South
Luangwa
When I
first came to Africa, I claimed with great self-righteousnous that I
had come to meet African people and not Africa's animals. As a
volunteer who liked a night on the town, I was always too poor to
afford the trips into the game parks and was trying to justify my
lack of interest. In any case in the late sixties, there were still
hyaenas, leopards and snakes around Mitundu, so I had enough contact
with wild things. As a result, I have never done the full safari
thing to a game park. Conseqiuently, I was quite excited about this
trip with my fellow retirees, to follow up on the reports from last
year's Vanier nurses about their experience in Zambia's South Luangwa
National Park, which is supposed to be one of the finest game
reserves in this part of Africa.
The four
day trip involves a day trip each way between Lilongwe and the park
plus three nights allowing 2 full days of viewing. We got a wonderful
deal with Kiboko Safari in Lilongwe and set out with Francis Kamoto
who drove us from Lilongwe to Luangwa. He very professionlly briefed
us on the process and we successfully got through the paperwork at
the border, currency conversion as well as the last 100 kilometres on
a terrible temporary road. The new road right beside the terrible
road looks wonderful. At this point it is an almost completed
prisitine tarmac road blocked with many barriers to keep traffic off
until it is finished.
We were
getting close to our destination, battered and bruised from the
drive, when it was all made up for by the sight of a herd (or rather
a parade) of elephants about 15 or 20 barely 200 metres from the road
and only 500 metres from our campsite. Upon arrival at the site we
were greeted by the huffing and grunting of the hippos in the Luangwa
River outside our campsite. Our guide, Moses Mwanza, trained at
college to do the work. He is a consumate professional and from his
first greeting and introduction to the camp, the programme, and the
animals he never quavered or ran from the dumbest questions.
Karen,
Tom, Ian and I have guided many student groups into unfamiliar
territory, but taking people into a game reserve in an open sided
land rover is a challenge beyond the ordinary, that he handles with
cheerful ease. Nothing phased him. The first night after our
briefing, we sat in the eating tent on the banks of the river
enjoying the hippo conversations. In the bar of the lodge next door,
the Zambia national soccer team was playing Ethiopia in the first
round of their group competition of the Africa Cup, so we set
ourselves up at their beautiful bar and watched the better part of
the two games being played Monday night.
We were
roused the next morning at 5h00 with a cheerful greeting and we were
on the road shortly after six. Even before we reached the gates of
the park, we were entertained to the sight of a breeding group of
elephants rolling in the mud and playfully pushing each other around.
We saw baboons galore and sighted several bucks of different sorts.
We didn't believe that the park would top that. But once in the park.
The WoW! factor took over. The game was plentiful and varied and the
list covers about 5 pages in Tom Peters pocketbook. I'll type it up
and append it. We got up close to a single male elephant that came
within a metre of the uncovered landrover and saw many herds of
breeding elephants, young male herds and a few solitary old male
grouches.
By the
second day we were already so overloaded with the quantity and
quality of what we had sighted that baboon or impala no longer
merited photos or even stopping the Land Rover. We gave Moses our
wish list of outstanding animals to see – buffalo, wild dog, the
small cat predators and Patrick added crocodiles. As we crossed the
Luangwa after signing in at the park gate we first witnessed and
impressive raft of hippos floating high in the water. The day was
cloudy and grey so they could expose themselves. But there just 50
metres upon the shore from them was a 4 metre crocodile. An
impressive beast demanding immense respect. The rest of the morning
continued like that with a plethora of birds and animals including
the cape buffalo.
While I
am impressed, even awestruck by my experience in the game park –
its diversity and richness, I am also excited by what some of these
things represent. Moses our guide is himself a product of the efforts
to conserve, invest and make sustainable wildlife areas like this. He
and several of his peers from the area were given specific training,
including a 6 month driving course and 1½
years at a national wildlife college in Lusaka to learn the
skills of wildlfie guiding. His knowledge is encyclopedic down to the
Latin names and biolgical explanatoins for literally every phenomenon
we ask about. He and his fellow guides work for the bourgeoning
tourist industry which is growing in this otherwise remote area.
Their livelihood depends on the wildlife attracting the tourists and
it is in their interest to make sure that local peple do not
participate in poaching. They know the park inside out and the
certificate is internationally recognised so that Moses has also led
10 day safaris to Nyika National Park in Malawi
The
antipoaching efforts seem to have been implemented with local people
as a primary focus and not using the methods so often seen where the
foreign and national elites organise the programme and the local
villagers are viewed as the problem and not part of the solution.
Worse still the local residents are often driven off their land and
disenfranchised creating great resentment and removing any reason for
them to want to help preserve the game that they consider have cost
them their homes. There are 3 levels of anti-poaching vigilance –
national regional and village. Local people like Moses have been
working with and educating the villagers and when a local is caught
with bush meat, he or she is turned over to the appropriate
authorities. Regional groups coordinate efforts around protecting the
specific environment in and around this park, while national efforts
ensure park security, enforcement laws and resources, international
support, and broad overall coordination among the many national parks
that exist.
It is
also clear that there has been considerable investment both from
government and the private sector. There are lodges up and down the
river shoreline appealing to the rich as well as the dollar a day
backpackers and many tours in many formats are advertised all over
this part of Africa and over the internet. The park infrastructure is
well maintained and even the roads are reasonable.Staff seem trained,
cooperative and tourist friendly. After two days we have not come
across any evidence of a gun. There is a permanent road maintence
crew in the park and the main road into the area is being upgraded to
asphalt and should be open within the year. These expenses as well as
the anti-poaching strategies and the pro-village education and
involvement strategies come at a price that clearly the government
has deemed important to pay.
The
result is seen in the animals themselves. The tour LandRovers are
able to pull up to a pride of dozing lions or stop in the middle of a
dazzle of zebras or a rank of impala without disturbing their daily
activites. This closeness to the animals reinforces respect for their
beauty, power and abilities.This is only possible when human presence
is not a threat. The more often they see humans the less sensitive
they are to them. If poachers were thinning their numbers then they
would flee at the first sight of humans. Poaching has been ended and
not one elephant nor other animal has disappeared from this park
exept by natural means. This is an exceptional record given what we
know of the fate of elephants in particular throughout the rest of
Africa. I for one will most certainly be recommending South Luangwa
Park to anyone who cares to listen.
Purely
by chance we have come at the low season and are the only guest in
our campsite and the park roads are largely empty so we literally
have the place to ourselves. As we gaze out over the savannah at the
herds of buffalo, the impala, and wandering birds, it is not hard to
envisage the life of many millenia ago when the mother and father of
the human species were actually the ones being hunted and struggling
for a toehold in this planetary existence.
January
2013
