resistant crops and building requisite infrastructure to prevent excessive flooding,” she said.

These measures, she added, would ensure that people can continue growing crops, even with limited rainfall and have to worry less about their homes being flooded, hence reducing the number of climate migrants and overcrowded cities and towns.

Back in Buwesunike, a dejected Gweshengwe remained defiant despite the increasing risks from violent storms.

“I would rather die here from a cyclone than return where I came from and slowly die from starvation,” said Gweshengwe with a chuckle, as he lit a hand-rolled tobacco cigarette. – Al Jazera

In the community

Hwange West MP demands urgent action after two killed by elephants in Victoria Falls

Published

7 days ago

February 26, 2026

VicFallsLive

BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI

VICTORIA FALLS – Hwange West legislator Vusumuzi Moyo has called for urgent and decisive intervention to address escalating human-elephant conflict after two people were killed by elephants in Victoria Falls within the space of a week.

Rising on a point of national interest in the National Assembly, Moyo said the recent deaths had left families in mourning and exposed the growing danger faced by communities living near wildlife corridors.

“In closing, Mr Speaker Sir, I want to convey my message to two families within Victoria Falls. This happened within a week. They lost their lives because of this conflict,” Moyo said. “In a space of a week, two families are mourning the loss of their loved ones.”

Victoria Falls and surrounding communities, which border wildlife areas, have in recent years experienced increased incidents of elephants straying into residential areas, destroying crops and infrastructure, and in some cases fatally attacking residents.

Moyo told Parliament that the crisis must no longer be viewed solely as a conservation issue but as a matter of human dignity and national development.

“My issue is not merely about wildlife management. It is about national development, constitutional responsibility and ultimately, protecting human dignity,” he said.

He warned that communities from Kariba to Binga, and in tourism corridors around Victoria Falls, are “under siege” from escalating human-elephant conflict.

“Families are losing crops, infrastructure is being destroyed and tragically, lives continue to be lost. This House cannot ignore the cries of rural citizens who coexist with wildlife every day,” Moyo said.

The Hwange West MP defended previous government decisions to cull elephants in high-conflict zones, arguing that such measures were sometimes necessary to restore ecological balance and protect human life.

“These are not acts of recklessness but acts of necessity because conservation must never come at the expense of human survival,” he said.

While acknowledging the importance of non-lethal measures such as fencing and translocation, Moyo said in some areas those interventions were no longer sufficient on their own.

He urged authorities to urgently implement provisions of the Parks and Wildlife Act, promulgated on 28 November 2025, particularly in communities bordering national parks.

“It is my sincere hope that the implementation of the Parks and Wildlife Act… will be taken to the areas that border within national parks so that people appreciate and that the regulations can be done as fast as possible,” he said.

Moyo stressed that Parliament must strike a balance between conservation and protecting human life.

“The people are not asking Parliament to choose between elephants and human beings. They are asking us to restore the balance,” he said.

The latest fatalities have renewed debate in Victoria Falls over how authorities can better safeguard residents while maintaining Zimbabwe’s strong conservation reputation.

Slider

Hwange lion DNA helps convict poachers for first time

Published

1 week ago

February 23, 2026

VicFallsLive

BY BBC

Lion DNA has been used to successfully prosecute poachers for the first time in the world, it has emerged.

Wildlife crime experts have only just revealed how they were able to identify the individual animal from body parts found in a suspect’s village, as they matched a profile on Zimbabwe’s lion database.

A blood sample had previously been taken from the male lion, which was being tracked by authorities in Hwange National Park – using a radio collar.

Two poachers were convicted for the 2024 incident and sent to prison in what is thought to be the first prosecution of its kind.

The details of the convictions and the role the DNA database played have been previously unknown.

Non-governmental organisation (NGO) Traffic, which works to combat the illegal trade in wildlife, has shared the detail with us.

In May 2024, authorities in Hwange National Park became suspicious after a radio collar worn by a male lion stopped working.

Investigators and police traced its last known position and found a snare with lion fur attached to it.

After collecting forensic evidence they questioned two men in a nearby village and discovered three sacks of meat, 16 lion claws and four teeth. These body parts would later be tested against the database, with the DNA from all matching the profile of that missing lion.

But possessing lion parts is not necessarily a crime in Zimbabwe.

Having them can be explained away as old, traditional ornaments or as coming from an animal that died of natural causes.

This has been an obstacle to prosecutions in the past.

But thanks to a breakthrough in DNA profiling, that’s now changed.

The lab generated a DNA profile from the recovered body parts and compared this to the profile previously generated from a blood sample of the lion with the radio collar.

