GOVERNMENT has secured $6.4 million from the Global Environment Facility for the rehabilitation of Hwange National Park so that it becomes a thriving and self-sustainable wildlife estate. 
The Hwange Sanyati Bodiversity Corridor (HSBC) project is to be implemented by the World Bank for the next five years.
HSBC aims to address unsustainable water supply, land degradation, recurring wild fires, wildlife and timber poaching; human wildlife conflicts, food insecurity and limited livelihood options.
Environment Management Agency EMA, which is supervising the project, says upon completion the  project should enhance lives of communities through creating income generating projects and through revamping hunting safari operations.
“There should be improved human and wildlife conflict management, enhanced household income and nutrition security from intensive commercial guinea fowl production.
“There is however need to establish the link between the project and biodiversity management as well as its economic viability before its implementation,” said EMA.
The project covers an area of 5.7 million hectares in north western Zimbabwe
The vast corridor is characterised by low and erratic rainfall, six land use categories namely national parks, gazette forests, safari areas, private land, communal land and resettled areas, and covers seven of the country’s 60 administrative districts.
It provides ecological and wildlife connectivity across the land use types.
The corridor has rich wild biodiversity that supports hunting and photographic safaris and has large forest areas that form important carbon sinks.
The HSBC is part of the Kavango Zambezi Trans-frontier Conservation Area.
It is situated in the Kavango and Zambezi river basins where the borders of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe meet.
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