The story of one man’s struggle to save the people and the wildlife of North Luangwa ValleyThe people of North Luangwa Valley in Zambia call him Hammer and with good reason. He’s driven strong and solid nails
of protection into the 6,200-square-kilometer North Luangwa National Park. When Hammer Simwinga set out on his mission, North Luangwa’s elephant population had dropped from 17,000 to 1,300.
There was widespread poverty and illness among the people of North Luangwa Valley. Their only source of income was money earned by assisting the poachers. Slowly, working village by village, Hammer Simwinga transformed the lifestyle of the people by forming wildlife conservation club and providing alternative livelihoods to the people.
There was a time when the Zambian Government opposed his efforts and the NLCP (North Luangwa Conservation Project) had to shut down. For nearly two years, Hammer continued his mission going from village, convincing the people. At that time, he had just got married and had no income to support him.
Today, for the people of North Luangwa Valley, income has increased by a hundred times. Illegal poaching and poaching for bushmeat has reduced by 98 percent. The wild animals of the sanctuary are back in full strength. Even critically endangered animals like the black rhino have been brought into the park and their numbers are growing.
Hammerskjoeld Simwinga is one of six recipients of this year's Goldman Prize.Tell us about the North Luangwa Valley? How is life like for the people of North Luangwa Valley? When did you start working there?
The valley is a hot and dry land most of the year. When the rains come, they are sudden, heavy and cause floods which destroy crops. And in the crop fields that survive, people work hard to save them from animal destruction. People lived and still live by harvest from the natural woodlands as much as they can in order to supplement what ever survived from the natural disasters.
This population of 22,000 have little access to education and health care facilities. They have to walk for nearly two days in order to reach a big health and education facility in Mpika town which is about 156 km away by road.
The major economic activity has been that of slash and cut agriculture system. The people grow finger millet, sorghum and maize.
I started working in the valley after I had completed my secondary school education and agriculture training school.
How were your college days like? Who were your mentors?My college days at Mpika Agriculture College were great. I enjoyed animal science. Football was my favorite sport and I was privileged to be captain of the team for two years.
My mentor was my animal husbandry tutor, Mr. Cousmas Mweemba, now Principal at Monze College of Agriculture.
Busy at work in the villageYou started your life’s mission in 1986, working in the North Luangwa Conservation Project (NLCP). Would you please share some of your early experiences?
This project was the initiative of two American zoologists, who started the community development programme as a way of helping communities to be self supporting rather than killing animals as their source of income and food.
I was hired to provide agriculture extension services to 14 villages that still surround the park today. I spent an average of 14 days per month working in the villages with groups. We helped each group to form wildlife conservation clubs which had a membership of 60 each.
These were difficult days for the poachers because we started empowering communities with money and food. Commercial poachers were not happy because their labour was reduced and no one was willing to risk going into the park for very little money compared
to what they were getting now.
A family of elephants in North Luangwa National Park, Zambia
How easy was it to convince the poachers to give up their guns and instead set up wildlife clubs in those days?It was not easy to convince the poachers. However, the small business and the agriculture production started giving people more money than bush meat. Other incentives like offering grinding mills for women earned us a lot of friends in the village especially women, who benefited from the machine more than men in terms of easy preparation of ground flour for food.
Our Conservation Education Programme in schools brought a lot of children out of the deep forests and villages to come and learn about the importance of wild life. Poachers were becoming unpopular because if a village did not show improvement (reduction) in poaching, we withdrew our support. That created an internal peer pressure that made poachers very unpopular within their villages.
You worked alone with the communities, traveling from village to village, walking many miles each day, would you please tell us how it was like in those days?For almost two years, I walked the d
ust trails of North Luangwa, teaching and encouraging the local people to produce food by using methods that are sustainable and easy to manage.
I worked with no salary. I had just got married. It was difficult to pay for my house rentals. We grew cash crops like sunflower and groundnuts that we sold and the extra was used to barter with maize corn. We continued for some time like this.
In a sunflower field
You have set up micro-credit programs for the very poor? Specifically, would you please elaborate on the programs for education, rural health and women’s empowerment that you helped set up?Women groups were helped to help themselves. They used the community resources, for instance each member sold a farm product like beans and brought money which could be loaned to one member for short period like two to three months. After she paid back, the money was given to the next beneficiary.
The project has also managed to help communities build community schools for the children and adults too. Many adults who had spent most of their youthful age chasing ani
mals are now enrolled for evening classes to learn how to read and write.
In this photograph you can see villagers at an agricultural fair near the North Luangwa National Park, Zambia
Because the North Luangwa Valley did not have health facilities, Delia and Mark Owens, the first directors of NLCP, introduced a rural health programme that has trained over 60 rural health providers (formerly known as Traditional Birth Attendants). They help communities in all health matters ranging from assisting in child deliveries to providing better and more nutritious food preparations.
In 1996, when the Zambian government officers came to Mpika and closed down NLCP’s work, how did you handle it? It must have been unnerving. What were the specific steps that you took that helped you get going in the face of such severe adversity? When the project was closed, we worked hard to continue with the rural programme. First, we had to register the NGO so that it could operate legally. For this, we had the support of the Chiefs who allowed us to operate it under the same principles.
The district authority granted us permission to continue managing all community initiatives of NLCP and take up all groups that we have been working with. Then, we made several trips to understand the feeling of the people and know if they needed us. It was overwhelming to know that they needed us more than we needed them.
It was threatening. The government has machinery of the security wing and you never know where the authority was coming from. Uniformed personnel came and surrounded our homes and offices. There was a short house arrest to some expatriate project workers. We have never done any thing wrong to anger the government.
