WWF Zambia says it is deeply concerned by the second incident in a space of five months of a Lion escaping its enclosure at Mundawanga Environmental Park, eventually leading to the loss of a Lion reported on 27th January 2021.
WWF Country Director Nachilala Nkombo said Mundawanga Environmental Park is a very important wildlife sanctuary through its income generation contributing to Zambia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Ms. Nkombo said the facility has huge potential for becoming a world-class environmental and education resource centre as it hosts over 40,000 children and teachers annually, providing hands-on educational programmes and contributes to building a stronger sense of environmental and nature consciousness amongst citizens.
“In addition, the park supports domestic tourism and is a spectacular recreational space where various events are held to entertain the public that visit the sanctuary. It is our understanding that the importance of such sanctuaries and environmental parks should not be downplayed in supporting local tourism growth and therefore must not only be managed well but considered as key national investments,” Ms Nkombo said.
She said WWF Zambia understands however that much of the infrastructure such as animal enclosures at the wildlife sanctuary are now weak and quite corroded at the bottom, subsequently leading to the two (2) latest incidences of Lions escaping the Park, causing panic and huge risk to human beings in the surrounding communities- a situation that is highly regrettable but completely preventable with the right measures in place.
“Repeated occurrences of this nature have the potential to erode public confidence that Mundawanga has famously gained overtime, and this may lead to reduced number of visitors, further impacting revenue flows generated and contributed from this sanctuary. It is our considered view at WWF, that government through the Department of National Parks and Wildlife ( DNPW) prioritizes funding to the sanctuary and fast tracks the much needed infrastructure overhaul to curb potential and actual human wildlife conflict that could arise from the current status quo, and for continued business of the Park.”
“Current infrastructure has been in existence for over 50 years and is now old and requires urgent overhaul.”
“Further, WWF understands from publicly available information that funds have already been approved by Government for a complete overhaul of Mundawanga demonstrating clear commitment by the government on this. However, it is our earnest appeal that Government prioritizes the release of these funds and applies urgency to this matter to ensure that the ecological soundness of the iconic sanctuary is re-gained and that public confidence is restored, that might have otherwise been lost owing to the repeated occurrences of animal escapes from the park,” she said.
Why not lease the place the many hundreds of rich wild animal welfare and conservation organisations ?
These are the richest organisations due to western conservation concerns….
Mundawanga infrastructure is just too old for sure…. there’s need to have total overhaul to protect people and animals too
Set all the animals free, just leave the botanical gardens. Funny how we wait for the “civilised people” to help us conserve animals yet more animals have been killed in the name of conservation since the European turned up to our shores. Culling and all this nonsense. Leave our animals alone. We only killed what we ate and we had more animals then.
Mundawanga needs to be refurbished its about time
Iye I remember my days prior to becoming a born again when I used to play with nachilala. In fact I called her nachi baby. Very intelligent woman and beautiful.
These PF like shooting…. Why kill their friend just for leaving zoo to go look for food?
What do you expect from a poorly run state facility and no Nachilala Nkombo Mundawanga Environmental Park is a very important wildlife sanctuary but does not contribute to Zambia’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) get serious.
Tarino you are behaving there abroad where they are keeping you in the zoo as an advanced ape for whlte kids to see
Mundawanga botanic gardens needs new innovative infrastructure what is there now is more of a museum.
Christopher Phiri – These fooools think running a zoo is like keeping chickens in their backyards its a multi-million dollar specialist industry suited for the private sector with deep pockets…these companies are mostly theme park specialist chains. You cant have jumpy ZAWA guards with AK47s trying to dart a lion that’s 10 metres away and you have no where to run when it charges you.
Kwena naine I don’t understand how and why a lion was being darted without shelter for the darter. You mean Munda wanga has no covered vehicles that could have been used to approach the lion until at target distance so it could be darted from a place it couldn’t breach?
WWF Zambia, Zambia has an incompetent minister at the Ministry of Tourism and Arts including the Permanent Secretary. Incompetency is killing tourism. They want these jobs and fail miserably! No education! No skills! No training! No expertise! No knowledge! Get rid of the minister and the permanent secretary. Bring in fresh new innovation and talent. Only then will this attraction work. Useless minister! I hope he did not sell the lion’s head to Trophy Hunter’s. Its all he’s good for! He probably sold lion bone and claws to the Chinese he has been rubbing shoulders with.
The place should be given a face lift …replace all old structure so that the safety of workers and the public will be ensured
This park needs to be leased out to an organization such as wildlife conservation society of zambia or even international associations which the WWF can recommend that deals with wildlife conservation and not an individual. Definitely not government as they have already failed.
Yeah, this how serious it gets when infrastructures are left to putrefy. all that 50years pass the maintenance has been minimal because the money been generated ends up into management’s pockets. and this ideology of saying the money has been allocated sometimes is a bull! the excuse we always get, the idea of waiting until something dangerous has happened that’s when money issue is raised is absurd really. At times in Zambia, we live on the time ticking bomb because we wait for something bad to happen that could have been avoided, that’s when actions are taken but that is too late then. This ordeal again is the credibility of management.
I agree with one of the bloggers – just release the animals into their natural habitat (game parks) and concentrate on maintaining the botanic gardens. Caging animals in a zoo is one of the most barbaric and cruel acts of mankind still being tolerated in the 21. century. It is a relic from the European imperialst era that has no place in our times. This is an opportunity to ban all zoos in the country.
WWF has no history of keeping animals in captivity forever. Nachilala should be advocating for the release of animals into nature. Take the animals to national parks.
The place requires refurbishing, replacing everything old except the animals
Everyone is an expert until they come face to face with a lion. Stop trying to come out as supporters of animal rights because you are in diaspora. Here our lives are more important than animals. I understand in Europe some of them even think their dogs are more important than black people
Africans are very bad at carrying out maintenance of any infrastructure. They would rather build a new one than maintain an old one.Munda wanga can be maintained and bring it back to those old glory days, I would call this as just sheer negligence but why imwe ba government.
Even in homes,you will find that the owner who may afford say to repair a leaking cytern would instead wrap a Shoprite plastic around the leakage spot and put ka small kakopo for leaking water to drop into it ninshi chapwa problem solved.
Shame.