Zambia luxury safari

Planet

CARBON REDUCTION
At all of the lodges included within this itinerary there are options for human powered activities to reduce the carbon impact of the trip. This includes walking safaris and tours and canoe safaris in the Lower Zambezi National Park.

Lolebezi Lodge, the second lodge in the itinerary is powered by an off-grid solar farm, built in the winterthorn forest surrounding the lodge. The final lodge - Thorntree River Lodge is also powered by solar energy and while there are charging points in rooms high energy use items such as hairdryers are discouraged. Thorntree also has a water treatment plant on site to ensure that all wastewater is properly treated before being released back into the environment.

ENVIRONMENT AND WILDLIFE
Sungani Lodge is the first lodge to open in a previously forgotten area of the South Luangwa. It provided more access for the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and Conservation South Luangwa and therefore reduced poaching of animals in the area. The lodge assists Conservation South Luangwa and
the Department of National Parks and Wildlife in a number of ways:
> Create and grade road networks to make the area more accessible.
> Create firebreaks and other infrastructure, assist with the deployment of scouts and by boat in the rainy season.
> They provide a constant 365-day presence in the area to report any incidents.
> Another pair of eyes from the air when our aircraft completes transfers.
> The head guide and operations manager, is an honorary wildlife police officer and is able to assist DNPW and CSL in that role.
> Construct, maintain and keep registered the airstrip allowing CSL and other conservation partners to access the area easily by air.

Lolebezi, the second lodge in the itinerary has been built with the highest sustainability standard in mind. For example the lodges’ floors, walls, and roofs are being layered with insulation materials to mitigate heat gain, and loss during winter. Thermodynamic panels, similar to air-source heat pumps, absorb heat from the atmosphere and convert a refrigerant into a gas that is then used to heat water for the showers, baths, and basins, as well as all the services in the kitchen. Intelligent, concealed climate control systems have been used throughout to ensure guest comfort, whilst remaining energy efficient and always conscious of the generation capacity of the solar farm. The choice to use a light-gauge structural steel frame as opposed to timber provides for an enormously increased speed of construction and erection, which minimizes the transport requirements to this very remote site, reducing the extent and the time for which there is an increased human impact on the site. Lastly, the light-gauge steel is 100% recyclable, meaning that the entire structural frame of the suites could one day be reprocessed and re-made without a single tree being cut down.

People

LOCAL ECONOMY
Sungani Lodge employed people from neighbouring villages and they now make up 85% of the front and back-of-house team. A part of the blanket training has been to ensure all staff learns the value of protecting the wildlife and the area. To accomplish this the lodge has ensured staff have regular access to game drives with safari guides, whose shared knowledge and passion has culminated in a radical mindset shift. During the difficult time of the pandemic, Sungani Lodge was able to maintain staff on full remuneration.

EMPLOYMENT, INCLUSIVITY AND DIVERSITY
The operator behind Lolebezi and Thorntree River Lodge contributes to a number of projects. One of these is Maunga primary school, which is the only primary school in Maunga village and currently accommodates 177 learners from ECE to grade 7. The school has three teachers including the principal. To date, the operator has painted the nursery classroom and the ablution blocks, provided learning materials and textbooks, installed solar power and burglar bars for the computer lab, and fixed all the windows at the school.