Community
Community Outreach
One of Conservation Lower Zambezi’s main objectives is to promote, foster and maintain interest in the protection of wildlife. In order to do this we must work together with the local community of the villages in the surrounding area of Lower Zambezi. HRH Chieftainess Chiyaba is an active member of our board and contributes useful expertise and suggestions in this domain.
We tackle difficult cultural issues when looking at Human Wildlife Conflict where education and novel ideas are paramount.
The Chiawa Partnership Park is a new concept which CLZ encourages and supports. It is run by the Lower Zambezi Conservation Trust and and their website is www.lzct.org.
Human Wildlife Conflict
One of the hardest questions we are asked by local people is why do we protect animals that regularly destroy their crops and can be a very real danger to life for the subsistence farmers who struggle in the local poor rural communities just to get by on a daily basis.
Elephants, hippos, buffaloes and even crocodiles have all been known to kill local villagers who are defenseless against them.
After requests from the Chiawa Community. CLZ facilitated and held a meeting at the Base Camp in November 2006 to determine, document and map human animal conflicts in the LZ. Community members present were from as far afield as Lusitu and Gwembe. From information collected it was evident that Elephants pose the biggest threat to rural livelihoods.
With DANIDA funding CLZ has carried out conflict mitigation activities such as chili fencing projects with willing farmers in the Chiawa GMA.
Chili Fencing Projects
CLZ supported an African Wildlife Foundation initiative in the Chiawa area educating the local community on how to protect their valuable crops from foraging elephants using this cost-effective deterrent method. Lectures and workshops both at CLZ and in the field were run, teaching farmers how to construct the fences using pieces of cloth soaked in oil and home-grown chilies.
Chili seed was also provided to the farmers so that they could continue to grow their own chilies and therefore maintain the fences independently themselves.
Paint Ball Project
CLZ is always looking for new ways to assist communities in solving the Human Animal Conflict. CLZ has recently tested the use of Paint Ball Guns with pepper balls as ammunition to deter elephants from fields. We’ve had effective results in the first trials and hope that this technique will deter elephants before they become problems to communities and have to be destroyed. CLZ would like to thank The Paint Ball Shot in Pretoria South Africa for the donation of trial paint ball gun and pepper paint balls as well as Sharon Van Wyk for organising the first trial.
Chiawa Partnership Park
CLZ hold a place on the board of the newly created Chiawa Conservancy Partnership Park. This is the area known as the eastern GMA covering over 100 square kilometres to the west of Lower Zambezi National Park. The borders of the area are, from the north the Zambezi escarpment, from the south the Zambezi river, from the east the boundary of the National Park and from the west the Chiawa community.
This new park will be managed by a board of community members and stakeholders and will be protected to the same degree as the National Park itself. Activities undertaken by the Lower Zambezi Conservation Trust management will include anti-poaching and other conservation efforts as well as interaction with the community. CLZ are willing partners in this innovative venture and look forward to its future success.