The 542 000 acre Mana Pools National Park forms part of the extensive middle Zambezi River valley wilderness complex stretching from Kariba Dam downstream to the Mozambique border. Widely recognised as one of the finest and least developed wildlife and wilderness parks in southern Africa, it has good numbers of most indigenous mammals and a wealth of bird species.
The focal point of the park is the system of alluvial river terraces, up to 1.9 miles wide, which flank the Zambezi along the park's entire 31 mile river frontage and support mature woodlands ranging from Acacia albida on their newer parts to stands of Natal mahogany, figs, ebonies and other species on older areas and on former islands and levees.
The park takes its name from the pools that still lie in the abandoned river channels that run through the terraces. The origin of the word mana is sometimes said to mean 'four'. South of these terraces, the flat valley floor is covered with mopane woodlands and jesse bush, replaced by Brachystegia species on the Zambezi Escarpment that bounds the valley some 31 miles from the river.
The fertile terraces, and their juxtaposition with the harsher valley hinterland, are responsible for creating some of the largest dry-season mammal concen-trations in Zimbabwe. During the rainy season, water and fodder become plentiful in the valley and most of the large mammals of the region move away from the Zambezi and become widely dispersed.
At the end of the rains they are forced back towards the Zambezi by shortages of fodder and water further inland. The Acacia albida trees play an important part in this movement. They have a reverse foliage cycle in that their leaves develop during the dry season and fall with the onset of the rains; in addition, each tree bears up to 882 lb of pods in August/ September.
Thus they provide both shade and fodder, especially for elephant, when they are most needed. By 1985 the middle Zambezi valley was believed to hold about 11 000 elephant and was thought to be overpopulated to a point at which severe habitat damage was occurring.
Many of these elephant descend on the Mana Pools woodlands each year, and one visible result of the overpopulation has been the widespread ringbarking of the acacias and the failure of new seedlings to mature. Escarpment areas have also suffered badly and there are plans to bring the elephant population down to about 8 000 (see wildlife management).
Buffalo herds up to 2000-strong are also a feature of the Mana Pools area in the dry season and most other indigenous mammals are abundant, with the exception of white rhinoceros, wildebeeste and giraffe.
However, the park holds one of the densest populations of the endangered black rhinoceros in the world; they have come under heavy poaching pressure and are now well protected by intensive ground patrols.
Lion, leopard and hyaena are plentiful; cheetah are occasionally sighted in some areas; and there are several packs of wild dog. The river harbours some of Zimbabwe's biggest concentrations of hippopotamus and crocodile.
The fish eagle, which has become rare in many parts of Africa, is common; and the river is the breeding ground for several other less common bird species, such as the African skimmer and the carmine bee-eater.
The National Park was threatened early in the 1980s by a planned hydro-electric scheme in the Mupata Gorge some 56 miles downstream. Had this proposal gone ahead, the alluvial terraces and their woodlands would have been destroyed, and the resulting loss of dry-season habitats would have made the destruction of many large mammals inevitable in order to reduce pressures on the rest of the Zambezi valley.
The scheme was abandoned after an environmental impact study showed that the environmental costs would have far outweighed the benefits of the scheme, especially in view of the existence of alternative sites and of good coal reserves for thermal power production.
Access to the park is via a gravel track from the main Harare-Chirundu road. Tourist accommodation is in the form of campsites on the riverbank, with some lodges close to the Park headquarters at Nyamepi. Mana Pools was given National Park status under the Parks and Wild Life Act (1975).
It has gained World Heritage status under the UNESCO World Heritage Convention because of its outstanding natural beauty and its large numbers of black rhinoceros and other local wildlife.