Connecting wildlife through Zambia’s transboundary wildlife movement corridors in the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA)

To identify wildlife movement corridors within the Zambian landscapes of KAZA TFCA by determining elephant landscape utilization, and identifying impediments to elephant movements and threats to their survival that restrict connectivity with cross-border elephant populations. Information will be generated to guide conservation planning and action to secure elephant habitats and designate legally protected wildlife movement corridors. Such corridors will serve to restore landscape connectivity between protected areas within the central KAZA area to enable wildlife free movement between member countries, thereby alleviating the impacts of habitat loss and climate change on otherwise isolated wildlife populations.

Main activities of the project are the fitting (and later removal) of GPS satellite collars to elephants located along the border between Zambia and the adjacent countries of Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, which is a new site in Zambia where collaring for transboundary elephant movements has not previously been undertaken. Collaring activity will be followed by regular field investigations over the 2-year life of the collars to collect data about barriers to elephant movement, habitat use, and transboundary crossing points into adjacent countries. Timely information will also be provided to the Department of National Parks to assist with anti-poaching activities.