Securing the species, habitat, health, and livelihoods of the Lower Kafue Ecosystem (KaF-Wild)

The KaF-Wild project is a child project under the GEF-8 Wildlife Conservation for Development Integrated Program (WCD IP) led by the Government of the Republic of Zambia (GRZ), with the local office of International Crane Foundation (ICF Zambia) as financial administrator and executing partner. The project contributes to the global program objective, and is consistent with the WCD approach – tackling drivers of wildlife loss, including poaching for the local illegal wild meat trade, and human wildlife conflict in key hotspots, as well as improving wildlife habitat through wetland restoration and fire management. It complements the WWF GEF-supported Kafue Flats Climate Resilience and Adaptation (KaF-Adapt) Project, funded by the Least Developed Countries Fund in the same area and time-frame.

The project objective is to secure key wildlife species of the Kafue Flats landscape and promote socio-economic benefits to local communities through wildlife-based economies. These will be promoted through value addition to cleared invasive biomass, development of ecotourism, cash-for-work for landscape management, and investigation of long-term funding sources for the Lower Kafue Basin. Zoonotic spillover risk will be reduced through managing livestock-wildlife interfaces, and rotational grazing through the KaF-Adapt project. The global environmental benefits expected are: improved management of four protected areas covering 622,900 hectares, and wetland restoration over 3,000 hectares, resulting in emissions reductions of 249,410 tCO2e over 20 years, and an increased population of the threatened endemic Kafue Lechwe. 15,000 members of local households will benefit directly from livelihoods and capacity development activities.