Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA)

In order to ensure KAZA’s wildlife species populations are able to thrive, identifying and addressing the threats to habitat connectivity and critical wildlife corridors must be prioritized. 

To secure the long-term viability of KAZA elephants as a transboundary population, we first needed to establish a current and relatively precise baseline of elephant numbers and movements in the region. To achieve this, WWF and KAZA partner countries conducted the first synchronized transboundary survey of KAZA’s elephants in 2022. We also contributed to the region’s first elephant connectivity policy brief published in 2023. The data from these two studies will informs KAZA’s recent policy recommendations on securing and maintaining elephant movement corridors and landscape connectivity to help ensure long-term protection and management of Africa’s largest transboundary elephant population.  

KAZA’s three main rivers—Okavango, Zambezi, and Kwando—sustain people and wildlife in southern Africa’s otherwise dry landscape. These rivers support critical migratory corridors and seasonal habitats that the region’s people and wildlife depend upon. 

WWF and partners are working to secure the region’s free-flowing rivers, particularly the Kwando River, and manage the water resources of the Kwando Basin. For example, we co-developed a “report card” on the health of the Kwando River Basin, an approach that’s been successful elsewhere in planning for the wise use of water. This supports recommended actions like implementing environmental flows for the basin and creating national and regional Kwando water resource management plans. 

In Zambia, WWF is engaging the government and other interested parties to advance low-carbon, low-cost, and low-conflict energy solutions that meet Zambia’s energy needs while limiting the impact of new hydropower development. We intend to undertake similar work in Angola to advance protections for KAZA’s headwaters.  

WWF has invested in science-based connectivity studies to improve the understanding of the abundance, distribution, and movement of key conflict species including elephants, lions, and spotted hyena in KAZA. We then can identify important connectivity pathways and conflict hotspots to  guide which conflict management approaches to implement and where to do so, as well as influence land use and management decisions to prevent human-wildlife conflict from occurring in the first place. 

WWF also works with communities and local partners to find solutions to better manage and reduce conflict on the ground. Management approaches to conflict vary but successful approaches include: 

• Predator-proof livestock enclosures: These structures successfully protect livestock from predators, most often lions and spotted hyenas, by preventing losses for farmers and reducing the likelihood of farmers killing predators in retaliation for harming livestock.  
• Early alert systems: Using data from collared animals, these systems provide real-time alerts to communities about the presence of wildlife, particularly lions, allowing timely preventative measures. 
• Clustered farms: Farmers cluster their agricultural fields outside of key elephant corridors and use electric fences to prevent elephants from eating their crops and causing food insecurity. 
• Secured water storage: In search of water, elephants can damage or destroy water infrastructure so communities build elevated water storage for clean drinking water.  
• Community Guardians: Local partners employ and train Community Guardians to help communities build new and reinforce traditional livestock enclosures, monitor wildlife, respond to incidents of human-wildlife conflict, and advise farmers on livestock management approaches to prevent conflict. 

WWF is working to help both people and wildlife adapt to a rapidly changing climate and improve food and water security.  

Through the Climate Crowd initiative, WWF works with communities to collect and analyze data, present it back to them, and develop and implement on-the-ground climate adaptation solutions. Improving adaptation strategies benefits wildlife too, as the nature-based and nature-friendly solutions help communities cope with climate impacts while reducing pressure on wildlife and conservation areas. Following a successful pilot project assisting communities near Zimbabwe’s Victoria Falls, WWF is now scaling this work across multiple sites in KAZA, with solutions focused on increasing water security, climate-smart agriculture, alternative livelihoods, and reducing human-wildlife conflict.

In Namibia, communal conservancies are a globally recognized conservation success story. They began in the late 1990s following groundbreaking legislation that put the rights to, and responsibilities for, conserving wildlife in the hands of the communities living with it. WWF, the Namibian government, and local NGO partners helped create the conservancy model and we continue to partner with local communities to help them manage their natural resources and ensure a future that includes healthy wildlife populations and sustainable economic growth. Conservancies have helped to recover many wildlife populations in Namibia, which in turn has contributed to wildlife-based enterprises like tourism, providing incentive for people to conserve wildlife.  

With the sharp downturn of tourism due to the COVID-19 pandemic, WWF has been helping to support tourism recovery in southern Africa, including developing the African Nature Based Tourism Platform. The platform connects funders to communities and small to medium-sized businesses impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic across 11 countries, including Botswana, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. WWF is also helping communities reduce over-reliance on tourism by diversifying income sources. Wildlife credits offer one innovative financing mechanism for communities that have set their lands aside for conservation. With this approach, conservancies can increase their resilience and financial independence so that, when future shocks to the tourism industry arise, communities and conservation are secure.