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Environment - News
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Monday, 02 November 2009 |
UNDP, with the support of the Global Environment Facility and the German Government is working with the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Natural Resources and the local communities in Zambia to protect the biodiversity. One such project is aimed at curbing encroachment and poaching in the West Lunga National Park and surrounding Game Management Areas (GMAs) located in a remote area in North-Western province about 800km from Lusaka. The project seeks to develop/introduce innovative systems of managing the protected area through a community-private-public partnership model.
The project aims to contribute to biodiversity conservation, protecting and demarcating the area to ensure higher protection of depleted stocks of wildlife and their eventual return to the area. UNDP’s technical assistance is helping to build the capacity of the community to manage their environment more effectively and sustainably by training wildlife protection officers and village scouts to undertake regular patrols and to provide relevant information and data for monitoring the protected area.
National Parks and GMAs cover around 31% of the land mass of Zambia – the West Lunga ecosystem is one such area that falls under this category. Biodiversity in West Lunga National Park is threatened as a result of increasing levels of encroachment, logging and unsustainable harvesting of non-timber forest products and poaching. This is despite the park covering an area of over 600,000 hectares of the least represented dry evergreen forest area in the country. West Lunga National Park once had rich plant and animal diversity, has witnessed drastic reductions especially in the animal population. Additionally the forest is vulnerable to climatic changes with the increased number of dry days and thus a higher potential for fire hazards.
On a recent monitoring mission to West Lunga, the Deputy Country Director and Programme Analyst from UNDP met with different stakeholders, which included government officials, traditional leaders, community members and wildlife protection officers to discuss the impact the project has made thus far.
One of the discussions held was with wildlife protection officers and village scouts to find out what a patrol entails and the impact of the project. Wildlife protection officers and village scouts in West Lunga conduct regular patrols into the GMAs surrounding West Lunga National Park in search for illegal activities, including poaching. Any poachers are arrested and taken to the “base-camp” after which they are handed-over to the national justice system to be tried by the local district magistrate; if found guilty they are imprisoned or fined depending on the nature of the offence.
It is hoped that as the project progresses, re-stocking of wildlife and infrastructure investments will take place with a view to building up the area as a tourist destination. Infrastructure to be put up include visitor facilities, trails for ecotourism and lodges for people to enjoy the natural beauty that this remote area of Zambia has to offer. This will further foster the creation of alternative livelihoods for the local communities, the form of jobs the increased tourism, that will contribute to enhancing the socio-economic status of the people in this area. |
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Zambia
