Expert Africa, the UK’s leading specialist to Zambia, is dismayed to learn that Protea Hotels, one of Africa’s largest hotel groups, is proposing to build a 144-bed hotel and conference centre in the Chiawa Game Management Area (GMA) in Zambia. The selected site is almost directly across the river from the boundary of the Mana Pools National Park, a World Heritage Site and one of Africa’s most renowned game-viewing regions.
Chris McIntyre, MD of Expert Africa, comments: “The impact that an extra 30,000 visitors annually will have on the environment doesn’t even bear thinking about. This area is extremely fragile and needs to be treated with sympathy and consideration and a 144-bed hotel – primarily a destination for local conferences – is extremely short-sighted and damaging to the local environment. Such is the scale of this development that it’s five times the size of the existing largest development in the area, which has just 28 beds.
“This hotel will generate a large amount of river and road traffic and the pragmatic solution would be to move the development approximately 10 to 15 km further upstream. This is where the local village area begins and, while still rural Zambia, is not pristine wilderness. This would be closer to the labour force, and the power and road network. Building here would benefit the community even more, make Protea more profitable, and preserve the Chiawa GMA’s integrity as a wildlife destination.”
Expert Africa feels strongly that the fragile eco-systems of pristine environments such as Mana Pools National Park are increasingly under threat from unchecked developments and need careful management. It has seen similar building works in other African countries where short-term interests have been allowed to prevail over the long-term benefits of scaling back ill-considered developments.
A Save Mana Pools Facebook page and an online petition have both been set up for people to voice their concerns. http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=info&gid=104842256217442
www.ipetitions.com/petition/save-the-lznp
Call Expert Africa on 020 8232 9777 (www.expertafrica.com) for further information on Zambia.
Ends 9 April 2010
Press: For further information – or to interview Chris McIntyre, MD of Expert Africa and author of Bradt Guides to Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, and Zanzibar – call Travel PR, on 020 8891 4440 or email i.bradley@travelpr.co.uk.