Innovative management and financing for the biodiversity of Grand Bangweulu

The Bangweulu protected areas in northern Zambia possess an exceptional biodiversity, notably sheltering a high density of large mammals. These ecosystems are threatened however by a reduction in water quality and the degradation of reserves of natural resources, as well as lack of opportunities to create rural enterprises or maintain traditional ways of life.

In 2018, the NGO Kasanka Trust Limited (KTL), which is responsible for administration of these protected areas, fixed new strategic objectives. Given its limited financial resources, it was seeking support from FFEM to focus its activities where they would have the greatest impact on both biodiversity and the local communities.

The project has eight components:

1. Improving KTL’s management capability in order to optimise decision-making and profitability.
2. Training KTL personnel.
3. Pursuing wildlife research, monitoring and evaluation,
4. Improving infrastructure (field staff accommodation, vehicle fleet).
5. Implementing a new natural resources protection strategy using mobile patrols.
6. Raise children’s awareness through environmental education activities.
7. Helping communities by providing 8,000 beehives and establishing recurring funding for the purchase of harvests and provision of raw materials.
8. Upgrading installations to encourage tourism development.

• Improving management effectiveness and the biodiversity situation coupled with long-term protection of the areas under KTL’s remit.
• Helping local communities to build livelihoods while conserving the ecosystem.
• Consolidating KTL’s capabilities and partnerships.
• Locking in the financial sustainability of KTL and its partners by diversifying their income sources.

Under KTL’s impetus, Kasanka National Park has become the first protected area in Zambia where management is contracted to an NGO. For its part, COMACO was the first Zambian NGO to make conservation-orientated farming practices the precondition for purchasing harvests from, and providing inputs to, small farmers. This project sees the inauguration of a new form of partnership between these two organisations, introducing sustainable and innovative financing for protected areas (ecotourism in particular). The local roots and long-term vision of KTL make this joint management approach an example for other organisations in Zambia and elsewhere in Africa.