GRI operates in the Kafue National Park in Zambia’s Southern Province, educating local people on how to secure their crops and herds from wildlife, and the importance of protecting the ecosystem around them.
Football is proving to be an excellent way of getting this message across. Steffan Perkins is a qualified football coach who has been helping run tournaments in the football-mad country with the support of the Football Association of Zambia. He has seen first-hand how the sport brings people together to allow GRI the chance to explain its mission. “When you put on a tournament, the whole community will come out and watch, and it creates a lot of goodwill,” he says. “It helps Game Rangers International build links and create relationships that can then work on these problems together.
“Cattle is one of the main sources of income for people in the area. Because of a severe drought last year, lions were travelling further to find water, and in three months they took 200 cattle. That is a huge amount of money for a rural community to lose.” This is where GRI steps in, using football as a platform to explain how the protection of wildlife and local livelihoods are not mutually exclusive. TwelfthMan, in tandem with adidas, has been providing support through the donation of shirts, footballs, kits and boots.
