Poachers Turned Gamekeepers In Zambia

UNDP is supporting Zambia to help ex-poachers move into sustainable alternative livelihoods and break their dependence on wildlife crime. For more than two decades, Steward Siapalala was known for poaching wild animals in the Kafue National Park, one of Zambia’s embattled reserves and the fifth largest National Park in the world. "I had a killer instinct... I could shoot down a buffalo with just one bullet,” he says, pointing at a mock target with an imaginary rifle. Farming had been Siapalala’s main livelihood, but poor yields due to unsustainable agricultural practices and climate change pushed him into poaching. For rural communities residing near National Parks and Game Management Areas in Zambia, poaching has long been a part of their livelihood so has been charcoal burning, a practice that depletes forests. Like many other ex-poachers in his village in Itezhitezhi District in Central Zambia, the 50 years-old wasn’t growing enough food to sustain his wife and 9 children and was not only poaching to supplement their diets, but also to trading bush-meat for other food stuff or cash. But today, all of that is changing for Siapalala and hundreds of ex-poachers thanks to a United Nations Development Programme (UNDP)-supported project funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) which began teaching local rural communities sustainable agricultural practices also called climate-smart agriculture techniques or Conservation Farming locally known in the Ila language as “Bulimi bukalilila butanyonyauni zhilengwa leza” - the farming system which does not destroy nature.