The Buffer Zone

Rufunsa Rhino Conservancy Location

The Rufunsa Rhino Conservancy is situated in the Rufunsa Municipality, 1 hour 20 minutes drive from Lusaka along the East road to Mozambique.

The land sits above the mountains that fall down to the Zambezi Valley, and the vegetation is lush, tropical forests and grasslands, very arable and planted with everything from mangoes to sugar cane and maize.

The Rufunsa Game Management Area is one of two Game Management Areas in the Lower Zambezi National Park. The Rufunsa district was formally established in 2012, and has an estimated population of 45,000 people. The main economic activities are subsistence farming, charcoal production (legal and illegal), and poaching.

Rufunsa Game Management Area covers 317,900 Ha. It stretches from Rufunsa district to Luangwa district on the east. This was once a safe haven of Black rhinos which are now extinct not only in Rufunsa, but the whole country. The Rufunsa GMA used to have and effective Community Resources Board (CRB), an institution that used to administer wildlife management but due to lack of funding and hunting concession, the institution does not exist.

The department of wildlife services and National Parks do not have sufficient human resources in form of wildlife officers to patrol the National park and the GMA’s which is their full responsibility. This has robbed the local people of the natural resources needed for their social economic development.