zambia

WCP Zambia leads the project in partnership with the Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), designed through dialogue with traditional leaders, healers, and local communities. Every step is rooted in cultural understanding and shared responsibility. After research identified belief-based use as a key driver of the illegal pangolin trade, the team behind the program has ensured the community is at the heart of the solution, engaging with healers and community leaders to design messages together and to select communication channels that resonate with local values, traditions, and lived experiences.

A tip-off sets law enforcement in motion; when they intercept the traffickers, they find a pangolin, curled tight, trembling with fear, stuffed into a battered sack, rolled in an old, disused plastic bucket. To the untrained eye, it may appear as nothing more than a pile of dried leaves, but to the wildlife intelligence officers, it is a life teetering on the edge. This is how most rescues begin: with trauma.

If someone asked me what the highlight of my animal science career has been, I would answer without hesitation: working with pangolins. These remarkable animals have deepened my professional curiosity and touched my heart. Every pangolin is full of surprises. Of course, each rescued pangolin comes in with different health status, but also unique feeding preferences, different waking up and sleeping hours, and their own personalities. They’ve shown me how much we must learn and – with all the threats they are facing – how urgently we must act to protect them.