COMING SOON - 20 years success story at Majete Wildlife Reserve

A 20 years story since African Parks take over – from dire straits to a source of value, through job creation and anchoring thousands of community members

Wildlife monitoring using a Very High Frequency telemetry to track Lions before a call is one method used to ensure species movement are being fully tracked (Photo - Mathews Malata )

CHIKWAWA, Malawi (Planet Defence) - In 1995, I visited Majete Wildlife Reserve as a trainee wildlife staffer. My colleagues and I travelled the only single road up to the defunct Mendulo Camp near the Mkulumadzi River, a tributary that empties its water into the Shire river.

There were no wildlife species sightings, the AK47 rifles pilfered from the 16 year civil war then in Mozambique into Malawi and used by poachers had decimated an entire elephant population completely. The elephant used to be the largest land mammal in the reserve and great visitor attraction to see. It was down to zero.

Only skulls of animals remained as evidence that wildlife once existed in the reserve, a really sorry sight for most conservationists.

Majete remained but only as it’s own shadow, it was lifeless, a complete diversion of what is expected of a vibrant ecosystem to be termed a protected area. It was only its vegetation dominated by Brachystegia woodlands that was standing. But even the wood then, it was being heavily logged for planks and was under threat of nearing being cleared.

The infrastructure and enforcement capacity was in dire straits. To sum it all, it was all doom and gloom.

However, Majete has come a long way in the last 20 years since African Parks take over – from a sink to a source of value, providing hundreds of jobs and supporting thousands of community members with education, health and socio-economic opportunities.

Today, Majete is a living example of how sound management and community buy-in can transform a landscape into a mutually beneficial asset for both people and wildlife.

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