“When you reflect, sometimes we don’t represent the interests of these poor people very well. I am yet to experience a meeting of this magnitude that will bring together the poor communities under one roof to articulate their concerns,” he echoed the radical views to a deafening applause from the delegates. The Vice President was making reflections on the summit theme last Friday together with other Heads of State and government from the five Kavango Zambezi Trans Frontier Conservation Area (KAZA). The theme of the weeklong inaugural Heads of State Summit held at Avani Hotel here was 'Leveraging KAZA’s natural and cultural heritage resources as catalysts for inclusive socio-economic development of the eco-region'. The VP was worried that there were people who mistook the good work that his government was doing to empower the rural-based community organisations through provisions of quotas for trophy hunting and others as cruelty to animals despite the deliberate scientific conservation methods taking good care of the practice.
“There are people who choose to deliberately distort this model of empowerment and conservation to recklessness and cruelty to animals. “We know for certain what we are doing and the benefits derived out of this endeavour far outweighs the imagined problems,” added Tsogwane. He enlightened the summit that through Community Based National Resources Management (CBNRM) his government ensured there were trickle down benefits to the communities. His strong views are that people living in the wildlife rich areas have to derive full benefits from the natural resources in a controlled manner, as it’s the case. He told doubting Thomases (especially speaking as a legislator for the rural Boteti West), which is in KAZA, emphasising that he grew up exposed to traditional conservation methods, which are as old as humanity itself.
