The Zambezi River Basin is well known for its many tourist destinations and activities. Countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe host hundreds of thousands of tourists annually who visit Lake Malawi, the Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya, "the smoke that thunders") and Lake Kariba, Africa’s largest artificial lake. Game-viewing, fishing, white water rafting, bird watching, hiking and shopping for crafts are just some examples of the wide range of activities offered.

Apart from giving the tourist a good time the labour-intensive industry also makes a significant contribution to the economies of southern African countries. But this industry, the region's fastest growing and probably the world’s largest, also has serious impacts on the environment that it depends on. Finding environmentally sustainable forms of tourism is, therefore, a prerequisite for the industry within the Zambezi River Basin.

Tourist activities in the Zambezi Basin

The Zambezi River Basin’s tourism industry is mainly based on wildlife and water-based activities such as rafting, canoeing, kayaking, motor boating, fishing and leisure viewing. Earthbound wildlife activities consist of game viewing, backpacking, photographic safaris, bird watching and hunting. Other activities that are carried out by tourists include bungee jumping, sky diving, aircraft flights over the Victoria Falls, curio purchasing, visiting ancient monuments, historic buildings, museums, art galleries and participation in cultural ceremonies.

The tourism sector can make significant contributions to the economies of the basin countries by generating foreign currency. A recent study under the Zambezi River Action Plan (ZACPLAN) has for example estimated the direct value of wildlife and water-based tourism to the basin at US$148 million annually. Tourism is also a labour intensive industry providing employment not only in the tourist sector but also to the supporting industrial and commercial sectors. The tourist industry has grown considerably in the last five years, and it is expected to continue growing.

Botswana, Malawi, Namibia, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe all have a steady growth in their tourism industry. Factors such as change in the political climate and infrastructual development have contributed to the increase in tourist arrivals for these countries. Botswana’s growth can for example be explained by the increased accessibility by road into the country and in Namibia the Trans-Kalahari Highway (through Botswana) and the Trans Caprivi highway linking Namibia to northern Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe is certain to increase regional access to the country.

The continued move toward political stability in Mozambique is assumed and a growth of the tourism industry there is expected to far exceed any of the others. In Angola the political instability has resulted in the collapse of the tourist industry. It is believed though that as the situation in the country stabilises, the tourism industry will grow.

Table 1: Tourist Arrivals to the Basin 1993-7

Apart from contributing to the economy, tourism activities in the basin also provide an opportunity for visitor education and increasing appreciation of the area and natural environment. This in turn works in favour of encouraging tourism investment and providing development opportunities. For instance, curio trade has become one of the most direct ways in which local people can benefit from the tourist industry. Local people dominate the trade as woodcarvers, traders and stallholders.

Tourist development also attracts the provision of social amenities and services such as schools, hospitals and recreational facilities and if properly regulated, hunting has proved to be a good caretaker of land. Programmes such as the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe, the Administrative Management Design Programme for Game Areas (ADMADE) in Zambia, and the Communal Wildlife Conservancies being set up in the eastern Caprivi in Namibia as part of the Living In Finite Environment (LIFE) programme are good examples of this. Sustainable wildlife utilisation gives communal residents an alternative land-use option to conventional agriculture.

Possible negative social impacts include cultural change, begging and conflicts of interest between protected areas' authorities and local communities.

Over the past few years there have been increasing numbers of reports, complaints and concerns about tourist use and development in the Zambezi Valley.

The most significant impact of increases in the number of people coming to the Zambezi River Basin is the expansion of hotels and tourist facilities to meet this demand. Some of the impacts are shown in Table 2.

The impacts from activities such as rafting, canoeing, motor-boating etc, directly relate to pollution and waste. Noise pollution is also high and the continued wave action caused by the wake (strip of smooth water left behind a moving boat) damages riverbanks disturbing the micro-ecology. There is concern that sport angling can over-exploit game fish species and has led to the introduction of alien species favoured by anglers, e.g. trout and bass.

The curio industry has developed as a by-product of tourism and is a big consumer of indigenous hardwoods.Demand for curio products has increased with the expansion of the tourist industry. Localised over-harvesting of large and increasingly rare indigenous trees is believed to be occuring at an unsustainable rate, and often illegally. For example, the hardwood shortage in Malawi has led to some woodcarvers poaching from neighbouring Mozambique.

The development of wildlife-related land uses has been seen by some as threatening the food security of countries such as Zimbabwe. Elsewhere, particularly in drier areas, game farming coupled with tourism is seen as a more sustainable and productive land use option than agriculture.

Tourist behaviour is often motivated by environmental conditions. It can be argued that although accommodation and other components such as infrastructure, political stability and social structure are essential to the success of tourism, these become irrelevant if the environment is unattractive. Some claim that the very existence of the tourist industry within the Zambezi Basin is a result of water and wildlife resources and should be safeguarded to ensure the sustainable development of the industry.

For example, ensuring adequate flows to maintain floodplains is crucial to a wide range of wildlife, particularly to antelope, buffalo and hippopotamus. Healthy wetlands absorb run-off from the catchment and filter suspended sediments and nutrients, they act as a sponge reducing the impacts of floods and support a wide diversity of fauna and flora. Most water-based attractions such as rafting, boating and fishing, do not consume water, in fact they require certain base flows, e.g. rafting below the Victoria Falls requires a flow of at least 500 cubic metres per second which is also necessary to maintain the wetlands downstream.

The maintenance of good water quantity is as important a habitat requirement for healthy wetlands and river gorges as it is for water-based tourist activities in the basin. Water quality can be impaired by sewage discharges from lodges and towns, siltation due to erosion caused by river-bank developments, over-exploitation of wetland resources such as reeds and fish, and pollution by fuels and pesticides. The flora and fauna, which constitute greatly, if not solely, the attraction of the Zambezi River Basin requires adequate supplies of good quality water.

The future threat to the environment lies in the rapid, often uncoordinated growth of tourism and the resultant increased pressures and demands, which will be placed on the natural resources of the Zambezi River Basin.

The segment of tourism that is undergoing the fastest growth is nature-based tourism, which includes ecotourism.

If well-managed, ecotourism can have many advantages:

• It provides a lucrative source of foreign exchange that can be used to finance economic growth and development.

• It suggests a form of industrial growth that is well suited to rural areas. Studies have shown that ecotourism is a better form of land use than most agricultural pursuits, especially in arid and semi-arid areas.

• It is a form of economic development that can spread revenue to the poorest strata of rural communities.

• It is, by some account, an industry without chimneys thus can promote the protection of wildlife while promoting social development.

• It has the capacity to promote respect for other people’s cultures on the part of visitors from foreign countries.

Yet, nature-based tourism is not necessarily ecologically sound. Some places visited by ecotourists support fragile ecosystems that cannot endure heavy disturbance. Another controversial issue is the matter of economic leakages, that is, what proportion of tourist spending benefits the host country. For ecotourism to be a viable conservation strategy, it must lead to economic development while not adversely affecting the natural resources on which it depends.

In addition to the tourist industry, local communities and governments at both national and local level, organizations concerned with the conservation of nature, such as the World Conservation Union (IUCN) are now actively involved in the promotion of this type of environmentally responsible tourism.

The tourist industry is growing. There is an economic drive to expand the capacity of facilities as well as their quality. But rapid and uncontrolled development of the tourist sector places pressure on the environment. Therefore a sustainable programme that ensures the future development of the many and varied natural resources of the Zambezi River Basin is essential for the preservation of the natural environment and the tourist market that thrives on it.

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