Rachel McRobb
CEO South Luangwa Conservation Society
(With Asian Elephant in Bali)
CEO South Luangwa Conservation Society
(With Asian Elephant in Bali)
Rachel McRobb is the CEO of the South Luangwa Conservation Society (SLCS). Established in 2003, the SLCS works across the South Luangwa region of Zambia. In this interview Rachel talks to Safaritalk’s, Jude Price about life and conservation in the South Luangwa Valley.
Tell us a bit about Rachel McRobb’s early years.
I was born and raised in Zambia just over three decades ago. I spent my early years in the Copperbelt region of Zambia where both of my parents had emigrated from Scotland, not long after Zambia’s independence, to work on the copper mines. I attended primary school in Kitwe (Zambia) and then headed off to boarding school in Swaziland at 13. These were probably the most formative and brilliant years for me, as the school, called Waterford Kamhlaba, is a United World College and taught me more about people and the environment than I could have learned elsewhere.
Is there a stand out memory of a particular moment or event when you realised conservation work would become your life’s work?
Not particularly, I have always been an outdoors person and loved the bush, especially the animals living in it and have always known I would end up working with animals one way or another.
Who were your early role models?
I have always admired Sheila and Dave Siddle who have dedicated their lives to looking after orphaned and abused chimpanzees. They run the Chimfunshi Wildlife Orphanage in Zambia. Sadly Dave passed away this year but Sheila and her daughter Sylvia continue to give everything they have to look after these chimps. I was lucky enough to be able to do some volunteer work at the orphanage for a few months some years ago and the memories will stay with me forever.
Rachel at Chimfunshi in 2004
What do you love about the South Luangwa Valley?
The sheer intensity of the bush, the drastic changes between the wet and dry season, the variation in the Valley – open plains, riverine bush, the escarpment, the elephants, the wonderful team we work with.....it goes on and on.
How did SLCS come to be formed?
SLCS was initially formed under a different name about seven years ago during the transition of National Parks and Wildlife to the present Zambia Wildlife Authority (ZAWA). There were a number of teething problems during this stage and poaching was rampant. Safari operators joined forces to support a very small team of anti-snaring scouts. This set up worked on and off for a few years until it became necessary to formalize the operation under a new name and register the society.
When, why and how did you become the SLCS leader?
I used to work in a National Park also in Zambia along Lake Tanganyika and became an Honorary Wildlife Police Officer during my time there. When I moved to South Luangwa with my boyfriend at the time, I wanted to get back involved in conservation and law enforcement. I volunteered for the Society for a number of years and we struggled for a long time to get it off it’s feet and raise funds. Initially I worked in bush camps for half of the year and was then able to run SLCS during the other half. Eventually we received a grant from The Royal Danish Embassy that enabled me to be employed full time to run the Society and see it grow from strength to strength.
How do your teams operate and who are the people you work with and what types of teams are involved?
We have different patrol groups that spend most of their time in the bush. They conduct long patrols of up to 10 days during the dry season and 20 day patrols during the wet season. They also conduct daily anti-snaring patrols. All scouts (and myself) are on call 24 hours a day and can be called upon during an emergency at any notice.
Our scouts are housed at the SLCS Base which makes patrol deployment easy during an emergency.
How many staff are there at SLCS and what range of activities are performed on a day to day basis by the SLCS team(s)?
We have twenty nine members of staff including myself and all are Zambian. The law enforcement team makes up most of staff and the rest is administration. Twenty two members are scouts and we also have two drivers, one book keeper, one store lady and a chilli fence coordinator.
Some days are quite structured while others are completely diverse. The best part of this kind of work is that it’s always exciting, anything can happen at any time wether it is a report to a poaching incident, or a call out to dart an elephant or visit a field destroyed by elephants or an under cover investigations operation. It really is quite varied.
The network and cooperation of many people is the strength of SLCS, such as lodge and safari operators, wildlife and education organisations, individual guides and concerned locals and communities across the SL valley and beyond. This forms a strong nucleus for conservation. How much do you depend on one another to create the overall goals of conservation?
