Albert Schenk is the field manager in Thuma Forest Reserve for the Wildlife Action Group since 2005. He has an university degree in environmental biology and has worked in Thuma as a volunteer three times before.

Thuma Forest Reserve was gazetted in 1926 and covers an area of roughly 19.700 ha (197 km²) in the Great Rift Valley Escarpment near Lake Malawi, approximately 80 km from Malawi's capital Lilongwe. Thuma is one of a few forest reserves in Malawi which is still home to elephant and buffalo. Other game include greater Kudu, bushbuck, baboon, vervet monkey, bushbaby, leopard, spotted hyena, genet, civet, warthog, bushpig, porcupine as well as a number of smaller antelopes like Sharpe's grysbok, common duiker and klipspringer. The objective of the Thuma Project is to protect its flora and fauna and to restore its ecological balance in co-operation with the communities around Thuma. Thuma F.R. is now, without doubt, one of the best, if not the best, protected forest reserve in Malawi.

For further details of the Thuma Forest Reserve project and The Wildlife Action Group Malawi visit their website here: www.wag-malawi.org.

Malawi is not considered a safari destination: what does the country have to offer the traveller who perhaps wishes to taste a different area of Africa? How can somewhere like the Thuma Forest Reserve hope to compete with the parks in neighbouring countries?

When only looking at parks and wildlife in Malawi, Malawi can not fully compete with neighbouring countries; in other words: the visitor who solely comes to Africa to see the big five, will probably choose another country. However when one looks at the total package Malawi can offer to the visitor then Malawi can definitely compete with other countries: Malawi has beautiful sceneries, a variety of landscapes (and therefore biotopes) can be found within relatively short distance from each other, the people are very friendly (The Warm Heart of Africa!) and of course it has one of the most beautiful lakes in Africa. Especially for the adventurous traveller with a smaller purse Malawi is an superb destination in Africa.

As Field Manager of the Thuma Forest Reserve what are your day to responsibilities and aside from your work with the habitat what is your personal interaction with local communities?

The interesting facet of the job of field manager is that you are involved in basically all aspects concerning the running of the reserve: it goes from road maintenance, via wildlife surveys, up to meetings with other stakeholders in conservation and everything else in between.

Community education.

Through what channels do you interact with local villagers – directly or through a spokesperson? What concerns have they expressed regarding the project and how have you sought to alleviate any fears they may have?

The interaction with local communities varies from limited (due to the far distance) to intensive via meetings with the chiefs. We would like to develop more regular and more intensive contact with all the communities around Thuma F.R. in the near future. However, since Thuma F.R. has a boundary of about 64 km (and it takes almost a day to drive from our camp to the most distant communities West of Thuma F.R.) this can only be established when more financial resources become available.

The main concern expressed by communities is the problem of crop-raiding elephants. Despite the fact that other animals like bush pigs, birds and insects, cause on the whole more damage to crops in general, the actual damage to crops plus the emotional impact of crop-raiding elephants to individual farmers can be big. We have tried several elephant deterrent measures in the past and are still keen to try and implement any other possible solution but reality learns that it is very difficult to stop elephants from going into farm fields. Even electric fences around reserves have generally failed throughout Africa because of the high financial burden of maintenance.

I personally begin to believe that the only effective measure on the long term is to stimulate people, living near reserves with elephants, to make a living by growing and breeding anything that elephants simply don’t eat (like tobacco, chilli, cotton, goats, pigs, chicken and so on). The profits then can be used to buy their food instead of trying to grow it themselves. However, I realize that even though you can simply write this solution down in one sentence, it will take one or two generations to realize anything that comes close to this ideal and a huge implementing program which goes way beyond the scope of an organization like the Wildlife Action Group.

When you became field manager in 2005 in what state was the reserve and in the short time you have been there what differences have you made? What do you personally hope to achieve with your work?

The Wildlife Action Group (W.A.G.) became active in Thuma F.R. in 1996. In the first years we did our work with a lot of enthusiasm but with very limited (financial) resources. The first time I came to Thuma F.R. as a volunteer (in 1997,) elephants were no longer resident in Thuma F.R.. Around the year 2000 the first small herds of elephants started to return to Thuma F.R. for short periods of time from the adjacent Dedza-Salima F.R.. When I became field manager in Thuma F.R. in 2005, W.A.G. only had 4 scouts employed. Nowadays we have 12 scouts plus the assistance of an armed game ranger from the Department of National Parks and Wildlife. With a total surface area of close to 200 km², I believe that Thuma F.R. has now one of the highest ‘scout densities’ of all reserves in Africa and as a result, in the last 2,5 years we have enjoyed a significant reduction of poaching and an increase of wildlife numbers, and nowadays signs of elephants can be found everywhere throughout the reserve.

