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 20, locally employed anti-poaching scouts
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Lion Landscapes provides equipment such as SMART devices
Our anti-poaching scouts - the majority of whom are reformed poachers and 25% of whom are women - are stationed at six 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 four to six 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.
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If you'd like to support our resource protection work, click here.
REDD+ Carbon Offset Programme
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BioCarbon Partners (BCP) is a Zambian-headquartered social enterprise whose mission is to make forest conservation valuable to people. BCP works with communities in globally significant biodiversity landscapes in Africa to prevent deforestation by investing in long-term forest carbon projects. Utilising the innovative partnership-based REDD+ (Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation) project model, BCP facilitates community-based, market-driven solutions to deforestation that holistically deliver community development, habitat preservation and wildlife protection outcomes.
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Munyamadzi and REDD+
The BCP-managed 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 will be undergoing REDD+ verification in 2023, which will enable self-sustaining carbon offset sales to continue generating another revenue of conservation-related income for the community for the next 25 years.
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Learn more about their Luangwa Community Forests Project here.
