TOAZ ADVISES MINISTRY ON NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT

THE POST NEWSPAPER (TUESDAY, AUGUST 1 2006)

TOAZ ADVISES MINISTRY ON NATURAL RESOURCE MANAGEMENT
Joan Chirwa and Florence Bupe

TOUR Operators Association of Zambia (TOAZ) has advised the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources to concentrate on sustainable management of natural resources and not its business component. Association chairperson, Rolf Shenton said in countries where money was hard to find, natural resource management was always treated as a trivial concern compared to making money. Shenton said appropriate management of natural resources was being hindered by double responsibilities that the Ministry of Tourism and Environment was given. He said the Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) and the Department of Tourism were always in conflict, regarding issues of natural resource management and reserving money for tourism. Shenton noted that problems of wildlife conservation by ZAWA were as a result of limited funding to the authority, which ended up granting hunting licenses to individuals once it ran out of finances.

"In principle, I would like to see the whole ministry of tourism rationalised so that it deals with natural resource management and that the business issues from tourism are dealt with by the Ministry of Commerce as in any other business sector," Shenton said. ""The Natural Resources Consultative Forum is the ideal place to deal with cross-sectoral issues. Whilst we mix business and conservation we will always compromise sustainable use of resources. We will continue eating chicken instead of feeding it and sharing the eggs. Very Soon we will all be standing around in poverty with no natural resources to manage. The same argument applies with ZAWA which must become a small, muscular regulatory body that we can trust to control exploitation of wildlife resources in a sustainable manner, not one that leads the harvest because they need more money."