All you need is a rifle and a 4X4
Efforts to save the Luangwa valley from poachers
Jake Da Motta
Photograph by South Luangwa Conservation Society
S
outh Luangwa Conservation Society (SLCS) has
its origins in a small group of safari guides and
lodge owners who before 1997 had applied to be
gazetted as Honorary Rangers (HR’s). Under the
old National Parks & Wildlife Service anyone
who had an interest in wildlife conservation, a
rifle and a 4x4 and who was willing to sacrifice a few hours
a month could apply. The system carried some perks the
biggest of which was a card granting free entry to any NP in
the country and the 90 or so gazetted Eastern Province HRs
did little but take advantage of this. Under the formation
of the Zambia Wildlife Authority in 1997 EPHR’s became
Eastern Province Honorary Wildlife Police Officers and
those in Mfuwe started to organise anti snaring patrols.
Young men from the local community were recruited and
soon every week ZAWA would second them a couple of
scouts and patrols would comb the park for snares and set
up ambushes for poachers and fishermen illegally entering
the SLNP. An informal response team grew from this called
the Rapid Action Team (Zambia) (RATZ) and this group was
put at the disposal of Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) to
circumvent all the logistical obstacles and bureaucratic red
tape that lie between ZAWA receiving a poaching report and
being able to deploy a response unit. With one ZAWA scout
RATZ could put boots on the ground within well under an
hour of receiving a report. By 2003 conservation practice
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had shifted from being all about law enforcement and with
a more holistic approach to conservation RATZ was reborn
as the South Luangwa Conservation Society, now a fully
fledged NGO.
Even the great Royal Parks of England employ
gamekeepers and wherever natural resources exist someone
will seek to take a bite out of the apple for free. This is
not a peculiarly African condition. What makes resource
conservation in Africa so challenging is that the very
natural bounty that developing country tourists will pay
big bucks to see conserved and to enjoy on safari are the
same resources that growing communities in these remote
areas have always depended on and which because of
population growth and habitat encroachment can no longer
sustainably support them. Law Enforcement will always be
the “stick” in conservation but SLCS has from its inception
sought to conserve habitat, fauna and flora for the local
population and not in spite of it, offering as much “carrot”
as possible in highlighting the opportunities and rewards to
communities for husbanding their resources.
Working in close partnership with ZAWA, SLCS has
funded and helped to coordinate the training of over 300
village scouts some of whom are immediately recruited by
ZAWA whilst others remain in their communities as Village
Wildlife Scouts or are employed full-time by SLCS working
on joint patrols with ZAWA Scouts conducting much of the