The Livestock / Wildlife Integration Project was initiated in April 2017 with the aim of reducing potential conflict between different land uses in conservancies, such as between livestock grazing and tourism development, between livestock and predators and competition for grazing between livestock and wildlife. Funded by a philanthropic family via WWF, the project intends to introduce sound rangeland management practices in conservancies that will consider and mitigate against the conflict between livestock, wildlife and wild-life based tourism. IRDNC is currently piloting the project in Dzoti Conservancy in Zambezi Region.

Since the appointment of the field coordinator and purchase of a project vehicle in May last year, the pilot project has achieved the following so far:

• Completion of a socio-economic survey amongst 68 households in Dzoti Conservancy.
• A draft grazing plan was completed and is in the process of implementation and the Conservancy zonation map has been updated
• A one-week exposure trip to Kenya brought back great lessons on best practice from similar initiatives and exciting recommendations were made on what could be implemented in Dzoti Conservancy.
• Grass-root meetings has been conducted with farmers and stakeholders to raise awareness about the development of the rangeland management plan and training on its use has commenced.
• Market research among existing lodges was completed with the intention of determining potential viability of an abattoir.
• A field guide is being developed.

Plans for the immediate future includes offering more training courses to the farmers and other community members, marketing the meat produced at Dzoti Conservancy to nearby lodges and other market outlets, reducing the number of disputes within and from outside the conservancy on the use of land, continuing with the grazing plan implementation and a backstopping visits to be done by the external rangeland expert to transfer skills and mentor the Conservancy Committee, the Grazing Committee and IRDNC staff.