SAFARI - Overbooked: The Exploding Business of Travel and Tourism - page 171

Namugala had prepared her country's bid, arguing that this would be a perfect showcase
for African safari tourism. Zambia's cohost will be Zimbabwe, which shares the falls with
Zambia.
That partnership bid ran into political trouble since Zimbabwe is led by Robert
Mugabe, whose human rights record has made him one of Africa's most despised leaders.
When the UNWTO announced that Mugabe would be an informal “leader of tourism”
for the conference, there was an immediate outcry. But even the opposition in Zimbabwe
was pleased with winning the honor of holding the international tourism gathering. For
them, tourism is outside of politics. It's good business.
But Namugala will not be the host of the event. President Banda was defeated in the
September elections, which were as peaceful as he promised. In one of Africa's smoothest
democratic transitions, Michael Sata, the winner, was installed as president the day after
his election, and he appointed a new minister of tourism.
Sata had won by campaigning on a strong anti-Chinese platform, saying he would pro-
tect workers' rights in the mines. But at the end of October, one month after his election
victory, Sata sent former President Kaunda to Beijing to visit Chinese officials and reaffirm
that Chinese investment was still welcome in Zambia but that a few issues needed to be
sorted out.
• • •
Greg Carr is an American multimillionaire who may save African tourism. He is one of a
handful of private philanthropists who are rescuing African parks and wildlife as part of the
daunting goal of saving forests, open spaces, wildlife and the planet. In that battle, tourism
is seen as one way to stave off harmful development.
Carr may be the most ambitious of the lot. He is spending nearly $50 million to under-
write the recovery of Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique, an expanse the size of the
state of Rhode Island in the southern end of Africa's Great Rift Valley. Created in 1960,
Gorongosa was, briefly, one of southern Africa's premier wildlife parks until war broke out
to wrest independence from Portugal. The fighting turned into a civil war and lasted from
1977 to 1992. Over 1 million people died.
Some of the worst battles took place in Gorongosa, where soldiers lived off the wild
animals, killing 95 percent of many species for their meat. Fighting also tore into the land-
scape. By the time Carr signed his agreement with the Mozambique government in 2007,
the animals of Gorongosa National Park were nearly gone. The herds of 14,000 buffalo
and 3,000 zebras had all but disappeared. Conservationists found only 15 buffalo and 5
zebras. The elephants had fared just as badly. Three hundred elephants remained of a
herd of 2,200. Only 6 lions survived from a population of 500. Hippos could be counted
on two hands.