The Middle Zambezi Biosphere Reserve (established 2010) is a

UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...

Biosphere Reserve located along the Zambezi River in the Zambezi Valley of

Zimbabwe Zimbabwe (), officially the Republic of Zimbabwe, is a landlocked country located in Southeast Africa, between the Zambezi and Limpopo Rivers, bordered by South Africa to the south, Botswana to the south-west, Zambia to the north, and Mozam ...

. The reserve consists of

riverine A river is a natural flowing watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, sea, lake or another river. In some cases, a river flows into the ground and becomes dry at the end of its course without reaching another body of wate ...

and terrestrial

ecosystem An ecosystem (or ecological system) consists of all the organisms and the physical environment with which they interact. These biotic and abiotic components are linked together through nutrient cycles and energy flows. Energy enters the syste ...

s unique to the subcontinent. Among threatened species found in the valley are the black rhino (''Diceros bicornis''), the painted wild dog (''Lycaon pictus''), and the

nyala The lowland nyala or simply nyala (''Tragelaphus angasii'') is a spiral-horned antelope native to southern Africa. It is a species of the family Bovidae and genus ''Tragelaphus'', previously placed in genus ''Nyala''. It was first described in ...

(''Tragelaphus angasii''). The flora consist of

Colophospermum ''Colophospermum mopane'', commonly called mopane, mopani, balsam tree, butterfly tree, or turpentine tree, is a tree in the legume family (Fabaceae), that grows in hot, dry, low-lying areas, in elevation, in the far northern parts of southern A ...

/ Combretum/

Terminalia Terminalia may refer to: * Terminalia (festival), a Roman festival to the god of boundaries Terminus * ''Terminalia'' (plant), a tree genus * Terminalia (insect anatomy), the terminal region of the abdomen in insects * ''Polyscias terminalia'', a ...

woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the ''plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

and the Zambezi riparian forest. At Mana Pools, it comprises the only flood plain ecosystem left in the Middle Zambezi. , the total human population is about 40,600, with the major population in the urban area in the Biosphere Reserve and the CAMPFIRE buffer zones. The core zones have only Park staff people, while the safari areas contain less than 50 people at any time, comprising mainly sport hunters and their hosts. Land Management units comprise the two core areas and 11 buffer zone areas.

Sources

{{free-content attribution , author = UNESCO , title = UNESCO - MAB Biosphere Reserves Directory , publisher = UNESCO , documentURL = http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/biosphere-reserves/africa/zimbabwe/middle-zambezi/ , License statement URL = http://www.unesco.org/new/en/natural-sciences/environment/ecological-sciences/biosphere-reserves/world-network-wnbr/wnbr/ , licence = CC BY-SA IGO 3.0

References

Biosphere reserves of Zimbabwe