Namibia/Botswana: The longest terrestrial large mammal migration in Africa

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), researchers have discovered the longest-known terrestrial migration of wildlife in Africa. They observed a previously unknown multi-country migration of Burchell’s zebra (Equus quagga) taking place entirely within the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) – the world’s largest multi-country conservation area. Over two consecutive years the researchers tracked the movement of zebras back and forth by using GPS collars. The data show that the mammals are making a 500km round-trip between the Chobe River in Namibia and the Nxai Pan National Park in Botswana. Continued long-term research will be needed to confirm that this is an annual and fixed migration, and whether this is genetically coded or passed behaviorally from mothers to offspring. The distance covered by the Burchell’s zebra in the KAZA is greater than that covered by wildebeest (connochaetes taurinus) during their well-known seasonal journey in the Serengeti ecosystem, which is located in north Tanzania and south-western Kenya.

Southern Africa: The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is the world's largest transfrontier conservation area

About a year ago, on 18 August 2011, the presidents of the Republics of Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe signed a treaty that formally and legally established the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), the world's largest transfrontier conservation area. Seven month later, in March 2012, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was officially launched. The multinational conservation area is spanning over 444,000 km² comprising multiple resource use areas such as National Parks, Game Reserves, Forest Reserves, Conservancies, Game/Wildlife Management Areas and Communal lands.



The KAZA TFCA includes a major part of the Upper Zambezi basin, the Okavango basin, the Caprivi Strip in Namibia, the southeastern corner of Angola, southwestern Zambia and the northern wildlands of Botswana and western Zimbabwe. The Victoria Falls, located right on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, as well as the Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe, the Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta in Botswana are also incorporated into Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area.
The KAZA TFCA initiative was created in cooperation with the Peace Parks Foundation and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).