PICTURE: Chilojo Club of Gonarezhou National Park offered Painted Hunting Dogs painting competitions during previous year’s Great Limpopo Cultural Trade Fair inn Chiredzi.
THE excitement that is associated with the Great Limpopo Cultural Trade Fair cannot be hidden from all those involved in the run-up to the big show. On 28 July to 31July, the regional festival which is hosted at Mhlanguleni Business Centre in Chiredzi district of Zimbabwe is attracting our local tourism players, government officials, non-governmental organisations and cultural enthusiastic and those from participating countries like Swaziland, Mozambique and South Africa.
This year, which is the fourth edition, the Great Limpopo Cultural Trade Fair has improved so much. Regional stakeholders participating and partnerships have increased. Our own newspaper is the official print media communication partner of the Fair.
Also, Zimbabwe Tourism Authority has incorporated the event in its national calendar. This brings people to ask what really the Great Limpopo Cultural Trade Fair is all about. Others might ask the role it plays in Zimbabwean culture and economy. Above all, how is it promoting tourism?
To get an insight into the fair, let’s first introduce the concept which the trade fair derived its name from.
Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park was formed at the turn of the millennium when heads of three states, Zimbabwe, Mozambique and South Africa signed a treaty on 9 December 2002 to establish a combination of three national parks found on the borders of their countries into one huge park.
The Great Limpopo TFCA is 35,000 square km in total. Zimbabwe’s Gonarezhou National Park contributes 5,053 square km as South Africa's Kruger National Park has 19,485 square km and Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park has 10,462 square km. The three parks and other conservation areas near the national parks are considered as part of what is called a peace park.
According to Peace Parks Foundation, a peace park or a trans-frontier conservation area (TFCA) is an international partnership promoting wildlife conservation, ecotourism and job creation in Southern Africa. The Southern African Development Community Protocol on Wildlife Conservation and Law Enforcement of 1999 defines a TFCA as “the area or component of a large ecological region that straddles the boundaries of two or more countries, encompassing one or more protected areas as well as multiple resource use areas.”
The peace parks arrangement is a leading public-private partnership of tourism players. Governments as public players offer and monitor the conservation areas as private players which include non-governmental organisations like the Peace Parks Foundation supports with human resources like programme coordinators, programme managers, and filed staff.
The Great Limpopo TFCA is the most talked peace park but many other TFCAs have been considered in southern Africa. One such is the 5,909 square km Greater Mapungubwe TFCA which was established on 22 June 2006 and integrates Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa conservation areas at the confluence of Shashe and Limpopo rivers.
Another peace park is the 444,000 square km Kavango-Zambezi TFCA (also known as KAZA) which was launched on 7 December 2006 and merges the conservation area of Okavango and Zambezi basin in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Namibia, Angola and Botswana. It is tipped to be the world’s largest trans-frontier conservation area when complete.
Peace parks projects don’t turn away their backs on the communities that surround the parks. Community empowerment trusts are formed to cater for community development. This is where the cultural fair comes into picture.
The Great Limpopo TFCA is surrounded by Tsonga communities in all the three countries. In Zimbabwe and Mozambique the Tsonga people are also known as Shangaan people. Tourists to the greater park end up experiencing the culture and hospitality of these communities.
A notable cultural partnership is The Malilangwe Trust which runs the Malilangwe Wildlife Reserve adjacent to the eastern region of Gonarezhou National Park and a Tsonga community. The Tsonga showcase their culture to cultural tourists who visit under Malilangwe’s Singita-Pamushana Lodges flagship.
Gaza Trust (which is now rebranding to Centre for Cultural Development Initiatives) is one community empowerment aiming for the development of Tsonga communities in the country. It is the one which gave birth to the Great Limpopo Cultural Trade Fair.
How is the Great Limpopo tourism benefitting the economy of Zimbabwe? The forthcoming article shall discuss the issue.