Zambia’s Liuwa Plain is not so far from the capital, Lusaka, on a map. Yet until recent years a safari tour of the area was the domain of only serious adventurers, along with the Lozi people who have lived and paddled their dugouts here since time immemorial.
This upper stretch of the Zambezi catchment consists of mainly grassland and seasonal wetland, and was one of Southern Africa’s great game sanctuaries – until the neighbouring Angolan civil war spilled over and the place was ravaged. Lawlessness led to wholescale poaching and it was long considered a lost conservation cause … until African Parks, the ‘Mother Theresa of conservation’ stepped in.
Large herds of antelope, buffaloes, and some rarities such as Lichtenstein’s hartebeest, along with predators, have been established through an innovative ‘no poaching’ rewards programme. But it is the re-establishment of Africa’s second-largest wildebeest migration that is the big drawcard of Liuwa Plain. Liuwa means “plain” in Lozi (so literally, the Plain Plain National Park).
