LIUWA PLAIN... Africa’s Greatest Secret
By: Mindy Roberts Photos: Time + Tide, Will Burrard-Lucas, Uncaged Africa, Peter Fernhead
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iuwa Plain National Park has long been one of Africa’s best-kept secrets. One of the earliest protected areas on the continent, in the late 1800s it was proclaimed a royal hunting ground for the then Lozi chief King Lewanika, after whom the Park’s first permanent camp has been named. He situated families in order to protect different pans of water and woodlands and this tradition continues today, with Liuwa Plain being the only National Park in Zambia where people live inside the Park’s borders.
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TRAVEL & LEISURE ZAMBIA
Since 2003, African Parks, the conservation non-profit organization, have been managing Liuwa Plain in partnership with the Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife and the Barotse Royal Establishment. Wildlife numbers have grown substantially over this time, and, along with various reintroductions, the Park now boasts healthy lion, cheetah, hyena, red lechwe, zebra, and, especially, wildebeest populations. Liuwa Plain is home to the second biggest wildebeest migration on earth.
Liuwa’s blue wildebeest movement boasts tens of thousands of animals, but different from the East African migration and due to its remote location and relative anonymity, you can experience this spectacle almost on your own. There is only one permanent camp in the Park, newly opened King Lewanika Lodge, operated by the veteran safari company Norman Carr Safaris, part of the Time + Tide collection of owner-operated camps. King Lewanika Lodge opens during the peak times in the year to see the
