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Sophie, Duchess of Edinburgh, spent the third day of her tour in Zambia focused on conservation in protecting the country’s wildlife. The centerpiece of the day was a visit to Conservation Lower Zambezi, a nonprofit organization dedicated to combating poaching and protecting the region’s ecosystems. The visit also included a meeting with the Kufadza Female Scouts, Zambia’s first all-women ranger unit, who provided a demonstration of snare removal, one of the central tasks of their national park patrols.
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The Duchess of Edinburgh meets patrol women from the Kufusza Rangers Team.
Dressed casually in white pants and a loose silk top with a green print, the Duchess of Edinburgh viewed displays of animal skulls and poaching equipment recovered from the national park, materials that convey the scale of the threat facing the region’s wildlife. Sophie then visited the canine detection unit, where specially trained dogs are employed to detect illegal wildlife products—including ivory, pangolin scales, and rhino horn, as well as firearms and ammunition. She watched a scent demonstration and met the dogs’ handlers before heading to the operations control room, where she heard how Conservation Lower Zambezi monitors lion and wild dog populations across the Lower Zambezi region and national park.
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Sophie during a tour of the base camp at the Conservation Lower Zambezi.
The encounter connected directly to the afternoon’s engagement, which featured a roundtable bringing together conservationists from Conservation Lower Zambezi and Wildlife Crime Prevention, a Zambian organization that works with government agencies to reduce environmental crime. Discussions focused on women’s leadership in conservation, and the barriers and opportunities that shape their participation in ranger services across southern Africa. The roundtable drew on a UK government-supported Gender Equality and Social Inclusion initiative under the Darwin Initiative, which is building evidence on the specific challenges facing women in the region’s ranger services.
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One of the education center managers is seen holding a piece of confiscated ivory.
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The Duchess of Edinburgh in the education center.
Wednesday’s program reflected some of the consistent threads running through Sophie’s six-day royal visit. Yesterday, the Duchess met in Lusaka with Zambian women business leaders as well as artists/survivors of gender-based violence using creative work as a form of advocacy. The tour continues through Friday, with a meeting to come with Zambian President Hakainde Hichilema as well as a visit to Mosi-oa-Tunya, also known as Victoria Falls.
Rachel King (she/her) is a news writer at Town & Country. Before joining T&C, she spent nearly a decade as an editor at Fortune. Her work covering travel and lifestyle has appeared in Forbes, Observer, Robb Report, Cruise Critic, and Cool Hunting, among others. Originally from San Francisco, she lives in New York with her wife, their daughter, and a precocious labradoodle. Follow her on Instagram at @rk.passport.