Joshua Marikopo

 It was brought to my attention last week by the Chief Executive officer of Birdlife Zimbabwe that the Lake Chivero birding sanctuary is under threat from developers. The sanctuary was donated to Ornithological Society Rhodesia, now Birdlife Zimbabwe. As some of you may know, Lake Chivero is listed on the Ramsar sites, the place is part of a huge wetland that supplies Harare with its water. The Ramsar Convention, which Zimbabwe is a signatory of, is a treaty in which we have committed to save our wetlands. In simple terms, wetlands are responsible for storing water,like sponges, and slowly releasing it into the environment. They provide habitat to many species of creatures and purify our water. All this makes Lake Chivero birding sanctuary important because we're preservating what's left of our water system.  For so many years, organisations like ours, have been trying to lobby these government officials to stop all illegal distribution of land, with few success stories. There...

 I hadn't been out in the field for some time, today I joined the Mashonaland walk at Monavale vlei. I will do a more detailed article on wetlands on world wetlands day in February. For now, take a look on the amazing biodiversity I experienced today.

A visitor from our Wildlife Network Zimbabwe group entertained a visitor today in their garden in Douglasdale, Bulawayo, this morning. We identified the snail as a Giant land snail. Lissachatina fulica seems to currently be the new name. They feed on other smaller snails, basically they are cannibalistic.  So, where do giant snails go during the dry and winter season? Do they hibernate underground like some frogs? Doesn't the heat affect them? Answer: Snails are vulnerable to dehydration and require refuges to survive hot and dry summer conditions and high soil surface temperatures. They over-summer above or below the soil surface on stubble, weeds, fence posts, rocks or other objects that provide cool, moist refuges.Snails slime is imperative to its life, providing it with a natural defence mechanism against predators and also to regenerate body parts when they’re lost and attacked. Snail slime is now used in some moisturising skin products and in cancer retardant creams due to it...

 The President of Zimbabwe, His excellence, Emmerson Mnangagwa used his presidential powers to ammend a section of the Criminal Law the constitutional Court had deemed unconstitutional. The Parliament had 12 months to correct this but failed. Am not all for the President having to use his powers for something Parliament should do, however in this case it had to be done. The world is a strange place and we have more adults wanting to satisfy their sexual urges by sleeping with underage persons. This is nothing more than paedophilia and its disgusting, am happy anyone who attempts to do that will be jailed. Children need to be protected from all sorts of harm. Now the real test for this law is going to be on the Apostolic faith beard donning followers who are well known for sleeping with underage girls. They are in cahoots with the President and it will be interesting to see of he will shield the high ranking members who transgress the law from facing prosecution.  The age of ac...