Monitoring wildlife populations in KAZA

Project Goals

• Research data as basis for nature conservation and sustainable tourism development in the region.
• A precise knowledge of the lions’ migration routes makes it possible to minimise human-wildlife conflicts and, for example, to inform local farmers about the migration movements of the lion populations by means of an early warning system. By improving the knowledge of the lodge operators regarding the distribution, population sizes and main threats to the large carnivores, the lion populations can be preserved as an integral component of the nature reserve and the destination.

Project Background

The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) is the largest transboundary conservation area on earth, covering around 440,000 square kilometres. Previously, the conservation map of the KAZA region resembled a patchwork quilt: animal populations that actually belonged together lived in 21 separate protected areas (national parks, reserves, community conservation areas) – separated by national borders, villages, fields and roads. Around 250,000 elephants were crowded into the national parks of Botswana and Zimbabwe, although there was space for them in Angola and Zambia.

This has changed: KAZA has created corridors across borders and connected protected areas, so that animals can now migrate long distances again.

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and the KfW Development Bank are supporting the implementation of the KAZA vision of sustainable development through tourism and nature conservation. Futouris has implemented the tourism component of this vision as a partner of the KfW in the industry project ‘KAZA – Sustainable Lodges’. With funding from the Loro Parque Foundation, Futouris member Loro Parque and Futouris are now also involved in nature conservation in KAZA.

The project is implemented by scientists from the US conservation organisation Panthera. Panthera’s goal is to ensure a future for wild cats in which they live in healthy natural habitats.

Project Activities

The project comprises two research activities:

1. Wildlife inventory in the Mavinga and Luiana national parks in Angola

The wildlife population survey was carried out using camera traps. In the first step, the correct locations for the camera traps were determined near waterholes. The recordings were evaluated by Panthera and a species inventory and distribution maps of the individual populations were created, which were made available for nature conservation and tourism development in the region.

2 . Monitoring the lion population and its migratory movements

Large carnivores such as lions are an integral part of the KAZA landscape: as apex predators, they shape and structure the community of herbivores in the savannahs of Africa and are also of crucial importance for tourism. However, little is known about the distribution of these key species in the Angolan part of the KAZA area. As part of the project, eight lions were fitted with tracking collars that enable their exact movement patterns to be tracked. This made it possible, among other things, to determine the extent to which the lion populations use the newly created wildlife corridors of the KAZA protected area.

Data collection took place until the end of October 2016. A first interim report was published in January 2016, and the final report was presented in June 2017.