Located in southeastern Ethiopia, 400km from Addis Ababa, the Bale Mountains are a landscape created by volcanic fires and shaped by glacial ice.
The highlands are almost always ringed by clouds and covered in mist, rain or sleet. Giant lobelia plants stand guard over the undulating plateau and its numerous glacial lakes and swamps. You are surrounded on all sides by volcanic ridges and peaks.
Only about 200 people a year trek in the Bale Mountains, and given the recent unrest in Ethiopia, tourist numbers nationwide are drastically down; so we pretty much had the place to ourselves.
We didn’t see another trekker for the week we spent in the park, and if it hadn’t been quite so cloudy when we climbed to the top of Tullu Demtu (Ethiopia’s second-highest mountain at 4,377m) I know there wouldn’t have been another person below us in this spectacular, ethereal landscape for as far as the eye could see.
Averaging 4,000m above sea level, there is nowhere else like it on the African continent, a place where natural selection has been hard at work; plants, animals and birds have all been fine-tuned to withstand the extremes of temperature, oxygen depletion, fierce winds and extreme ultraviolet radiation.
The result has been the creation of an ecosystem that is one of those rare and rarefied places, where many of the things that live here are found nowhere else. There are more animals unique to these mountains than just about anywhere else on the planet!
The Bale Highlands are home to 20 endemic Ethiopian mammals (five of which, including the magnificent and endangered mountain nyala, are found only here), 12 endemic amphibians, 12 reptiles, 16 endemic birds and all the Bale monkeys and big-headed mole-rats in the world.
The Bale Mountains are rated one of the four top birding spots in Africa, and it is easy to see why, with such rare birds as the blue-winged goose, Abyssinian catbird, spot-breasted plover, and Abyssinian ground-hornbill to be seen.
Ethiopia has more than 860 species of birds, 283 of which are found in the Bale Mountains and 16 of which are endemic to these highlands.
Mountain nyala
In 1969, 215,000 hectares of the Bale Mountains were declared a National Park, and in 2009, nominated as a World Heritage site. But Bale is not a national park in the usual Western sense of the term.
Somewhere between 20,000 and 40,000 people live within the park’s boundaries, divided between local villagers in the Harrena forest and pastoralists tending cattle, sheep and horses on the Senetti Plateau. Stock numbers now exceed the sustainable utilisation of the fragile moorlands, threatening the rodents’ food source, which, in turn, is the principal food source for all carnivores, including the Ethiopian wolf.
The star of the Bale show is undoubtedly the Ethiopian wolf (Canis simensis). With its thick, brick-red coat on top and white belly below, its narrow snout and lithe body, it looks more like a large fox or a jackal than a wolf. The afro-alpine zone of the park is home to about half of the world’s total population of between 400 and 450 Ethiopian wolves – this is the rarest canid on the planet and Africa’s most endangered carnivore.
An even bigger threat to the wolves than the shortage of rodents to eat is the presence of several thousand domestic dogs in the park. These dogs are rabies carriers and interact openly with the wolves. In 2010, rabies and distemper killed 106 of the wolves (about 40% of the Bale population at the time), and again in 2014, between 30 and 50% of the park’s wolves were killed by rabies.
The numbers have recovered slightly now, due to a rabies vaccination project and the Ethiopian Wolf Conservation Project, which aims to vaccinate 4000 domestic dogs and all wolves in the park annually. We were lucky to see twelve wolves during our time in the park, and also met some of the researchers working with the conservation project as they walked the plateau, making notes on the wolves they saw.
Conservationists worry that if a viable solution is not found and efforts to control the unsustainable exploitation of the park’s natural resources are not successful, not only the Ethiopian wolf but also a number of other rare and endangered animals in Bale will vanish.
A week was barely long enough to do justice to this beautiful park. We trekked across approximately one-third of the park, starting in the tiny rural town of Dinsho, crossing the Senetti Plateau and finishing in the Harrena Forest. It was a ‘rustic’ style trip, food was basic, to say the least, our cook had a repertoire that consisted solely of rice with cabbage or pasta with tomato sauce, and we ate these dishes with regular monotony; always knowing that whichever we ate for lunch, the other would, without fail, appear at dinner!
The accommodation was tents, which were tiny but snug and warm and many mornings we awoke to find it covered with a layer of ice. This was an amazing opportunity to visit Ethiopia’s most important biodiversity hotspot and see some of the world’s rarest creatures.
Witnessing the birth of a wild animal is an incredibly rare and special event. Imagine the excitement when guests on safari at Nsefu Camp in Zambia’s South Luangwa National Park could watch a spotted hyena giving birth.
A new hyena den was discovered near the camp recently, and while guests were admiring the pack of hyenas going about the family business, their guide, Julius, realised that one female was in the process of giving birth. The incredible arrival of three healthy hyena cubs followed, right before the guests’ wide eyes.
The proud mum briefly took her young cubs into the den before emerging with them again. Almost instantly, the three new siblings started testily sizing each other up to see who was king of the hill while the adults all watched on, seemingly entertained by the newcomers and their antics.
Female hyena anatomy – it’s no laughing matter
While any animal birth is awe-inspiring in its own way, hyena births are particularly interesting and, quite frankly, a little bizarre. We might know the hyena for its infamous ‘laugh’, but the female hyena anatomy is definitely no laughing matter.
Spotted hyenas live in a clan dominated by one female, known as the matriarch, and all females outrank males. While this is quite unusual in the animal kingdom, there is a good reason why girl power rules the hyena clans. Female hyenas have three times more testosterone in their bodies than their male counterparts! This results in them being more muscular and more aggressive. And, as if that wasn’t enough, it also causes the hyena females to grow a pseudo-penis!
This makes it incredibly difficult to differentiate between male and female hyenas. The females don’t have external vaginas and urinate through their pseudo-penises, just like the male hyenas. And, in case you were wondering, yes, they are capable of an erection.
Keen on an African safari? We have a range of ready-made options and our safari experts will also build one just for you.
Hardcore hyena moms
Just when you thought it couldn’t get any weirder, the poor female hyenas need to give birth through their pseudo-penis. No surprise here, but it’s quite a painful process for the mother and often tragic for her babies.
Hyenas usually bear litters of two to four cubs, but sadly about 60% of them suffocate on their way out. The mothers are also in danger as the birth canal is only an inch in diameter, often making the birthing process fatal, as evidenced by the high death rate for first-time mothers.
Cuddly cubs
Interestingly, the spotted hyena cubs are born with their eyes open, contrary to the other two species (the striped hyenas and brown hyenas). The hyena cubs will suckle for as long as 12 to 18 months, which is unusually long for carnivores.
At about 5 months old, they will begin to snack on meat from kills near the den. Then when they are about a year old, cubs begin to follow their mothers on their hunting and scavenging forays. Until then, they are left behind at the den with a babysitting adult.
It’s rare and wonderful sightings like witnessing the birth of hyena cubs that make the South Luangwa National Park such a epic safari destination.
The Kruger National Park is South Africa’s flagship national park. Wherever you are in the world, if you’re even remotely interested in the safari experience in Africa, you’ve likely heard of the Kruger. It offers a wilderness safari experience that is right up there with the best that Africa has to offer. There’s so much to see and so many adventures to be had in Kruger, that it’s always helpful to figure out what kind of safari experience you want before embarking on the trip of a lifetime!
That’s why this article is a must-read for all first-time visitors to the greater Kruger National Park area, and repeat visitors keen for a change. Essentially, there are two options for your safari to this area: a lodge-based safari in some of the Greater Kruger’s more luxurious safari lodges, or a self-drive visit to the adjacent national park, overnighting inside the park in the traditional chalets or camping facilities offered by SANParks.
By looking at some of the advantages of both options, you can make an informed decision before embarking on one of the greatest journeys of your life to one of the best safari destinations Africa has to offer!
Private Kruger lodges
My wife and I are experienced safari-goers, having travelled to most national parks in southern Africa (the whole spectrum, from luxury lodging to wilderness camping). We recently headed to the Greater Kruger region to experience a lodge-based safari to refresh our minds about why we love this special wilderness area of Africa so much. We visited two very different lodges, each with its unique appeal – and each reminded us why this is such a fantastic option for safari-goers.
The first lodge we stayed was called Rhino Post Safari Lodge, which also has Rhino Walking Safaris’ Plains Camp, where we stayed for two nights. These lodges are inside the national park, and the focus here is on delivering a great bushwalking safari – highly recommended. Although we were lucky enough to spot lions, cheetahs, rhinos, a large herd of buffalo and a whole host of other game on foot, it dawned on me that it’s the finer details that matter most when considering this type of safari.
You’re gifted with the time to better understand how the bush functions, the circle of life in Africa and the fascinating biodiverse ecosystems that play host to these special animals – all of which are a privilege to see in the wild. Only a few special places in Africa offer such authentic, wild bushwalking experiences, and this is one of them. The opportunity to learn about the African bushveld, while being in the heart of one of Africa’s most precious wilderness areas is extraordinary. That is something you can experience first-hand when staying at a lodge.
We then spent two nights at Umlani Bush Camp, in the prestigious Timbavati Private Game Reserve, which is famous for excellent game viewing. There’s no electricity here, although there is a generator for power to charge your devices and for limited wifi access, and lighting is done with lanterns, which adds to the charm and makes for a romantic setting. Here we had the chance to sit back, relax and unwind with a magnificent view of the wild Kruger as we watched elephants and other wildlife make their way past the camp from our viewing deck.
This is a different kind of wilderness experience, being an eco-lodge run almost entirely off the grid and well off the beaten path of the tourist routes. If you consider that the national park attracts roughly half a million tourists every year, why not be one of the tourists that escape the crowds? That’s the experience that Umlani – and indeed many of the other private lodges in the Great Kruger – offers travellers seeking personal, intimate experiences in wild places.
So, why would you consider visiting a lodge instead of exploring the Kruger on a self-drive basis? As a first-time traveller to South Africa, it’s definitely worth the money to spend a few nights at a lodge. Firstly, everything is catered for, and you are treated like royalty. The food and accommodation are excellent, the service is five-star, and the rangers who guide you on the safari are incredibly professional and knowledgeable. You are guaranteed to have some excellent sightings, and you might even be lucky enough to see all of the Big 5, including the ever-elusive leopard.
