Kafue National Park
CONSERVATION Writer: Sarah Kingdom Photography: Mukambi Safaris
T
he Kafue National Park is Zambia’s oldest and largest national park and one of the continent’s wildest. Wilderness Safaris (www.wilderness-safaris.com) have just announced the results of an aerial population survey they carried out in the park in October 2017 in different habitat zones, revealing a significant increase in wildlife numbers. The survey, conducted 10 years after their first aerial survey, shows a promising increase in a number of species, including red lechwe which have increased in numbers by 487 per cent, puku by 103 per cent, Lichtenstein’s hartebeest by 78 per cent and blue wildebeest by 113 per cent. Formerly plagued by poaching, it has taken a dedicated commitment, both physically and financially, with assistance from local lodges and operators and various NGOs (World Bank, Norad, WWF etc.), to turn the tide and protect Kafue’s wildlife.
TRAVEL & LEISURE ZAMBIA
With the coming of the rains and the flooding of the plains, the camps on the Busanga Plains close, due to limited access and infrastructure. Although several camps have caretakers during this period, there is limited anti-poaching undertaken by the DNPW due both to chronic underfunding and poor accessibility. This has led to widespread poaching, as poachers have been able to operate with little fear of reprisal from law enforcement. In some cases camp caretakers were left powerless, watching The Busanga Swamp, with its adjacent flood poaching activities being carried out right plains, in the far north-west of the park, before their eyes.
'There are at least 161 species of mammals, 22 of which are antelope. Kafue boasts the highest antelope diversity of any African park'
Research by the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) into illegal hunting and the bush meat trade revealed that an estimated 4,000–6,000 poachers live in households situated in the Game Management Areas adjacent to the
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Kafue National Park. 75 per cent of these poachers use firearms (accessed both legally and illegally), while 13 per cent are using snares. The DNPW has also found that there has been illegal hunting conducted by licensed hunters, who are ‘harvesting’ as much as double their allocated quota. This sad state of affairs has been attributed to ‘compromised monitoring’ which can be blamed, to a large extent, on the poor and irregular payment of game rangers’ salaries.
is probably the best known area of Kafue National Park. Much of this northern sector is permanently waterlogged, but in the dry season (May to November) the water recedes, leaving vast expanses of lush grazing, irresistible to the array of wildlife found here. The Busanga Plains are definitely a highlight of Kafue National Park, for both their diversity and quantity of game.
Over the last few years Mukambi Safaris (www.mukambi.com), working with Wilderness Safaris, have brought in anti-poaching patrols from the DPNW, providing transport and deployment of the anti-poaching teams and paying for rations and bonuses. They were not sure how effective the patrols were, but what they did know was that although poaching was reducing, it was still going on. With this in mind the local operators felt it was imperative to protect the area more effectively. ‘Lessons from the past told us that we need better patrols and more information on the effectiveness of these patrols,’ says Edjan van der Heide of Mukambi Lodge. A new approach was devised and a fresh anti-poaching project was born...
