By Gideon Madzikatidze
GONAREZHOU NATIONAL PARK – The iconic silhouette of the baobab tree, Adansonia digitata, is becoming a rarer sight across Gonarezhou National Park. Towering giants that have stood for centuries are being pushed, stripped and felled – not by drought, but by Zimbabwe’s booming elephant population.
On a media tour led by park guide Owen Hanyani, journalists witnessed the precarious reality firsthand: massive baobabs scarred by tusks, some toppled entirely, dotting the dry, ochre landscape of the Save-Runde ecosystem.
“The elephants are under pressure for food and water, and baobabs store both,” Hanyani explained from a game drive vehicle as he pointed to a fallen giant.
“But these trees are not just food. They are pharmacies, supermarkets, homes, and heritage sites. If we lose them, we lose an entire system,” he said.
Baobabs are keystone species in Gonarezhou. Their massive, water-storing trunks sustain elephants during dry seasons, but the intensity of debarking and uprooting is threatening regeneration. Conservationists warn that without intervention, localised extinction of mature baobabs is possible in high elephant density areas.
Yet the threat to baobabs is also a threat to biodiversity. Across Africa, communities and wildlife depend on the ‘Tree of Life’. In Gonarezhou and beyond, birds build nests in the high, sprawling branches to shield chicks from predators. Small mammals and reptiles use hollows and enclaves at the base of ancient baobabs as dens to raise young.
Bees colonise cavities, creating wild hives that provide communities with honey for subsistence and sale.
For people, the value is even deeper. The fruit, rich in Vitamin C, is processed into juices, jams and powder for both household use and growing commercial markets. Leaves, bark and seeds are used in traditional medicine.
In many rural areas, baobabs serve as meeting points and rain shrines repositories of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS), passed down through generations.
Hanyani said the solution lies not only in fencing elephants out, but in fusing conservation science with IKS and tourism.
“Our elders knew which trees to harvest from, how much bark to take, and when to leave a tree to recover. That knowledge must come back,” he told journalists.
There are several proposed measures to embrace IKS, and nature and wildlife (Eco-tourism) including community guardianship programmes by training local communities to monitor, protect and sustainably harvest baobab products, with revenue going back to villages bordering the park.
There is also a need for elephant impact management through rotational use of water points and browse zones to reduce pressure on baobab clusters.
Baobab Heritage Trails which is a new tourism product where visitors pay to walk with guides like Hanyani, learn about the medicinal, nutritional and cultural uses of baobabs and fund conservation is also important.
“Tourism must stop being just about the Big Five. When a tourist learns that this tree feeds people, heals people and houses wildlife, they become part of saving it,” Hanyani said.
This initiative (should) falls squarely under the gastronomy and culinary tourism cluster and also feeds into the nature and wildlife tourism (Eco-Tourism and Conservation Tourism) cluster of the national 13-cluster strategy.
Gastronomy tourism leverages indigenous foods baobab fruit powder, juice and oil are already commercial products. Conservation tourism leverages the story of coexistence between elephants and baobabs. Together, they create high-value, low-impact products that generate income while funding protection.
As climate change intensifies and human-wildlife conflict grows, Gonarezhou’s baobabs have become a test case. Can Zimbabwe protect its elephants without losing its trees? Can tourism dollars pay for that balance?
For Hanyani, the answer is in the tree itself. “The baobab stores water for the dry season. If we use IKS and tourism the same way, we store a future for both people and elephants.”