The two profiles matched and scientists were able to identify the specific missing animal.

Over the last eight years the Victoria Falls Wildlife Trust (VFWT) has received about £250,000 from the People’s Postcode Lottery in the UK to build up the DNA database of lions in Zimbabwe.

The scientist at the trust, who made the discovery, asked to remain anonymous for his own safety, but said:

“Before we had access to this technology, we were only able to do species identification, but sometimes that’s not enough.

“We can essentially match those claws or those products to the lion of interest that we are looking for.”

Within 10 days of the killing, the DNA evidence was presented in court.

Two men pleaded guilty and were given 24 month prison sentences.

The hearing was told the value of the lion was about $20,000.

Richard Scobey, Traffic’s executive director, said “countries now have the forensic capability to bring, solid science-based evidence to court” and that it will have global impact.

This is understood to be the first time that DNA from an individual lion has been identified and used to prosecute poachers.

Professor Rob Ogden has been closely involved in setting up the project and is co- founder of the organisation Trace, which promotes the use of forensic science in wildlife law enforcement.

He says the prosecution gives “a message of hope” and shows what can be done using a combination of training, research and development and forensic casework.

Recent figures suggest an increase in the number of lions being killed for their body parts which are then sold both as cultural objects in Africa and for traditional Chinese medicine.

It is thought the rise may be down to organised crime gangs also involved in the illegal trade in Rhino horn and ivory trafficking.

In Mozambique between 2010 and 2023, 426 lions were killed as a result of contact with humans with a quarter linked to deliberate poaching.

A measure of the scale of the trade is also the number of seizures by the authorities in recent years.

That includes 17 lion skulls found in Lusaka in 2021, reportedly en-route from South Africa, and a 2023 seizure in Maputo of more than 300kg of lion body parts.

Which is why this breakthrough on DNA identification is seen as sending an important message to would-be poachers.

Slider

Nominations open for 2026 Tusk Conservation Awards

Published

2 weeks ago

February 20, 2026

VicFallsLive

BY WANDILE TSHUMA

Nominations have opened for the 14th edition of the Tusk Conservation Awards, offering global recognition and £225,000 (about UGX 1.1 billion) in grant funding to Africa’s leading conservationists.

The awards, held in partnership with Ninety One, celebrate African-led solutions protecting wildlife, landscapes and livelihoods. Three winners will be selected from hundreds of nominations across the continent and honoured at a ceremony expected to be held in London later this year.

This year’s prize money will be distributed across three categories: £100,000 (UGX 480 million) for the Prince William Award, £75,000 (UGX 360 million) for the Tusk Award, and £50,000 (UGX 240 million) for the Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award.

Speaking at last year’s awards, Tusk’s Royal Patron, Prince William, said communities and local conservation leaders often provide the most practical solutions to sustaining biodiversity and natural landscapes.

“It is so often communities and local conservation leaders who provide the practical solutions to how we can best sustain our precious natural landscapes and vital biodiversity,” he said. “Identifying and supporting locally-led conservation has always been at the heart of Tusk’s ethos.”

Since their launch in 2013, the awards have recognised 61 winners and finalists from 23 African countries. Past recipients have used grant funding to expand ranger patrols, secure wildlife corridors, equip community conservancies and create sustainable livelihoods linked to conservation.

Examples of supported initiatives include protecting gorillas in eastern Congo, conserving turtles in Sierra Leone, restoring forests in Madagascar and dismantling poaching syndicates in Zimbabwe. Organisers say the funding is designed to be catalytic, enabling winners to scale their impact and attract long-term investment.

Nick Bubb, Chief Executive Officer of TUSK, said the awards highlight the courage and commitment of individuals working in challenging and often dangerous conditions.

“We encourage anyone who knows an individual or ranger team who has made a significant impact on wildlife conservation to nominate them for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to have their achievements recognised on a global stage,” Bubb said.

In a significant development this year, the Tusk Wildlife Ranger Award has been expanded to recognise ranger teams alongside individual rangers, reflecting what organisers describe as the collaborative nature of modern conservation efforts.

The expanded category aligns with Tusk’s broader ranger programmes, including the Wildlife Ranger Challenge and the Ranger Welfare and Standards Initiative, which supports more than 6,200 rangers with training, equipment and insurance.

Nominations are open to conservation leaders across Africa and do not require nominees to be existing Tusk partners. However, individuals cannot nominate themselves and must be put forward confidentially by someone familiar with their work.

Nominations will close on the 26th of April and must be submitted online.