To drive around in an open game-viewing vehicle, exploring the small gravel tracks, and taking in the sights, sounds and smells of nature is good soul food.
What’s nice about the game drives is that no more than three vehicles are allowed at a sighting. The pressure and human interference with the animals are kept to an absolute minimum and guests are ensured excellent viewing opportunities. The rangers are also allowed to go off-road, which provides good sightings.
Also, if you’re a first-time visitor to the park, the expert bush knowledge of the highly professional guides and staff at the lodges is invaluable in creating those unique, wild memories of your first Kruger experience.
Lodges offer the traveller a luxury experience, with fantastic food, excellent game viewing and photographic opportunities and five-star service and accommodation. This is the kind of safari experience that is guaranteed to stay with you for a lifetime.
Find out about the Greater Kruger for your next African safari. You can choose a ready-made safari or ask us to build one just for you.
Self-drive Kruger safari
So, after touching on the fantastic safari you can experience at a lodge, why would you even consider a self-drive Kruger National Park safari?
Because a self-drive and self-catering Kruger safari has so much to offer the wild traveller! The Kruger boasts an incredible array of activities, including self-drives, guided game drives and night drives, guided bush walks and wilderness trails, and even mountain biking, to name a few. There’s also a whole range of accommodation options, including guesthouses, chalets, bush camps and rustic camping. These might not be as luxurious as the private lodge options, but they offer a completely different experience – one that is more rustic, intimate and authentically Kruger, taking you back in time to when the park was first opened to tourists in the early 1900s.
The Kruger is an incredible place, and the diversity of game and different habitats from north to south is astounding. There’s an excellent road network in a wilderness area of two million hectares, which is about the size of Israel!
I have thought a lot about the Kruger self-drive experience and what makes this flagship national park stand out for me. Yes, it can be busy with other tourists, and there may be some traffic jams at sightings, but there are also real wilderness areas and roads with meagre traffic numbers, especially in the north. Even on the busy roads, it is still a unique wilderness and a privilege to enjoy.
So what makes the Kruger self-drive experience so unique?
I don’t think there are a lot of places where you can still take a map, plan a route and travel through Big 5 country on your own, on your own timing. The choice of where your adventure takes you is in your own hands. That freedom to explore this magnificent wilderness is, for me, the quintessential Kruger experience.
With such a vast wilderness to explore and with enough time, a Kruger self-drive could give you the strongest sense of freedom you’ve felt in a long time.
I often think that in our busy lives in the 21st century, we all miss the adventure of life—we all long to reconnect with the wild and to have our hearts filled. That’s exactly what a safari to the Kruger offers and is something I feel each time I visit—that sense of fulfilment, that re-connection. That’s something to consider if you’re considering a safari trip to Africa. The Kruger will give you that. How you experience it is up to you.
Find out about the Greater Kruger for your next African safari. You can choose a ready-made safari or ask us to build one just for you.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Anton lives in Pretoria, South Africa, and works in his family’s property development and investment business. He and his wife, Renate, both have a passion for wildlife, with a particular interest in birds.
Some pressure groups regularly call to boycott tourism in certain African countries, reacting to the death of animals that could conceivably have been prevented.
This is particularly so when the animals are hunted or culled or when the government in question has been slow in preventing human-wildlife conflict situations that result in the death of animals. And the resulting angst is magnified when a charismatic, named animal dies.
I disagree with the strategy to boycott tourism. After personally engaging with several pressure groups over the years, I thought I would summarise my basic counterargument in this opinion editorial.
The logic seems to be that threatening the government’s treasured tourism revenue streams will convince them to change their ways, thereby saving the animals. This logic does not hold up to scrutiny because damaging the tourism industry will result in:
1. Fewer people being employed in tourism, and those in rural areas (where the animals are and where there is little scope for alternative employment) could then turn to some form of wildlife extraction (as they did in the past) to meet their basic needs. Habitats will be modified to suit cattle and goats and tolerance of wild animals, which are often a threat to lives and livelihoods, will disappear. In other words, more animals will die, and ecosystems will be damaged.
2. Less tourism revenue for government coffers, and the resultant need to switch to alternative revenue streams in order to keep the lights on – such as hunting, mining, fishing, logging etc. In other words, more animals will die, and ecosystems will be ruined.
And so, the call for tourism boycotts to save animals is logically flawed.
The personal dimension
All of us who care react emotionally when confronted with upsetting imagery and seek the end of the carnage. And herein lies the rub – most calls to boycott tourism come from a deeply personal place, and the call for a boycott is really saying, ‘if you don’t change your ways to reflect my personal ideology, I will take you down’.
This is where some people lose the plot and cross the line into hypocrisy. Many of those who argue aggressively to boycott tourism are from the Western world, where most wildlife has been removed, and the countryside has been tamed and turned into wealth that provides a comfortable lifestyle, free of the daily issues that plague most African countries. There seems to be a pervading view amongst this sect of people that Africa should be a wild and undeveloped place so that they can feel at peace with life.
Some of this personal bias is because of the ongoing ‘Disneyfication’ of Africa, where mainstream media portrays Africa as having two dimensions: On the one hand, we have sprawling human poverty, and on the other hand, we have pristine wilderness sans humans, where animals roam freely.
Here at Africa Geographic, we host active discussions on a 24/7 basis that stem from our articles. And so often, the reaction on Facebook to tragic news such as R.I.P Tullamore, the last lion of the 5 Musketeers is: “What are humans doing there in the first place? They should be removed!”.
The inconvenient truth, of course, is that humans live in these vast areas where lions and elephants roam and have done so since before the Western world was ravaged by humans. Humans are expanding their ranges in Africa, as they are doing all over the world, and human-wildlife conflict is increasing. We need solutions for that, and boycotting the entire tourism industry is not one of those solutions.
This might come as a shock to those who have grown up believing in a ‘Disney’ Africa and who think that entire countries should bow to their personal demands. There is a really big need in the Western world, particularly among social media activists, for education about the real Africa.
During a recent Facebook discussion with a person from Europe – who called for boycotts of Namibia because of the named lion Tullamore’s death (refer to the link above) – I questioned whether they had called for boycotts of their own country because it voted at the recent CITES Council of the Parties conference in favour of trade in ivory, baby elephants and lion parts. Their reaction? “My country does not have safaris, so we cannot boycott them.” Such is the depth of their Western world indoctrination about Africa.
The best way to build up any African country’s wildlife and ecosystems is to help them justify to their people why these animals should be tolerated and that the ecosystems should not be turned to pasture for cattle and goats. Tourism is a massive part of that process. Yes, many African countries have corruption problems, and many are not very efficient in carrying out their duties, but name one country in the world that is free of these issues. Just one.
Madikwe Game Reserve is a special place with such a high diversity of animals that one just never knows what’s in store for a group of photographers. Written by Francois van Heerden (photographic guide)
And this Africa Geographic safari was no different! On our very first drive, we set out eagerly to see what the reserve had to offer – and found the elusive wild dogs!
“Leopard Rock was excellent, extremely homely and friendly. Francois was brilliant, offering great photographic advice and really doing his best to show us as much as possible. Incredibly knowledgeable.” ~ comment and photograph by Bruce Braithwaite
Earlier that morning, the pack managed to corner a big bull kudu, but this kudu did not back down and fought for his life – until the dogs (and the kudu) were so exhausted that there was a stalemate. We thought the kudu might get away as the dogs moved off later that afternoon, but the next morning, we found out that the wild dogs’ persistence had paid off, and they had managed to overpower the kudu.
On the next two drives, we saw two separate male lion coalitions, brown hyenas (always a highlight), and loads of general game, including herds of elephant at the lodge waterhole, which offered perfect photographic opportunities.
Our plan for the second afternoon was to head to the river for some bird photography. But any good plan can be turned on its head, and we found ourselves watching herd after herd of elephants coming down to the river to drink.
We stayed with the elephants in lovely back-lit conditions, practising our photography skills in the tricky light.
“We had a fantastic time in Madikwe, and Francois is an amazing guide. Everything there was absolutely perfect, including our involuntary encounter with a black mamba.”~ comment and photograph by Robert Leder
The next morning of our Madikwe safari, as the sun was rising, we set out to find the wild dogs again, and luckily, we did! Eventually, we realised that they were heading back to their kudu kill, which we had heard had attracted spotted hyenas. Realising we might see some predator interaction, we followed the wild dogs with anticipation.
We positioned ourselves in a good spot close to the hyenas and waited for the dogs. At first, they stood a distance away, but after a while, they built up the courage and came running in with a high-pitched chattering – trying to intimidate the hyenas off the carcass.
The dogs managed to corner one hyena, but the rest just stood their ground close to the kill. The hyenas had the upper hand, with numbers on their side, and eventually the dogs left the hyenas with the carcass.
After that, we continued following the dogs until we lost sight of them in some very thick bush. In awe and full memory cards, we stopped for a mug of warm coffee.
As if we couldn’t get any luckier, after coffee, we saw two cheetahs posing nicely on top of a termite mound. We took the opportunity to photograph them from various angles and compositions.
The last evening was spent with a lovely braai under a star-lit sky, reminiscing about our exciting week of photography and game viewing, celebrating the formation of new friendships and the creation of long-lasting memories.
Find out about Madikwe for your next African safari. You can choose a ready-made safari or ask us to build one just for you.
Tullamore, the last of the famous ‘5 musketeers’ desert-adapted lions of northern Namibia, has been killed in the Okongue area, along with a lioness and two cubs, in the ongoing battle between rural cattle farmers and free-roaming lions. The lions were poisoned. Tullamore was the last surviving member of a group of 5 desert-adapted lions made famous by the movie ‘The Vanishing Kings’.
Since Vanishing Kings was made, Tullamore’s 4 musketeer comrades were all killed by farmers – three were poisoned, and one was shot in 2016. Tullamore was then moved to the Okongue area for his own safety. He then became the dominant male of a new pride, some of whom were killed with him in this latest incident. Both Tullamore and the lioness carried collars, which were allegedly burned after the killings. The killings may have happened a while ago, as Tullamore was reported missing by researcher Flip Stander in early April.
