KAZA TFCA website launch

The Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) today launched its website at the international tourism fair being held in Berlin, Germany. KAZA is potentially the world’s largest transfrontier conservation area which aims to streamline efforts for natural resource management, and tourism development across the international borders between Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe for the benefit of the people living within and around the TFCA.

The presence of KAZA at an event of the tourism magnitude as the ITB represents an important milestone for African TFCAs. In signing a Memorandum of Understanding on 7 December 2006, the Ministers of environment, natural resources, tourism and wildlife from these five African partner countries agreed to collaborate towards the establishment of the TFCA. Speaking at the launch today, Minister of Tourism and Hospitality, Zimbabwe, Honorable Engineer Walter Mzembi and the Deputy Minister of Hotels and Tourism, Angola, Honorable P.D. Baptista, demonstrated the spirit of partnership between these five states, branding KAZA as a single tourism destination for regional and international markets. Representing the current Coordinating Country of the TFCA was Mr. Chalwe Lombe, Charge D’Affairs of the Zambia Mission to Germany.

The KAZA website represents an invaluable resource and communications tool accessible to the diversity of KAZA stakeholders that range from park managers to conservationists; tourists to local community trusts; development practitioners to service providers. As the KAZA TFCA opens avenues of opportunity for tourism development in a region as vast as Italy, with a cultural and natural heritage that is as rich as it is diverse, the website offers a one-stop-shop of information for tourists that are eager to experience this new and exciting African brand.
The aptness of the location of the first marketing event of the KAZA TFCA is not lost on the public as the principle financiers of this challenging and transformative intergovernmental programme is the German Government through its bilateral relationship with the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Being a SADC approved programme, KAZA speaks to SADC’s goals of regional integration; poverty alleviation; sustainable utilization of natural resources; and effective protection of the environment and enjoys financial and technical support from a host of other regional and international development partners.