Natural Resource Protection
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Why is it necessary?
Increases in human populations and rural agriculture have led to habitat destruction or degradation and subsequently many wildlife populations have declined outside government National Parks and Game Management Areas, and private game reserves and ranches.
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Wilderness reserves act, at a landscape scale, as ‘Noah’s Arks’, conserving not only wildlife but also habitat, water catchments and ecosystem services. Due to the complexity of nature, conservation is equally as complex and requires a multi-faceted approach to ensure all components of a natural environment – water, air, soil, plants, birds, mammals, creepy-crawlies – are able to properly contribute to the process and services of that environment.
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Who does it involve?
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Department of National Parks and Wildlife - the national conservation government body
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Our locally employed anti-poaching scouts
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Lito Ecological Consultancy provides pro-bono technical support for SMART, fire and wildife management
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Neighbours, community residents and other Government Departments and Offices
Our anti-poaching scouts - the majority of whom are reformed poachers - are stationed at several strategically located all-year camps around the reserve. These scouts carry out day patrols, where they spend a day in the field and return to their base camp at night, and long patrols, where a team of multiple scouts camp in various locations on the Reserve and patrol larger areas.
They not only monitor illegal activities within our boundaries but also wildlife sightings using SMART Mobile. Some patrols extend into the Community Forest adjacent to our boundaries as the wildlife does not adhere to legal boundaries and this is where there are most likely to be snares.
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We do our best to manage fire at Munyamadzi as this is an important tool in habitat conservation and food availability for wildlife in the dry season depends on good fire management policies. The resident ecologist has drawn up appropriate fire management plans for the long term regeneration of soils and habitat. Unfortunately, this is hampered by decades of misinformation on the role and wise-use of fires in the country which results in devastating, man-made, large-scale fires on occasion.
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If you'd like to support our resource protection work, click here.
REDD+ Carbon Offset Programme​
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The Luangwa Community Forests Programme protects over 200,000 ha of forest within the Luembe Chiefdom, including the entirety of Munyamadzi Game Reserve. Through the programme, the Luembe Chiefdom community received performance-based Conservation Fees of USD 63,000 in April 2017 which funded community development projects such as boreholes for clean drinking water, assistance to schools and medical facilities. The Programme underwent REDD+ verification in 2023, which will generate vast sums of funding for community development projects by the Community Resources Board.
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Learn more about the Luangwa Community Forests Project here.