Proposed World Heritage Site under threat

The Zambian government have temporally halted the destruction but Lake Agro Industries are persevering – they have submitted a formal Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for consideration, requesting permission from the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) to develop commercial agriculture and associated infrastructure over a 7,000ha footprint inside the GMA, less than 3km from the National Park where the bats roost.

Local ecologist and conservation biologist Helen Taylor-Boyd says: “The value that the Park and GMA buffer provides through ecosystem services such as water catchment and carbon sequestration, as well as tourism livelihoods, cannot be underestimated. Kasanka National Park is also host to the world famous fruit bat migration and impacts here will have a knock on effect for seed dispersal locally, nationally and beyond borders”.

Background

• Kasanka National Park hosts a number of exceptional natural features, including:
  • A seasonal colony of up to ten million straw-coloured fruit bats, a significant part of the subequatorial population of this IUCN Red List Near-Threatened species and a major attraction for tourism.
  • The second longest bird list of all National Parks and Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas in Zambia, a highly diverse avifauna that includes many threatened species.
  • Important populations of the scarce sitatunga, offering the best viewing in Zambia and beyond; the IUCN Red List Near-Threatened puku; and the little known Kinda baboon.
  • A healthy and diverse complex of rivers for which the Park is of great importance for the ecological and socio-economic functioning of these.
  • A unique small-scale diversity of intact habitats, including threatened habitats such as the mushitu and mateshe evergreen forests, hosting an enormous biodiversity.
• The area under threat, the GMA is crucial to the integrity of the Park, providing a buffer and transition into other sustainable land uses.
• When the world’s largest mammal migration occurs in October each year, the straw-coloured fruit bats take up residence in a small area of evergreen forest in the very heart of Kasanka National Park. Every evening they leave the roost to forage well beyond the artificial boundary of the Park, venturing deep into the Kafinda GMA.
• Research has shown that these bats migrate huge distances from countries including DRC, South Sudan and Tanzania. Along the way they deliver invaluable ecosystem services, such as seed dispersal and the promotion of reforestation. Effects at Kasanka will have repercussions felt across Central Africa.
• Despite the legal status of the GMA it’s protection is not being enforced. The landscape is being deforested and degraded at an alarming rate, posing a direct threat to the integrity of the Park’s ecosystems and the animals it supports.
• In 2019, Lake Agro Industries cleared over 560ha of pristine woodland in Kafinda GMA without the appropriate permission. Government departments issued three stop orders before closing the farm in March 2020.
• Lake Agro Industries has now submitted a formal Environmental and Social Impact Assessment (ESIA) for consideration, requesting permission from the Zambia Environmental Management Agency (ZEMA) to develop commercial agriculture and associated infrastructure less than 3km from the National Park.
• Proposals include drawing water directly from the Luwombwa River, which feeds the wetland habitats of Kasanka National Park. It is estimated that abstraction at peak demand in September would be greater than 90% of the remaining flow of the Luwombwa River.
• The ESIA report concludes that “the identified environmental impacts have been fully mitigated against”, with proposed mitigation to compensate for deforestation being “avoid clearing or damaging intact habitats” – despite the 7,000ha scheme being situated entirely within the intact habitats of the GMA.
• Potential impacts on the Protected Area network (Kasanka National Park and Kafinda GMA) are not given any consideration in the ESIA and, in 245 pages, there is not a single mention of a bat.
• Kasanka Trust maintain that it would be negligent of ZEMA to grant approval for the proposals. The site selection and occupancy of the GMA would result in devastating impacts to biodiversity conservation at an international scale.
• Elsewhere inside the Kafinda GMA another subsidiary of the Lake Group, Gulf Adventures, has occupied approximately 5,000ha of pristine forest and constructed a game farm. The introduction of species not native to the local area such as ostrich and impala is a further breach of the Game Management Plan that is designed to support the protection of the GMA.

Kasanka Trust will continue to fight against development that threatens the value of our wildlife populations. If your organisation would like to add their support to this battle, please get in touch with James Mwanza – gm@kasanka.com

To support our objection against the Lake Agro ESIA, we need to hear from you by 16th June 2021.