Integration of Ecological and Socioeconomic Factors in Securing Wildlife Dispersal Corridors in the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, Southern Africa

Transfrontier conservation areas (TFCAs) are being established throughout southern Africa to integrating biodiversity conservation and rural development at the transboundary landscape scale. Among the nine TFCAs that have been established over the past 20 years, the Kavango-Zambezi (KAZA) TFCA) is the most grandiose in terms of size (≈ 520,000 Km2), number of partner countries involved (five), elephant (Loxodonta africana) population (≈ 199,031, which is the largest on the African continent), and encompasses 36 protected areas of various categories, interspaced by communal and private lands. The TFCA concept aims to ensure that key ecological processes continue to function where borders have divided ecosystems, and wildlife migration corridors. Attainment of this ecological objective is however being constrained by the anthropogenic threats, mostly poaching, and habitat fragmentation. These threats are being aggravated by the increasing human population, climate variability and underdeveloped rural livelihoods. To restore ecological processes, the following tactics have been recommended: (a) strengthening of transboundary law enforcement to effectively reduce poaching, and illegal offtake of timber; (b) establishment of “Stepping Stones” in the form of conservancies and fishing protected zones at wildlife crossing point on the major river systems; (c) reducing dependence on wood-fuel, and ensuring sustainable provision of affordable and reliable modern sources of energy; (d) adoption of the commodity-based trade standards in the production of beef for the export market to reduce the impact of veterinary fences on the dispersing wildlife; (e) implementation of early-season burning around all the sensitive biomes to protect them from the destructive late dry season fires; (f) adoption of conservation agriculture as a tool for improving land husbandry, intensification of agriculture, and decreasing the likelihood of cutting down forested areas to plant new agriculture fields; and (g) reducing the impact of climate variability on wildlife by providing artificial water – guided by environmental impact assessments. To enhance the socioeconomic development of the local communities and win them as allies in securing the wildlife dispersal corridors, the following actions should be adopted: (a) promotion of community-private partnerships in ecotourism development – alongside the establishment of a revolving loan fund to enable local communities’ access flexible source of capital for investment in ecotourism and auxiliary business opportunities; (b) promotion of biodiversity stewardship as an incentive for the local communities to commit their land to the sustenance of the wildlife dispersal corridors; (c) reducing human wildlife conflicts, through macro, meso and micro-level land-use planning to spatially delineate land committed to various categories, including protected areas, wildlife dispersal areas, and developed and communal areas; and (d) promotion of harmonised enabling policies and legislation to facilitate slowing down of human population growth, which is one of the prime triggers of habitat fragmentation in the KAZA TFCA

Some management aspects of pre-recruitment ecology of the freshwater sardine Limnothrissa miodon in Lake Kariba

The early life history of the freshwater sardine Limnothrissa miodon (Boulenger, 1906) was investigated with the view of establishing the factors behind recruitment variability in the Lake Kariba sardine fishery. Environmental factors behind recruitment variability were investigated through the examination of otolith microstructure from field captured sardine larvae samples while historical length-frequency data were analysed to establish size-at-recruitment. The larval ecology study established that food was the only possible limiting factor as far as growth and survival are concerned. Growth was described by the von Bertalanffy Growth Function while instantaneous mortality rates were obtained from catch curve analysis and both estimates were observed to fluctuate from month to month. The presence of larvae in the littoral zone through the sampling period implied continuous recruitment while fluctuation in larval catches was assumed to indicate that recruitment variability was probably established at an earlier life history stage. Response of larvae to light during capture has serious management implications to the fishery in that fishing in shallow areas would result in increased larval mortality which could be detrimental to recruitment. The occurrence of larvae in most of the shoreline sampled implies that Limnothrissa miodon in Lake Kariba utilizes most of the shoreline as nursery grounds. From analysis of combined historical commercial data collected from both Zambia and Zimbabwe from 1982 to 1992, it was observed that the sardine recruited to the fishery at 41 mm in length and that based on regression analysis, the mean size of fish in the fishery has decreased by 7% and 4% in Zambia and Zimbabwe respectively. This reduction in size however, does not pose a threat to the fishery since at the current mean size in the catch is greater than the recorded size-at-maturity. The fish therefore have a chances of spawning at least once before being harvested. It was further established that due to migration to the pelagic zone as the fish grew larger, the current minimum mesh size of 8 mm was appropriate provided fishing was restricted to areas deeper than 15 m where the adult population occurs.Science, Faculty ofResources, Environment and Sustainability (IRES), Institute forGraduat