Records dating back to 1934 reflect these big cats inhabiting the northern Namib desert along the Skeleton Coast in Namibia. It was then observed that desert-adapted lions were common in the coastal mountains and riverbeds between the lower Kuiseb River and the Kunene River. They were believed to be plentiful in the Kaokoveld and along the Kunene valley. The Skeleton Coast National Park was proclaimed in 1967, and since then, Namibian desert-adapted lions have been put on the map as an iconic species of this unique desert region.
Today, the population of an estimated 150 lions is under pressure from human influence, with human-lion conflict the primary threat.
For more information about Namibia’s desert-adapted lions and to view a gallery of photos, click here.
Niassa Wilderness, one of Africa’s last true wilderness areas, is driving a brave new conservation model to protect this iconic paradise. Read the full story here.
“Are we seriously landing there?” The Cessna Caravan was heading towards a massive rocky dome, and what appeared to be a short dirt track in a dense sea of woodland. But, as we skimmed over a wide sandy riverbed, the track morphed into a landing strip. We bumped down and taxied to a halt. Paradise found. Niassa.
This landscape leaves me speechless. ‘Jurassic’ is possibly the best way to describe it. Yet, there is so much more to it than that. There is a powerful presence here, a heady blend of raw fecundity and ancient whispers that sets this vast landscape apart. This is how Africa used to be before it was colonised and reshaped.
This was my second visit to paradise. I was here to assist a special group of conservationists who are preserving the largest concession within Niassa National Reserve for the Mozambican people.
Stepping out of the Cessna and into the baking November heat, we were met by Director of Conservation and Law Enforcement Derek Littleton and his able team. Later that evening, Derek explained to our film and photographic crew that Niassa Wilderness is a privately managed concession within the Niassa National Reserve, comprising over 10 percent of the entire reserve.
The logistical realities of patrolling such a vast area are immense, especially during the rainy season when large parts of the reserve are flooded, making them inaccessible to all but determined poachers. During our brief visit, we came to appreciate how difficult the task is. This is illustrated by the plight of the elephants in the massive and remote 42,000 km² Niassa National Reserve. Rampant commercial poaching has caused elephant populations across the reserve to plummet by more than 70 per cent. In 2012 there were 12,000 elephants here; in 2016 only 3,500 remained.
At 4,450 km², the newly named Niassa Wilderness is the largest of 17 concessions in the national reserve. It hosts 20 percent of the entire elephant population and the largest number of intact breeding herds and mature bulls.
In 2000, Niassa Wilderness (then called Lugenda Wildlife Reserve, or ‘Luwire’) became the first concession in the reserve to be allocated and subsequently funded by a private investor. Since then, it has operated as a responsible trophy hunting concession.
A luxury photographic tourism lodge, Lugenda Wilderness Camp, was built in 2006 but closed at the end of 2015 to focus on anti-poaching efforts. It now serves as Niassa Wilderness HQ and as a venue for hosting donors and media teams. Due to the increase in elephant poaching, all elephant trophy hunting was voluntarily brought to a halt from 2012.
The new Board of Directors has decided to phase out all hunting and source funds from donors to fund anti-poaching efforts instead. The new funding model ensures authentic community inclusion and that 100 percent of donor funding will go into conservation and community activities. The Board of Directors serves voluntarily, and advice and assistance are drawn from a network of similarly philanthropic professionals.
One warm evening around the campfire, Derek explained the added level of complexity that makes this task so difficult. About 35,000 people are living in 40 villages inside the national reserve. Niassa Wilderness incorporates seven of those villages.
These isolated people have no access to jobs and have historically eked out a subsistence lifestyle from the bush. They fish, gather honey and hunt for bushmeat, skins and ivory. They also grow tobacco and food crops, which are raided daily by wild animals. Villagers are frequently attacked and sometimes killed, by crocodiles, hippos, elephants and lions.
In short, wildlife for these people represents either food or danger. Therein lies the conservation challenge. And, now that poaching has moved beyond subsistence levels into commercial operations, the challenge is exponentially more significant.
As we listened to a lion groan from somewhere in the pitch darkness, Derek remarked that he has a team of only 40 anti-poaching staff. That’s one person for every 11,250 hectares. To even begin to assert themselves on poachers, he’ll need a minimum crew of 75 people – one for every 6,000 hectares. This stark statistic puts the situation and his ambitions into sharp relief.
Trophy hunting in the concession has been strictly controlled and sustainably managed. It used to serve the vital role of preventing all but subsistence poaching. But, even a well-run hunting operation has been powerless to stop the rampant commercial poaching that has hammered elephant populations in recent years. Derek and his team now plan to increase the level of protection activities significantly. They also want to involve communities in the drive to purge the reserve of poachers.
The need for more military-style protection was driven home to me during a lengthy drive along rutted dirt roads to visit one of the seven villages within the concession. Brian Johnson, who manages the current trophy hunting activities, was at the wheel. I asked him why hunting is better than photographic tourism in keeping poachers at bay.
“Look,” he said bluntly, “a bunch of macho hunters packing 375s is a bigger threat to poachers than a carload of tourists packing Nikons.”
There you have it.
One evening, I was enjoying a spectacular African sunset on the banks of the Lugenda River with the new Niassa Wilderness CEO Greg Reis, a trusted and valued friend of long-standing. He shared his hopes for the future with me.
“We’re phasing out hunting in favour of donor funding,” said Greg. And we’ve made the communities and wildlife the beneficiaries of the trust. Our entire team, from the Board of Directors to management and dedicated hard-working anti-poaching rangers, has decided to be on the right side of history, to put Niassa before short-term monetary gain.”
He paused. “Now, surely, is the time for the anti-hunting fraternity to get behind this brave project. This is one of Africa’s last true wilderness areas, with excellent intact habitat. However, wildlife suffers under the massive pressure of poaching.
“We need funds to bring more local people from our communities onto the right side, to give them reason to protect wild animals and their environment. It’s time to move beyond words; it’s time to make a real difference.”
Perhaps one day Niassa too will offer adventurous travellers the opportunity to experience true African wilderness. Until then, the brave and visionary Niassa Wilderness team will hold the fort. Will you help them? A luta continua!
Niassa Wilderness would not be possible without the vision and significant investment of Adel Aujan, a businessman who fell in love with Niassa. He was the first to sign up for an initial 25-year lease on the concession, and to invest in the reserve. Aujan passed away in January 2017, but his family continues their involvement in Niassa Wilderness.
IT’S ALL ABOUT CO-OPERATION
The Mozambican government manages its protected areas via the National Conservation Areas Authority (ANAC), which provides the legal framework for conservation activities in Niassa.
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), working closely with ANAC, has overall management responsibility for Niassa Reserve and, amongst other things, provides vital coordination between the various concession holders in the reserve.
Vast wild areas like Niassa are best managed in close collaboration with neighbours who will support you while you do the same for them. Niassa Wilderness continues to work closely in partnership with neighbouring Niassa Reserve properties Mariri and Chuilexi, a formal alliance established from 2016, that serves all parties well.
Size Niassa National Reserve: 42,000 km² / 4,2 million hectares. (Twice the size of South Africa’s Kruger National Park.) Niassa Wilderness (concession within the reserve): 4,450 km² / 445,000 hectares.
Location Northern Mozambique, bordering Tanzania.
Habitat Miombo woodland, granite inselbergs, open savannah, wetlands, river floodplains and riverine forest.
Wildlife 350 African wild dogs (significant in relation to the global population of an estimated 6,600 adults). Endemic species:Niassa wildebeest, Boehm’s zebra, and Johnston’s impala.
Elephant, Cape buffalo, lion, leopard, hippo, crocodile, sable antelope, Lichtenstein hartebeest, Livingstone’s eland, common reedbuck, klipspringer and others. Over 400 bird species.
Simon Espley is an African of the digital tribe, a chartered accountant and CEO of Africa Geographic. He travels extensively in Africa, seeking wilderness, real people and elusive birds.
ET the aardvark was found and brought to me at ZURI Orphanage, situated outside Tsumeb, Namibia, in August 2015. Small and alien-like in appearance, ET settled in quickly with life on the farm. Told by Erika de Jager and written by Nina Joubert
We have a house full of cats and dogs but settling in an aardvark was a completely different experience. There is very little written about aardvarks, so we had to learn as we went along.
After a month, ET became strong enough to go for walks with the dogs on the farm.
Gradually he started digging and especially loved old aardvark holes. He got more inquisitive by the day, teaching himself how to eat and walk around the house. That’s when he moved into my bottom kitchen cupboard.
ET has a very playful personality, and I got to experience it every day. I loved playing games with him. Eventually, he got too energetic for us to handle in the house, so we started leaving him by an old aardvark gat (burrow).
Here he learned what it meant to be an aardvark in the wild. It was nice to see him adapt to a more normal aardvark life. We fetched him in the morning because it gave me peace of mind. In my eyes, he was still the little aardvark that was given a second chance at life and I wanted to be sure that he would be safe.
Every morning we tracked him to his hole and I would stand outside with a bowl of his cereal in hand and call his name. Soon enough, a little nose would appear from the burrow. I will never forget these mornings when we waited in anticipation for him to make his appearance.
Eventually, it wasn’t necessary to track him anymore as one night in February ET made a surprise appearance on our stoep (veranda). There he was, back home all the way from his burrow almost two kilometres away!
I immediately made him a bowl of cereal, and he ate it happily. Since that night, ET has been coming almost every night. Sometimes he doesn’t come, and I start to think the worst. Then he appears again and we see that he has been walking around with another set of aardvark footprints…
I cannot explain the different emotions I feel when I see ET. We formed a bond. He comes when I call him, but I can see that he is getting wilder every day. He is skittish around new people, and when we are having a braai (barbecue) with friends, he doesn’t come at all.
Other times he comes earlier than expected and if I haven’t put out his cereal yet he pushes against my bedroom door to let me know that he is here. This never ceases to bring me joy.
Every time I see him, it is magic, and every time he leaves I’m a little sad. But his visits reassure me that he is doing good.
So many people know so little about these creatures, including ourselves, and ET became an ambassador of sorts. He gave us a glimpses into the life of an aardvark and us the opportunity to see this amazing animal up close.
Have a look at ZURI’s Facebook page to see updates on ET and the other animals in their care at the orphanage.
