Conservation Force
A Force for Wildlife Conservation

A Habitat, Wildlife and Community Initiative

 

The Custodians Conservation Trust has been formed with the aim of implementing an active wildlife management policy within remote wildlife concessions and the rural villages that either surround them or are within them. We aim to conserve our wildlife areas through the careful management of the environment and its natural resources. At the same time we are also committed to ensuring that the rural communities located around these wildlife concessions directly benefit from them.

 

Management and community development within and around our concessions will play a very important role in the conservation and preservation of our wildlife.  These components will provide us with a means of controlling, directing and utilizing our wildlife populations and their habitats for their long-term benefit. Also by wisely exploiting, improving and protecting our areas and their natural resources and by actively involving and improving the livelihood and welfare of the rural communities that surround them we aim to reinforce the value of wildlife and sustainable hunting and to ensure its preservation for future generations. Conservation is not only our passion but also our duty and responsibility as the custodians of these wildlife areas that have been allocated to us.

 

Through wildlife management we aim to protect and increase the populations of animal species through sustained yield, strict harvesting restrictions, area rotation and funding of and participation in anti-poaching patrols in conjunction with government authorities to inhibit the illegal harvesting of wildlife and to ensure the protection of these areas. Our model of sustainable wildlife utilization through tourist hunting not only gives value to the wildlife it also provides us with motivation to protect and sustain the wildlife and its habitat. We also strongly believe that local communities should directly understand and benefit from their surrounding natural resources. By doing so they will understand and commit to its preservation. It is our goal to reinforce this value of wildlife as a natural resource through job creation, improved education facilities, improvement in basic healthcare and general economic improvement. We aim to actively encourage rural communities and involve them in our wildlife management, protection & utilization program.

 

Land will always be utilized whether it is for farming, grazing, mining, logging or building. Tourist Hunting offers us a way to protect and preserve land, especially in remote areas which are not conducive to photo tourism due to attainability and wildlife sparsity. Tourist hunting, with its minimal carbon footprint, is the only form of wildlife management that will protect these areas from human encroachment and its subsequent impact on wildlife. Under McCallum Safaris, Old Nyika Safaris and Safari Royal, the custodian of these wildlife-hunting areas, commit a large amount of time, equipment and personnel in them and we feel it is our duty to promote and enforce anti poaching, wildlife preservation and community development.