These elephants are thundering through the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area as they migrate between Angola and Zambia. They are on their way to the Zambezi River in search of water and here they cross a road by the Sioma Ngwezi National Park. This is the third-largest park in Zambia covering a total area of more than 5000 km2 and it used to be heavily poached of elephant but, as you can see, the situation is improving. Here they are following an old migration route.
Elephant are vitally important to an ecosystem. They transport hundreds of tree seeds via their dung when they migrate which improves reforestation and vegetation efforts. They open up the landscape which allows access to softer grasses for animals that graze and browse. They also push down trees and make the leaves available to other animals. So, elephants are vital to the landscape.
Peace Parks Foundation’s vision is to reconnect these migration corridors, which are currently extremely fragmented by country borders and human settlements. The goal is to develop the area in such a way that humans and wildlife can co-exist in harmony, neither one suffering the consequences of the other’s actions.
A key objective of the work of Peace Parks in KAZA is to engage in restoration and development projects that will ensure connectivity between key wildlife areas, and where necessary, join fragmented wildlife habitats. The goal is to safeguard an interconnected mosaic of protected areas – reinstating transboundary movement corridors for migratory wildlife such as elephants, zebra and various other species that require large ecosystems to thrive.
Sioma Ngwezi National Park is mainly covered by Kalahari woodland, so there is plenty of food for elephant. The Park also has a variety of other species such as lion, leopard, hyena, cheetah, wild dog, giraffe, eland, sable, roan, tsessebe, zebra, impala, kudu, duiker, buffalo, hippo, crocodile and sitatunga as well as a great number of birds.
