5 southern African countries form the world’s biggest wildlife conservation area

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By Associated Press, Updated: Friday, March 16, 2:37 AM

JOHANNESBURG — Five Southern African nations on Thursday agreed to form the
world’s largest international conservation area in an effort to protect
nearly half of the continent’s elephants and a vast range of animals, birds
and plants, many endangered by poaching and human encroachment.

At a ceremony in Namibia on Thursday government ministers from Angola,
Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe put their official seal on a
cross-border treaty set to combine 36 nature preserves and surrounding
areas.

The World Wildlife Fund said the countries will cooperate on measures to
allow animals to roam freely across their borders over 170,000 square miles
(440,000 square kilometers), almost the size of Sweden.

The Kavango Zambezi area includes the Victoria Falls World Heritage site in
Zimbabwe and Botswana’s famed swampland of the Okavango Delta.

Conservationists say historical migration routes of animals have been
curtailed by national borders and man-made conflict. The decades-long civil
war in Angola saw elephant herds, notoriously skittish to gunfire, fleeing
far from their own habitats.

Already, Botswana is dismantling a fence on its border with Namibia after
steps were taken to curb the spread of animal diseases.

According to the treaty put into effect Thursday, the Kavango Zambezi
Transfrontier Conservation Area, known as KAZA, is home to about 45 percent
of Africa’s elephants. Along with other game animals, it has a rare heritage
of at least 600 species of birds and 3,000 species of plants.

Previous attempts to set up massive cross-border conservancies in Africa
have failed largely because impoverished local communities weren’t engaged
to help before governments signed up, said Chris Weaver, the World Wildlife
Fund’s regional director in Namibia.

“This is very different. It has a very strong community focus,” he told The
Associated Press in a telephone interview.

He said local communities are getting jobs and revenue from tourism in
return for their role in protecting the environment.

An independent secretariat has been established to coordinate work between
state wildlife authorities and community groups across the region. The
German KFW development bank plowed $40 million into getting the KAZA
conservancy up and running, Weaver said.

Last year, he said, rural Namibians earned some $700,000 from their own
conservation-related activities. The money went toward further training,
transportation, water supplies and improvements for schools and clinics.

Weaver said in recent history wildlife and nature preserves traditionally
belonged to state governments. That had encouraged poachers to steal animals
from the state, a distant and alien owner.

Now the KAZA conservancy offered tangible benefits across the board to
communities and member countries.

“It is good news for conservation in southern Africa,” Weaver said.

In theory this sounds great but having driven through, over and across much of the area in question (much of it in 4x4 low-range) I can honestly say that the conservationists have a very steep mountain to climb here. There are many, many people and thousands of goats, donkeys and cows over much of this area. It's going to take time and money and even more time to sway the mindset of many of the people living in these areas that wildlife is the way of the future.

Having said that, I really wish the venture all the best. The Okavango/Kwando/Hwange complex has the potential to become one of the greatest wildlife depositories on eart with proper management.