Botswana's Protected Important Bird Areas Status and Trends Report 2009

Abstract

In 1998, BirdLife Botswana (the BirdLife partner in Botswana) identifi ed and documented 12 sites as Important Bird

Areas (IBAs) of Botswana (Barnes, 1998). These sites are (listed with the IBA numbers in parenthesis):

• Chobe National Park (BW001);
• Linyanti Swamps (BW002);
• Okavango Delta (BW003);
• Lake Ngami (BW004);
• Central Kalahari and Khutse Game Reserve (CKGR) (BW005);
• Makgadikgadi Pans (BW006);
• Mannyelanong Hill (BW007);
• Tswapong Hills (BW008);
• Bokaa Dam (BW009);
• Phakalane Sewage ponds (BW010);
• South Eastern Botswana (BW011), and;
• Kalahari Trans frontier (Gemsbok) National Park (BW012).

The Chobe and Okavango Delta IBAs have the richest avifauna, with 433 and 464 species respectively. The majority of IBAs in Africa (57% of the 1,230 sites) overlap to varying degrees with some kind of protected areas (PAs). Although not all IBA boundaries in Botswana are adequately defi ned on a map, descriptions of them in Botswana’s list of IBAs (Barnes et al., 1998) indicates that some follow the boundaries of already designated protected areas while others follow the bio-geographical boundaries of their respective habitat or ecosystem. Of Botswana’s twelve IBAs identifi ed in Botswana, seven of Botswana’s Important Bird Areas are partially or entirely covered by some form of designated protected area, under the Botswana government’s Wildlife and National Parks.