The Regional Office for Southern Africa of IUCN (IUCN-ROSA), in conjunction with the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), initiated the Zambezi Basin Wetlands Conservation and Resource Utilisation Project (ZBWCRUP) in 1996. This project is aimed at ensuring wise use of natural resources of the wetlands of the Zambezi Basin, focussing in particular on four project sites (the Barotse floodplains in western Zambia, the floodplains and swamps of the Chobe/Caprivi region of Namibia and Botswana, the wetlands of the Lower Shire in southern Malawi and Mozambique, and the Zambezi Delta in Mozambique). One of the project activities is to assess the importance of biodiversity from a conservation perspective, both for the four wetland areas and for the wetlands of the Zambezi Basin as a whole. The Zambezi Society and the Biodiversity Foundation for Africa were invited to carry out this component as Phase 1 of larger project. This volume, the resulting report, consists of a compilation, evaluation and assessment of existing published technical information on the biodiversity of these wetlands.