<p>Understanding long-term changes in the spatial distribution and habitat suitability of wildlife is critical for effective conservation planning. This study assessed the spatio-temporal distribution of the southern giraffe (<i>Giraffa giraffa</i>) in Hwange National Park (HNP) and examined how environmental variability has influenced habitat suitability over the past two decades. Giraffe occurrence data were obtained from road-count surveys conducted in 2002, 2012, and 2022 and analyzed alongside key environmental variables, including temperature, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, rainfall, elevation, terrain ruggedness, and distance to water. To ensure model stability, collinearity among variables was tested using the variance inflation factor. Habitat suitability was modelled using an ensemble approach combining support vector machine (SVM), random forest (Sutton et al.), and maximum entropy (MaxEnt) algorithms, implemented in the flexSDM package in R. Results revealed marked spatial and temporal variations in giraffe habitat suitability, with the highest concentrations consistently recorded in the Main Camp management area. Alarmingly, suitable habitat within HNP declined by approximately 60% over the study period, a trend likely driven by both environmental changes and anthropogenic pressures. Habitat preference analyses further indicated that southern giraffes consistently selected mixed woodland–bushland mosaics, which likely provide access to diverse forage resources, predator avoidance opportunities, and thermoregulatory benefits. These findings highlight the vulnerability of giraffe populations to habitat loss and underscore the importance of integrating long-term environmental dynamics into conservation planning. The study provides essential insights to guide targeted conservation interventions for giraffes in HNP, particularly in light of escalating climate variability and human disturbances across the landscape.</p>