CSL – Latest News
The Conservation South Luangwa (CSL) team have been working tirelessly to ensure that the wildlife in the South Luangwa Valley is protected – this is now even harder as temperatures rise to over 40° Celsius. Although wildlife viewing is at its best during this hottest and driest time of year, it also means that there are higher incidences of snaring and human/wildlife conflict.
New Anti-Poaching Team Developed
During the last few months, the DNPW-CSL Quick Reaction Force (QRF) have been focusing on intensive refresher training, with an expansion of their team under the guidance of Frontier Collective. A new unit – Target Team – has also been formed. This includes members from the DNPW Intelligence and Investigations Unit, QRF and the CSL K9 Detection Dog teams.
Their K9 Detection Dog team also underwent intensive training, to build up the capacity of CSL’s four detection dogs and their dedicated handlers. Sessions focused on conducting joint tracking patrols, role-playing arrest scenarios and a refresher first aid training and dog welfare workshop.
The aim of their new Target Team is to streamline operations, to build a close cohesive anti-poaching force to specifically apprehend suspects before wildlife crimes are undertaken, to stop the illegal killing of wild animals.
Community Farmers Enjoy Successful Chilli Harvest
As part of CSL’s community work, their Community team has been busily supporting local rural farmers around South Luangwa – especially with the chilli harvest. The team helps to connect rural farmers to buyers, as well as purchasing chillies to use in their human/wildlife coexistence projects. This year the farmers harvested over 3.3 tonnes of chillis – with over K60,000 (about US $3,800) income being generated through sales. This supports rural farmers across seven Chiefdoms bordering the South Luangwa National Park.
The majority of the harvest was purchased to support CSL’s human/wildlife conflict work, which includes their new ‘smelly fence’ mitigation technique. An environmentally friendly mixture of ginger, garlic, cow dung, eggs, cooking oil, onions and, of course, chillies, is fermented. The resulting liquid is then suspended in plastic bottles along a farmer’s field’s fence line. This nasty smell is enough to deter elephants from crop raiding.
Wildlife Ranger Challenge 2022
CSL’s entered two teams in this year’s Wildlife Ranger Challenge. Over 100 organisations, in more than 20 African countries took part in this gruelling 21km run, carrying their 22kg backpacks. Excitingly, CSL’s women’s team came second, completing the challenge in just over 2 hours and 23 minutes! Both teams raised a staggering US $250,000 which is vital to maintain CSL’s daily operations, ensuring their community scouts can remain employed, trained, equipped and safe whilst they put their lives on the line every day to protect South Luangwa’s wildlife.
For more information on the Wildlife Ranger Challenge and the 2022 21km leader board results visit www.wildliferangerchallenge.org
Discover more CSL news in their latest quarterly newsletter and keep up to date with all their activities by visiting their website and Facebook page
All photos ©CSL