Community Conservancies in Zambia: Conservation Guide 2026

Quick answer: Community conservancies in Zambia are locally governed areas where communities help manage wildlife habitat, fisheries, forests and wildlife-use decisions alongside government and conservation partners. The model is expanding through initiatives including Simalaha Community Conservancy, Mize Community Conservancy in Nyawa Chiefdom and the Rufunsa Conservation Project, but its long-term success depends on secure local rights, transparent benefit-sharing, reliable financing and effective governance.

Last reviewed August 2026. Conservation data changes — see the cited sources for the latest figures.

What are community conservancies in Zambia?

A community conservancy is a landscape in which residents take a formal or practical role in conserving biodiversity and managing natural resources. Depending on the location, that role may include electing or supporting community resource boards, employing wildlife scouts, monitoring animals, managing fisheries, restoring habitat, developing tourism or investing conservation income in local livelihoods. Zambia’s emerging conservancy model sits alongside national parks, game management areas, community forests and fisheries co-management rather than replacing them.

The central idea is straightforward: people who live with wildlife should have a meaningful role in decisions about land and natural resources, as well as a fair share of the benefits generated by conservation. WWF Zambia identifies rights, incentives and a genuine community stake in natural-resource management as critical conditions for successful community-led conservation.

This approach is particularly important where wildlife moves beyond park boundaries. African Parks reports that one collared elephant travelled about 2,000 kilometres through the KAZA corridor, entering Simalaha Community Conservancy in southern Zambia before crossing the Zambezi River to Namibia and later returning to Zambia and Kafue National Park. Such movements show why a wildlife safari park cannot be managed as an isolated island: migration routes, dispersal areas, farms, fishing grounds and community land can all be part of the same ecological system.

Why community conservation matters in Zambia

Zambia contains large connected landscapes in which wildlife conservation overlaps with agriculture, livestock grazing, fishing and forest use. Kafue National Park is linked ecologically to surrounding areas, while Simalaha forms part of the Chobe-Zambezi dispersal area within the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. Peace Parks Foundation describes KAZA as a cross-border system connecting 36 protected areas across Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

These connections matter for elephants and other wide-ranging species, but they also create practical challenges. A community may experience crop damage, livestock losses or restrictions on resource use even when animals spend much of their time outside a national park. Conservation becomes more durable when local institutions help decide where grazing, fishing, settlement, tourism and wildlife protection can take place, and when the resulting benefits are visible and accountable.

Community conservancies also protect biodiversity beyond the boundaries of formal parks. The UN-REDD Programme reports that community forest-management groups in North-Western Province have demonstrated forest protection, local governance and sustainable livelihoods based on forest products, while still requiring further assistance as the model develops. Forest conservation therefore complements wildlife protection: intact woodland can provide habitat, maintain corridors and support local economies even where conventional safari tourism is limited.

The main threats facing community conservancies

Poaching and weak law enforcement

Community conservancies can extend conservation presence into places where national park patrols alone may not reach, but they are not a substitute for adequately trained, equipped and accountable law-enforcement systems. In Simalaha, Peace Parks Foundation says that 22 community members were trained as Village Scouts, who patrol with the conservancy wildlife manager; the organisation reports only a handful of poaching incidents since the sanctuary was established. This is a local programme result, not evidence that poaching has been eliminated across Zambia.

At national level, WWF Zambia’s 2026–2030 strategy includes a target of reducing elephant poaching by 60% and stabilising key wildlife populations across priority landscapes. The target is a forward-looking organisational objective, not a completed result. Travellers should therefore distinguish between a conservancy’s patrol achievements, a funder’s target and independently measured national wildlife trends.

Habitat loss and forest degradation

Forest loss can weaken corridors and reduce the ecological value of areas surrounding parks. A Conservation Gateway study on Greater Kafue game-management areas found that governance failures were associated with accelerating forest loss and weakening community participation. Its conclusions call for clearer legal arrangements, transparent benefit-sharing and adaptive co-management.

Community forestry offers one possible response. A 2025 Yale Environment 360 report stated that Zambia had 80 community forests covering 3.7 million acres and selling 3 million tonnes of carbon credits annually. Carbon finance can create income for forest protection, but credit quality, ownership, permanence, additionality and benefit distribution require careful scrutiny. A carbon project should not automatically be treated as proof of improved wildlife populations or equitable local development.

