Frankfurt Zoological Society and Zimbabwe: A Winning Conservation Partnership
After years of collaboration between the Frankfurt Zoological Society and Zimbabwe, the assessment is positive.
July 01st, 2015
For more than 5 years, the Frankfurt Zoological Society has had a partnership with Zimbabwe wildlife authorities in order to protect wildlife in Gonarezhou National Park, the second largest national park in Zimbabwe. The park is part of the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park, which straddles the borders of Mozambique, South Africa and Zimbabwe and joins some of the most established wildlife areas in southern Africa into a huge conservation area. Today, thanks to the efforts put into improving management and security, animal populations are increasing.
The Frankfurt Zoological Society Gonarezhou Conservation project started in 2007 but an official agreement was signed only in 2010. The project aims to maintain the wilderness of its natural ecosystem by providing and supporting the management in the park. This also involves supplying material resources such as vital patrol equipment, vehicles, advanced monitoring equipment including GPS units and a software tool which generates maps and reports on poaching hotspots and patrol. The new management model for the park will allow greater financial and ecological sustainability for the area in the long-term and will form the next step for the future of this conservation partnership.
Hugo van der Westhuizen, the project leader of the Frankfurt Zoological Society Gonarezhou Conservation project, announced that thanks to the project, elephants are at the highest level formally recorded for the park with more than 11,000 animals. In addition, all other mammals have also consistently shown an upward trend and predator populations have increased significantly. Lion numbers are also recovering from low numbers seen at the start of the project.
Today, the project had achieved most of its targets but it still intends additionally to reintroduce rhinoceroses to Gonarezhou. The Frankfurt Zoological Society and Zimbabwe are working hand in hand towards that goal.
References and Links
- Link: https://fzs.org/en/projects-2/current-projects/gonarezhou-conservation-project/
- Link: http://www.gicafrica.diplo.de/Vertretung/suedafrika-dz/en/__pr/2015/06/06-Zim-Frankfurt-Zoo.html?archive=3707656
Capucine Jorda, Berlin Global
