The Sunday News
Judith Phiri, Business Reporter
THE Kavango Zambezi Trans frontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) has launched the first ever KAZA-wide coordinated aerial survey of elephants.
The survey will start in July-August 2022 and run for four months, with an expected cost of nearly US$3 million. The coordinating Ministries represent the Republics of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe where this survey will be conducted.
In a statement on Thursday, Namibia Executive Director of the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism, Mr Teofilus Nghitila said on behalf of the partner states, he was pleased to announce the first ever KAZA-wide coordinated aerial survey of elephants.
“On behalf of the Partner States of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), I am pleased to announce the launch of the first ever KAZA-wide coordinated aerial survey of elephants. Our Coordinating Ministries represent the Republics of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe where this survey will be conducted.
“This is a demonstration of our concerted efforts to implement the KAZA Treaty, which calls for regionally integrated approaches towards harmonizing policies, strategies, and practices for managing shared natural resources straddling the international borders of KAZA Partner States,” said Mr Nghitila.
He said that the survey is a fundamental component of the KAZA Strategic Planning Framework for the Conservation and Management of Elephants.
Mr Nghitila said it is also one of the action points of the 2019 Kasane Elephant Summit and a directive by our Heads of State.
“The elephant population of KAZA represents more than 50 percent of the remaining savanna elephants (Loxodonta Africana) found in Africa, a species recently listed by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as globally endangered. On a positive note, the IUCN Red List acknowledged that savanna elephants are stable or increasing in KAZA, unlike the rest of the continent, which is a clear testament of the positive outcomes of the management interventions within KAZA,” he added.
He said that the KAZA elephant population was the largest contiguous transboundary elephant population in the world, inhabiting KAZA’s diverse landscape which is home to an estimated population of two million people, and has a geographic scope of approximately 520 000km².
Mr Nghitila said the survey will be coordinated by the KAZA Secretariat in close collaboration with designated teams in each of the Partner States and will be based on the recently revised Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants (MIKE) aerial survey standards.
He added: “In launching the aerial survey, we would like to thank our development partner, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), and donor partners comprised of Paul G Allen Family Foundation, the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development through KfW.
“Among others the Dutch Postcode Lottery Dreamfund, USAID Combating Wildlife Crime in Namibia and the Kavango-Zambezi Area Project, UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and the Environment and Protected Areas Authority (EPAA) of Sharjah, United Arab Emirates.”
Mr Nghitila said as KAZA Partner States and Coordinating Ministries, they reaffirmed their commitment to the joint pursuit of science-led conservation practices driven by a firm belief that accurate and reliable data is the foundation to making informed strategic decisions about the long-term protection and management of Africa’s largest transboundary elephant population.
KAZA TFCA Secretariat was established in 2011 by the KAZA Partner States to manage the day-to-day operations of the TFCA.
