GOLF AND HOTEL COULD COST VICTORIA FALLS ITS HERITAGE STATUS
Victoria Falls earned world heritage status in 1989 but Unesco officials warn that this is under threat
Victoria Falls earned world heritage status in 1989 but Unesco officials warn that this is under threat
The United Nations will deliver an ultimatum to the governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia to immediately halt unsanctioned development at Victoria Falls or risk losing its unique heritage status, according to documents seen by The Times.
Unesco officials conducted a recent visit to the site to “assess the potential threat” to the natural wonder from plans for lodges, a golf course and a hydroelectric dam.
The area’s wildlife migration routes and unique rock structures, as well as world’s largest sheet of falling water, earned its world heritage site status in 1989.
An unusually punchy report for the next meeting of the world heritage committee warned that the southern African site is “facing increasing threats” from a number of developments inside the protected area which have not been signed off by heritage officials.
The job of monitoring infringements was “a particularly challenging task”, the monitoring team found after a five-day trip, citing the “inconsistency in the use of precise boundaries and buffer zones” on plans published by the authorities in Lusaka and Harare.
A lack of full transparency about ambitious projects on either side of the Zambezi river which feeds the falls is fuelling local rumours of corruption.
The Unesco team have called for a halt to the building of a 300-bed hotel complex on the Zambian side and provision for a golf course that disrupts an established elephant corridor.
Plans for a hydroelectric dam downstream of the falls “should not proceed as currently proposed”, the team said, in a list of blunt recommendations.
If development pressed ahead, the area’s special status “could be considered to be in danger in the near future”, the delegation said.
Local conservationists are concerned that the Unesco site visit in February did not even include some of the most sensitive areas being targeted as part of the Zimbabwe government’s ambitions for a tourism sector worth $5 billion by 2025.
A new 100-bedroom hotel upstream of the falls has just been announced. The delegation’s 35-page report makes no reference to the virgin riverine bush that has already been cleared for a restaurant, a stone’s throw from the western end of the falls, where a car park has already been gravelled.
Also unmentioned is the lease issued for commercial activity on Cataract Island, an environmentally sensitive rocky promontory. A $170 package has already been marketed for a picnic on the site where death-defying “selfies” can be taken in a natural pool on the lip of the falls.
The island is regarded as a unique rainforest biome, created by the permanent spray that can be seen 30 miles away from the falls’ torrents that crash more than 328ft (100m) into the Zambezi gorge. The mile-wide curtain of water is known locally as Mosi-oa-Tunya, “the smoke that thunders”.
The Cataract Island plan was first considered about five years ago but was shelved after public opposition grew.
Since the British explorer David Livingstone became the first European to reach Victoria Falls in 1855 — describing the approach along the Zambezi river as so exquisite that it “must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight” — there has been considerable change downstream.
Although both countries are under huge pressure to improve their citizens’ access to power, heritage officials said the proposal for a new hydroelectric dam “should not proceed as currently proposed”.
The Unesco World Heritage Committee is made up of 21 member states elected from the 194 countries that have ratified the World Heritage Convention. In 2019, Russia was elected to a four-year term. The committee was due to meet last month but a new date has yet to be set.
CREDIT: UKTIMES