Bwabwata

Bwabwata National Park was created in 2007 in the Caprivi Strip, the corridor of Namibian territory that reaches in between Angola, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, and protects some 6,274 km² between the Okavango and Kwando rivers. It replaced the former Caprivi Game Park, used as a military zone during the independence war.

Its most singular feature is one of management model: several thousand people live permanently inside the park, mostly from the Khwe and Mbukushu communities, with recognised rights of residence and resource use. Namibia conceived it explicitly as a park for people, in which conservation and community use coexist, an approach that has become an African reference point against the model of the uninhabited park.

Bwabwata is a key piece of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, the largest in the world, which links protected areas in five countries. It works as a migration corridor for the elephants that move between the Okavango Delta, Chobe and Angola, and its floodplains are home to sitatunga, African wild dog, roan antelope and a very rich waterbird fauna. Minimising conflict between wildlife and people is its main management challenge.