A large leadwood tree near Nandzana waterhole in South Africa’s Kruger National Park contains a much sought-after nest cavity that has been used by a range of species over the years. Here, I witnessed a titanic battle between a squirrel and a parrot. Written and photographed by Andre Botha
Lilac-breasted rollers, pearl-spotted owlets, yellow-billed hornbills, glossy starlings and tree squirrels have been recorded using this cavity for nesting or roosting. Sought-after real estate!
One winter morning, I witnessed a tussle between one of the current occupants of the nest, a pair of brown-headed parrots, and a tree squirrel that dared to venture too close to the nest.
Fortunately, the parrot was too quick and evaded serious damage, whereas the squirrel’s tail looked quite the worse for wear. It eventually scuttled down the tree and out of sight.
We stood on the rim of the caldera, the immense volcanic amphitheatre of the Cirque de Mafate, on the French island of Réunion. As far as the eye could see sheer walls of lush green vegetation encircled the seemingly endless and mythical world before us.
Technically part of France, yet sitting in the middle of the Indian Ocean, Réunion is a land of contrasts. The perimeter of the island is hot and sunny, with sandy beaches and warm water. Whereas the mountainous interior boasts the highest point in the Indian Ocean, Piton des Neiges, and is cool, damp and regularly shrouded in clouds.
A huge part of Réunion’s appeal is found high above sea level, inside the towering volcanic calderas left behind from the island’s violent volcanic history. These calderas, or cirques, offer amazing hiking opportunities and have more than 1,000 kilometres of hiking trails.
Cirque de Mafate, on the rim of which we now stood, was formed when the magma chamber of Piton des Neiges, or ‘snow peak’, collapsed some three million years ago, and is unique in that the entire cirque, which contains over 200km of hiking trails, has no roads and is accessible only by foot or helicopter.
The name ‘Mafate’ comes from the Malagasy word ‘mahafaty’, which means ‘lethal’ or ‘the one who kills’, an allusion to the difficulty in accessing this cirque.
The first settlers arrived in Mafate’s lush volcanic crater in the 18th century. Today, Mafate’s roughly 800 inhabitants (known as Mafatais) live in tiny villages called îlets, a local Creole word that comes from the French, îlots, meaning ‘islands of greenery’. Approximately ten villages in the cirque consist of just a handful of colourful, tin-roofed houses. There is no electricity or water grid in the entire (approximately 100km²) valley.
Doctors, police officers, teachers or foresters, if or when needed, either have to hike in or be brought in by helicopter and the same for the residents’ provisions. In 2010, UNESCO designated Mafate (as well as Réunion’s two other, more accessible cirques and all the island’s pitons and ramparts) as a World Heritage site, and this has led to an increase in tourism in the area.
You could spend days hiking the network of beautiful trails covering Réunion Island, visiting rainforests, volcanoes and waterfalls while camping out or staying with local villagers in mountain gîtes (small cabins). Many people do multi-day or even week-long hikes through the cirques, but sadly, as we were challenged for time, our only option was a day hike down into Mafate.
Hiking is an excellent way to experience this wild and isolated area, though the hundreds of kilometres of trails are definitely not for those suffering from vertigo and should not be hiked alone. Fortunately, I was accompanied by Nico, a local Réunionese guide, who not only knew the way but also filled me in on all kinds of information as we descended through the gathering clouds and headed off into the wilderness of Réunion Island.
The amphitheatre-shaped valley is accessible from a half-dozen trailheads, some leading over steep mountain passes, others along rivers and gullies, which lead to the network of narrow hiking trails that connect the hamlets. We planned a steep, sharp descent to Roche Plate (1110m) which was somewhere way below us, tucked out of sight.
The sun slipped in and out from behind the clouds, and the temperature alternated from pleasantly cool to hot and humid. We were overtaken by some young, enthusiastic, rucksack-laden hikers who quite literally ran down the mountainside.
As we were only intending a day hike and had no intention of mimicking their frighteningly breakneck speed, we moved over and let them pass. As we descended we met red-faced, breathless hikers making their ascent back up the rugged steep valley walls – I tried not to think too much about the fact that this would be us in a few hours’ time!
We had planned to eat at one of the local gîteswhen we reached Roche Plate, but the view was too breathtaking to contemplate eating indoors. Stopping at a vantage point just above the village we ate the traditional sweet potato cakes and pain au chocolat we had brought with us. The view was mesmerising and we spent an hour contemplating the vast expanse of the green volcanic crater in front of us.
Finally dragging ourselves away we began the steep ascent back the way we had come – fortunately arriving at the top a lot less red-faced than some of the other trekkers had been!
Hiking in an extinct volcano is definitely something to add to your bucket list, it is just as fantastic as it sounds.
My trip to Reunion was arranged by The Reunion Tourism Board whose website has a great deal of helpful information about the many aspects of this amazing destination, and Nicolas Cyprien was my guide while hiking Cirque de Mafate.
Rhinos throughout South Africa are being brutally killed for their horns. In this article, I would like to focus on some of the positive contributions by the private sector and the trials and tribulations they face in trying to keep rhinos safe – including the need for sustainable funding of private rhino conservation.
Many articles in circulation paint a very negative picture of private rhino owners as greedy businessmen with no compassion. Although there are some bad apples in the private wildlife industry, these are certainly in the minority, and most private rhino owners have chosen their lifestyles (and livelihoods) based on a love of nature, the African bushveld, and wildlife.
Private reserve owners with rhinos protect their land with adequate fences, good technology and sufficient manpower – and they do so without assistance from taxpayer money, government or donors. So in essence, they are self-sufficient conservationists.
In 2016, 1054 rhinos were poached in South Africa, and of these, about 160 were on private land – about 15% of the total- which is proof that private rhino reserves are working very hard to keep their animals safe.
Private rhino reserves are staffed by tough, dedicated and professional people who strive for the health and well-being of many species of wildlife on the property. These people have years of experience in the bush and generally have a background in nature conservation studies – further testament to their passion for wildlife. These are the people who first come across cruelly poached rhinos and who often must deal with orphaned rhino calves, badly injured adult rhinos, and severely traumatised staff.
There are about 330 private rhino reserves in South Africa – home to about 6,500 rhinos – almost a third of the national rhino population, and more rhinos than all the rest of Africa combined. Since 2008, more than 70 private rhino owners have sold their rhinos and opted out of having them on their land. This is due to the ever-increasing risk to rhinos as well as to reserve employees from armed incursions by gangs who wish to kill the rhinos for their horns.
The levels of cruelty seen in rhino poaching incidents leave great emotional distress in their wake, both for the animals and the people who care for them. Numerous rhino owners, wildlife veterinarians, anti-poaching teams and others involved in rhino management are starting to speak out on the effects of these incidents on their psychological well-being – a terrible trauma to have to endure after seeing these animals grow up, play, breed and thrive on your own property.
For many private rhino owners, who run close-knit and often family-operated reserves, the idea of having to endure this is enough for them to sell their rhinos on to someone else, who may be better-equipped or in a better financial situation to be able to protect rhinos.
The costs of protecting rhinos have now reached exorbitant levels, with security measures amounting to considerably more than the overall expenses of general management and conservation of rhinos. Private rhino owners have spent more than R2 billion on rhino security over the past eight years. Without some means of generating these funds, more and more private rhino owners will sell or get rid of their rhinos.
Eco-tourism is a business option for a few private reserves, such as Phinda, Shamwari and Manyoni. Still, tourism is seasonal, and most tourists (national and international) visit national parks rather than smaller private reserves. Some reserves allow hunting to supplement income, but with regard to rhinos, this is not the norm – fewer than 80 rhinos were hunted in SA in 2016. Ideally, the buying and selling of live animals to other rhino owners and private and national reserves (for genetic diversity/population establishment, etc.) will bring in these funds. Still, with rhinos being so costly and difficult to protect, fewer people are willing to take them on. The value of live rhinos has dropped dramatically over the past few years.
If these rhino guardians and our national parks could sell their stockpiles of horn—a sustainable natural product that is humanely taken from rhinos—the money generated from these sales would go a long way towards keeping the rhinos and other wildlife on the reserve safe and encouraging more private wildlife reserve owners to invest in rhino conservation once more.
The judges had a tough time this year choosing our wildlife category winner in the Photographer of the Year competition as there were so many amazing finalists.
It got to a point where they had whittled it down to five wildlife photographs. However, it was clear that all five were perfect contenders for first place! A tough decision had to be made…
In the end there could be only one wildlife winner – who went on to become the overall Photographer of the Year winner – and the judges felt that the remaining four photographs should be given a special commendable mention.
♦ Johan Mocke – “He who adapts best, wins!” (Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, South Africa/Botswana)
This photo had us jumping out of our seats from the moment we first saw it. At first glance, this is opportunistic photography at its finest. Anyone who’s spent just one day out in the bush with a camera will know what we’re talking about. But, if you’ve been lucky enough, as we have, to sit staring at this photo (sometimes thirty minutes on its own) debating and deliberating, you’ll know that this photograph is something more – it’s the symbol of a pure passion and dedication to wildlife photography.
It takes a passionate interest in this jackal’s behaviour for the photographer to know how to capture this exact moment. In a world of instantaneous and forgotten moments, the ability to vividly capture a moment like this is special. We greatly appreciate that, and as far as forgotten moments are concerned, well, the jackal would go on to hunt many more sandgrouse – but likely never be so perfectly captured in action again. Thus, this photograph was a strong contender for the winner’s prize.
♦ George Turner – A magical shower (Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania)
This photo clearly spells one thing for us: magic. There is magic in the way the photographer has captured the mixture of ethereal lighting and the soft and tranquil rain, and in the photographer’s words, “the effect of creating hope”. That alone makes this a stunning photograph.
The fact that there’s a perfectly captured subject of Africa’s most graceful and elegant cat adds to the magic. This is a Narnia-esque photo where the cheetah seems to be inviting you into his world. This stunningly captured evocative story that perfectly illustrates the graceful side of these magic cats made it a strong contender for the winner.
♦ Panos Laskarakis – “Thirsty look” (Serengeti National Park, Tanzania)
This photograph speaks to us deeply of raw, wild Africa. This is not Africa imagined or created – this is real Africa. If there was one standout photograph that could be used to portray a sense of untamed wilderness, it would be this ‘chocolate lion’.
