Community Development

More than 100,000 people live within five kilometres of Nkhotakota’s boundaries, making it imperative that they can sustainably access the reserve’s resources, and benefit from its existence. The relationship with the community remains a key area of focus and is showing a strong and steady positive trajectory.

Community engagement is one of the most effective ways the Nkhotakota team uses to mitigate human-wildlife conflict © Mike Dexter

Regular community and awareness-raising meetings reach thousands of community members every year, providing a platform to discuss and collaborate on issues such as human-wildlife conflict, illegal resource harvesting, environmental awareness, and the grievance mechanism. 

Fencing and its maintenance remains a top priority to ensure wildlife remains in the reserve and human-wildlife conflict is limited. Stakeholder meetings are regularly held with local chiefs, to provide them with information on the fence route, its implementation, and the benefits of having the fence in place.  However, fence vandalism is an ongoing challenge, as it leads to human-wildlife conflict incidents when wildlife escapes the reserve.

Educational initiatives around Nkhotakota are vital, enabling communities to appreciate the reserve's value © Thoko Chikondi

Environmental education programmes reached over 12,500 learners in 2024 through school visits, tree planting and anti-litter events, while over 1,400 adults and children from surrounding communities visited the reserve through the Environmental Education Centre. More than 120 students receive scholarships annually for secondary, tertiary, and vocational education. To further literacy amongst local children, a reading project is supported in local schools.

The fence provides protection for communities as well as employment opportunities © Frank Weitzer

A resource use programme ensures that community members living on the Nkhotakota boundary benefit from the rights to harvest natural resources within the protected area without compromising its ecological integrity. Mushrooms, bamboo, palm fronds, thatch grass, flying termites and medicinal herbs are sustainably harvested, benefitting over 7,000 people annually.

Five enterprise portfolios are ongoing, including beekeeping, chilli farming, dried mango processing, irrigation farming (to sustain vegetable crops in the dry season) and goat pass-on, which support and enhance local farming initiatives. The goat pass-on project — where the park sponsors the first goats, and farmers in turn pass on the first offspring — saw 100 goats given to 50 new beneficiaries in 2024. Over 9,000 community members are engaged in these enterprise initiatives.

In 2024, sustainable enterprises generated US$62,136 in community income, benefitting over 1,500 people.

200 farmers received training and assistance in chilli production. The Environmental Education Centre trained 53 mango processing group members, conducted village savings and loans training for 34 members, and supported four beekeeping clubs. To enhance agricultural productivity, microbial inoculants were distributed to 2,000 households to improve groundnut and soya bean yields.