Where Kalahari Meets Congo

For many people, the far north-west of Zambia is both the source of the mighty Zambezi and the ‘land of pineapples’. For the country’s own naturalists this region is important for tens of other reasons – reasons that give them goosebumps and set them drooling. The districts of Mwinilunga and Ikelenge, for example, were known to be incredibly biodiverse, yet for years were barely visited on account of their extreme remoteness. A recent renaissance in exploration is confirming that there is still much to be discovered about the wealth of this little-known paradise.

- Frank Willems

Mwinilunga District, Zambia

This story starts in 2015 at Cassin’s Camp on the West Lunga River, a birders’ camp in the private Nkwaji Wildlife Reserve. While guiding a birding tour there, late one night Errol de Beer was intrigued by a strange owl’s call. Too deep for an African Wood Owl, it was quite unlike anything he’d heard before. Quickly he pulled out his cell phone and made a recording. No, he hadn’t been dreaming, he really had been listening to a Vermiculated Fishing Owl, until then known only from central Democratic Republic of the Congo and further west.

The presence of the owl in Nkwaji confirmed for us that we knew next to nothing about the upper section of the West Lunga area. Over the years, the few exploratory expeditions into the region had focused on the Ikelenge Pedicle in the extreme north-west, which had previously been incorporated into the Mwinilunga District but is now a district on its own. This area includes well-known sites such as the source of the Zambezi, Hillwood Farm (also known as Nchila Wildlife Reserve) and Chitunta Plain. It also hosts a fairly substantial human population, which is a cause for conservation concern. Subsequent to Errol’s discovery, a Google Earth scan of the Kanyama-Kakoma Pedicle further to the east revealed large expanses of apparently intact grassland and mushitu evergreen forest.