Mana Pools

UNESCO World Heritage Site
Mana Pools National Park, Sapi and Chewore Safari Area
Name as inscribed on the World Heritage List
Type Natural
Criteria vii, ix, x
Reference 302
UNESCO region Africa
Inscription history
Inscription 1984 (8th Session)
Designated January 3, 2013 [1]

Mana Pools is a wildlife conservation area in northern Zimbabwe constituting a National Park. It is a region of the lower Zambezi River in Zimbabwe where the flood plain turns into a broad expanse of lakes after each rainy season. As the lakes gradually dry up and recede, the region attracts many large animals in search of water, making it one of Africa's most renowned game-viewing regions.

Mana means ‘four’ in Shona, in reference to the four large permanent pools formed by the meanderings of the middle Zambezi. These 2,500 square kilometres of river frontage, islands, sandbanks and pools, flanked by forests of mahogany, wild figs, ebonies and baobabs, is one of the least developed National Parks in Southern Africa. It was saved from a hydro-electric scheme in the early eighties which would have seen the flooding of this subsequent World Heritage site. It has the country’s biggest concentration of hippopotamuses and crocodiles and large dry season mammal populations of elephant and buffalo. The Mana Pools were designated a Ramsar wetland of international importance on 3 January 2013.[2]

See also

References

  1. ↑ "Ramsar List". Ramsar.org. Retrieved 14 April 2013.
  2. ↑ "The Annotated Ramsar List: Zimbabwe". The Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Retrieved 20 February 2013.

External links

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Gallery

Coordinates: 15°45′S 29°20′E / 15.750°S 29.333°E / -15.750; 29.333

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