We spent so much money and time in the village helping the people. There was a huge expenditure on wildlife support to the scouts so much that the North Park had become the best, well disciplined and motivated team of scouts. New and modern equipment like the special radios, compasses, field uniforms and good field food rations were purchased by the project.
It not a big surprise that the project was restarted and Frunfurt Zoological Scocity continued to support the work the Owenses had started by funding the operations and some scientific work in the park. So they maintained the name of the project as NLCP North Luangwa Conservation Project.
However, Frankfurt was unable to continue with the community programmes that the Owens Foundation was supporting such as rural health, agriculture development and conservation education. All the staff who worked for the community programme were declared redundant and there was no job for them. This is when we registered a local NGO called North Luangwa Wildlife Conservation and Community Development programme NLWCCDP.
NLWCCDP was formed to continue with the initiative of improving livelihoods in order to save the park and increase income and food for all people surrounding the park.
We continued with an open discussion with the Government and asked for the reasons why we could not continue, but there was no one to give us the reasons. However, we were given the opportunity to continue with the community programmes with the same community. Frankfurt asked us to decide on a different name other than NLCP because they were going to continue using it for their project.
We came up with NLWCCDP because we wanted to tackle both livelihood activities and as well as wildlife conservation issues.
What made me continue was the nature of the job that I had. I had come to love it so much. It had become part of my blood flow. The lives of the people who few years ago had no hope were slowly recovering. People who were facing extreme poverty were now having food to eat and were able to generate incomes. They had become a happier people and had also started planning on the different ways in which we were going to benefit from the park when tourism developed. I did not want to see this opportunity just go by, People had sacrificed a lot in terms of income and food losses by stopping illegal hunting.
I wanted to keep the vision of the first founders going because it was good and the people had responded positively. There was no need to back out at this time. I was prepar
ed to face death if the need arose.
NLCP is still in full operation as a Zambian project under the Frankfurt Zoological Society. It is carrying on park activities of supporting Law Enforcement and recently have started doing community programs in the area.
NLWCCDP works outside the park with communities in order to preserve the ecosystem in the Game Management Area so that there is an improved and protected biodiversity that supports the entire ecosystem.
From whom did you get the maximum support at that time? Was the media supportive of your work?The support came from the people themselves. Support later came from a UK Charity organization called Harvest Help that helped the project in most of the livelihood activities. Harvest Help supports several grassroot organizations who are working to improve the rural living standards of the community.
The Owens Foundation continued to support the rural health and conservation projects, including infrastructure such as community schools.
There has never been any interest from the media to cover a rural project which could not pay allowances for its staff. So we lost out on that one.
The media has never covered our work in any significant way. We are so remote that it becomes difficult for the media or press to reach our community. They have to cover over 1,200 km to reach the target community.
More than 35 000 people look to your conservation efforts and your organization’s way of working as an effective model to replicate. What is your advice to them if they want to get started in this field?We believe our organization has developed an effective working model for today’s wildlife conservation programs. Issues of poverty can never be separated from conservation efforts.
A good conservation programme must provide alternative sources of income and food. It is then that you can bring in awareness through conservation education. Then you can win some good supporters.
In order to save the ecosystem, all factors are important. Resources have to be found to help people. We should not make a mistake by killing wildlife to sustain conservation efforts. Money should be created from renewable resource.
What is your advice to young people who are looking to you for inspiration?Young people should invest in time and put in love and effort to do what is good for the environment. They must also learn from experienced senior citizens. There is wisdom in that.
Today, because of your dedicated efforts, illegal elephant poaching has been controlled by 98 percent. What would you say are the key elements to be included for a successful action plan to protect a wildlife reserve?Today’s approach to save wildlife is to involve the local people and its traditional leadership in planning and resource utilization. A community based wildlife protection policy is the best. It is cost effective and promotes ownership which eliminates illegal hunting.
Tell us about your family? Is your wife also keenly interested in wildlife conservation and does she work actively to support your efforts? What about your children? Do they plan to follow in their famous dad’s footsteps?My wife is 10 years younger than me. Her name is Kasonde "Qeen" Chilufya. She spends most of her time taking care of the children since I spend my working days in the village and I come back on Fridays.
She participates in teaching wo
men in the villages that are close by. She teaches the women how to make simple baby foods from the traditional
crops of soya, potatoes and cassava.
We have four c
hildren. Our first son is a boy aged nine and his name
is ‘Andizile’ which means, ‘I have been seen’.
Our second child is a girl who is seven yea
rs old. Her name is ‘ Mwiche’ which means ‘ the little one’. She was born very small. Our third child is a girl who we named Debora.
Debora is four. Our fourth child is 13 months old. We named him Elijah. Andizile likes coming along with me on a tour when he has a school holiday.
What does receiving the Goldman prize mean to you? And how do you plan to spend the money?
It means to continue protecting the endangered ecosystems and species and combating destructive food production methods. It also means it will help draw attention on critical global environmental issues. It may inspire others to work hard to save the dying environment. It also means enhanced credibility for small scale and grass root environmental groups or organizations.
This money will be invested in natural resource development programs like promoting tourism and conservation education by establishing income generating activities. That will offer employment to the youth such as establishing cottage processing industries of most of our crops eg. making cooking oil from the sunflower we grow, peanut butter from the groundnuts we grow and establishing bee keeping.
These will run on business lines with a sense of recovering 100% for a continued revolving fund scheme. I will promote handicrafts and curios and carvings so that these skills are promoted for livelihoods.
I don’t have my own house. I have struggled for 14 years to put a roof over my head. It will help me secure accommodation for my family. At least, I will have a good house to invite many friends whom I have come to know through this award. Already I have received two people indicating to come and visit me in the next few months.
Thank you very much for sparing your valuable time to attend to this interview and sharing your experiences with us.
Photo credit : John Antonelli
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