What I personally hope to achieve is to put up a strong sustainable conservation foundation in Thuma F.R. which will last way beyond my time.

What are the immediate objectives with Thuma, and how do you envisage those objectives evolving over time? What is your plan to achieve these objectives?

The immediate objectives for Thuma F.R. are to secure and conserve the area and its wildlife, to let the surrounding communities benefit from living near the reserve and to make the project largely self-sustainable.

In my opinion, the 4 key pillars of conservation (for a project like ours) are:

1. law enforcement
2. community involvement
3. education and awareness
4. proper reserve management

In the past decades, the emphasis was on law enforcement and history has proven that that doesn’t work. Nowadays we see an emphasis (from donors) on community involvement but that is also not going to work if the result is that the other pillars receive less interest. I believe that all 4 pillars need equal attention otherwise the whole building (the project) becomes unstable. By keeping focus on all important aspects of conservation, I hope to realise our objectives for Thuma F.R..

Aside from being gazetted in 1926, what else do you know of the area's history? You mention the remains of an old colonial hospital and cave rock paintings (www.wag-malawi.org/tourism.htm) – what other signs of human intervention are apparent, aside from the obvious loss of wildlife and habitat?

Indeed Thuma F.R. was gazetted in 1926; around that time there were at least 11 villages located in the reserve. On certain places in Thuma F.R. where these villages were located, one can still find the remains of pottery used by the people in those days. Some of the people who actually lived in Thuma F.R. in the past are still alive: in the 40’s of the last century the last people moved out of the reserve according to the elders of the surrounding villages.

Nowadays, people still trespass (which is not prohibited by the Forestry Act 1997) the reserve to visit relatives on the other side of Thuma. This by itself is not a problem although dangerous encounters with elephants might occur.

In a reserve where there are no tourist facilities, from where is the income generated with which to manage such a project?

First off all we receive funding from different conservation donors plus private persons and companies. Among them are the United States Fish and Wildlife Service via heir African Elephant Program and Rettet die Elefanten Africas (‘Safe the African Elephant’ - Germany).

And, in 2006 the W.A.G. Support organisation was established (www.wildlife-malawi.com). This sister organisation in Europe is a membership organisation which supports the Thuma F.R. project financially.

Lastly, we run a volunteer program (which is basically also a form of eco-tourism). Volunteers from Europe come to Thuma F.R. and assist us with our day-to-day work. The volunteer pays a volunteer fee which also directly contributes to the project.

Eco and community based tourism are seen as the model for bringing income to local populations and by generating revenue in such a way as to alleviate pressure on the environment from poaching, illegal logging and so on. How would local communities be integrated into the Thuma project when the level of tourism increases and how in the meantime can they be made to see the benefits of such an undertaking when there is no immediate revenue?

There are several ways communities can co-benefit from the development of tourism. In the first place, I envision a situation where a reasonable percentage of the money generated by tourism goes straight to the communities. That money can be used by the communities for community purposes like for example maintaining their borehole or for running an orphanage. In that way the communities experience a direct benefit from their own contribution to the protection of the reserve because it will attract more visitors and therefore generate more money for their communities.

Besides that, tourism can generate other income possibilities: village trips, sale of crafts and traditional dance performances. Though we are not talking about huge amounts of money, it can be an interesting additional income for the people around the reserve, especially in a poor country like Malawi.

This year I have written a proposal to ask for funding to build 3 low-impact tourist chalets in Thuma F.R.. We are of course hoping for a positive reply from the donor in the coming months.

Meanwhile, the communities already experience small benefits of a project like ours since all temporary work, like annual road maintenance and the collection of building materials (bamboo, thatch grass) for our camp, is given to the communities.

Although the Thuma reserve is gazetted and thus extended a certain amount of protection what is the surrounding area like and how close to the boundaries has human encroachment occurred? What steps are being taken to ensure that negative human influence is prevented?

Malawi is one of the most populated countries in Africa with over 13 million people on a relative small area of land. All around Thuma F.R., people are living within a few hundred meters from the boundary. With keeping constant focus on the 4 key pillars of conservation (see 5), negative human influence can be kept to a minimum.


From both the descriptions and images on the website, (www.wag-malawi.org/tuma.htm) Thuma almost appears to be virgin (if not pristine) territory. How do you hope to maintain it in such a condition, balancing the need for tourist income and those needs of the local population? Indeed what thought has been given to how the reserve will be in say a decade’s time?

Generally speaking, the forest reserves (which are under the Department of Forestry and so fall under a different department than National Parks and game reserves) in Malawi are unfortunately under serious thread. I hope that with our holistic approach of conservation, Thuma F.R. will become an example on how forest reserves can be managed in a way that people and wildlife can co-exist and benefit from each other.