The focused look in the lion’s eyes and the mud on its fur, tells the story of an entirely wild creature living an entirely wild existence. The fact that this magnificent creature was captured in one of the wildest places on Earth, the Serengeti, is fitting. We strive to celebrate real, wild Africa and the success of this photograph in that regard made it a very strong contender for the winner.
♦ Ernest Porter – A rock monitor hides in a tree (Ndumo Game Reserve, South Africa)
Never have we so kindly received such an open invitation into the world of reptiles than the story captured in this photograph. Who does that piercing stare belong to? How long has it been staring at us for? Are we intruding on it its territory? It seems likely that it’ll slink off in the blink of an eye – will we ever see it again?
The multiple stories in a single moment so perfectly captured in this photograph made it a strong contender for the overall winner.
After an exhausting final selection process involving many hours of both technical analysis and heartfelt opinions from our judges, we were faced with the exhilarating task of having to choose an overall winner and category winners for this year’s Photographer of the Year competition. Have a look at this post to see how difficult choosing a winner became.
We have been extraordinarily privileged to have had the opportunity to immerse ourselves in the rich stories and emotion evoked by the deserving finalists’ images. And we came to a collective understanding through this: that standout photography presents the perfect mixture of the moment captured by the photographer and the ensuing emotional reaction and journey for the viewer.
We felt that the overall winner’s photo would be the one that told the most engaging story – the one that spoke to all of us on a deep, emotional level. And the one that we hope will convey its underlying message to all our community spread far and wide across the world.
Congratulations to all our winners! And thank you to everyone who joined us in celebrating Africa!
2017 PHOTOGRAPHER OF THE YEAR & WILDLIFE CATEGORY WINNER John Vosloo – “Circles of protection.” Judges’ comments:
John Vosloo’s image is not only technically sound, but there is also a rich and complex visual story. It is the story of matriarchal and herd protection, of the African elephants’ dignified dedication to protecting their young and their species.
Elephants face unprecedented persecution from international wildlife criminals, from human-wildlife conflict pressures, habitat loss and from trophy hunters that persist in their strategy to remove the remaining large-tusked individuals. This magnificent photo speaks of the plight of elephants across Africa, and their resilience – if only humans would change their ways.
Many photographers this year have told wonderful stories with their images, but none as powerfully as John.
CULTURE CATEGORY WINNER Christophe Lapeze – “Proud” Judges’ comments:
Christophe Lapeze’s image of a proud Mursi woman in Ethiopia is, for us, the most evocatively told story of tribal culture in this year’s selection. This particular shot stands out above the other photos in this category as a bold and strong portrayal of cultural authenticity – almost as if the woman had taken it herself.
Here, she is not being ‘staged’ or ‘showcased’ as has become the somewhat blurred norm with cultural photography. She seems to be showcasing herself, sending a bold statement of pride in her culture, and our obligation to respect it. Our refreshed sense of respect for her and her culture is what ultimately decided this photo as the winner of the Culture category.
TRAVEL CATEGORY WINNER Willem Kruger – Quiver trees in the Richtersveld Judges’ comments:
Willem Kruger’s star trail image is another standout image in its genre. While most astrophotography invites us to explore the universe beyond, this particular photo with its seemingly simple foreground, invites us to explore the wonder of the universe from a uniquely African perspective – what if we were walking, alone at night, lost in the African desert pondering the mysteries of life and the secrets of our universe? What if we climbed that hill to discover more? What world would be revealed to us?
Reeling under a massive backlash from supporters of the captive lion hunting industry and a huge split within the ranks of its membership, the president of the Professional Hunting Association of South Africa [Phasa], Stan Burger, unexpectedly announced his resignation on Tuesday with immediate effect. Written by Simon Bloch for News24
In a statement, Phasa said its President-Elect, Dries Van Coller, will now be at the helm.
Asked what had led to Burger’s resignation, and why the executive was not supporting Burger against the backlash, spokesperson Retha van Reenen said, “let me put it into perspective. A lot of the members decided not to sign an affidavit sent out last year that they would not support or promote captive lion hunting or captive lion breeding activities.”
As a body representing and promoting the interests of professional hunters, Phasa has faced an inordinate amount of challenges. None more so than the fallout after the 2015 announcement that it had adopted a resolution at its annual general meeting to distance itself from the captive lion breeding and captive lion hunting industries.
In November 2016, a group of 13 Phasa members challenged the resolution and its constitutionality and took Phasa to the High Court in Pretoria where it argued Phasa had acted illegally when it took steps to suspend their memberships. In its affidavit opposing their application, Phasa said some of the applicants were members of another hunting organisation, known as the South African Predators Association‚ which was in favour of captive-bred lion hunting.
Phasa said after receiving responses from the 13 members‚ it decided to lift the suspension of three members who had explained that they were not involved in the breeding and hunting of captive lions.
At the time, Burger said his organisation stood by its resolution to distance itself from captive-bred lion hunting and would defend its resolution in court. Phasa said it gave the applicants seven days within which to provide reasons why their membership should not be terminated.
According to the judgment that was eventually handed down, Phasa lost the case.
In a statement, Burger said, “It has been a privilege to serve the association, but the time has come for others to now carry the torch”. Van Coller said Phasa would continue with minimum disruption as the association continued to serve the members of the professional hunting fraternity of South Africa.
Andrew Venter, CEO of Wildlands Trust and executive producer of the documentary film Blood Lions, told News 24, “It would be tragic for the South African hunting and tourism industries if Phasa were to backtrack on its commitment to stop the hunting of captive-bred lions in South Africa.
“Stan Burger has led the charge to clean up the hunting industry in this regard, something I can attest to that there is little doubt.”
He said Phasa had, for the past 18 months, been under significant pressure from the “unethical hunting fraternity in South Africa”.
“It’s unfortunate that it appears that this faction may be prevailing. The fallout from the local and global outrage will further damage the industry and South Africa’s conservation reputation,” Venter said.
Without detracting from the wonderful and critical role that our national parks play in conservation, I would like to focus on the private sector’s positive achievements in this regard.
Around the middle of the 20th century, wildlife had no economic value in South Africa. At best, wildlife was simply good sport and there are numerous accounts of the eradication of huge numbers of free-roaming wildlife throughout southern Africa. Plains game species were seen to compete with livestock, so animals like bontebok, blesbok, roan and sable antelope and tsessebe were also slaughtered to the point that their populations numbered less than 500 individuals. Wildlife was seen as vermin.
In the late 1800s, the government established a few statutory game reserves on land unsuitable for agriculture, and some 30 years later, we had national parks, many of which still exist today and form the bulk of the country’s primary tourism destinations. Even these reserves only had limited wildlife populations, and through exemplary conservation management strategies based on trial-and-error methods, these populations were protected and increased.
Wildlife also started gaining economic value for private reserve owners and commercial wildlife ranching was recognised and supported by the state. These landowners focus on increasing natural habitats for wildlife and often converting agricultural land into suitable game areas. Their practices are sustainable and have a significant green footprint in terms of habitat, soil restoration and biodiversity support.
Contribution of game ranching. Dr Pamela Oberem, The New Game Rancher, Briza Publications
Social aspects
♦ Wildlife ranches generally employ more than three times the staff that livestock farms employ
♦ Over 140 000 people have jobs (about 65 000 of which are permanent positions) in the private wildlife industry
♦ There are about 10 000 private game reserves in South Africa
Conservation
♦ There are over 20 million hectares of land in the conservation management industry – substantially more conservation land than all our national parks combined
♦ Private wildlife ranches generally focus on a select few of the game species on their land for commercial use, but they provide habitat for countless species of mammals, birds, fish, insects and plants that are not commercially exploited at all. With habitat destruction being one of the primary threats to wildlife biodiversity, these private reserves often represent vitally important corridors for wildlife between designated protected areas that are increasingly surrounded by swathes of land transformed by human activity.
♦ According to statistics from Wildlife Ranching SA, on average, a single wildlife ranch of about 2 700ha that focuses on eco-tourism and biodiversity support is home to 45 mammal species, 266 bird species, 43 reptile species, 29 grass species and over 100 other tree and plant species.
♦ Several species (bontebok, blesbok, roan and sable antelope, tsessebe, black wildebeest, leopard tortoise) have been rescued from the brink of extinction thanks to the creation of these reserves and now have healthy and growing populations in the country. There were only a few hundred disease-free buffalo in the country in the late 1900s, and buffalo also faced threats of eradication due to diseases to which they were susceptible. Thanks to the collaboration of national and private reserves and various breeding projects, there are now more than 36,000 disease-free buffalo in the country, which is yet another success story for conservation in SA.
Economics
♦ At present, the wildlife ranching industry, practising both consumptive and non-consumptive uses of wildlife, contributes about R20 billion to South Africa’s balance sheet
♦ Approximately 20 000 tons of game meat is produced annually from this sector (excluding meat from biltong hunts), thereby contributing to food security
♦ About 65 000 people are permanently employed by this sector, with many more temporary jobs being provided throughout seasons or events, e.g. translocations/game capture operations, breeding projects, etc. These temporary positions push the total employment figure up to over 140,000 people who are supported by this industry, with a large proportion of employees made up of local community members.
We are proud to present the Finalists of our Photographer of the Year Competition. The standard of entries this year was exceptionally high, to the extent that our list of finalists is larger than we had initially planned for. After days of judging and intense debate, we could not reduce our list to fewer than 26 finalists. The finalists are listed in no specific order.
A spokesman for the Namibian Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET) has confirmed that all CITES requirements have been met for the issue of export permits and that the United Arab Emirates CITES Scientific Authority has issued the necessary permits for the importation of the elephants.
Eden Game Farm is a private game farm and registered game dealer in the Grootfontein district, near Etosha National Park. The farm is owned by a Swedish national.
The sale of baby elephants from Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park to China in 2015 attracted heavy criticism from wildlife experts and activists alike, after some died and others showed signs of malnutrition and neglect.
The MET spokesman said he was not concerned about the same happening in this instance, as Eden Game Farm had satisfied all the relevant compliance procedures. He said that the babies would be kept in isolation after capture, and inspected prior to exportation to make sure they are in good condition. He also explained that baby elephants need to be tamed after being separated from their parents, to reduce the stress.
MET previously sanctioned the export of 150 wild-caught animals (including elephants, rhinos, lions and leopards) to a zoo in Cuba, a project dubbed ‘Noah’s Ark II’, which proceeded despite significant opposition from many quarters.
