Mumbwa West GMA: Conservation in One of Zambia’s Most Pressured Buffer Zones

Kafue Ecosystem, Zambia

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Mumbwa West is a large, complex landscape within the greater Kafue ecosystem— more than 350,000 acres of miombo woodland, long-grass dambos, granite outcrops, and Kafue River floodplains, bordering directly on one of Africa's largest national parks.

Like all Game Management Areas, it is not a protected space in isolation. It is a working system — where conservation, communities, and land use intersect. Understanding how it functions requires looking beyond individual actions. It requires understanding the structure.

A System of Obligations

In Mumbwa West, conservation is not discretionary. It is embedded in the concession framework agreed between the licensed operator, government, and community leadership before the concession was granted. That framework was negotiated in the presence of three traditional Chiefs, three elected CRB Chairpersons, and DNPW — and signed by all parties.

The obligations include community development commitments toward infrastructure, education, and health support; annual contributions to law enforcement operations supporting scout patrols; fire management and resource monitoring support; infrastructure development across the GMA; requirements for local employment; and meat distribution from every hunt to nearby villages. These obligations are legally binding, enforced by DNPW, and subject to community oversight through the CRBs.

This structure matters because conservation investment in Mumbwa West is not dependent on the goodwill of any particular season or operator. It is built into the legal architecture of the landscape.

The Conservation Partnership Ecosystem

Mumbwa West sits within one of Africa’s most significant conservation landscapes. Kafue National Park — one of the continent’s largest protected areas — is managed by African Parks through Greater Kafue Landscape Limited. Musekese Conservation operates anti-poaching and wildlife monitoring programs across the Kafue buffer zone in close partnership with African Parks.

At the landscape level, the Mumbwa GMA Conservation Partnership Steering Committee brings together DNPW as Chair, TNC as Vice-Chair, African Parks, Musekese Conservation, the Zambian Carnivore Programme, elected Community Resource Boards, and the traditional leadership of three chiefdoms. This is a formally constituted governance body with defined Terms of Reference, regular meetings, and accountability structures governing everything from anti-poaching strategy to fire management planning to benefit-sharing transparency.

Nedzo Safaris, as the licensed operator, operates within this system and fulfills the obligations negotiated at the concession level. Epic Safaris participates alongside the operator as a stakeholder in the landscape, contributing to conservation initiatives and coordinating with Musekese Conservation on areas of shared interest including anti-poaching support, equipment, and road maintenance.

What Stewardship Looks Like

Within the framework established by DNPW and the community governance structures, a range of stewardship activities are carried out across Mumbwa

West. Working alongside Nedzo Safaris, these have included community borehole infrastructure installed in 2025, participation in the formal fire management planning process conducted with African Parks and TNC, and coordination with Musekese Conservation on conservation priorities across the buffer zone.

In 2025, encroachment within the concession boundary was identified and addressed through a combination of field response and formal DNPW engagement — the kind of challenge that requires both presence and institutional relationships to resolve.

Boundary Governance

Not all conservation work happens in the field. In Mumbwa, a long-standing boundary question between neighboring GMA areas required formal engagement with DNPW, survey authorities, and neighboring operators.

In early 2025, a formal request was submitted to the DNPW Senior Warden in the Kafue Region for official confirmation of the boundary between Mumbwa West and the adjacent Namwala GMA. What followed was a multi-agency survey exercise — a joint team from the Survey Department, DNPW, two district councils, and provincial government conducted an eight-day field survey to physically mark the boundary on the ground. Both concessionaires contributed to the cost.

When boundaries are clear on the ground, operators stay in their areas, wildlife is not double-pressured, and community leaders know where their customary land begins and ends. This kind of governance work does not generate headlines. It generates functional landscapes.

Fire Management at Landscape Scale

In September 2024, a three-day fire management planning workshop was convened by Greater Kafue Landscape Limited in Mumbwa, attended by DNPW, TNC, and conservation and industry stakeholders including Epic. The agenda covered ten years of fire history in the Miombo system and the development of community-led fire management plans.

Miombo woodland — the dominant vegetation type in Mumbwa West — is highly sensitive to fire timing and frequency. Mismanaged burns are one of the primary drivers of habitat degradation in GMA buffer zones. Participating in landscape-level fire planning alongside African Parks and TNC is part of what responsible land stewardship in this ecosystem requires.

Presence in the Landscape

Leopard Camp — located within the concession along the Kafue River and operated by Nedzo Safaris — serves as the seasonal field base for operations in Mumbwa West. The camp sits within the primary wildlife movement corridor connecting the concession to Kafue National Park, a location that reflects the ecological significance of the area.

A Layered System in Mumbwa West

Mumbwa West is not defined by any single intervention. It is shaped by structured obligations, the quality of partnership between operator, conservation organizations, and community governance structures, and the kind of continuous engagement that working landscapes require.

Each layer matters. The formal framework creates the baseline. The partnerships make it functional. The presence on the ground determines whether the outcomes are real.

This is one landscape. The record continues.