The success of SLCS and it’s goals depends entirely on our partners in the Valley. This includes the local community, the Zambia Wildlife Authority, all the tour operators and other organizations. Without good working relations and the involvement of these different teams, we would not have achieved the success we have so far. Of course there are daily problems and we still have much more to achieve.
Recently the two orphaned elephant, Chudoba and Chamilandu were rescued by SLCS, cared for at Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre before being transferred to the new David Shepherd Wildlife orphanage. Can you supply us with some idea of the costs involved in these rescues?
The cost of caring for Chudoba was minimal as he was weaned and not milk dependant. His keepers cost us approximately $250 for the 5 weeks he was with us. I drove him to Kafue as he was too big to fly so that only costed us fuel, approximately $400. He ate natural vegetation from the bush so that was free as well.
Chamilandu is more expensive as she is not yet weaned and needs to be fed every three hours. She also had to be flown as a thirty hour drive would have been too much stress for her. So far Chamilandu’s move and upkeep has cost approximately $6000. This is an expensive venture but donations for the cost of the flight and upkeep was pledged within two days of the write up about Chamilandu.
The fact is there are people out there who will contribute to particular projects like this. SLCS will continue to support these elephants at the orphanage.
What other wildlife does SLCS find are in conflict, competition or endangered in South Luangwa.
We deal with elephants on a regular basis, mostly elephants that have been snared and need to be immobilized and treated. We also have to deal with elephants that have been wounded by shooting, sometimes we need to euthanaze them. We also deal with other snared animals on a regular basis such as buffalo, antelopes, lions and hyaenas.
Human animal conflict is a widespread problem in Luangwa and more and more people are being harassed by elephants each year. This is partly due to an increase in human population in the Valley and a lack of land use planning by the authorities. SLCS coordinates a chilli fence program to try and mitigate these problems.
What does the SLCS aim to achieve in the South Luangwa Valley?
The SLCS goals are:
- To educate the public in wildlife conservation through schools and other campaigns
- To work closely with the existing CRB’s and the local community in order to combine conservation efforts
- To ensure that all CRB’s and village scouts surrounding the SLNP are well trained and well equipped in order to
carry out their duties - To use the SLCS model in other Chiefdoms
- To find ways to promote alternative protein sources and improved food security for local communities
- To reduce contempt for wildlife from the local community due to human animal conflicts
- To expand the darting program to ensure that more snare removals take place, to train more dedicated ZAWA
personnel in chemical immobilization
How does SLCS go about achieving these goals?
The SLCS Projects are:
- Anti poaching patrols and snare removal programs within the park and game management areas
- Upliftment of local communities by alternative income generating projects such as chilli farming
- Sponsoring and co-ordinating village scout training programs
- Education of local children to appreciate their heritage and work towards sustainable wildlife utilisation and a
balanced coexistence - Assisting the Community Resources Board with natural resources protection through the forest guards
- Promoting the South Luangwa Anti-Snaring Campaign in local villages and schools
- Management and sponsoring of Uyoba Community School
- Habitat and wildlife data collection through monitoring by village scouts
What are the primary needs for SLCS daily operations and what is the most pressing ongoing shortfall?
The primary needs for SLCS’s daily operations are the law enforcement costs, this includes scout equipment, patrol rations, fuel and incentives. It has always been difficult to find sponsorship for such activities as people do not often realize how important or expensive it is.
I see from your *Quarterly Newsletter that 88 snares were removed in the three months by SLCS patrols – is the reality that a number of these snares are found with captured animals?
This is certainly not all the snares set by poachers, these are just snares we remove from the bush during anti-snaring patrols. The majority of snares are pulled out with animals trapped before we even get to them unfortunately.
We had three elephants, two buffalo and a puku that we darted and saved but there were also three giraffe reported and a wild dog with a snare but unfortunately, we have not managed to locate them yet. Only one buffalo had to be killed as his wound was bad and he was very aggressive.
Can you describe the snares, how they are placed and what is done with the wire following removal to ensure it does not end up back in the poacher’s toolkits?
Snares vary in size and the type of wire used. Smaller snares are made from bicycle gear cables, fence wire and building wire and are set at an antelopes head height often on a well used track to a water hole. These are normally attached to low trees or bushes and act like a noose. Once the animal walks through it, the wire tightens and the more it struggles the tighter it gets, if it is around the neck then the animal will suffocate, if it is around the leg or abdomen, it can sometimes escape but mostly it will be trapped until the owner of the snares comes back and finishes the animal off.
