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Friends of Hwange Trust

Hwange Park has little natural water and most of the water is pumped through boreholes into the pans and troughs.

The situation is more severe in the dry season when there is no rainfall at all, to which hundreds of animal succumb if the pumps do not operate.

A project to supply fuel to Hwange parks water pumps.

This situation was worsened due to Zimbabwe’s current state of affairs – an ailing economy

Due to the major downturn of tourist receipts in Hwange, the National Parks Wildlife Authority has minimal resources to adequately manage the 56 pumps in the Park, as well as maintaining roads and other conservation issues

Hwange a park in peril

* Park officials can’t afford fuel to do poaching patrols or run the pumps that supply animals with water

* The park, is not funded from the treasury but must survive on revenues from tourism and hunting.

* Hunters – generally rich and foreign – work the game in the concessions around the park

* Tourists, on the other hand, are afraid to travel to and in Hwange, because of the Zimbabwe’s political profile, but the rewards outway the problems- simply book into the photographic lodges surrounding Hwnage park

* As tourism and water in the central park declines, animals will migrate to the hunting concessions to their detriment. And the temptation to allow hunting in the park will increase.

Rescue Plan

A trust has being formed called " Save Hwange"
with 2 employees.

- Maha Doppelfeld. in Harare to run the administrative and fund raising side of the trust: maha@yoafrica,com

- Mario Gomes - at Hwange National Park who will maintain and supervise the 10 pumps.

Mario has started fixing the pumps and engines at various waterholes in Hwange.

Currently three waterholes (Kennedy 1 & 2 and Tshebe Tshebe) are being pumped on 17 hour shift, as the water levels were dropping

Three other waterhole's (Shumba, Inyantuie and Tshompanie) are in working order, but are not being pumped yet as they still hold sufficient water.

Mario has also fixed a windmill at Kennedy 1, which can pump up to 5000 liters of water a day on a good windy day. This will not be sufficient water once we reach the middle of the dry season, but will keep the levels up for a while and is a more economically friendly way of pumping water out the ground than diesel engines

Hwange background

When Ted Davidson camped near Dete in western Rhodesia in 1928 with orders to establish a game reserve, there were few animals and very little water.

It was a huge, flat, hot, arid, sandy, bushy wasteland where hunters had been busy since the time of Courtney-Selous.

Davidson was young, energetic and possessed of boundless optimism.

As the park’s first warden his job was to explore and protect.

With local Bushmen he explored the area between the cement strip road to Victoria Falls and the borders of Bechuanaland.

To the west was the camel thorn sprinkled Kalahari, to the north a mighty forest of Zambezi teak, mopane, acacia and baobab.

They travelled for months, plodding besides their mules and sleeping rough while lions stalked their beasts. The absence of animals worried him and he realised the reason: there was little standing water and after the rainy season pans soon dried up and the game moved elsewhere.

As his brief was to ensure the welfare of the game, Davidson turned his mind to dams and boreholes.

Dams proved to be a problem. As soon as they began filling, crocodiles would find them and bore their hideouts in the ground walls. This caused the walls to break.

Boreholes proved successful, except that

elephants delighted in pushing over the windmills.
Cement eventually solved the croc problem
trenches worked to protect the windmills.
If the troughs ran dry, however, elephants would dig up the pipes to see what the problem was.

Anti-poaching patrols and the establishment of water points gradually lured animals and Hwange is, today, one of the great national parks of Africa

The future!

For the more immediate future Save Hwange Campaign" would like to take on more than 10 waterhole's.

Further we will look at the feasibility of introducing more modern windmills to the park, to reduce the use of diesel engines, where possible.

We would also like to, as we go along, not only look after waterhole's but get involved in other conservation projects, such as anti-poaching and the general up keep of the Park

Save Hwange Campaign

If you’re interested in being part of the Save Hwange Campaign, doing the 4x4 water-point trip or donating to the trust which has been formed to manage the project, contact South Africa 0861-312-312.