After the inspiring meetings with the people from VisionZambia and their projects, we went on our way to Kafue National Park. This national park is the largest park in the country and one of the biggest in the world. With the size of 22,500 sq km, it is almost as big as Belgium! Lonely Planet mentioned that the northern plains resembled the Serengeti; showing a vast number of grazing animals and that it is a great place to spot leopards. You can imagine our excitement to get there. We stayed at a place called Roy’s campsite, a camp just outside the entrance of the park, right next to the Kafue river. Hippo’s floated around in the water at about 20 meters from our tent and we learned that these animals are actually quite noisy! When one starts grunting (which happens regularly), the whole group grunts in response. Really funny!

Let me tell you what we have learned from all of these people combined. First of all, Kafue National Park is surrounded by Game Management Areas which are supposed to function as a buffer zone. Here, the main activities are game hunting, fishing, lodges, and some photographic safari opportunities. For all these activities permits are necessary and there is no farming allowed. The main difference with the actual park is that there is no hunting allowed in Kafue NP. After these so-called GMA’s there are the Open Areas. This is where villagers live and are allowed to do farming etc. Now, one of the first problems we heard about is encroachment. People from outside are sneaking into the GMA’s and are setting up major farms, thereby slashing and burning a lot of woodlands, and scaring animals away. This encroachment is illegal, but because it is in the GMA and not in the park, the responsibility of law enforcement is unclear. They need approval from the highest director in the government to evict these people and a lot of time passes before this happens. In the meantime, the original inhabitants of the GMA’s, the ones that were removed and placed on the edges, they are angry. “If the government doesn’t punish these people, why shouldn’t we just move back in?” One of the original nine GMA’s has already disappeared because of this problem. And the GMA we visited is quickly moving to this point as well.

Another problem is, as usual, money. There were several money stories to be heard. We heard about the game fee the hunting concessionaires need to pay, which is high. But it has become so high, that the hunting operators cannot afford to hunt in a sustainable way, where, for example, only old/sick animals are shot. Now they will hunt everything, thereby depleting the resources. Secondly, this game fee money is not distributed properly. Let’s say a hundred people work in a hunting GMA of which 25% is government employed and the rest is from the local community. The game fee is distributed the other way around; 75% goes to the government and only 25% to the community people*… So that’s one part of it. (Edit: these are not numbers that are factually checked, they are to give an idea of what is going on).

A lot is involved in managing such a giant park, e.g. fire management, animal count, anti-poaching units, research, etc. But first and foremost a comprehensive management plan and as far as we heard (from several sources) this is currently lacking, for the plain reason that the management team lacks either the education and/or the resources to change this. Their vehicles are broken, or they simply don’t have the money to buy fuel. An the Rangers wear backpacks and clothes that are falling apart.