he Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, (Botswana ), (South Africa ), is located in the Kalahari regions of both Botswana and South Africa and came into being as the official merger of the Gemsbok National Park in Botswana and the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa.
The park offers a majestic and infinite desert landscape with migrating herds of wildebeest, gemsbok, springbok and eland, cunning predators like lion, cheetah and leopard and unending red dunes with unique flora and a diversity of epic proportions is what draws the visitor to this ancient land of the Kalahari Desert.
The Kgalagadi tribes-people with the local Khoe-inhabitants of the desert were the first humans to inhabit this desolate desert habitat. Although they were nomadic, the name stayed. The name Kalahari was derived from the Kgalagadi word Makgadikgadi, meaning great thirstland or saltpans.
The first English speaking settlers in the area came to trade with the people living in the Kalahari. The Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa was established in 1931 and the Gemsbok National Park in Botswana was established in 1938. These parks shared a common border.
Since 1948 there has been informal cooperation agreements between conservation agencies in Botswana and South Africa to ensure the wellbeing of animals in both parks and to control development in the area.
The two parks were officially combined in 1999 and on 12 May 2000 the new Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park was formally opened by South Africa’s President Thabo Mbeki and Botswana’s President Festus Mogae and was the first Transfrontier park in Africa.
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park Communities
Some of the original inhbitants of this wilderness area still live around and within the Park.
* Mier Community
The Mier (the Afrikaans word for ant) community of the Kalahari mainly originated more than 150 years ago settled across an large area that reached up to the Orange River and into the German West Africa (later South West Africa and presently Namibia) and Bechuanaland (presently Botswana). They mainly farmed with sheep, goats and cattle in the hardveld south of the Kalahari dunes.
* Khomani Community
The Khoe-speaking community of Southern Africa is not one tribe but a collective of different peoples with different languages and cultural practices. They are united by their experience of being hunters and gatherers in the Kalahari Desert.
Today there are about 100 000 Khoe speaking people in these parts. They live in small, scattered pockets in the urban and rural areas of Angola, Botswana, Zambia, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe. In March 1999, they had a portion of their territory restored by the government of South Africa. This land included a large area in the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park forming the Ae!Hai Kalahari Heritage Park.
The total land area of the park is in the order of 38 000 square km, with 28 400 square km of the park located in Botswana and the rest in South Africa. The Kalahari is a semi-arid wilderness with bright red sand dunes and covers most of Botswana and reaches into Namibia, South Africa and other African countries as well. The landscape typically consists of saltpans, open plains to flat bushveld which becomes more dense towards the south. It is a huge area of unspoilt desert and bushveld with small vegetation-covered red dunes, grasslands, scrub bush and woodlands. The Kgalagadi’s pans and rivers are bordered by high dunes. The pans fill up with water during the rainy season and contain nutrient-rich soils, and salts. The name Kgalagadi means the great thirst in Tswana.
The Kgalagadi is best known for unique desert-adapted mammals, birds, reptiles and rodents, especially the black maned Kalahari lions and gemsbok.
Other animals include the endangered wild dog, leopard, giraffe, blue wildebeest, brown hyena, eland, aardvark, bat-eared foxes, pangolin and meerkat.
Kgalagadi is a fascinating stop for birdwatchers and apart from migrating flamingos and pelicans, this is an excellent area for raptors, with over 50 recorded species. Bateleur, Pygmy falcons, Sociable weavers and Vultures (White-backed and Lappet-faced) are common. Flora included the water-holding tsamma, a melon like creeper and the distinctive massive camel-thorn trees which can be found in any of the river beds.
In summer (October to April), the temperature in the Kgalagadi climbs up to 40 degrees Celsius and sometimes higher. The annual rainfall is rarely more than 100 mm, and some years it even stays below 50 mm. Typically this is the time of the iconic Kalahari thunderstorms.
In winter (June to August), the temperatures lie around 25 degrees Celsius. This results in the air ibeing dry and very clear days can be expected. The nights are extremely cold. Winter is also the best time for animal viewing. Because of the drought, the game is forced to come to the waterholes in the riverbeds.
