Marineland fully support the Lake Captain

From Marineland Kariba, General Manager,  Bob Collett.         gm@marineland.co.zw

I am saddened to read of the comments that some public may feel that Marineland is somehow held to blame for the disgusting behaviour of the youth on Kariba over this past week end. We at Marineland are totally opposed to the sort of bad behaviour displayed by the youth of Zimbabwe and can assure everyone out there that Marineland does its utmost to protect our patrons, their property, the environment, the lake and our wildlife as do all the Kariba residents.

I would like to clear up a few points having been here to witness the events.

Firstly ,out of the 30 houseboats which were together only 3 were directly chartered out of Marineland.

Secondly  we were very circumspect about selling drink to teens whom we thought were underage, in fact one of the senior members of staff intervened in the large sale of drink to a group of youngsters, only to be told by the parent to lay off and give the kids a break as they had been working hard all year. The sale went ahead to that  parent, and sadly so did the bad behaviour.

We at Marineland fully support  the Lake Captain in actions taken to try and control unruly behaviour of youth and unfortunately older alike. There are strict rules and regulations regarding lake safety with dire consequences directly to the fully accountable captain, boat crew as well as wildlife consequences should they not be adhered to which regrettable often get overruled or ignored by uncontrolled exuberant youth/elders whom are oblivious of those consequences.

We do not wish an unfortunate tragedy to bring the message home and can only appeal to those responsible adults and custodians of this youth chosen to accompany these flotillas in future to be aware of accountability and consequences of thoughtless or bad behaviour. It must also be mentioned that not all the youth attending were badly behaved and there was an order of discipline and non alcoholic fun about which parents and responsible youth could be proud of. Regrettably the more unruly have now tarnished all those attending this annual event with the same brush which will effect gatherings such as these should they continue in this manner in the future.

Regards

Bob