Our 2017 Photographer of the Year Competition is now closed for entries. Here are the Semi-finalists that have been put together in TWO galleries this week. Click here to see PART I of the gallery.
The 2017 Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year Competition is now closed for entries. Here are the Semi-finalists that have been put together in TWO galleries this week. Click here to see PART II of the gallery.
Located within the Réunion National Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), you will find Piton de la Fournaise, one of the world’s most active volcanoes. Also known as ‘The Peak of the Furnace’, the volcano has had more than 150 recorded eruptions since the 17th century, with the most recent eruption beginning on 31 January 2017.
Standing at 2,631 metres in height and about 530,000 years old, this volcano is one of Réunion Island’s most popular tourist attractions. It forms part of the island’s volcanic ‘hotspot’ – which basically means that the island forms part of a gigantic volcano that rises out of the 4,000 metre-deep ocean floor and is believed to have been active for over 66 million years.
About 400,000 people visit this climbable, active volcano every year. Despite its sulphurous and active reputation, it is pretty accessible to all, whatever your age or fitness level. Clearly though, the fitter and more sure-footed you are, the more of an up-close and personal experience you are going to be get.
You can drive to the rim of the external crater and simply gaze at the peak in the distance. Alternatively, if you have the time, you can climb it, starting from the waves lapping at its base in the Indian Ocean, and ultimately reaching the summit which is often in the clouds.
If you travel by car you will eventually arrive at the Plaine des Sables, which roughly translates to ‘plain sands’, an apt description for the wasteland of highly acidic volcanic sand in which nothing grows. For our own adventure, we had originally opted to drive to have a quick look from the viewing point, but as soon as I saw Piton de la Fournaise, I knew I had to climb it!
It was Easter weekend and there were tourists of all ages, shapes, sizes and nationalities who had come to marvel at the volcano at the viewing point. We left many of these tourists behind as only the more intrepid ventured down the five hundred or so steps of the outer crater, Enclos Foucque, to the caldera floor and on to the tiny crater Formica Leo – named for the similarity of its shape to the pitfalls built by antlions – formed during an 18th-century eruption.
All around us the seemingly endless lava plateau surrounded the central crater, Dolomieu, which loomed 350m above the caldera floor. Square kilometres of black and oxidized lava encompassed us, forming amazing shapes and giving the landscape an extraterrestrial, frozen-in-time look.
Once we reached the external crater floor we were faced with two options:
To the right was the shortest and steepest route to the top, which would take us directly to the summit, Crater Bory. To the left was the less strenuous, but longer and far more popular, route to the top. My guide, Nico, informed me that the left route could take about five hours.
“Longer if you talk a lot!” he added. Since as I do talk – a LOT – we opted for the shorter, but steeper, approach on the right. The path had mostly been obliterated by eruptions the previous year, so we were charting a new route.
Scrambling over the razor-sharp and brittle lava, we made it to the top pretty quickly and had the luxury of the place to ourselves. Sitting on the lip of the crater with our feet almost dangling over the abyss, we could just make out the people who had used the slower route to the left a kilometre away on the other side of the 300m-deep crater.
Sheer cliffs fell away to the still smouldering crater below where steam rose through vents in the earth, rising up to meet the clouds that tumbled down over the rim.
We sat for an hour, silently marvelling at the dramatic, barren landscape, thinking of the raw power of the volcano that had created this entire island. I had seen photos of ‘The Volcano’ (le Volcon as referred to by the locals), but nothing had prepared me for the reality of this other-worldly experience.
Finally, we hiked our way back over frozen waves of solidified lava and crushed volcanic rocks. I realised how apt the name ‘furnace’ was for this volcano that had produced the landscape of melted rocks and glass that surrounded us in every direction.
My trip to Reunion was arranged by The Reunion Tourism Board whose website has a great deal of helpful information about the many aspects of this amazing destination and whose photos I was authorized to use. Nicolas Cyprien was my guide while trekking Piton de la Fournaise.
This extensive papyrus swamp is characterised by small channels of marsh-filled water and lagoons and is located about 57km from Kampala city and an hour’s drive from Entebbe city. Lying on the edge of Lake Victoria, Mabamba Swamp is a massive 16,500 hectares and is part of the list of Wetlands of International Importance as chosen by the Ramsar Convention.
Search for this prehistoric bird in a boat is quite an experience! You will be polled around in a massive wooden fishing boat by an experienced guide who knows where to find shoebills in this vast swamp. To prepare yourself for the birding encounter of your life, read this interesting article about shoebills
According to Ismail, a local guide, shoebills like Mabamba because there are plenty of fish – thanks to the local fishermen who are passionate about protecting this precious wetland area.
Shoebill eating a lungfish
Meet the local fishermen
There was a time when the local community used to be enemies of shoebills as they competed for the same fish resource, but today many local people have been trained as tour guides who now strive to preserve both the birds and the swamp.
They are happy to tell you how Mabamba Swamp is named after a lungfish locally known as ‘emamba‘. According to Hanington, a guide who has lived on the marsh for 20 years, the lungfish can survive out of the water for up to three days, if it is watered every now and again.
Local fisherman
Rediscover the beauty of the other birds
While on the boat and searching for shoebills, be sure to look out for other species such as blue swallow, pallid harrier, papyrus gonolek, swamp flycatcher, pigmy goose, lesser jacana, white-winged warbler, Viellot’s weaver, grosbeak weaver, black-headed weaver, northern brown-throated weaver, Clarke’s weaver, palm-nut vulture and Carruther’s cisticola.
Across the bay are little islands where the local people grow delicious organic sweet pineapples, nutritious avocados and juicy tomatoes.
Pineapples loaded at the Mabamba Bay
Enjoy the Lake Victoria sunset
Lake Victoria is Africa’s largest freshwater lake and the second-largest freshwater lake in the world, after Lake Superior in the United States/Canada.
There are other areas where you can spot the shoebill, such as at Delta point in Murchison Falls National Park, Lake Mburo National Park, Ziwa Rhino sanctuary and Semliki Game Reserve.
There are plans afoot to move 80 rhinos from Africa to Australia as an ‘insurance policy’ and for ‘safekeeping’ in grass paddocks amongst the gum trees. Is this a valid conservation project for wild African rhinos or misdirection of energy and resources by a well-meaning Western society?
A spokesperson from The Australian Rhino Project (TARP) was refreshingly forthcoming with replies to most of my enquiries, and I have no doubt at all about the good intentions of those who have donated time and money to this cause. Good intentions aside, it’s worth assessing whether this effort is likely to impact positively on wild rhinos in Africa.
At the outset, I have to admit that I am wary of the Australian government’s conservation commitment – bearing in mind that without buy-in from the government this project is dead in the water (both now and in the future, if future generations of these rhinos are ever required back in Africa). In fact, the Australian authorities have already indicated that they will not permit the import of African rhinos without them being quarantined in a 3rd country. Australia has the ‘most animal extinctions in the world’, thanks to that government’s primary rural focus on mining and large scale farming, at the expense of ecosystems and species. I believe that actions speak louder than words, and ‘saving’ African rhinos while your own precious species and ecosystems go down the plughole, is an interesting aspect of this debate.
And, as an African, I cringe at how the Western world sometimes frames the African conservation debate. Without wishing to turn this post into a political one, there is sometimes a strong flavour of neo-colonialism and the ongoing ‘Disneyfication’ of Africa in some of these campaigns and discussions. I found this video on the TARP project particularly nauseating (just imagine you are Grandpa rhino?):
My questions for TARP, and their replies (lightly edited for efficiency):
1. Dehorning: Will you consider the dehorning of the rhinos if it is in the best interest of security, and if so, would you sell these horns if trade were to be legalised?
TARP: Rhinos are generally dehorned for transportation to ensure that they do not injure themselves during the relocation process. The practice of dehorning does not generally occur in Australia, however, all facilities currently holding rhino in Australia are reviewing their security measures post recent poaching incidents globally. Under no circumstances have we considered or would we consider selling rhino horn. The Australian Rhino Project position, and the position of all individuals associated with the project, is that legalisation of rhino horn trade is not the answer to reducing poaching.
2. Security: Your website states that “A feasibility study led by a highly experienced curator from the Taronga Conservation Society supported by undergraduates from the University of Sydney Business School in conjunction with global rhino experts identified no such risks.”
To clarify, could you confirm that you feel that there is no threat of poaching of rhinos in Australia?
TARP: We take the protection of rhinos extremely seriously and we are committed to building a safe haven for threatened rhinos in Australia with our conservation partner organisations. Australia’s legislation in regards to animal cruelty has harsh penalties for any type of incident and the Australian courts will prosecute and convict for such crimes, including jail time and financial penalties. In addition, we believe Australia’s tight firearm legislation and strict border control will reduce the likelihood of a similar incident occurring in Australia.
3. Which rhinos? Your website states that “The first rhinos have been identified and the process for gaining approvals is well progressed.”
Where do/will these rhinos come from and will they be wild-caught from national or private reserves, or sourced from intensive rhino breeding farms?
TARP: To ensure the genetic diversity of the breeding population is maintained, rhinos will be sourced based on demographics, genetics and known provenance from South Africa. We will not be sourcing rhino from intensive rhino breeding farms such as John Hume.
At this stage, we cannot advise where all of the rhinos will be coming from and these discussions are ongoing. We have been approached by many individuals who are keen to move rhinos from their private game reserves due to the cost of security and their personal safety concerns for both themselves and their rhinos.
4. The rhino enclosures: Your Feb ‘17 newsletter states that “The team at Monarto has been working on the 500 hectare open plain area preparing for the arrival for the rhinos for several years. The property has been regenerated and planted with vegetation suitable for the rhino population and significant effort has been put into creating an environment that emulates the wild in Africa. The … fencing is well progressed and driving along the boundary fences definitely gives you the impression that you are in Africa.”
Could you detail the vegetation species you have planted?
TARP: The preparation of the open plain area has been conducted over the past 3 years and has been a significant process, including revegetation via 60,000 tube stock planted for ‘buffering’ the 560ha project site together with 75kms of direct seeding. Perennial Veldt Grass has been seeded in conjunction with tall wheatgrass. Extensive clean-up of existing Mallee vegetation areas on site.
