Rhinos return to Zimbabwe and a new kind of safari starts to take shape

Near the Hwange national park, a reintroduction project protects animals, attracts tourists and ensures locals aren’t neglected

Inside a stockade of tall wooden stakes, cattle are waiting to be let out for the day. Golden sunlight stutters through the acacia trees and lights up the homestead beyond, a large, bare-earth courtyard containing five neatly thatched mud-walled buildings.

Hygiene Moyo, 75, and her teenage granddaughter Lucricia live here, just outside one of Zimbabwe’s largest and most important national parks, Hwange. They take me to greet their favourite animal, Booster the bull, who comes trotting across the enclosure when called, pushing his nose forward to be scratched. Ten new calves mill around in a separate inner stockade, eagerly waiting to be reunited with their mothers. Not all of the herd, however, are present. Since the start of the year three cows have been killed by hyenas.