Much larger snares are laid to catch buffalo and this is normally made of very thick winch cable. The buffalo are usually caught around the neck, this sort of snare can also trap elephants. The reason we dart so many elephants is because they are normally able to break away from the tree of bush holding the snare but this does incredible damage to the body. They can then move around with these injuries and the wire for a few months sometimes, before it gets noticed.
Any snares that we confiscate are kept either with us at SLCS or handed over to the Wildlife Authorities. We are hoping to get them melted and sold as scrap one of these days.
De-snaring is a skilled job – utilising tracking skills and other bushcraft knowledge, it is also a time consuming and tedious task. How many hours of the SLCS Anti-poaching patrol time is utilised in the
de-snaring?
Probably about a quarter of our time is used directly for anti-snaring and immobilizing animals. We do not have a figure for the number of snares not found but we can be sure it is high.
What does it cost the SLCS each year to run the scout patrols?
A scout will perform on average 20 long patrols and 60 day patrols in a year. This can be broken down to:
- Rations - $280
- Fuel - $135
- Equipment - $200
- Wages - $1320
- Bonuses - $240
- Accident insurance - $35
Total per scout per year - $2210 to operate as a law enforcement officer.
We have 22 scouts that we are paying directly - so for one year the scout patrols cost $48,620
You have community based projects promoting sustainable alternative livelihood for villages previously dependant on poaching. How successful have these projects been and what kind of new alternate work and income generation is most successful?
We have a chilli farming project that encourages people to grow their own chilli for the fence project. It also gives them an alternative source of income and has so far proved to be quite lucrative. Currently we are in the process of finalizing the details for chilli export.
You have a number of former poachers on SLCS staff now, what is the most important aspect of the change for them?
We must be realistic and understand that a poacher will not stop poaching unless he is provided with an alternative. So far, our reformed poachers have stayed reformed because they have been taken out of the system, given formal training, given full time employment and accommodation. They now see the benefits of having a real job that will not land them in prison. However, we cannot provide jobs for all the people poaching but we still have to strive to come up with alternatives.
SLCS has grown from need, what is your dream in terms of conservation outcomes for the Valley and more broadly in Zambia?
People and animals have to find a way of living together. People have to benefit from these animals otherwise they will not appreciate their value and they will soon disappear.
One way this happens is through the employment in lodges and training and work as safari guides and other hospitality staff, thus there is value for local people – are there sponsorships or even an informal network to identify potentially interested young people and assist them into the guiding and hospitality industry in Zambia?
There is a Safari Operators sponsorship that offers some bursaries each year to potential guides. Also anyone working in a lodge who has the capacity to be a safari guide will end up being sponsored by that lodge. There are also many local school going children being sponsored by lodges and Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre to complete their education.
What other programs (including education) are in place to “raise the value” of animals in people’s eyes and have you seen a shift in recent times of awareness of that value, or are people still more inclined to see the animals as problems, food and income resource?
Chipembele Wildlife Education Centre works very hard to raise conservation awareness within South Luangwa. I think the younger generation are changing their perception towards wildlife in general, but it is hard to change the adult population.
Thank you Rachel, for your time to speak to us - one last question, What sustains (or inspires) Rachel McRobb and keeps her keeping on with SLCS work?
My inspiration comes from the simple things we have at our doorstep living here in the Valley. The most rewarding aspect of my job is being able to save a wounded animal from a snare. Whether it is one impala or an elephant, the feeling is enough to inspire me and keep me going when things get tough.
Many of the SLCS team have been on board from the beginning and we are a tight unit. The scouts have a lot of pride and morale, and this also makes me proud and want to continue fighting this battle together.
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Safaritalk and SLCS have launched the Sponsor an SLCS Scout Appeal
For more information on how you can assist the SLCS click here:SafariTalk >Conservation >South Luangwa Conservation Society (SLCS - Zambia)
Images supplied and used with permission: Rachel McRobb. SLCS.
The views expressed therein are solely those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect those of Safaritalk.
