Stand on the Zambian bank of the Zambezi at dawn and the other side of the river is Zimbabwe. A fish eagle calls from a jackalberry on your side; its mate answers from a winter thorn on theirs. A bull elephant standing waistdeep mid-channel couldn’ t care less which country he is in, technically. This is the quiet, extraordinary trick of the Lower Zambezi Valley: the wildlife has always known that borders are a human invention.
In May 2023, the governments of Zimbabwe and Zambia formally caught up, signing the Memorandum of Understanding that established the Lower Zambezi – Mana Pools Transfrontier Conservation Area. At roughly 18 000 square kilometres, it links Mana Pools National Park on the Zimbabwean side, Lower Zambezi National Park on the Zambian side, and a constellation of safari areas and Game Management Areas that buffer both. The river itself, flowing between the man-made lakes of Kariba to the west and Cahora Bassa to the east, is the shared artery.
For travellers, the practical upshot is this: one of the most celebrated stretches of African wilderness is now actively being managed as a single ecosystem.
Mana Pools: Walking in the footsteps of giants Mana Pools, a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1984, takes its name from the four large floodplain pools left behind each year as the Zambezi recedes during the dry season.“ Mana” in Shona translates to four. What those pools draw in, between roughly May and October, is the stuff of safari legend: vast numbers of elephant, buffalo, zebra and impala, along with the predators that follow them, including lion, leopard and African wild dog.
What sets Mana apart from almost anywhere else on the continent is that visitors are allowed to walk. Accompanied by a licensed professional guide, guests can leave the vehicle and track game on foot through the cathedral-like groves of ana trees lining the flood terraces. Dawn light filtering between pale trunks, a
68 | WINTER 2026 • rovesa. co. za