Somkhanda Game Reserve is a 12 000ha game reserve in the heart of South Africa's Zululand. We offer lodge and camping accommodation on a big five game reserve.
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Somkhanda Game Reserve is a community owned game reserve that is run and managed in partnership by the Gumbi Community by Wildlands Conservation Trust and African Insight. Other partners involved in the reserve's conservation projects are: Wildlife Act Fund, KZN Wildlife and WWF. Funding partners for conservation and tourism projects include African Insight, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development, Global Nature Fund, the Green Fund - Farming the Wild programme as well the Ursula Merz Foundation .
The Gumbi community successfully claimed 36,000 ha of land in 2005 through the land reform process. When the Gumbis took ownership of the land, they decided to keep the majority of their land under conservation and create a consolidated game reserve that could be used as an economic engine to drive development in the community. In February 2011, this resulted in the first community owned game reserve to be formally proclaimed as a nature reserve; an incredible commitment to the conservation of natural resources under Inkosi Gumbi’s control. The Somkhanda Game Reserve also became the first community owned land to become a partner in the WWF/Ezemvelo Black Rhino Range Expansion Programme, and a population of endangered black rhino were introduced in 2007. Apart from the rhino population, the game reserve has valuable populations of leopard, nyala, zebra, giraffe and a variety of typical bushveld game. As a result of these achievements, Somkhanda Game Reserve is promoted as a flagship project for land restitution and transformation in South Africa, as well as an example of conservation-based community development.
Unlike the traditional concept of private game lodges where the visitor experience is game drive based entertainment, on Somkhanda visitors are encouraged to encounter wildlife and the environment from the point of view of being in an enormous wildlife laboratory, where there is limitless opportunity to learn about all aspects of wildlife and the environment.
