Conservation agencies are usually judged on what they protect, not on how they communicate — yet in Zimbabwe, where wildlife is both heritage and revenue line, the two are harder to separate than they look. The Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority has filled two roles that sit precisely at that seam, appointing Luckmore Safuli as Public Relations Manager and Pauline Matinhure as ICT Manager, both effective 1 April 2026.

The choice of portfolios is telling. A public relations function speaks to ZimParks’ standing in the contested global conversation around conservation, sustainable use and tourism — a conversation in which Zimbabwe’s position on elephant management and trophy hunting is regularly debated abroad. How that case is made, and to whom, has commercial consequences for an economy that counts Victoria Falls and Hwange among its most valuable assets. Reputation, for a wildlife authority, is part of the balance sheet.

The ICT appointment points to the operational side of the same problem. Modern conservation runs on data: anti-poaching surveillance, animal-population monitoring, permit and revenue systems, and the digital booking platforms that international visitors expect. Building that capability under dedicated management is a quiet but practical signal that the authority intends to manage parks as systems, not just as land.

For an institution whose mandate spans both the ecological and the economic, naming managers to communications and technology rather than only to field operations reflects where the pressures now sit. At ZimParks, protecting the wildlife and presenting the case for it have become the same job.