Human-wildlife conflict

Conflict is an operational and social risk wherever elephants, predators and other wildlife share unfenced land with farms, livestock and villages. The research supplied for this guide does not provide a national figure for crop damage, livestock losses or conflict incidents in Zambia, so no national rate is presented here. The relevant conservation lesson is that community programmes must address livelihoods and safety as well as patrols: WWF’s strategy, for example, links conservation with wellbeing and climate resilience for 100,000 households, particularly those directly dependent on natural resources.

Climate pressure and uncertain finance

Climate variability can increase pressure on water, pasture, forests and fisheries, making both wildlife management and household livelihoods more difficult. The UNDP’s 2026 call for proposals under the ICCA-GSI Phase 2 programme explicitly combines biodiversity protection, sustainable livelihoods and climate resilience.

Finance is another continuing challenge. Community conservancies often depend on a mixture of tourism income, government support, conservation organisations, grants and carbon or other nature-based finance. The Conservation Gateway study warns that statutory ambiguity and non-transparent benefit-sharing can undermine co-management legitimacy. The practical implication is that conservation funding must be predictable and its distribution understandable to the people expected to protect wildlife.

What is being done: programmes, parks and partners

Programme or landscape	What the research shows	Conservation relevance
Simalaha Community Conservancy	Peace Parks Foundation supported community development, Village Scouts and regular patrols; the conservancy lies within the KAZA-connected Chobe-Zambezi dispersal area.	Demonstrates the importance of community protection and transboundary connectivity.
Mize Community Conservancy, Nyawa Chiefdom	The Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme reports strengthened governance, ecological planning, youth engagement and diversified livelihoods; a gender assessment and Gender Action Plan address inclusion.	Shows that institution-building and equitable participation are part of conservation, not optional additions.
Rufunsa Conservation Project	Game Rangers International, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Community Resource Boards and Conservation Lower Zambezi launched the project in 2019.	Combines wildlife protection, coexistence, community empowerment, climate resilience and elephant rescue.
ICCA-GSI Phase 2	UNDP and Zambia’s Ministry of Green Economy and Environment offered grants of up to US$25,000 per project for implementation from 2026 to 2028 in selected catchments.	Creates a route for locally led projects supporting biodiversity, livelihoods and resilience.
Kafue landscape	African Parks uses foot patrols, wildlife surveys and collar-monitoring data to improve conservation measures in Kafue National Park.	Provides ecological information relevant to corridors and adjacent community areas.

Several organisations contribute different types of expertise. The Department of National Parks and Wildlife provides the government partnership in Rufunsa; Community Resource Boards help connect conservation with local governance; Game Rangers International supports ranger and community programmes; Conservation Lower Zambezi is a project partner; Peace Parks Foundation works across the KAZA landscape; African Parks manages Kafue National Park; and WWF Zambia works across priority landscapes including Kafue Flats, Upper Zambezi and KAZA.

Monitoring technology is also becoming more useful. In Kafue, collared-animal data and biodiversity surveys are used to establish a baseline for ecosystem restoration and refine conservation measures. Tracking one elephant’s long-distance movement does not measure the health of an entire population, but it can reveal where cross-border cooperation and corridor protection are necessary.

Community conservancies, tourism and the wildlife safari economy

Tourism can help make conservation financially worthwhile when visitors spend money locally and operators contribute transparently to protection and community development. The Africa Conservation and Communities Tourism Fund reported that, in 2024, its operators were active in 31,164 square kilometres of protected or conserved areas in Zambia; the figure describes the area associated with that investment portfolio, not the total area of Zambia’s community conservancies.

In Simalaha, Peace Parks Foundation links conservation with sustainable fishing and community development, while the wider conservancy is intended to help re-establish wildlife populations and migration routes within KAZA. In Rufunsa, Game Rangers International describes tourism and other livelihood opportunities as part of a longer-term sustainability strategy. These examples illustrate why a wildlife safari can contribute more than an entrance fee when it supports local employment, guiding, accommodation, food supply chains, conservation levies or community enterprises.

Travellers should ask who owns the concession or conservancy, how much of the payment reaches local institutions, whether guides and staff are locally employed, and how tourism revenue is audited. A safari marketed as “community-based” is not automatically equitable. Transparent governance and documented benefit-sharing are essential, especially because opaque arrangements have been identified as a weakness in Zambia’s game-management areas.

SafariFind travellers can book conservation-supporting safaris on SafariFind, but the responsible choice is to verify each operator’s claims rather than assuming that every wildlife safari produces the same conservation benefit. For route ideas, compare Zambia’s best walking safari routes in 2026 and ask providers specific questions about community partnerships before booking.

