10th February 2015

 

EXPORT OF ELEPHANTS TO GO AHEAD

 

Despite desperate efforts from thousands of people all over the world, it seems that the export of the baby elephants will go ahead after all. In fact we believe there are now approximately 80 elephants due to be exported.

 

The Zimbabwean authorities claim that there are around 54 000 elephants in the Hwange area while the holding capacity is only 15 000. The strange thing about this is that there is an animal count in Hwange National Park every year and in the past 10 years, the number of elephants counted has never even come to half that number. A count was done towards the end of last year and the elephant population was around 20 000 so we can’t imagine where the additional 30 000 elephants have come from.

 

We had a peaceful demonstration in Harare on Saturday 7th February but nothing remarkable happened there. There are apparently about 26 petitions going on around the world with hundreds of thousands of signatures. We applied for police clearance to have the demonstration on the 27th January but it was denied so we applied again to have it on the 5th February and again, it was denied. On the 7th February, we went to the magistrate to try and get clearance and it was denied so the demonstration we had was without police clearance. We are supposed to be living in a democratic society but we are not allowed to have a peaceful demonstration.

 

We are very disappointed that the export is still going ahead and all we can think of doing now is boycotting Zimbabwe – telling everybody not to come to Zimbabwe on holiday. 

 

 

Johnny Rodrigues Chairman for Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force Landline:        263 4 339065 Mobile:           263 712 603 213 Email:             galorand@mweb.co.zw Facebook:     http://www.facebook.com/pages/ZCTF-Zimbabwe-Conservation-Task-Force/246013052094585 Website: www.zctfofficialsite.org.

 

The Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force relies soley on public donations. Your donation can help to preserve the wildlife in Zimbabwe. If you would like to assist, please contact us.