High carnivore richness despite human pressure and prey depletion in the south-west of the Kavango– Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area


S TIJN VERSCHUEREN* 1 , 2 ,TIM HOFMANN1 , 3 ,MIK AE L KAKO V E 1,HANS BAUER 4 , 5 BOGDAN CRISTESCU 1 , 6 and L AURIE MARKER 1


Abstract Transfrontier conservation landscapes, such as the Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TCA) in southern Africa, play a crucial role in preserving glo- bal biodiversity and promoting the sustainable development of local communities. However, resources to facilitate manage- ment could become scarce across large areas, leading to diffi- culties in obtaining baseline ecological information. Consequently, in the absence of sustainable management vast landscapes may experience loss of wildlife species, which could destabilize ecosystems. This effect is particularly significant if the loss involves top predators. Hence, under- standing carnivore distributions is critical to informing man- agement. We conducted a mammal survey in the Ondjou Conservancy in Namibia, an 8,729 km2 understudied area in the south-west of the KAZA TCA.We analysed camera-trap- ping data from a 2,304 km2 grid and identified high carnivore richness (18 species) despite widespread human activity and prey depletion. Using a multi-species occupancy framework we found that carnivore occurrence increased with increasing distance fromthemain village andwith closer proximity to the Nyae NyaeConservancy neighbouring theKAZATCA,which has large and diverse carnivore populations. Carnivore occurrence was higher when local prey richness was high. TheOndjouConservancy could function as an important buf- fer for the larger conservation network, yet rural communities in this area require support for fostering human–wildlife coexistence. Additionally, restoring the natural prey base will be critical to ensuring the long-term viabilityof carnivore popu- lationsin thisand otherhuman-impactedlandscapes. With many remote areas of transfrontier conservation landscapes being understudied, our findings illustrate the conservation potentialof suchareas within large-scale conservationnetworks.


Keywords Camera trap, carnivore occupancy, communal conservancy, human–wildlife coexistence, Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, Namibia, source–sink, southern Africa


*Corresponding author, stijn@cheetah.org 1Cheetah Conservation Fund, Otjiwarongo, Namibia 2Evolutionary Ecology Group, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 3Wildlife Sciences, Georg-August University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany 4Wildlife Conservation Research Unit, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK 5Evolutionary Ecology Group, University of Antwerp, Antwerp, Belgium 6Namibia University of Science and Technology, Windhoek, Namibia


Received 5 May 2023. Revision requested 6 September 2023. Accepted 5 January 2024. First published online 21 October 2024.


The supplementary material for this article is available at doi.org/10.1017/S0030605324000024


Introduction


continue to affect and fragment natural systems (Haddad et al., 2015). Although conventional protected areas such as national parks are critical in this regard, their limited geographical scope suggests the need for human–wildlife coexistence beyond their boundaries (Naughton-Treves et al., 2005). Transfrontier initiatives are a promising ap- proach for addressing large-scale conservation challenges by transcending political boundaries and matching the level of governance to the scale of the problem (Schoon, 2013). Transfrontier conservation areas integrate protected areas, wildlife corridors and buffer zones into a unified management framework, with the overarching goal of creating viable habitat for wildlife. In addition, they promote sustainable livelihoods and social cohesion amongst neigh- bouring communities, facilitating long-term coexistence with wildlife (Andersson et al., 2013). The Kavango–Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area


B


(KAZA TCA) is a landscape conservation initiative estab- lished in 2006 and gradually expanded to an area of c. 520,000 km2 spanning five countries in southern Africa (Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe; Cumming, 2008). It is one of the largest conservation land- scapes globally and may be one of the most intact conserva- tion areas in Africa (Fynn & Bonyongo, 2011). However, with the increasing scale of conservation landscapes there may be a lack of resources to protect such vast areas, lead- ing to conservation overstretch (Scholte et al., 2022). The KAZA TCA emerged as an institutional solution backed by international support, yet the countries involved differ sub- stantially in their capacity to implement and enforce con- servation (Linell et al., 2019). Engagement of local commu- nities in natural resource management is variable and rural livelihoods remain threatened by interactions with wildlife, resulting in low tolerance towards certain species, particularly large carnivores (Andersson et al., 2013;Stoldt etal., 2020). Understanding wildlife distributions can help identify potential human–wildlife conflict areas and could inform


This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited. Oryx, 2024, 58(6), 793–801 © The Author(s), 2024. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605324000024


iodiversity conservation across large landscapes has be- come a significant global challenge as human activities


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