Dimabangombe Project Suspended
Due to the volatile political situation in Zimbabwe, we are not currently accepting applicants for Dimbangombe Ranch. Please contact us should you need more information.
The interface between conservation and the community.
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Surrounded by several million hectares of the unfenced Matetsi Safari area of Zimbabwe near Victoria Falls. The Matetsi Project is a joint effort of the Center For Holistic Management, based in Albuquerque, USA, and its sister organization, the Africa Centre for Holistic Managament based at Dibangombe Ranch.
THE MATETSI PROJECT OBJECTIVES
The Matetsi Project has four major objectives:
- Enhance the survival of threatened wildlife populations by working to restore damaged habitat and to improve the quality of life for the people living among and around them.
- Empower the people in the Hwange Communal Lands to become self-sufficient and to achieve a long-term, sustainable future of their own design.
- Restore desertifying land in Zimbabwe through a model programme that can be implemented anywhere in Africa.
- Research and document the successful use of livestock and wild ungulates to “recycle” old vegetation - as an alternative to fire, which is damaging both land and wildlife and creating serious atmospheric pollution.
Students will be involved in the general concept of holistic management and community based conservation projects.
For example:
In the nearby communal Lands - Water Conservation/Permiculture using planned grazing methods; village based banking and community projects.
In Dimbangombe estate - Fire and vegetation management; wildlife assessments; anti-poaching; animal maintained grassland management (planned grazing) and a number of eco-tourism projects.
Three main projects to be initiated and run by students under our guidance:
- Assessing the baboon population within Dimbangombe and the effects they have on small mammals and ground nesting birds.
- Assess reed buck populations within Dimbangombe and identify reasons for their apparent decline in numbers.
- Assess the viability of re-establishing game bird populations within the Hwange Communal Lands in view of future sustained utilization of these populations.
- Students will be given the opportunity to attend and participate in Game Capture with a professional Game Capture organisation. This will most probably be on another property.
- Each student will be included in a 5 day Bush Skills and Awareness Course which includes some theory and days and nights in the bush.
The main emphasis will be the projects listed above but students will also get involved in most management aspects of the ranch. This will include accompanying staff on wildlife monitoring patrols; being involved with the tourism projects (horse & elephant rides, night drives, game walks, etc); animal husbandry (cattle, chickens, pigs, horses.); management of the estate (building and development, road maintenance, etc) and community projects (working with Elias Ndube, who is the community projects manager).
More information about Dimbangombe Ranch can be found at: www.africansojourn.com
