BY NOKUTHABA DLAMINI
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) has launched a programme to support Zimbabwean journalists specialising in wildlife crime and conservation to help improve coverage of the issues.
Mike Pflanz from Space for Giants, which is implementing the programme under USAID’s Vuka Now Activity, said six journalists from different media houses will be assisted to tackle increasing wildlife crime in Zimbabwe and help amplify local voices in the international and domestic debates about wildlife protection.
“It’s a very simple idea which is that there is a huge threat to the natural landscape in wildlife and the ecosystems in countries like Zimbabwe and these are things that can bring significant value to people and to governments as well as to preserve nature,” Pflanz said in Victoria Falls where the journalists underwent three day training.
“So what the programme aims to do is to work with professional Zimbabwean journalists, six of them from different media outlets and just help them do what they already do very well, which is to write about conservation and to do that even better.
“So we are helping them with financing, mentoring, contacts, statistics and reports that allow them to improve and increase coverage on the issues.
Pflanz said the programmes’ other goal was to increase the quality of stories the journalists produce so that they can inform their readers better.
“I think this is really important that we get this as clear and accurate to readers and viewers as possible and they can make a choice (such as) do I support the idea of conservation?, or do I think it should be used for something else,” he said.
“So that is a choice people of Zimbabwe can individually or collectively make if they have accurate information and that’s really what this programme is about, to support journalists to give their readers and viewers that kind of information.”
Pflanz said six other journalists from Botswana have already been trained and they were also planning to launch the programme in Angola and Mozambique.
Space for Giants on its website says wildlife crime is a multi-billion-dollar illicit business, which decimates Africa’s wildlife and undermines economic prosperity and sustainable development.
“It also threatens social stability and cohesion, impoverishes people of cultural and natural heritage,” it says.