June at Conservation Lower Zambezi

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German Ambassador Visits CLZ Base Camp

This month CLZ had the privilege to host the German Ambassador and part of his team, here at CLZ Base Camp. They spent two nights at CLZ and it was a great opportunity to show them the Park and more of the work that CLZ and ZAWA do This allowed them the opportunity to see first hand the work that CLZ does and how conservation in the Lower Zambezi National Park works. The trip proved to be a great means for building relationships between the organization and the Embassy.

We would additionally like to thank the Ambassador and the Embassy for their kind donation of footballs and football accessories for our upcoming Community Day Sports Day – Rubatano (meaning ‘unity’) 2015! We look forward to continuing and building on this relationship in the future.

The NZOU Environmental Education Program Trumpets ahead

The Nzou Environmental Education program is trailing ahead with both its school visits and outreach programs. This month CLZ Base Camp hosted 26 children and 3 teachers from our Rufunsa project area. This area is highly renowned for its high levels of poaching activity. The children in this group engaged extremely well with the topics at hand and showed a conserted desire to learn and ask questions. We would like to thank Chongwe Safaris for lending us Moses, one of their dedicated and exceptional guides, who came to talk to the children for a short careers talk.

Besa Kaoma, our Environmental Educator, also went to Chinunuyu this month for his Outreach Program. This outreach program was received well and it is hoped that the Conservation Clubs in this area have been encouraged and motivated to continue their good work, now equipped with CLZ’s newly developed Nzou Curriculum and Activity Books.

The Nzou Environmental Education Program continues to trumpet ahead!

Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) course

On the 16^th of this month The Nature Conservancy (TNC) in partnership with Brian Childs, hosted a four-day course on Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Lusaka. TNC kindly extended an invite to CLZ staff to attend the workshop, CLZ sent their Operations Manager (Rabson Tembo) and Base Camp Manager (Shaina Irwin), who both work alongside the community in some capacity and filter influence and input into this area of the project.

It was great to have part of our team take part in this course especially due to its wide array of candidates and representatives present from different organizations around Zambia with an affiliation to conservation. Organizations represented included; Game Rangers International, Copperbelt University, BioCarbon Partners, Frankfurt Zoological Society and more. We now look forward to putting some of what we learnt into practice.

Lower Zambezi looses another Ellie

This month we had to bid farewell to our very own Ellie Harvie. Ellie Harvie has been the General Manager at CLZ for the past year and a half and has truly become a part of the team here at Base Camp. Her enthusiasm, positivity, hard work and dedication towards the organization and the staff has not gone unnoticed. Despite her relatively short stint with CLZ she has no doubt made a difference to the organization with her relationship building and fundraising efforts.

The CLZ team and all involved will miss the energy, warmth and friendship of Ellie but we would like to wish her all the best in her new endeavours and hope to see her visiting the project soon!

CLZ would equally like to welcome our new General Manager Vera Hoffman and Logistics and Maintenance Manager, Fynn Cory to the CLZ Team. We look forward to working with them and believe they will both add value to the current CLZ team.

THANK YOU

A huge thanks this month to all those who have helped us, both financially and in kind. Thanks to Proflight Zambia for their management flights, Royal Air Charters for their continued support to staff flights. Thank you to Southern Sun Ridgeway for their ongoing support to CLZ staff.

CLZ's work would not be possible without the support of our members. A huge thank you to all of our membership organisations: Platinum members: Anabezi Camp, Baines River Camp, Chongwe River Camp, Chiawa Camp, Old Mondoro Bush Camp, Mwambashi River Lodge, Royal Zambezi Lodge and Sausage Tree Camp; Gold members: Chongwe River House, Kasaka River Lodge; Silver Members: Kanyemba Lodge, Mvuu Lodge, River Grande Lodge, Kiambi Safaris.

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