Lavushi Manda

Lavushi Manda National Park covers about 1,500 km² in Lavushimanda District, Zambia, south-east of the Bangweulu Wetlands, and is the 11th largest of Zambia's 20 national parks. It was gazetted as a game reserve in 1941 and declared a national park in 1972. It covers a small range of mountains and hills and is mainly miombo woodland, with rivers and streams and some grassland, including seasonally wet dambos. It adjoins the Bangweulu Game Management Area to the northwest. Prolonged poaching has seriously depleted its larger mammals, but in the wet season roan, sable and hartebeest move up into the park from the Bangweulu swamps ^[1].

Protracted poaching has seriously depleted all the larger mammal populations of Lavushi Manda; the last wild black rhinoceros in Zambia was seen here in the late 1980s ^[1]. Warthog and common duiker are sometimes sighted, primates include vervets and yellow baboons, and side-striped jackal, sable antelope and bushbuck live in the grasslands. In the wet season roan, sable and hartebeest move up into the park from the Bangweulu swamps. A camera-trap survey in 2017 found several herds of sable and recorded bush pig, common duiker, reedbuck, bushbuck, aardvark, African civet, serval and one leopard ^[1]. Klipspringer, bush dassie (bush hyrax) and Smith's red rock hare live among the rocks, and there are hippos and Nile crocodiles in the Lukulu River. BirdLife International has listed the park as an Important Bird Area since 2001 for the common miombo birds it protects ^[1].

Deciduous open forest covers about 80% of the park. Miombo woodland, dominated by trees of the genera Brachystegia, Isoberlinia, Julbernardia and Uapaca, is the main type, especially in the hills. Riparian forest forms narrow evergreen strips along the perennial streams, where the raphia palm, absent from nearby Kasanka National Park, is frequent. The grasslands are mainly seasonally wet headwater dambos, with bog grassland near the mountains where seepage keeps the ground wet all year. Plants collected in the park include Hibiscus meeusei, Agarista salicifolia on Lavushi Mountain and Justicia richardsiae on laterite pan soil ^[1].

Lavushi Manda lies on the plateau of Lavushimanda District between the Muchinga Escarpment and the alluvial flats of the Bangweulu floodplain. The scenery is dominated by the 40 to 47 km long Lavushi mountains in the southern half of the park, which reach 1,811 metres and are made mainly of quartzites, ancient metamorphosed sandstones ^[1]. Away from the range the terrain is undulating or flat, with miombo woodland and large seasonally wet grasslands and valleys (dambos) feeding seasonal and perennial streams. The perennial Lulimala, Lukulu, Lumbatwa and Mufubushi rivers drain the park and flow into Lake Bangweulu, and the Chibembe plain and Lake Mikonko hold standing water well into the dry season ^[1].

Heavy rains begin in December, raising and colouring the normally small Lukulu River. The most destructive fires come late in the dry season, from September to November, so the park sets early dry-season fires to pre-empt them ^[1].

The park is surrounded by chiefdoms: Chiundaponde (Bisa) to the northwest, Luchembe to the north, Chikwanda, Mpumba (Bisa) to the east and Muchinka to the south. These chiefdoms have Community Resources Boards organised with DNPW, and in 2017 village scouts from the Mpumba board patrolled the park's Luwombwa sector. The area was a game reserve from 1941 until it was declared a national park in 1972 ^[1].

Lavushi Manda was gazetted as a game reserve in 1941 and declared a national park in 1972. Before 2011 the resources committed to the park had dwindled until there was no effective management, and poaching was rife. From 2011 the Kasanka Trust, which runs nearby Kasanka National Park, managed Lavushi Manda for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) under a memorandum of understanding, using World Bank funding to build administrative buildings, a road network and a basic conservation centre. The trust handed management back to DNPW in 2017, citing financial and managerial issues ^[1].

The Lavushi mountains, which reach 1,811 metres, dominate the southern half of the park. Visitors may hike unaccompanied, and the hike to the summit of Lavushi Mountain takes about two and a half hours ^[1]. The Kapanda Lupili and Mumba Tuta waterfalls lie on the Lukulu River where it enters and leaves the park, and the Kanyanga falls are on the same river within the park ^[1].

Lavushi Manda has three basic campsites, at Mumba Tuta, Kapanda Lupili and Peak, and more permanent Meru-style tents at Mumba Tuta and at Linda Camp, the park headquarters. In 2018 the entrance fee was about US$5 for international visitors and camping cost US$15 per person per night; park and camping fees are paid at the entrance. Angling needs a DNPW permit and is allowed from April or May to December, catch and release only, and kayaks are available. The park recorded 32 bed-nights in 2016 ^[1].

Prolonged poaching has depleted the park's large mammals. Poaching rose sharply in 2014, which is believed to reflect bushmeat traders displaced south by African Parks' anti-poaching work in the Bangweulu Game Management Area, and by 2017 most antelope species had declined in abundance since 2014. All illegal settlers in the park had been evicted by 2016. DNPW rangers and wildlife police enforce the law; in 2017 village scouts funded by the World Land Trust patrolled the zone near Mpumba chiefdom, making 34 arrests, with 22 convictions for poaching ^[1].