Transcript for Zimbabwe: Poaching Paradise

Under the brutally corrupt governent of Robert Mugabe

the once verdant African Nation of Zimbabwe

has little left to recommend it, besides the spectacular Victoria Falls

on the Zambezi River.

Stephanie Hanes has filed a report from there

for the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

that highlights the terrible choices poor countries face.

[Birds chirping and running water]

Poaching Paradise. Reported by Stephanie Hanes. Lake Victoria, Tanzania.

[Off camera speaker] On Vic Falls,the whole town is there because of tourism

and Zimbabwe boasts one of the best infrastructures

with regard to national parks and the wildlife that we have

within our country.

Beautiful, pristine wilderness areas and Zimbabwe has

a beautiful variety of things to offer

so it's very vital to us to protect our wildlife.

Without wildlife, we wouldn't have visitors

and of course then we wouldn't have jobs.

This whole map here is a map of the Zambezi National Park.

Charles Brightman. Victoria Falls Anti Poaching Unit.

Basically, we've been given permission to operate and look after

an area of about fifty square kilometers

surrounding the town of Victoria Falls.

You can see the falls themselves, there.

Gavin Best. Manager, Elephant Camp.

Some areas are worse than others.

Where you have a high population of people living

people are suffering, people find it difficult to get food.

A small subsistence poacher soon turns into a commercial poacher

where he can swap dried meat

for various other essentials that he needs

so one thing leads to the other.

We are trying to stop these poaching activities.

Mupanduki "George" Tarwireyi. Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit.

You are seeing snares.

People are killing buffalos, elans

animals we expect tourists to come and see

but we are having such a problem

I'm crying for the whole of this region

to fight against the poachers.

In the last 7 years of us being in operation

we've now removed just over seventeen thousand snares.

We're following the vultures.

The patrols follow the vultures in.

That was mid-morning. It's now about three o'clock.

They discovered a dead buffalo and it looks like

it's been been killed under suspicious circumstances

so we're going in now to have a look.

[Grass crunching under footsteps]

[Voices in background]

[Bugs buzzing around]

[Speaker off camera] It looks like the shooter was aiming for the heart

but he shot low and might have got the bottom of the lungs here

and that's why the buffalo has been able to run so far

and then died later from its wounds.

What a waste. It's a nice, big bull there.

Joanne Lamb. Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

Due to economic reasons, high inflation, and lack of tourism

the infrastructure within national parks has slowly fallen away.

Hwange National Park

Wankie (Hwange) was a beautiful park, one of the finest in Africa

definitely the finest in Zimbabwe.

We had a lovely infrastructre.

Tourism was of major economic boost

or was a major economic boost

and all this has gone to hell in a hand cart.

[Speaker off camera] When we had the water crisis there was no water in this creek.

This was a hot spring-type area.

It was dry, this elephant died of thirst.

This is the remains of the actual skeleton and the skull.

He was about a five-year-old.

In this whole Northern region there were about two-hundred of them that died.

Johnny Rodrigues. Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force.

The animals are going to take the punch because people have to feed their families.

So, you've got a choice in life. There's no prospect of finding a job.

Your family has to survive so you are going to go out

and take from the park.

[Speaker off camera] It is vital that we conserve these natural resources.

Not only for our own heritage

but for tourism too.

[Ethnic African music]

With Fareed Zakaria

The Grand Tour

Tourism in the largest business sector in the world economy

Tourism employs 200 million people

and generates $5.49 trillion in economic activity

Ecotourism is growing globally 3 times faster than "mass" tourism

Source: The International Ecotourism Society

[African music continues]

Videographer: Jeffrey Barbee

Reporter: Stephanie Hanes

Produced by: The Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting

and Azimuth Media

www.pulitzercenter.org