An Unexpected Encounter.

Last year, a series of visits to villages some 60 km South of Mongu made clear the devastating effects of the drought that had ravaged the Country in the 2023-2024 season.

I had become accustomed to the power cuts and the effects they had on Zambian life, but I hadn't given a thought to those in rural and remote areas.

Upon arrival in Lui, one of the first requests we got was help with elephants. I remember thinking, the old man must be mistaken. Drunk even. There is no way there are elephants this far out of Sioma Nation Park. I didn't say anything not wanting to offend the senior citizen who had first mentioned the challenge.  But as the day progressed, it became clear there

a serious human-animal conflict relating to elephants in the area as the same request was repeated from village to village. Starting with the competition for forest fruit which deprived the villagers of food and income.

Mango was plucked before it matured.  Whole harvests had been destroyed. Entire crops lost in the dead of night. Villagers were resorting to sleeping in their fields to protect their crops.

A few days later, a fatality was recorded not far from where we had been. 

That day, Instead of returning to Mongu , we drove to the offices of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife offices in Senanga. I have previously spoken about the state in which we found the office.

We were determined to do something and  after further discussions with the villagers, we decided upon a three pronged response. Education and Awareness, Value chain addition and Deterrence.

As the dry season approaches, Our focus will be on working with communities to

1. raise awareness about the importance of wildlife and how local communities can coexist with animals.

2. Putting up fences around fields as a deterrence.

3. Work with local communities to add value to forest resources to increase their incomes.

The goal is to support communities to address these challenges and create a more enabling and supportive environment. We believe our approach will

strengthen local capacity to mitigate the effects of the drought, improve livelihoods by increasing incomes and reduce incidents of human -animal conflicts in the area. We encourage you to join our efforts.

Please contact Rolf Shenton 0971502839 to support this work or donate.

Enter Lui in the comment.

To learn more, please contact me.

Thank you for your support.