Results and setbacks: what can be concluded in 2026?

The strongest evidence in the research is programme-level rather than a single national scorecard. Simalaha reports community ownership, trained scouts and few poaching incidents within the sanctuary. Mize has generated early signs of stronger governance, ecological planning, youth participation and livelihood diversification. Rufunsa has developed from a 2019 crisis-response project into a broader community-led conservation programme involving government, rangers and local institutions.

There are also signs of increasing institutional support. The UNDP ICCA-GSI call provides a defined funding route for community-led initiatives in the Chambeshi, Luapula, Luangwa, Kafue, Tanganyika and Zambezi catchment areas during 2026–2028. WWF Zambia’s 2026–2030 strategy places community-led conservation alongside wildlife, climate, people and water objectives.

These advances should not be overstated. The research does not establish that community conservancies have reversed wildlife decline across Zambia, eliminated poaching, solved human-wildlife conflict or become financially self-sustaining. The Greater Kafue governance study identifies continuing problems with legal clarity, participation and benefit-sharing. The UN-REDD assessment says community forest-management groups still need additional support. Rufunsa’s own project description includes establishing a sustainable funding model as a future priority.

The most defensible conclusion is that community conservancies are a promising governance and conservation tool whose results vary by landscape. Success depends on the quality of local leadership, government cooperation, ecological monitoring, ranger support, inclusion of women and marginalised groups, and whether communities receive reliable and transparent benefits over time.

How travellers can help responsibly

• Choose locally accountable operators. Ask which community institution or conservancy receives income and whether the arrangement is documented.
• Pay for genuine local services. Use community guides, locally owned accommodation, craftspeople and food suppliers where available, rather than treating donations as the only route to impact.
• Respect wildlife and residents. Follow guide instructions, keep a safe distance, avoid feeding animals and do not photograph people without permission.
• Do not request sensitive information. Exact locations of rhinos, elephant movements, ranger bases or anti-poaching operations should not be shared publicly.
• Ask about environmental claims. If an operator advertises carbon or conservation credits, ask who verifies them and how revenue reaches communities.
• Support longer-term programmes. Ranger equipment, ecological monitoring, conflict prevention and governance support are often more useful than one-off publicity projects; Rufunsa identifies sustainable finance as an ongoing priority.

Visitors planning a wider itinerary can also explore SafariFind’s guide to African elephant conservation in Zambia and its practical overview of what different Zambia safari budgets buy in 2026. The conservation value of a trip ultimately depends not only on where you go, but on how responsibly the journey is organised and how clearly benefits flow back to people and landscapes.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are community conservancies in Zambia?

They are locally governed conservation areas where communities help manage wildlife, habitat and natural resources, often with government and conservation partners. Examples include Simalaha, Mize and the Rufunsa Conservation Project.

Which community conservancy in Zambia is part of the KAZA corridor?

Simalaha Community Conservancy is part of the Chobe-Zambezi dispersal area within the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.

How do community conservancies help wildlife?

They can support community scouts, patrols, ecological monitoring, habitat protection, corridor planning and livelihoods that reduce pressure on natural resources.

Does community conservation replace national parks in Zambia?

No. Community conservancies complement national parks, game management areas, community forests and fisheries co-management by protecting connected habitats and involving residents in local decisions.

How many community scouts protect Simalaha Community Conservancy?

Peace Parks Foundation reports that 22 community members were trained as Village Scouts to support wildlife protection in Simalaha.

What are the biggest threats to Zambia’s community conservancies?

Key challenges include poaching, habitat and forest loss, human-wildlife conflict, climate pressure, uncertain finance and weak or unclear governance.

Can tourism fund community conservancies in Zambia?

Yes, tourism can support conservation and local livelihoods when revenue-sharing is transparent and communities are genuinely involved. However, not every safari marketed as community-based has the same impact.

What is the Mize Community Conservancy?

Mize Community Conservancy is an initiative in Nyawa Chiefdom supported through the Sustainable Wildlife Management Programme. Early reported results include stronger governance, ecological planning, youth engagement and diversified livelihoods.

What is the Rufunsa Conservation Project?

It is a community-led conservation programme launched in 2019 by Game Rangers International, Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife, Community Resource Boards and Conservation Lower Zambezi.

How can travellers support conservation in Zambia?

Choose operators with transparent community partnerships, use locally provided services, respect wildlife and residents, avoid sharing sensitive wildlife locations and ask how tourism revenue is distributed.