North Luangwa gains its outstanding global value from the Luangwa River, which has shaped a rich and biodiverse landscape over millennia, and its pristine wilderness
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The remote North Luangwa National Park in Zambia is one of the finest wilderness experiences in the entire Southern African region, boasting the “big five” – elephant, buffalo, rhino, leopard, and lion – as well as the endemic Cookson’s wildebeest.
In 2003, an ambitious translocation was started to reintroduce the black rhino back into the park. As a result, the North Luangwa National Park harbors Zambia’s only black rhino population and is now home to Zambia’s highest elephant population.
North Luangwa National Park is the anchor of the transboundary conservation initiative, the Malawi Zambia Transfrontier Conservation Area encompassing more than 32,000 km².
Key activities
- Improved involvement, support, and coordination of stakeholders and communities with park management
- Carry out ground field patrols including with canine units and aerial surveillance
- Support of community-based natural resource management and ownership in the game-management areas
- Implement an environmental education program
- Support village-level micro-finance systems to kick-start conservation-compatible small-scale business enterprise
- Enhance tourism by facilitating communities’ participation and benefit-sharing
Conservation challenges
- Land conversion and encroachment
- Human-wildlife conflict
- Bushmeat and ivory poaching as well as illegal wildlife trade
- Uncontrolled fires and agricultural effects on hydrology
- Country
- Zambia
- Protection Status
- IUCN category II, Game Management Areas
- Ecosystem Type
- Changeover zone between mopane and miombo woodlands
- Key species
- Cookson’s wildebeest, Thornicroft’s giraffe, Savannah elephant, wild dog, hippopotamus, lion, buffalo, leopard, black rhino
- Conservation and Climate Relevance
- Important Bird Area, Key Biodiversity Area, Ramsar site, large intact wilderness areas acting as an important carbon sink
- Implementing Partner(s)
- Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS)
- Managing Authority
- Zambian Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW)
- Grant Type
- Sustaining
- Match Funder
- Wyss Foundation
Field insights
Success Story
Rhino Rescue Mission
In 2021, a young male black rhino broke away from North Luangwa National Park and settled 220 km away in a remote area of the Luangwa Valley.
As there was no road access to the area, an unprecedented rescue mission had to be attempted by slinging the rhino from a helicopter. Conservationists have pioneered rhino “slinging” from helicopters, but this had never been attempted in Zambia, and never over such a long distance.
On April 8th, the Rhino & Elephant Protection Unit (REPU) and a team of experts embarked on the rescue mission. They located and tranquilized the rhino, attached a sling, and safely airlifted it. The veterinarians flew ahead to the next checkpoint, and two additional stops to NLNP were made en route to refuel and complete vet checks on the rhino. After just four hours, the rhino arrived back in the park, where he was carefully monitored before being released.
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More about North Luangwa
5 Reasons Why Protected Areas Work
As a conservation strategy, why do managed protected areas – such as national parks – actually work?
North Luangwa field report
A team from Legacy Landscapes Fund recently visited North Luangwa National Park, a legacy landscape in northeastern Zambia.