5. Donations: Your website states that “Your donation goes to the costs associated with relocating and managing the rhinos. ”
The 2015 and 2016 financials provided on your website reflect that you have raised almost $1,5m (AUD) and spent almost $900,000 of that during that period. Could you provide more details on what the $900,000 was spent on, and how this reconciles to the above quote that money will only be spent on relocating and managing the rhinos? Also, your website suggests that you will need $8m (AUD) in total, and yet so far you have spent most of the $1,5m raised and have no rhinos. Will you be revising your estimated required amount?
TARP: Costs incurred during the stated financial period are for the following items: Fundraising events, Wild Africa construction costs, part-time project managers, merchandise purchases for our retail store, insurances and administrative fees such as credit card and payment gateways.
All of the directors on the board operate pro-bono and we also have a pro-bono treasurer, company secretary and volunteer team. The Australian Rhino Project is registered with the Australian Charity and Not for Profits Commission, the Australian Securities and Investment Commission and the Australian Taxation Office. We submit audited accounts each year to the ACNC.
6. Expertise: The gentleman featured in the video (referred to in my introduction) claims that you have experts who ‘know everything about the way we live’ (he was speaking in the first person as a rhino!). Could you provide the names and relevant track records of those experts?
TARP: Rhino populations have existed within Australia for well over 30 years with a more concerted effort regarding species conservation happening from 1990 onwards. These rhino populations are managed under species management plans that have teams of qualified and trained conservation and species experts who have studied and worked directly with rhino populations for decades.
Many individuals who work alongside these rhino populations have been, in some cases, working with rhinos for between 20 and 30 years. There have been successful births of southern black, southern white, and greater one-horned rhinos in Australia. The expertise that has been developed in rhino conservation is now also contributing to assisting with conservation efforts in other locations including black rhino projects in Zimbabwe, operations of rhino orphanages in Africa and sharing of knowledge conservation NGO’s such as the International Rhino Foundation. We do not feel it necessary or appropriate to provide you individual names of these people and details of their employment.
In conclusion, I doubt that the export of 80 rhinos from South Africa to Australia will materially affect local populations. I also have no doubt that these rhinos will be well looked after in their strange new home. But will this project help wild African rhino populations at some time in the future? I seriously doubt it. Could the substantial cash required to fund this project into the future be better spent in Africa, keeping wild rhinos safe? Hell yes.
The 2017 Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year Competition is now closed for entries. Here is the Top 101 selection, in FOUR galleries. Click here to see PART II of the gallery.
The 2017 Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year Competition is now closed for entries. Here is the Top 101 selection, in FOUR galleries. Click here to see PART III of the gallery.
The 2017 Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year Competition is now closed for entries. Here is the Top 101 selection, in FOUR galleries. Click here to see PART IV of the gallery.
The 2017 Africa Geographic Photographer of the Year Competition is now closed for entries. Here is the Top 101 selection, in FOUR galleries. Click here to see PART III of the gallery.
I am not a hunter. Nor have I ever been. I am a vegetarian (since the age of about 11), I am part of the environmental NGO sector and I have interests in the tourism industry in Namibia. Written by Dr Chris Brown, Namibian Chamber of Environment
So, it might surprise you that I am a strong supporter of the hunting industry in Namibia, and indeed, throughout Africa. Having said that, I should qualify my support. I am a strong supporter of legal, ethical hunting of indigenous wildlife within sustainably managed populations, in large open landscapes.
The reason is simple: Well-managed hunting is extremely good for conservation. In many areas, it is essential for conservation.
There is much confusion and misconception about the role of hunting in conservation, particularly in the urban industrialised world and thus by most Western tourists that visit Namibia. Urban industrialised societies – and I include many biologists and recognised conservation organisations in this grouping – see hunting as undermining conservation or the anathema of conservation. And they see protecting wildlife and removing all incentives for its consumptive use as promoting and achieving good conservation. Nothing could be further from the truth.
The animal rights movement has taken over much of the hunting and sustainable utilisation debate within conservation. I sympathise with people who stand up for animal rights – we all should. None of us wants to see animals suffering or being treated badly by members of our species. However, the problem arises when animal rights agendas are passed off as conservation agendas. Animal rights agendas are not conservation agendas.
Conservation works at the population, species and ecosystem levels. Animal rights work at the individual level. What might be good for an individual or a collection of individuals might not be good for the long-term survival of populations, species and biodiversity.
Take a simple domestic example. When the farm carthorse was replaced by the tractor, carthorses no longer had to work long hours in the fields. But they also no longer had value to farmers. Once common, they are now extremely rare. Indeed, carthorse associations have been established to keep these breeds from dying out. The truth is, if animals do not have a value, or if that value is not competitive with other options, then those animals will not have a place, except in a few small isolated islands of protection. And island protection in a sea of other land uses is a disaster for long-term conservation.
Animal rights are important. However, wildlife must be placed within a sound conservation and animal welfare setting, where conservation decisions on behalf of populations, species, and ecosystems take priority over the rights of individual animals, but with due consideration of their welfare. Ethical and humane practices are integral to good conservation management and science.
The wildlife situation in Namibia provides a very good example of this. When the first western explorers, hunters and traders entered what is now Namibia in the late 1700s, crossing the Orange/Gariep River from the Cape, the national wildlife population was probably 8-10 million animals.
Over the following centuries wildlife was decimated and numbers collapsed, first by uncontrolled and wasteful hunting by traders and explorers, then by local people who had acquired guns and horses from the traders, then by early farmers, veterinary policies and fencing, and finally by modern-day farmers on both freehold and communal land who saw wildlife as having little value and competing with their domestic stock for scarce grazing. Traditional wildlife management under customary laws administered by chiefs had broken down under successive colonial regimes. By the 1960s wildlife numbers were at an all-time low in Namibia, with perhaps fewer than half a million animals surviving (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Wildlife numbers in Namibia, from about 1770 to 2015
At that time wildlife was “owned” by the state. Landowners and custodians were expected to support the wildlife on their land, but they had no rights to use the wildlife and to derive any benefits from wildlife. In response to declining numbers and growing dissatisfaction from farmers, a new approach to wildlife management was introduced.
In the 1960s and 1990s, conditional rights over the consumptive and non-consumptive use of wildlife were devolved to freehold and communal farmers respectively, the latter under Namibia’s well-known conservancy programme. The laws give the same rights to farmers in both land tenure systems. This policy change led to a total change in attitude towards wildlife by landowners and custodians. Wildlife suddenly had value. It could be used to support a multi-faceted business model, including trophy hunting, meat production, live sale of surplus animals and tourism. It could be part of a conventional livestock farming operation, or be a dedicated business on its own. As the sector developed, so farmers discovered that they could do better from their wildlife than from domestic stock. Both small – and large – stock numbers declined on freehold farmland while wildlife numbers increased.
Today there is more wildlife in Namibia than at any time in the past 150 years, with the latest estimates putting the national wildlife herd at just over 3 million animals. And the reason is simple – wildlife is an economically more attractive, competitive form of land use than conventional farming in our arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid landscapes. Markets are driving more and more farmers towards the management of wildlife.
This is good for conservation, not just from the perspective of wildlife, but also from the broader perspective of collateral habitat protection and biodiversity conservation. The greater the benefits that landowners and custodians derive from wildlife, the more secure it is as a land-use form and the more land there is under conservation management. Therefore, all the component uses of wildlife, including and especially trophy hunting, must be available to wildlife businesses. These uses include the full range of tourism options, live sale of surplus wildlife, and the various forms of consumptive use – trophy and venison hunting and wildlife harvesting for meat sale, value addition and own use.
It is this combination of uses that makes wildlife outcompete conventional farming. And it is the “service” component of tourism and hunting that elevate wildlife values above that of primary production and the simple financial value of protein. As the impacts of climate change become ever more severe, so will primary production decline in value, but not so for the “service” values derived from arid-adapted wildlife. And why especially trophy hunting? Because there are large areas of Namibia comprising remote, flat terrain with monotonous vegetation that are unsuited to tourism, but very important for conservation.
Figure 2: Contiguous land under wildlife management, including state protected areas, private nature reserves, communal and freehold conservancies and communal forests (Source: State of Conservancy Report 2015, NACSO)
There are some people in the tourism sector in Namibia and in our neighbouring countries who oppose trophy hunting because it is perceived to conflict with tourism and is thus not good for conservation. Some suggest that the land and its wildlife should be used for eco-tourism and not hunting. In most areas, eco-tourism cannot substitute for hunting. The loss of hunting revenue cannot be made up by eco-tourism revenue.
Indeed, we need to optimise all streams of wildlife-derived revenue to make land under wildlife as competitive as possible.If Namibia had adopted an animal-rights based, protectionist, anti-sustainable use approach to wildlife management, we would probably today have fewer than 250,000 head of wildlife (just 8% of our present wildlife herd) in a few isolated large parks and a few small private nature reserves. We would have lost the connectivity between land under wildlife, and we would have lost the collateral conservation benefits to broader biodiversity, natural habitats and ecosystem services.
Today, Namibia has well over 50% of its land under some form of formally recognised wildlife management (but probably over 70% if informal wildlife management is considered), including one of the largest contiguous areas of land under conservation in the world – its entire coast, linking to Etosha National Park and to conservation areas in both South Africa (Richtersveld) and Angola (Iona National Park) – over 25 million ha (Figure 2).
Some tourism operators and tour guides criticise the hunting sector to their guests. By doing so, they undermine an important part of conservation, an important contributor to making land under wildlife competitive, and, in the final analysis, they undermine the viability of conservation as a land-use form. The greatest threat to wildlife conservation in Namibia and globally is land transformation. Once land is transformed, often for agricultural purposes, it has lost its natural habitats and most of its biodiversity and can no longer support wildlife. Hunters and tourism operators should and must be on the same side – to make land under wildlife more productive than other forms of land use. They are natural allies. They need to work together to ensure that land under wildlife derives the greatest possible returns through many income-earning activities. And where it is necessary for both hunting and tourism to take place on the same piece of land, they need to plan, collaborate and communicate so that all aspects of wildlife management and utilisation – both consumptive and non-consumptive – can take place without one impacting negatively on the other.
