MAKING CONSERVATION PERSONAL
ONE PROJECT AT A TIME
2005 Project
Permanent
Base Construction at
South Luangwa Conservation Society Completed
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The South Luangwa Conservation Society's staff looks forward to coming to work each day now that they have an office to organize the daily activites. |
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Views from inside the completed permanent office. |
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Timeline
BEGINNING
With
support of a grant from the U.S.
Fish & Wildlife Service, Elefence is sponsoring the construction of a permanent
base for South Luangwa Conservation Society's (SLCS) anti-poaching control center
at South Luangwa National Park in Zambia. This will serve as the home base for
SLCS's 17-man anti-poaching scout team known as RATZ, an acronym for Rapid Action
Team Zambia.
The permanent operations base is located on the edge of South Luangwa National Park (SLNP), only minutes from the park. The buildings are equipped with the basic needs for electricity, clean water, toilets, showers, private rooms and secure storage that will ensure the safety of the scouts while they safeguard SLNP's endangered elephants and other wildlife.
Elefence believes that to fully support local businesses, all materials for the operations base will be purchased locally in the Mfuwe village that borders South Luangwa National Park. For construction of the new base, South Luangwa Conservation Society will employ only local people.
MIDDLE
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Nearly
Completed permanent office | Entrance
of the new office |
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Amon
Banda, Chief Administration Officer |
Now that the buildings are completed the Rapid Action Team Zambia Scouts and South Luangwa Conservation Society operations administration will be able to:
Rachel McRobb, Administrator of South Luangwa Conservation Society states: "In such a short space of time we have seen a huge boost in morale in all the SLCS scouts. They are incredibly proud of having a real base and proud to be part of it. For many years the scouts have lived in small, one-roomed huts with only the very basics provided. Now that they are moving into the new houses provided for them, they feel that they are valued and appreciated." |
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| One of the newly constructed Ranger's houses furbushed with flower landscape. |
South Luangwa National Park is Zambia's premier wildlife park because of its biodiversity of wildlife and flora diversity. Fertile volcanic soils provide a rich ecosystem that includes vegetation that grows near water sources, grasslands, floodplains, ox bow lagoons and a variety of woodlands including native trees such as the miombo, munga, and mopani. This wealth of flora biodiversity is why South Luangwa National Park has such wildlife diversity. The more distinct species include elephant, buffalo, zebra, Cookson's wildebeest, roan antelope, lion, cheetah and wild dog. A rare subspecies of giraffe, the Thornicroft, is also found in the park. South Luangwa National Park has one of the highest numbers of leopard (one animal per 1.82 square mile), and one of the largest numbers of hippopotamus, crocodile, and buffalo on the entire continent.
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Iyoba
Community School |
Iyoba Community School is being built with enthusiastic community involvement. The local women have been clearing the land and have also been making thousands of bricks for the construction of the school. The children of the Rapid Action Team Zambia (RATZ) scouts will attend classes here.
Through
the dedication of the scouts in the field and support from organizations such
as Elefence,
the biodiversity can be preserved...
and
there will be more visions of this… |
...
Not This | |
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Healthy
Elephant outside of SLCS Office | Poached
Elephant |
Without
a healthy, diverse and productive environment, the people and animals of Africa
and the world will not survive. It's been said, "All things are connected.
Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever we do
to the web, we do to ourselves. Whether we choose to live with elephants or without
them, only time will tell." Mutual of Omaha, "Elephants of Timbuktu" 2005
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