Mosi-oa-Tunya/Chief Mukuni/African Wildlife Foundation

AFRICAN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION’S KAZUNGULA HEARTLANDS PROGRAMME

Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe
Area: 9,090,507 hectares (35,099 square miles)
Key features: Zambezi River; Victoria Falls; Chobe National Park; Hwange National Park; Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park; Zambezi National Park; Chobe/Linyanti/Kwando Wetland System

Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe are represented in the Kazungula Heartland. The mighty Zambezi River is a water artery through the center of this rich African landscape, providing essential water to the spectacular ecosystems contained in this region. World-renowned Victoria Falls is found in this Heartland.

Heartland Conservation Process
AWF's Heartland Conservation Process (HCP) is the framework used to plan, implement, and measure the conservation impact of AWF's programs in Africa. As part of the HCP, AWF uses a landscape-level planning process which was developed with help from The Nature Conservancy to establish conservation goals for each Heartland, identify threats to conservation targets, and to design threat reduction activities, while taking full advantage of opportunities available. AWF then takes the findings from this planning process to develop strategies for each Heartland which leads to the implementation of priority interventions. The impacts of these interventions on the status of conservation targets and human livelihoods are then monitored and measured which feeds back into further planning and refinements of Heartland strategies.

Partners
USAID Regional Center for Southern Africa (RCSA)
Japan Fund for Global Environment (JFGE)

KAZUNGULA CUSTOMARY AREA TRUSTS
Chief Mukuni of Zambia - one
of AWF's close partner in the
Kazungula Heartland

AWF is currently working with the trusts to bring close to 1 million Hectares of land under conservation; to conserve crucial migratory corridors and dispersal areas that were used in the past by elephants moving between southern Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Kafue National Park; and to conserve important areas of the Zambezi River frontage. When protected, these area should be able to provide for wildlife dispersal and movement from the overpopulated protected areas in Botswana and Zimbabwe and improve overall landscape conservation. AWF is also supporting the trusts to forge partnerships with the private sector for tourism development that should benefit the communities. Various meetings have already been held with interested private sector partners. AWF has also helped one of the trusts to repossess and designate for conservation prime wetlands that had been fraudulently allocated to the private sector for development of a fishing camp. The community land trust model has not only addressed legal constraints in land administration and safeguarded communal
land rights and related livelihoods. It has also democratized land management in the chiefdoms of southern Zambia. The work with trusts has also contributed to the ongoing discourse on land reform in Zambia and further provides opportunity for wide replication of this program in Zambia where it is officially stated that 94% of the land is held under customary or traditional tenure.

African Wildlife Foundation
HQ africanwildlife@awf.org
Zambia Africanwildlife@iwayafrica.org