Swaziland's Game Reserves offer a unique combination of big-game country, extensive wetlands and soaring escarpments. Over the past years poaching and an increase in population has put these protected areas and their wildlife under mounting pressure.
The aim of the Swaziland Game Reserve Project is to develop and protect the game reserves in the northern Lubombo Conservancy, so that these important conservation areas and their wildlife can be preserved for the use of future generations.
By improving the infrastructure within the game reserves and developing relationships with the local communities your work will help towards the long term survival of this last corner of African wilderness.
Our long term goal is to bring down the fences within the Game Reserves in Swaziland and in partnership with the Lubombo Transfrontier Conservation Area and the internationally recognised Peace Parks Foundation to work towards the creation of a wildlife corridor that spans international boundaries.
This corridor will then link the Maputo Elephant Reserve in Mozambique and the Lubombo Conservancy in Swaziland to the Tembe Elephant Park in South Africa, creating the first major elephant stronghold along Africa's eastern coastline.
What
The smallest country in the southern hemisphere, Swaziland is a friendly, land-locked kingdom surrounded by South Africa and Mozambique. King Mswati III comes from a long line of kings and at present has ten official wives!
If you're looking for variety then this is the project for you. You'll be changing base every couple of weeks within the reserves and will get the chance to work on community projects, as well as spending time out in the African Bush.
Fifty years ago, Swaziland’s once abundant wildlife had been almost eradicated, poached for meat, skins and ivory. Thanks to the dedication and hard work of conservationists and with King Mswati’s support, there are now healthy populations of game in several designated reserves and Africa’s “Big Five” are back to stay in Swaziland.
Quest Overseas is working with four of these game reserves in the north-east Lubombo Mountains. Looking to the future, the combined Lubombo Conservancy will become the central game reserve linked to neighbouring reserves in South Africa and Mozambique. This extensive protected area will create essential ‘wildlife corridors’ re-enabling the natural migration routes of many African animals including the endangered and isolated population of coastal-plains elephants on the southern Mozambique and Kwa-Zulu Natal coast.
Do you want to help?
The Quest Overseas project is based in the heart of the conservancy and it is here that your team will spend 6 weeks. The project is split into three distinct phases enabling you to work within three of the four Conservancy game reserves in which Quest Overseas work. Each phase is unique and designed to introduce you to different aspects of African conservation issues and reserve management techniques.
Shewula Community Reserve
Chief Sifundza of the Shewula community has set aside a huge area of his people’s land in order to preserve the natural bush as a wildlife reserve. The reserve is situated high up on an escarpment of the Lubombo mountains overlooking the Mlawula river valley and the rest of The Lubombo Conservancy.
The Shewula community has worked hard to build “Mountain Camp” on the edge of the escarpment, offering one of the most spectacular views in Swaziland. “Mountain Camp” is home for your first two weeks.
During this project phase you will become deeply involved in the Shewula community and will spend a third of your time working with the rangers in the reserve and two thirds of your time helping with a variety of community projects in the village.
Every year Quest students undertake a construction project, which can range from building an entire classroom for the many HIV orphans, to helping to renovate and re-construct clinics or kitchens.The increasing number of orphans are now being educated in the new ‘Majambeni Orphan School’ which was entirely donated and built by Quest students. A new kitchen block has also been built and provides at least one staple meal a day for 200 primary school kids and the new Environmental Education Centre, built by Questers in 2005, is now up and running workshops for the local children.These are extremely rewarding projects to work on. Alongside such major infrastructure developments you will also be involved in painting and maintaining existing schools, establishing income-generating gardens and orchards and, of course, playing regular games of football in the village!
Mlawula Nature Reserve
Mlawula consists of 16,500 hectares of mountains, lowveld plains and river valleys, supporting important habitat for some of Swaziland’s rarest mammals including serval, aardvark, pangolin, leopard and spotted hyena.
Quest students have now donated a total of four radio-tracking collars which have been fitted to adult spotted hyenas within Mlawula. Spotted hyenas are nocturnal scavengers and extremely rare in Swaziland. Little is known of the group dynamics of Mlawula’s population of hyena but the collared adults can now be tracked by the reserve’s ecologists so we can learn more about their social structure and habits.
Other projects include helping the new Quest built Environmental Education Centre with various income-generating projects and trekking the perimeter fences with the rangers to record and repair damage which is all helping to keep poachers out of the park.
Mbuluzi Game Reserve
Many mammal species roam freely through Mbuluzi including giraffe, kudu, nyala, warthog, baboon, hippo, crocodile, wildebeest, waterbuck, zebra, duiker, bush pig and jackal. It is also a haven for the keen ‘birder’, with over 300 species recorded.
One of our main tasks is to continue the annual vegetation survey to monitor the alien plants spreading throughout the reserve. This data helps the rangers locate the worst affected areas and methods of control and eradication are now underway to tackle the problem. Other projects to get involved in include the continuation of the photographic identity library of Mbuluzi’s giraffes and undertaking daily mammal counts to monitor the location and population density of each species.
Hlane Royal National Park
Hlane is the traditional hunting ground for King Mswati III but these days he has handed over the management of the Royal National Park to Big Game Parks who also manage Mkhaya Rhino Sanctuary and Mlilwane Nature Reserve (where we hold our in-country orientation days).
