By Evans Dakwa
Harare – The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) has come out guns blazing against the City of Harare for the destruction of a wetland in Mabvuku, exposing what it terms insincerity on the part the powers that be in Harare.
Hard on the heels of hosting a successful COP15 and committing to the protection of wetlands by Zimbabwe, the capital’s leadership finds itself at loggerheads with one of the biggest residents association in Harare over the allocation of stands on wetlands.
According to the CHRA, the City of Harare is complicit to the destruction of a wetland in Tafara near Mabvuku Cemetery (Gosden Area) through allocation of stands and construction of houses.
The association also added that the wetland in question was gazzeted in 2023 as an ecologically sensitive area under Section 113(1) of the Environmental Management Act 20:27, granting it proction status.
“We would like to highlight that the disturbed wetland is not only a water source for the area but also rich in biodiversity, and allocating stands and allowing housing construction on this wetland will inherently collapse the various ecological services provided to residents for free,” noted CHRA.
With Zimbabwe having played host to COP 15 on wetlands, the CHRA said the development in Harare is a unfortunate.
” Regrettably such ill-informed development ex poses the insincerity and lack of commitment by the planning authority (City of Harare) to protect wetlands especially when the Ramsar COP 15 Conference is underway and being hosted by Zimbabwe with City Officials both elected and non-elected being high level delegates.”
Furthermore, it notes that activities in the Tafara wetland area confirm CHRA position that the City of Harare has been blatantly ignoring and defying the EMA Gazzeted Wetland Map in its spatial planning.
The CHRA also vehemently rebuffed claims by the local authority that people construct houses overnight saying, “Tthese developments happen in full view of the local authority officials. In the same vein, we call upon the City of Harare development control unit to intervene and act without fear or favour to stop these developments on a wetland.”