Construction of a 70-kilometre(km) solar powered wire fence has commenced at Vwaza Wildlife and Game Reserve in Rumphi District, with K1 billion being set aside for the purpose.
The Project, set to take about nine months, is billed as the panacea for addressing the problem of human-animal conflict.
The fence is being constructed using funds from the government of german and the European Union through Peace Parks Foundation under Malawi Zambia Trans-frontier Conservation Area project which is worth 23 million Euros(about K25 billion).
Speaking during the launch of the project on Thursday, Peace Parks Foundation Chief Executive Officer Werner Myburgh said, so far, four kilometres of the fence had been completed.
In 2015, the government, through Global Environmental Facility and Nyika Trans-frontier Conversation Area, handed over the 42km long solar powered electric fence to the wildlife reserves but it was quickly damaged by both community members and animals.
Embassy of Germany Deputy Head of Development Cooperation Knut Gummert said the fence had two faces; to improve the lives of community members and also protect wild animals from poachers.
”We are building this fence to ensure that the lives of people are safe [and that] their harvests are safe so that the animals do not comes and endanger them. As such, it is their fence,” he said.
Tourism Minister Micheal Usi presided over the ceremony and emphasised that community members around protected areas such as Vwaza could only own the fence if proceeds of the reserves trickled down to them.
Usi said, now that the fence was being constructed to bar animals from entering community areas, it was also important to create deliberate strategies that would also hedge community members from poverty.
”We have been talking about tourism as a GDP[Gross Domestic Product] earner for Malawi but, when it comes to the people, there is nothing to show[for it]. This is the reason i am emphasising that we need to put the welfare of people at heart.
Vwaza Wildlife and Game Reserves was gazzetted as a protected area in 1976.
Source: The Daily Times_October 14, 2021-By Feston Malekezo