Hlane is the largest reserve in the Lubombo Conservancy at 30,000 hectares and has already established programmes to re-introduce lions, elephants and white rhino into the safety of its double perimeter fences. These animals used to roam freely across Swaziland but are now heavily protected from poachers within the Big Game Parks reserves. Poaching in Swaziland has decreased considerably after King Mswati III established a successful anti-poaching law in 1992.
Working in Hlane provides a unique opportunity to observe these great mammals at close quarters. Help the rangers build and maintain the park’s trails and work to improve the Hlane Education Center for visiting school children and visitors who come to stay at the two safari camps. Sitting round the waterhole at dusk watching white rhino come down to drink is surely one of the “Big Five” wonders of Africa.
Weekend activities
Don’t worry, it’s not all work, work, work!
Over two long weekends you will leave the tranquillity of the Reserves behind and head off to experience some of Swaziland’s more strenuous activities like white water rafting or mountain biking over the stunning Swazi escarpments.
There's also plenty of opportunities to visit the local markets, grab some souvenirs and even get a massage and sauna at the local 'Cuddle Puddle' hot spas! After 6 weeks in Swaziland you're sure to fall for of the unique culture of this inspiring Kingdom.
The Quest Overseas Lubombo Trust Fund
10% of the funds you raise are held in trust to eventually pay for the translocation of mammals back into the Lubombo Conservancy once the fences between the reserves have been removed. So far Quest volunteers have raised over £8,000.
A typical cost for animal translocation would be 7,000 Rand (approx £500) to move a giraffe from Kruger National Park in South Africa, to Swaziland.
Quest has been working in Swaziland since 2000, with the support of King Mswati II of Swaziland and the Reilly family, one of Swaziland’s most important conservation families.
Community work
2000-1
One of the most important developments taken from our first team expedition to Swaziland in March 2000 was the realisation that no matter how much work and development we put into the game reserves the entire project was not going to work unless the people living and working around the reserves were involved in the project from the start. Shewula Village lies at the northern end of the Lubombo Conservancy and is an exceptional village in its progressive desire to enhance their own lives and the future lives of their children.
As we spent more time in Shewula Village with its smiling, generous people, we soon got a more in-depth view of the problems in the village. One of the most shocking discoveries was the exceptionally high rate of HIV and AIDS infection rate in Swaziland and Shewula Village. The official HIV infection rate in Swaziland is 38% of the population although much higher for adults between the ages of 20 and 35 where the percentage is thought to be over 50%. It is shocking that the average age in Swaziland is now 33 years – well under half the UK’s average age of 77 years.
2002
When we first arrived in 2000 we were told that the number of orphans were estimated at 250 – 400, a very high proportion for a rural community. Our team in 2002 built a large school to teach the orphans that were previously being educated under trees or in makeshift classrooms because their extended families couldn’t afford to send them to school.
2003-5
Between 2003 and 2004 our teams became more involved in Shewula’s community development with the construction of two kitchens to help feed primary school children a hot lunch once a day and also the renovation of the only nursery school in Shewula.
2005
A major achievement of the 2005 Quest Overseas teams in Swaziland saw the construction of a large and interactive Environmental Education Centre in Shewula. This is designed around simple issues such as poaching, water preservation and an understanding of the food chains. Workshops for classrooms of school children were designed and two rangers from Shewula Mountain Camp were trained up to continue the workshops on a weekly basis once the Quest Overseas teams left.
The second Swazi team in 2005 constructed an entire classroom in 3 weeks, to serve the ever increasing number of orphans in Shewula. The classroom was fully equipped and being used 3 days after the team left!
2006
Our most recent team to Shewula successfully completed the renovation of a classroom for the National Children's Programme in under 2 weeks. Once again, the children moved in as soon as work was completed!
Conservation work
While the importance of our work up in Shewula Village cannot be underestimated, the community element constitutes just half of what the Swaziland Project is all about. The other half of our volunteers time has been spent deep in the game reserves working on a number of ecological surveys to help the wardens and rangers understand more about different plant species, as well as carrying out general game reserve management duties alongside local rangers.
The most significant problem that needed addressing as soon as we arrived was the devastating proliferation of the alien plant species Chromolaena odorata, Parthenium hysterophorous and Lantana camera. These are all non-indigenous plants to Southern Africa and were most likely brought over from Latin America on the ships arriving in Durban and Maputo harbours.
The major problem with having these invasive species in the game reserves is that they are unpalatable to indigenous African animals and so quickly dominate overgrazed areas and grow rapidly out of control. If allowed to grow uncontrolled the animals in the park would simply die of starvation or be forced onto neighbouring farmland, neither is a viable option for the future success of the Conservancy aims.
2001-2005
Initial baseline surveys in 2001 proved successful in identifying the location of the worst effected areas of the alien plant invasions. In the following years Quest Overseas teams have surveyed all the accessible park areas in Mbuluzi on an annual basis therefore building up a profile of newly infected regions and also the success of different eradication techniques.
At the same time surveys have been completed on the rare cycads, tree species, grass species, mammal locations and abundance, bird identification and also on native weed species and the round leafed teak.
Other work
Quest volunteers are also strongly involved with improving the infrastructure of the reserves, to make them more appealing and accessible to tourists, an essential part of bringing the conservancy together and making it profitable.
Volunteers have so far constructed a bird hide on Hlane’s large waterhole, designed and cut a mountain bike trail, cut various hiking trails, donated three radio collars to track and monitor the hyaenas, the only wild predator found in Swaziland, and carried out numerous game and bird counts.
Please note that all the scientific papers are available if you are interested in reading more about the survey methodologies and the results our volunteers have produced over the years.