Malawi is a poor country: what resources does the government devote to both wildlife conservation and habitat preservation? Does it appreciate the importance to the country as a whole and how does it balance the necessities of the environment with the welfare of its peoples? And therefore what is its relationship with NGOs such as yourself?

As an NGO we do get the moral support from the government but fact is that the financial resources for the departments responsible for conservation are indeed very limited in a country like Malawi. For example: according to an article in a leading newspaper in Malawi, the budget for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife for this year is little less than 500,000 US$.

I do believe that the government of Malawi basically does realise the importance of the protection of the environment and conservation in general, but apart from simply lacking the resources, other issues which are more directly related to human welfare are getting (political) priority over conservation.

I hope that Malawi government starts putting more emphasis on conservation in the coming years; not only for the sake of conservation itself but also, as I believe, as a long term solution against poverty in Malawi. Malawi hardly has any valuable minerals and one of the few ways to urn the so urgently needed foreign currency is via tourism. And in order to develop and expand tourism in this country, you need wildlife because reality learns that the ‘big spenders’ from the West in the first come to Africa place to see wildlife.

Examining an elephant's footprint.

The listed species in Thuma (www.wag-malawi.org/Species_list.htm) includes a varied number in a relatively small area, relative I mean to some of the National parks in other countries. Have you carried out any monitoring is by radio collar to establish movement patterns in the larger mammal species? Are there such species such as the elephant which are transient and if so to where do they disperse outside of the reserve itself?

Thuma F.R. is one of a cluster of three bordering forest reserve which in total cover an area of over 600 km². The nearest other larger reserve areas are too far and the areas in between too populated to allow larger mammal species to migrate. However, from our observations, we know that especially elephants still use all three forest reserves and migrate up and down. The trend in the last years however, is that more elephants are spending more time in Thuma F.R. because of the level of protection they experience here. Thuma F.R. itself is not large enough to maintain a viable elephant population on the long term and we are therefore looking into the possibility of including the adjacent forest reserve (Dedza-Salima Forest Reserve) into our project this year.

To your knowledge have there been any species in Thuma that have been poached to extinction in the past but are indigenous and still to be found in Malawi and if so can you envisage at any time a reintroduction programme?

There are several species which became extinct in Thuma F.R. in the last decades. Examples are zebra, sable antelope, eland and lion. If going even (much) further back into history then we can also put the black rhino on this list.

The reintroduction of specifically zebra, sable and eland in Thuma F.R. is definitely a mid-term goal. However, one has to be realistic: the reintroduction of (larger) mammal species is much more complicated than it sounds at first hand: it is a relatively expensive exercise and it takes many years to build up a sustainable (large enough) population. It therefore only becomes an option if sufficient funding becomes available.

The reintroduction of lion and black rhino obviously falls in a different category and might only become a possibility on the long-term.

What are the sources of water within the reserve and how do they affect the concentrations of wildlife? Indeed does Thuma suffer from wet and dry seasons and if so how does this affect wildlife dispersal?

The wet season in Malawi last from December up to April (with slight variations in the length of the rainy season from North to South) and during this months the animals in Thuma F.R. can find water throughout the reserve.

In the last months of the dry season however, the situation is slightly different. There are a few streams that carry water the whole year through and besides that the North and South-East boundary of Thuma F.R. are defined by the Lilongwe and Linthipe River respectively which never dry up. Since the distance to the nearest source of water is therefore never far, there is not a large difference in animal concentrations between the wet and the dry season. However, during the dry season the animals are inevitable more confined to these few streams and the two rivers to find water and they tend to visit these places regularly.

The leopard within Thuma: as the main predator species within the reserve what is its prevalence and how much of the environment would be suitable for it? What is the incidence of larger predators, including the leopard and are there enough prey species to support them on an increased level than already present?

The leopard is a highly illusive animal, especially in an area like Thuma F.R. which is rugged and covered by woodlands; hardly any data on numbers or distribution patterns are available. But because of the terrain, Thuma F.R. provides an excellent habitat for leopard. With the increasing numbers of prey in Thuma F.R. in the last years, one can expect that the leopard will do even better in the coming years.

The same accounts for the other large predator in Thuma F.R.: the hyena, a species which confirms its residence in Thuma F.R. every night with its exciting call.

Locally employed scouts.

From where do you employ the wildlife scouts? How are they trained and what powers do they possess? Are they an effective force in combating poaching and other illegal activities in the reserve?

The scouts are employed from villages in the region. This ensures that they are ‘tough’ enough to stay in the bush, the most important basic quality we look for in new recruits. An ‘academic’ who is able to name all the antelope species of Africa but doesn’t have the physical and mental hardness to stay in the bush, will never be a good scout.

