It was late November and Zambia was still waiting for the rains. The air was hot, the earth a dried husk, the delicate, feathered heads of papyrus motionless under a dazzling blue sky. I’d just come from Zimbabwe and Botswana where wildlife was struggling from an extended drought. Elephant calves had perished from a lack of food and there was trouble brewing — elephants on crop raids, talk of culling quotas — all along the edges of the protected zones which made up the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, or KAZA TFCA. This vast contiguous territory, larger than Germany and Austria combined, connects wildlife-rich territories in Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
那是11月下旬，赞比亚仍在等待雨季的到来。空气炙热，大地干裂，纸莎草那纤细的羽状顶端在耀眼的蓝天下一动不动。我刚从津巴布韦和博茨瓦纳过来，那里的野生动物正因长期干旱而很难生存。小象因缺乏食物而死亡，麻烦正在酝酿——大象袭击农作物，讨论捕杀配额——这些问题在构成卡万戈-赞比西河流域保护区(KAZA TFCA)的保护区边缘不断出现。这个广阔的连续区域，比德国和澳大利亚的总和还大，连接了安哥拉、博茨瓦纳、纳米比亚、赞比亚和津巴布韦的富有野生动物的领地。