I’ve posted steadily about our trip to southern Africa. It’s fun to write about! The region is a bottomless wellspring of inspiration.
That trip gave me something I don’t feel very often: hope.
We’ve spent months in Asia in natural habitats that are now being dammed, or mined, or paved in the name of progress. It’s all happening so quickly. We know we won’t recognize those places when we go back.
But in southern Africa, in Botswana and Namibia, we were thrilled by the wildlife and the inhabitants. These countries spoke in growls and whistles and birdsong and hippo songs and human voices.
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is the largest transnational conservation area in the world at 444.000 km2. It is enormous, larger than Germany and Austria combined and nearly twice as large as the United Kingdom. The KAZA TFCA lies in the Kavango and Zambezi river basins where Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge. [1]
There are issues to deal with – the loss of domestic animals to predators. The way elephants eat or trample crops. The complicated cross-country agreements. But, as their website states, “Local communities participate with enthusiasm in management of the TFCA through the Transboundary Natural Resources Managment Forum. The aim of this forum is to maximize skills and resources to promote sustainable land use, conservation of wildlife and landscapes, and rural development.”
I urge everyone to learn about this multinational effort to preserve the environment for the benefit of ALL inhabitants, whether winged, hooved, legged, or finned. FINALLY! A region of the world that’s getting it right!
NOTES: [1] https://www.kavangozambezi.org/ ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Photos ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.
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The feeling came to me as a revelation. When I climbed shakily out of what I considered a toy tin helicopter after our ride over the Okavango Delta, I was startled to realize I was feeling something unfamiliar:
Victoria Falls wasn’t at full force when we visited but we still got soaking wet from the mists blowing over from the other side. We were happy to be wet as it was over 100 degrees that day. 
And then, when I looked in the viewfinder hoping I’d managed to get a few shots that didn’t include my thumb in the upper left hand corner, there was the breathtaking sweep and scope of Victoria Falls, dry season or wet season or any season. Even the fuzziness in my photo is supposed to be there – that’s the mists blowing up from Victoria Falls. Maybe the best photo I’ve ever taken with my phone!
