Kruger2Canyons.com

JOHANNESBURG- Five southern African countries have agreed, in principle, to establish a third Transfrontier Park, a development that will boost regional tourism and conservation efforts and facilitate cross-border travel.

This comes after July's agreement to establish the Limpopo-Shashe Transfrontier Conservation Area between South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana.

Tourism and environmental ministers from Zimbabwe, Angola, Namibia, Botswana and Zambia converged on the resort town of Victoria Falls on Thursday to sign a Memorandum of Understanding to connect a number of established protected areas, mainly along the Zambezi River.

Up to 36 national parks and game reserves in the five countries could become part of the new Transfrontier Park.

These include areas such as the Okavango Delta in Botswana, the Caprivi Strip in Namibia and the adjoining area in Angola, the Kafue Wetlands in Zambia and the Victoria Falls in both Zimbabwe and Zambia.

Zimbabwe's Tourism and Environment Minister Francis Nhema said the project could cover an estimated 30,000 square kilometres of savannah, woodland, river and wetland ecosystems in the countries concerned.

Under the agreement visa requirements will be scrapped by September 2008 for international and domestic tourists wishing to visit the Transfrontier Park in all countries involved.

The first Transfrontier project, the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, was established in 2004 by South Africa, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, and incorporates the Kruger National Park, Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou Park and the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique.

At 35,000 square kilometres, the Limpopo Transfrontier Park will remain the largest and is already partly operational between South Africa and Mozambique. The fence on the Zimbabwean side is yet to be fully removed.

Zimbabwe has faced accusations of destroying its wildlife heritage due to rampant poaching by established game hunters with connections to the ruling party and by ruling party militants who invaded some national parks at the height of land seizures between 2000 and 2003. However, Zimbabwe still remains home to sizeable numbers of wildlife with abundant elephant and other species.

Nhema said the new Transfrontier project would make it much easier to manage regional ecology and to achieve regional integration in such areas as law enforcement and wildlife crime prevention and fire management.

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