The Government has acceded to the call by the San community to allow them to hunt game meat for relish in line with their culture.
The San used to reside in the Hwange National Park area in the 1920s surviving on game meat before they were forcibly removed from the area by the colonial government.
Christopher Dube, also known as Tsholotsho San Chief Goledema, told the Southern Eye that the Government accepted their request. He said:
We are grateful to the government. We have been granted game meat as per our request for a long time.
We used to hunt for game meat for cultural purposes, but due to the new set-up, we are no longer allowed to do so.
We will feast on it and most importantly, we want the soup which we mix with our herbs to treat our bodies which have become too weak.
We had been complaining that our population had become small, and the soup concoction is important in enhancing our performance at night.
This is one of the reasons why we want a lot of meat.
Chief Goledema said they were allocated two elephants and two buffalos twice or thrice per year.
Tsholotsho Rural District Council chairperson Esau Siwela said the San community would also benefit from CAMPFIRE projects. He said:
According to the quarter setting, the Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority (ZimParks) are the ones who decide how many animals can be hunted down and in which area so they are the ones who are going to assist in hunting down the animals.
We realise that apart from getting meat, the community is going to get trophies from the mentioned animals which the council will assist in terms of marketing and the proceeds will be ploughed back to them for their economic development.
CAMPFIRE (Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources) was designed to help rural communities living near protected areas to benefit from the sustainable use of wildlife and other resources within those areas.
Under CAMPFIRE, communities are given the right to manage and utilise the resources found within their communal lands.
More: Pindula News