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Home Field Trips Wildlife Tour Luangwe NP

Luangwe National Park

Poaching in Luangwe National Parks

Next issue - The North Luangwe Conservation Project >>

The government of Zambia has created large areas of land that have been set aside for wildlife conservation. As much as a third of Zambia's 750,000 sq. km has been designated as National Parks (NP) or Game Management Areas (GMA). National Parks are areas in which the human habitation is not permitted. In some cases existing populations have been removed. Game management areas are conservation areas where humans are allowed to inhabit however the wildlife is protected.

Wildlife Management

Altogether there are 19 National Parks and 31 Game Management Areas. In the 1960s these areas supported a vast abundance of game including large herds of elephants and rhinos. Two of Zambia's most famous National Parks are North and South Luangwe National Parks. The two parks straddle the remote Luangwe River valley in the North East of Zambia. However despite having National Park status and consequently being given government protection the statistics for the amount of poaching makes sombre reading.

From the mid 1970s to the late 1980s, 93% of the parks population of elephants were killed by poachers for its ivory. In the Luangwe valley between 75,000 and 100,000 elephants were killed. In 1987 over 1000 of the park's elephants were shot by poachers.

The rhino population in the Luangwe Valley fared worse still as poachers killed to obtain the animal's horn. It fell from around 8,000 in 1973 to under 40 in 1990 and may be fewer than 30 today. With the sophisticated weaponry that many of the poachers possess it may be that by the time you read this that the rhino is extinct in North Luangwe!

Poaching not only adversely effects the animal populations. It also impacts on the local inhabitants living around the periphery of North and South Luangwe National Parks and along the Luangwe Valley. In many areas where there are few economic opportunities from farming, commercial poachers gain as they exert considerable power over communities. For instance, children are encouraged to drop out of school and work for the poachers carrying ivory and skins.

Although people from the villages are employed as game scouts and involved in conserving and managing the wildlife the amount that they earn as government employees is low and indeed becoming lower in the face of stringent macroeconomic stabilisation policy. Many are forced to supplement their meagre earning by collaborating with the poachers by informing of poaching controls, selling them ammunition or even assisting poaching.

Next issue - The North Luangwe Conservation Project >>

Related Glossary Items:
Macroeconomic Stabilisation

Related Issues:
The Rhino Horn Market
The Ivory Market