Beyond the Falls – Travel Africa Magazine

Exploring the world’s largest transfrontier park

The world’s largest terrestrial conservation space (masking an space of almost 520,000 sq km), KAZA may have your safari bucket record overflowing very quickly.

Nearly 75 per cent of southern Africa’s elephants are discovered inside its borders, half of them in Botswana and Zimbabwe. KAZA can also be residence to almost 1 / 4 of the continent’s remaining inhabitants of African wild canine — and in case your want record incorporates different rarities like sable, roan, sitatunga or Pel’s fishing owl, get a pencil able to mark them ‘seen’ in one in all KAZA’s 36 nationwide parks and guarded areas.

You may tick off three World Heritage websites — Victoria Falls, Tsodilo Hills and the Okavango Delta — and plan safaris to Chobe, Hwange, Makgadikgadi Pans, Kafue, Lake Kariba or Matusadona. Using Victoria Falls or Livingstone as a springboard into the KAZA area, there’s a plethora of alternatives to fulfill the wildlife lover and eco-acutely aware traveller.

Living with elephants
The KAZA Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) mandate is to follow greatest conservation and tourism fashions for the advantage of communities and wildlife, particularly the place they arrive into battle. It is in lots of respects a mannequin of how a number of neighbouring nations can work collectively for the better good of individuals and wildlife, even when by its nature it’s bureaucratic.

Big cats consuming your cattle whilst you sleep or elephants raiding your vegetable backyard should not on a regular basis issues for many of us, however human-wildlife battle is a serious concern in lots of rural areas in Africa. KAZA helps quite a few initiatives that purpose to make folks’s lives higher.

In Botswana’s Okavango panhandle, in an space roughly the measurement of Yellowstone National Park, 15,000 elephants compete with the similar variety of folks for water, meals and land. The NGO Ecoexist helps farmers enhance their yields by various crop sorts and introducing sustainable intensification practices on their fields, that are clustered and electrically-fenced to maintain elephants at bay. Locating these away from the 13 identified elephant pathways criss-crossing the area addresses one in all the key causes of the battle, however requires essential lengthy-time period participation of all stakeholders.

Ecoexist additionally helps communities profit from wildlife by way of an ‘elephant economy’; elephant branded tourism, meals and handicraft merchandise. Chilli infused right into a smoking elephant dung bomb is commonly used as an elephant deterrent, so take residence some sizzling and spicy ‘elephant pepper’ to remind you of your vacation.

Innovative options to age-outdated issues are popping up throughout KAZA — like utilizing hanging beehives on journey wires round the new Sijwa Project permaculture backyard, quickly to be planted alongside the Kavango River of Namibia. A bee up the trunk is anathema to an elephant and when the swaying hives strung round the farm are disturbed, the bees come out and the elephants buzz off. It’s a win-win for sustainable vegetable rising, pollination and honey manufacturing.

Chief Mayuni, who lords over an unlimited swathe of this Zambezi Region, is true behind this initiative by African Monarch Lodges and their bold plans to recycle lodge and neighborhood waste into arts and crafts. Sijwa will take a few years to get going, however look out for highway indicators and swing by to take a look.

The border challenge
KAZA’s success will probably be measured not over 3-5 years, however over 3-5 a long time. Its designation started in the barely conflicting context of collaboration and sovereignty involving 4 nations (Namibia, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Botswana) with a fifth — Angola — coming into into the fold because it emerged from a prolonged civil conflict. By the time the Memorandum of Understanding was signed in 2006, KAZA’s boundaries had already expanded and maybe will proceed to take action in the future, to incorporate areas basic to free motion of wildlife. For instance, the Zimbabwean facet of Lake Kariba is a part of KAZA, whereas the Zambian portion shouldn’t be.

Animals don’t respect such boundaries and shortly travellers may have a better time of crossing borders too, as soon as the KAZA UniVisa is adopted by all 5 nations. Currently, one visa costing US$50 is all it’s essential cross between Zimbabwe and Zambia, with a 24-hour tour into Botswana allowable. Recently Botswana pledged to commit absolutely to the UniVisa, though when which may take impact is unsure. Meanwhile, talks proceed to enlist all 5 however with out an official timeframe it may very well be one other three years till the new UniVisa is unveiled.

One trigger for optimism is that Phase III of funding to KAZA is allotted particularly to facilitating Wildlife Dispersal Areas (WDA’s). Six corridors important to present and historic migration routes have been recognized. When animals are not constrained by fences and veterinary exclusion cordons, and when there are simpler anti-poaching strategies, there will probably be the similar potential for cross-border motion for elephant, buffalo, zebra, wildebeest, wild canine and even lion, answering their instinctive name for migration, denied for generations.

Zebra have demonstrated that regardless of by no means having migrated — resulting from the Nxai Pan veterinary fence put in to cease the unfold of foot and mouth from buffalo to cattle — their genetic reminiscence kicked in as soon as the fences have been taken down after 38 years in 2006. The zebras’ 300km return journey from Chobe south to the Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pan space is larger in distance than even the Serengeti migration.

More and extra ‘green season’ excursions are being provided particularly to witness a few of these nice gatherings of animals that observe the rains to greener pastures. The Hwange-Makgadikgadi-Nxai Pan Wildlife Dispersal Area from Zimbabwe to Botswana is being funded to the tune of US$11,745,000, so it’s possible that the Makgadikgadi migration will solely acquire in numbers.

