Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park Will Double Land for Wildlife - Including Kruger's 10,000 Elephants

Africa's vast new transfrontier "peace park"* is larger than the entire country of Switzerland. In fact, it's being called "the world's largest animal kingdom."

Encompassing more than 35,000 square kilometers (13,500 square miles), the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park extends into three countries; Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

As reported in African Wildlife Foundatio's African Wildlife News last year ("Bridging Borders," Spring 2001), AWF and other conservation organizations have been working in support of formation of the "mega" conservation park, which joins South Africa's Kruger National Park, Mozambique's Coutada 16 (now called Limpopo National Park) and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou National Park. AWF-designated Limpopo Heartland spans the borders of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and includes the popular Kruger, which hosts more than 1.5 million visitors yearly and has more wildlife species than any other game sanctuary in Africa, including 10,000 elephants.

Contrasted with wildlife-rich Kruger is the vast, empty wilderness of Mozambique's recently proclaimed Limpopo National Park. Due to conflicting conservation practices and security issues, a formidable game fence between Kruger and Mozambique cut this huge ecological system in half for years. Late last year, South Africa dismantled a portion of the fence and began a three-year, $20 million process of relocating 1,000 elephants from Kruger across the border into Mozambique's Limpopo Park. Conservationists have hailed the move as a pragmatic solution to the management of South Africa's elephant population. The 1,000 elephants will form the nucleus of reestablishing the herds that once roamed along the natural migration routes among the three countries. However, before this wildlife movement can take place the Mozambique authorities must reconcile the national interests with those of the communities in and living adjacent to the Park. AWF is working closely with these authorities to ensure a balance of interests between wildlife and people, central and local governance.

The new Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park doubles the land available for wildlife, and this increased habitat is expected to give Kruger's growing elephant population a new lease on life. The Transfrontier Park is conceived as the core zone of an even bigger Transfrontier Conservation Area which will blend purely protected areas with a surrounding area of multiple use zones that will also develop wildlife as a land use and allow community and private sector investments. The World Bank is supporting this greater conservation area and AWF is working to this concept as well. The transfrontier park and the wider conservation area is expected to become one of Africa's great ecotourism destinations, generating jobs and income for the area's 2 million human neighbors.

As for visitors, they will no longer be required to hold various visas to travel among the three parks that make up the new transfrontier park. Tourism ministers from the three countries met recently to discuss establishment of an international treaty to regulate the Transfrontier Park. The ministers also plan to create a joint management board to oversee the park's daily activities, a strategy for tourism marketing and how surrounding communities will benefit from the project. The countries reportedly have made major investments in ranger training, fencing and anti-poaching to secure the vast park.

During its 40-year history, AWF has supported a number of remarkable conservation projects, but none matches the scale of two recent initiatives, involving portions of six countries - Limpopo, which incorporates one of the two largest parks in Africa, and the Four Corners project, which includes the habitat of the largest herd of elephants in Africa.

* Introduced in the 1920s and '30s, transfrontier protected areas or transfrontier conservation areas are intended to better manage shared natural resources, especially migratory wildlife. These areas are also considered to contribute to peace and cooperation among the countries involved. The world's first international peace park linked Glacier National Park in the United States with Canada's Waterton Lakes National Park in 1932. The concept of transfrontier transboundary areas broadens the peace park concept from being purely protected zones to protected zones surrounded by zones where rural communities can also develop wildlife as a preferred land use without having to vacate their land or give upon their ownership to the State as a National Park.