Ministry wants green listing of Nkasa Rupara National Park

The Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism is engaging stakeholders to gather input for the green listing of Nkasa Rupara National Park in the Zambezi region.

According to a recent notice issued by the ministry’s executive director, Theofilus Nghitila, the ministry is working with the International Union for Conservation of Nature to assess the park against the union’s green list of protected and conserved areas.

“This assessment has considered the management, governance, planning and conservation outcomes of the park,” said Nghitila.

The green list provides an international benchmark for quality that motivates improved performance and helps achieve conservation objectives.

By committing to meet this global standard, site managers seek to demonstrate and maintain performance and deliver real nature conservation results.

“Following the completion of the assessment, members of the expert assessment group for the green list will visit the park on 24 and 25 March for validation of the assessment,” Nghitila said.

“Stakeholders and interested parties are, therefore, invited to contact the assessment team to share any inputs they wish to provide regarding the Nkasa Rupara National Park,” the executive director added.

Nkasa Rupara is situated at the southern tip of the Zambezi ‘triangle’, with Botswana to the south-east and south-west. Most of the park consists of channels of reed beds, lagoons and termitaria islands.

The Kwando River marks the park’s western boundary and the Linyanti River its south-eastern border.

This is the largest wetland area with conservation status in Namibia, and is a haven for wetland species.

When the flood waters from the Kwando River are high, Nkasa Rupara (formerly Mamili) becomes a mini Okavango Delta.

According to the ministry, the park is home to hippos, crocodiles, elephants, buffaloes, lions, leopards, hyenas, African wild dogs, roan antelopes, common impalas, red lechwes, reedbucks, sitatungas, kudus, warthogs, spotted-necked otters and rock and water monitor lizards.

It is also an important corridor for elephants moving from Botswana to Angola and Zambia, and is considered a core breeding area for wildlife that can disperse into neighbouring conservancies – Balyerwa, Wuparo and Dzoti.

It is also a haven to about 430 bird species, including breeding pairs of rare wattled cranes; slaty egret, Stanley’s bustard, rosy-throated long claw, Dickinson’s kestrel, Allen’s gallinule, lesser jacana, black-winged and red-winged pratincoles, long-toed lapwing, luapula cisticola, coppery-tailed coucal and black coucal.

Nghitila said input can be emailed to Leeverty Muyoba at leeverty@gmail.com and copied to Michael Sibalatani at naturesolutions@iway.na from 10 March to 10 April.

– email: matthew@namibian.com.na