Money issues
The German Development Bank KfW funds KAZA due to lengthy-time period German-SADC improvement cooperation supporting transboundary conservation, rural financial improvement, poverty discount and a state of peace in the space. All European nations give monetary help to creating nations, and with appreciable numbers of German vacationers visiting KAZA, it is smart to help the space.

Regardless of political machinations, the reality stays that KAZA incorporates a few of the jewels of African tourism and supplies a framework to guard and protect its setting and communities. This all makes it a extremely engaging possibility in your subsequent vacation.

OKAVANGO DELTA, BOTSWANA
Watery wilderness of the Kalahari
Getting there: Maun is the stepping-off level for the Okavango. A 1½hr flight (or 7½hr highway journey) from Victoria Falls, it presents constitution flights and highway transfers to lodges in Moremi Game Reserve or personal concessions.
Don’t miss: The moist and the dry. Nourished by life-giving waters from the Angolan highlands, the Okavango is a inexperienced-fingered mosaic of channels, lagoons, reedbeds and islands the place completely different camps and lodges provide every little thing from sport drives and bush walks to mokoro rides and boat journeys relying on their location and the seasonal ebb and stream of floodwaters. Wildlife abounds on this utopia – from swamp-dwelling lions to jewel-like reed frogs.

OKAVANGO PANHANDLE, BOTSWANA
Paradise for birders and anglers
Getting there: A full day’s drive from Victoria Falls or Livingstone by way of Namibia’s Zambezi Region, crossing three rivers and borders.
Don’t miss: The wildlife and the fishing. Just earlier than the Okavango River spills out into the delta, it flows by way of the panhandle’s floodplains and papyrus-choked lagoons the place birders can set their sights on fishing owls, bee-eaters and African skimmers, and anglers can attempt their luck with tiger fish and bream. A drier diversion to the south, Tsodilo Hills World Heritage Site is daubed with Bushman rock artwork.
Where to remain: As effectively as inexpensive houseboats, the area has a number of campsites and lodges.

LIVINGSTONE, ZAMBIA
Gateway to the KAZA area and Victoria Falls
Getting there: The new Harry Mwanga Nkumbula International Airport is a hub for native and worldwide flights.
Don’t miss: Chilling out at a riverside lodge on the Upper Zambezi or staying in a single day at a extra rustic island camp – the birdwatching, canoeing and sundowner boat journeys are legendary. Upping the adrenaline ranges, e-book your self onto a ‘Flight of the Angels’ flip over Mosi-oa-Tunya, or join whitewater rafting, quad biking or a bungee leap off Victoria Falls Bridge. There’s additionally nice curio purchasing, in addition to native village visits. Don’t miss the Livingstone Museum. See additionally pages 72-73.
Where to remain: Take your decide from tenting or self-catering chalets to 5-star lodges.
See additionally pages 60-61

MAKGADIKGADI-NXAI NP, BOTSWANA
Where nothing means every little thing
Getting there: It’s an extended day’s drive from Victoria Falls. Or a 30-minute constitution flight or 3-hour highway switch from Maun.
Don’t miss: The huge nothingness. Drive into the countless salt pans to witness the uncluttered curve of the earth, go to Kubu Island and feast your eyes on the vibrant rash of the Milky Way. Witness a bit of-identified zebra migration, discover by quad bike or sit whereas a wild meerkat makes use of your head as a lookout.
Where to remain: There’s a spattering of prime-finish camps on the northwest fringes of the pans, whereas effectively-outfitted self-drivers can camp at Kubu Island.

KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, ZAMBIA
Land of the antelope
Getting there: Drive a bit of over three hours from Livingstone or fly into one in all a number of airstrips near lodges.
Don’t miss: The antelopes. Kafue is famend for its variety, from lumbering eland to fleet-footed duikers. Head to the Busanga Plains in the far north of the park the place hundreds of crimson lechwe splash throughout huge, rolling floodplains underneath the attentive gaze of lion, leopard and cheetah. Swamp-dwelling sitatunga are additionally discovered right here, together with avian A-listers like Pel’s fishing owl and African finfoot.
Where to remain: Scattering of seasonal bushcamps in Busanga; everlasting lodges in the south.

KAZUMA PAN NATIONAL PARK, ZIMBABWE
Wild plains for intrepid travellers
Remote and troublesome to entry, this can be a park for self-enough bush fanatics. Good looking territory for lion, cheetah and wild canine, its open grassland helps giant herds of buffalo and elephant, whereas the system of pans attracts a variety of water birds.

CHIZARIRA NATIONAL PARK, ZIMBABWE
Stepping out in the wilderness
Remote and barely visited, with no everlasting vacationer lodging presently obtainable, Chizarira rewards effectively-outfitted travellers with rugged surroundings that’s significantly good for strolling safaris. Wildlife consists of klipspringer, better kudu, roan, elephant, buffalo, lion and noticed hyena.

VICTORIA FALLS, ZIMBABWE
KAZA’s different hub, south of the river
Getting there: The just lately upgraded Victoria Falls International Airport has capability to maneuver round two million folks per 12 months on native and worldwide flights.
Don’t miss: Victoria Falls and Zambezi National Parks – one provides you misty-eyed, shut-up views of the nice waterfall from rainforest-cloaked footpaths, whereas the different is huge 5 nation. The city of Vic Falls, in the meantime, is booming; resorts are increasing, there’s a cool meals scene and it’s buzzing with power.
Where to remain: Like Livingstone, Vic Falls is awash with choices, from campsites to lodges.