Dawn at Busanga Bush Camp - the best view in town

As Wilderness Safaris has expanded its presence in Zambia in the Kafue National Park, more opportunities have arisen to partner with the local people in caring for and learning about our environment. 

Employment opportunities have been the first step in this process; initially in construction as more than 150 casual labourers from remote surrounding villages helped to build the new camps, and then later in the open camps where upwards of 130 men and women are permanently employed in ecotourism positions. With permanent employment has come training and skills development. Rural income is such that those employed in the 5-month construction period earned more than 8 times the annual average income for rural Zambians. 

Further projects are on the cards with the next major focus being education. Children in the Wilderness (Zambia) hosted its first group of school children in 2007. 

Read more: Children in the Wilderness Zambia

Wilderness Safaris' Zambia camps, including Busanga Bush Camp, have pioneered the use of innovative energy-saving systems, which are being used as a model to lower the environmental footprint across the entire portfolio of Wilderness Safaris camps in all regions.

Read more: Zambia Camp Energy Saving Initiatives

Given our relatively recent presence in Kafue conservation efforts here have been limited to date. Crucially we have established a year-round presence in the remote areas of the Park. Prior to our presence, poaching was known to occur especially in the wet season when the area is largely inaccessible and visitor activity is low. Kafue saw significant poaching in the 1980s and game numbers declined before beginning to recover in the 1990s with the growth of ecotourism in Zambia. 

Today in Kafue we permanently employ eight game scouts seconded from the Zambian Wildlife Authority who are based at our camps and conduct anti-poaching patrols from these bases year round. 

Additional measures taken in Kafue National Park have been the secondment of a tertiary student who, aside from learning skills useful in the ecotourism industry, has conducted grass surveys of the Busanga Plains and examined the role of fire in this unique ecosystem, so contributing to our understanding and thus management of it. Further fish surveys are planned with future students in an ongoing capacity building programme in order to determine the role of traditional fishing in the area. An aerial census conducted in September 2007 has provided baseline data of the ungulate population of the Busanga Plains that is useful in comparison to figures from the 1970s; these calculations will allow us to chart the ongoing revival of the area.