The only other initial requirement is that they speak English; all the rest we can teach them and my experience is that they are all eager to learn. New recruits are trained in the field by going on patrol with the other scouts and me (initially as porters) and learn ‘on the job’. So far this way of recruitment and training has proven to be fruitful and I think we have managed to put together an excellent team of scouts who indeed love Thuma F.R. and feel it almost as a personal responsibility to conserve the area.

As W.A.G. we do the co-management in Thuma F.R. with the Department of Forestry. Part of our management responsibility is law enforcement based on the Forestry Act 1997. However, our scouts are not appointed Forestry officers. The legal capabilities of the scouts are therefore equal to the legal capabilities of any civilian: i.e. “when it is not reasonably practicable for a constable to make the arrest instead, any person is allowed to arrest a person who is found committing an offence (or is about to commit an offence or has committed an offence previously), and hand him or her over to the police without delay” (so called citizen’s arrest).

The decrease of poaching in Thuma F.R. in the last years indicates that our scouts are indeed an effective force in combating poaching and other illegal activities in the reserve.

What have been your most memorable experiences within Thuma and how can you try to relate such experiences to people whom have never been to Africa or had such close contact with nature?

That is a difficult question because there are so many. But if I have to mention one thing, it would be the close encounters with especially elephants and buffalo. All patrolling in Thuma F.R. is done on foot and the thick bush makes it often happen that you rather suddenly run into a herd of these giants. As we always say: “Always expect the unexpected!”. But every time it happens it still gives me an ultimate kick, again and again, and I will never get bored with that. For me personally this is much more exciting and rewarding than driving around in a National Park and see herds of elephants or buffalos along the road.

To relate such spectacular experiences to people who have never been to Africa is not easy unless you are a very skilled writer. So to others I would like to say: “Come to Africa and experience it yourselves. You will not be disappointed!”.

You have been field manager in Thuma Forest Reserve since 2005 and before that worked in Thuma as a volunteer. What brought you to Malawi in the first place over the other African countries and how has working for the Wildlife Action Group benefited you personally?

The answer is coincidence. In 1997 I was working in a zoo in The Netherlands and one of the managers there went on holiday in Malawi and visited Thuma F.R.. When he came back from his holiday, he told me about Thuma F.R. and said: “Albert, that’s a place that you would like, you really should go there”. I had never been in any African country before but within 2 months I booked a ticket, took the plane and fell in love with Malawi and Thuma F.R.. The rest is, as they say, ‘history’.

Even as a young boy I was already passionate about nature and wildlife and I am now one of the (few) people who do the work they have always dreamed off.

What were your first impressions of Malawi, and later, as you become involved with Thuma, what do you think of the Thuma Forest Reserve Eco-system Rehabilitation Project? How did you approach your task as a volunteer and when you became Field Manager how did this change? From your experience what can working as a volunteer offer someone, and what advice have you for someone keen to become involved? (www.wag-malawi.org/volunteer.htm#VOLUNTEER%20PROGRAMME)

When I first came to Malawi and to Thuma F.R. I experienced a positive ‘culture shock’: everything was simply fantastic. In Thuma F.R., I was in the bush with the scouts every day for three months in a row and physically went (had to go) to my limits. I remember that the scouts thought that I was some kind of ‘crazy muzungu’ but they appreciated my dedication and the joy I expressed for doing what they did as a job. Nowadays I have less time to spend time in the field since management duties take up most of my time. But still I make sure that I make enough time available every month to work in the field with both the scouts and the workers; first of all simply because I enjoy it and secondly because I believe that you have to stay in touch with the ground work where it all starts with.

I can advise everybody who is keen to do volunteer work in Africa to go for it! Apart from it being a fantastic personal experience and an opportunity to directly contribute to the conservation of wildlife in Africa, it also teaches you many things about conservation which you will never learn at college or university. And with the right attitude and a bit of luck, it might lead you to career in conservation in the future.

Thuma Mountain.

What is your favourite aspect of working within Thuma and why? Is there on thing you dislike about the work and for what reason?

The favourite aspect of working in Thuma F.R. is for me seeing and experiencing the progress we are making in conserving the area and its wildlife. With so many pessimistic examples and stories about conservation in Africa, I am in the lucky position to witness that conservation doesn’t only need to be a dream or ideal but that the proper protection of wildlife is real and possible, even with relatively limited resources.

But of course not everything is ‘heaven’. One of the things I don’t enjoy (“dislike” is a bit too strong) about the work, and I am sure that almost every worker in the field (bush) will underline this, is the fact that you frequently get ‘slightly’ frustrated by the slowness of bureaucracy: to start or to implement certain things can sometimes take ages. If I see a possibility for conservation, I want to do it today and not tomorrow, the next week or in some cases even next year… Meetings and reports only will not protect a single animal; time is short and action is required. That’s what it is finally all about: to make a difference in the field where the animals live which we want to protect and conserve.