By Bisola Adeyemo
Namibia’s Environment Ministry executive director Theofilus Nghitila said aerial surveys to help determine elephant and wildlife numbers will commence in July to August 2022 and run for 4 months, with an expected cost of nearly 3 million U.S. dollars.
Namibia’s Environment Ministry executive director Theofilus Nghitila said this during the launching of the first-ever KAZA-wide coordinated aerial survey of elephants on Thursday in Windhoek.
For KAZA to achieve this, four neighbouring States partner with the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA). They are:
Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, according to Chinua news agency.
While giving his word on the survey, Nghitila said the survey is an exhibition of the partners’ concerted efforts from the four States to ensure implementation of the KAZA Treaty, which calls for regionally integrated approaches towards harmonizing policies, strategies, and practices for managing shared natural resources straddling the international borders of KAZA partner states.
“The survey is a fundamental component of the KAZA Strategic Planning Framework for the Conservation and Management of Elephants. The elephant population of KAZA represents more than 50 percent of the remaining savanna elephants (Loxodonta Africana) found in Africa, a species recently listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as globally endangered,” he said.
“Results from the survey will contribute significantly towards the decisions on the sustainable management of KAZA’s elephant population. The survey will be coordinated by the KAZA secretariat in close collaboration with designated teams in each of the partner states and will be based on the recently revised Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora Monitoring the Illegal Killing of Elephants aerial survey standards,” he said.
Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) was a conservation proposal for a region of Southern Africa where the international borders of five countries converge.