Bizarre Mugabe move has ecologists up in arms - Zimbabwe

[dArKeR]

Conservationists in Zimbabwe are rallying international support to protest against the latest bizarre move by President Robert Mugabe's regime - an order to shoot thousands of buffalo at private conservancies "to contain foot-and-mouth disease".

The conservationists say the order is not only "stupid", but it would also kill off the little that is left of Zimbabwe's tourism sector which has shrunk to 15 percent since the disturbances in the country began in 2000.

Officials from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management started descending on private game parks this week, telling owners that the government had decided to destroy all buffalo on private land to eliminate the foot-and-mouth outbreak.

http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?click_id=68&art_id=ct200309071041095170250346&set_id=1