Conflicts between hunting and tourism are simply failures of management and communication, nothing more profound than that. But the onus should be on the hunting outfitters to ensure that there are ongoing, good communications. The onus is also on hunting outfitters, professional hunters, and the hunting sector to always maintain the highest ethical and professional standards and to be mindful of the sensitivities of many people to the issue of hunting.
It is also the vital task and duty of tourism operators and guides to educate visitors from urban industrialised countries about conservation in this part of the world. Visitors need to understand what drives conservation, the role of incentives and markets, and what sustainable wildlife management means. The tourism sector should not skirt around an uncomfortable discussion on hunting, but face it head-on and explain its importance to conservation. This is what good education is all about. Tourists come to Namibia to be enlightened, to be exposed to new ideas and to better understand the issues in this part of the world. They come here to take back new and interesting stories. What better story than Namibia’s conservation successes? However, visitors need to understand it properly – its incentives, market alignment, strong links to the local and national economy, and role in addressing rural poverty. It is the task of the tourism industry to help visitors understand why Namibia has one of the most successful conservation track records of any country in the world.
If we look at the conservation trajectory of a country such as the United Kingdom (an urban industrialised example) through its agrarian and industrial development, the indigenous wildlife at that time had no value. Thus, it lost the elk, wild boar, bear, wolf, lynx, beaver and sea eagle – essentially its most charismatic and important species. While small-scale attempts to re-introduce a few less threatening species are underway, it is unlikely to reintroduce the bear and wolf into the wild as free-ranging populations. And yet that country and others like it, with poor historic conservation track records, are keen to influence how Namibia should manage its wildlife. Its own farmers are not prepared to live with wolves. Still, many of their politicians and conservation agencies, both public and non-governmental, expect Namibian farmers to live with elephant, hippo, buffalo, lion, leopard, hyaena, crocodile and many other wildlife species that are far more problematic from a human-wildlife conflict perspective than a wolf. And they try to remove the very tools available to conservation to keep these animals on the land – the tools of economics, markets and sustainable use, to create value for these animals within a well-regulated, sustainably management wildlife landscape.
I believe that the problem is essentially one of ignorance. People think they are doing what is best for conservation, but they simply do not understand the economic drivers for wildlife and biodiversity conservation in biodiversity-rich and rainfall-poor developing countries. And many African countries are sadly falling into the same trap. Kenya, for example, with its Eurocentric protectionist conservation approaches, has less wildlife today than at any time in its history. We need to share the message. And the message is, I believe, most powerfully explained using the simple graphic in Figure 3 below.
Figure 3: Economic returns to conventional farming (yellow line) and to wildlife management (green line) in areas of different land productivity, with rainfall being a good proxy for productivity
A second insight from the graphic above is that the greater the value earned from wildlife, not only is the gap widened on the left side of the graph over conventional farming, but the cross-over point is pushed further to the right. This means that higher rainfall areas become competitive under wildlife management, opening more of Africa to this form of land use.The yellow line represents the return to land use under conventional farming, e.g. domestic stock and crops, across a rainfall gradient – rainfall being a proxy for land productivity. The green line shows the returns to land under wildlife. On the left side of the graph, in areas of rainfall below about 800 mm per year, returns from “indigenous production systems” – i.e. wildlife, are greater than the returns from “exotic production systems” – i.e. farming.
However, this only applies if the rights to use wildlife are devolved to landowners and custodians. Markets then create a win-win situation for optimal returns from land and for wildlife conservation in these more arid areas. If utilisation rights are not devolved, then wildlife has little value to the landowner and custodian, and people will use the land for other activities. On the right side of the graph, above about 800 mm, the lines cross over and here conventional farming outperforms wildlife management. If landowners and custodians are given rights over the wildlife and other indigenous species on their land, they will get rid of these species and transform the land for farming in response to market forces. Most of the western, industrialised world falls on the right side of the graph.
Conservation agencies and organisations from countries on the right side of the graph, and areas where rights over wildlife are not devolved to landowners, are so conditioned to resist and fight against market forces having negative conservation impacts in their countries, that they automatically carry the fight across to those countries falling into the left side of the graph and which have devolved wildlife rights, not realising that the lines have switched over and that markets here are working for conservation. This is the important message that we must get across to policymakers, conservation organisations and the broader public in the urbanised and industrialised countries. And in some other parts of Africa. People need to understand the conservation drivers, incentives and markets, as well as the role of sustainable use within good conservation policy and practice. Well-intentioned but poorly informed efforts to influence conservation in this region seriously undermine good conservation policies and practices.
Namibia’s record of environmental accomplishment speaks for itself. Through the implementation of appropriate policies, it has created incentives for wildlife conservation, unmatched anywhere in the world. But wildlife must have value otherwise landowners and custodians will move to other forms of land use. And it must have the greatest possible value to be as secure a land use as possible, over the largest possible landscape. And that is why I strongly support well-managed and ethical hunting. It is good, and in some cases essential, for the conservation of wildlife, of habitats and of biological diversity. And that is why hunting and tourism must work together, in mutually supportive ways, to optimise returns from wildlife for the land. Well managed and ethical hunting should in fact be called “conservation hunting”. And conservation hunting is essentially an integral part of tourism.
Bibliography
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Seeing a cheetah hunt is rare, and photographing one is challenging, but can you sketch one? Here are my tips, with field sketches and photographs, from a hunt my husband and I witnessed in Linyanti, northern Botswana.
We found two brothers lazing on a termite mound surrounded by wonderful hanging vines. It was a perfect sketching opportunity, so I spent some time sketching them and then adding the trees, termite mound and vines. The watercolour was added later, purely from memory.
♦ Tip 1: “Look three times, think twice, sketch once.” (anonymous).
Look at animals as simple shapes, ignoring details. Start with the largest shapes first. Use feint pencil lines until you find the correct line. Always sketch the animals first. You can add the landscape features and vegetation afterwards because they won’t get up and move.
Knowing roughly where they spent the night, we headed out the next morning hoping that we would see them hunt. We found them lazing on another termite mound and although they frequently moved, I created this sketch (below), using simple shapes and very faint pencil lines.
Afterwards, I wondered why I had painted the background yellow/orange, but looking at my husband’s photos from the same day (see below), I realise my colours were close to the real thing – but in reverse. I find this often happens – I think I consciously choose colours, only to find the colours around me unconsciously influence me.
♦ Tip 2: Time spent in your chosen sketching location is never wasted.
When you are watching, listening or sitting in silence, you are inadvertently learning and taking in information about your subject and this will show in your sketches.
This photo below is one of my favourites. Look at the beautiful curves in the termite mound, the vines, and, of course, the spots of the cheetah. It is a simple yet stunning composition.
Beautiful though the morning was, the cheetahs were not content with posing for an artist or a photographer – they had food on their minds and started to head off. Although we moved every few seconds to keep up, I managed this quick sketch (below), showing the cheetahs’ long bodies and tiny heads.
♦ Tip 3: A pencil and paper are all you need. Limiting your materials allows you to concentrate more on your subject.
♦ Tip 4: Make sure you have enough paper, and don’t be afraid to start sketches you will never finish.
At one point, the cheetahs stopped for a couple of minutes, and that’s when I created the very small sketch (below). The light was coming from the left, so I had to remember not to paint over the white paper in the areas I wanted as highlights. I added some cadmium yellow to the cheetahs and some cerulean blue on top to show the shadow areas. When this was dry, I added the eyes, nose and just enough spots to indicate that these are cheetahs.
♦ Tip 5: Know when to stop.
This is one of the hardest things to learn – but is essential. I often stop when I think I’m not quite finished. Looking at the painting later, I inevitably discover that it needs nothing more.
Suddenly, the cheetahs went from motionless to trotting and flat-out in just a few seconds, becoming blurs among the bushes. Sketching was not an option.
As the dust settled, we saw that one cheetah had caught an impala ewe. His brother appeared, and the impala was quickly subdued.
Sketching predators on a kill may not be every artist’s idea of good subject matter, but killing is a fact of life in the bush, so I treat this as I would any other subject, taking advantage of the fact that the cheetahs are now stationary for a while!
The brothers ate from the rear of the carcass, so I had an interesting perspective for my sketch. I concentrated on the important details – the head of the impala, and her round belly leading to the faces of the cheetahs.
We left the cheetahs to their meal and returned to camp, where I spent a few hours adding the watercolour to some of the sketches you see above. Ah… the work of a field sketch artist is never done!
♦ Tip 6: Join me on an Africa Geographic Art Safari to learn more. I can’t promise we will see a cheetah hunt, but if we do, you’ll know how to sketch it!
Hidden in the bush, the thief is getting ready to take action. Walking slowly, he makes sure that nobody is around to notice him. He progresses silently toward the object of his desire. A few more steps and he’ll be close enough. A sudden sprint, he moves fast and goes racing toward the kitchen, raiding everything he can carry.
From kitchens to fields, baboons are the enemy number one of many local communities in East Africa. Stealing crops and sugar, they are notoriously challenging to repel and are known to be highly aggressive.
“Someone from the village has to stay near the fields, despite the summer temperatures and strong sun, and watch out for baboons to make sure they won’t destroy the crops,” explains Nancy Ingutia, community deputy manager for Ol Pejeta Conservancy, in the Laikipia district, located near Mount Kenya. “This baboon watch lasts from morning ’til late night until the crops are finally ready to harvest.”
Human-wildlife conflicts are not to be taken lightly in the region, but baboons are far from being the only culprits in these types of conflicts. Damages from elephants and carnivores involve massive loss of crops, the death or injury of cattle; and can even go as far as human injuries or death.
Mitigating the risks of living with wildlife is extremely important to avoid resentment from local communities towards conservation projects, which are there to protect the same species that are viewed by the communities as being destructive.
“For me, one of the crucial things about dealing with conflicts at any level, is that for human-wildlife conflicts, we need to agree where we want to have wildlife and where we don’t,” says Drew McVey, regional manager East Africa for WWF-UK. “And then we can work out how best to protect wildlife and how to protect people from it.”
In 2006, Ol Pejeta decided to outline the area allocated to wildlife protection by surrounding itself with an electric fence. This choice was made to both limit the occurrence of poaching and to decrease wildlife conflicts with the neighbouring communities.
“If you ask the communities now,” says Richard Vigne, Ol Pejeta’s CEO, “they will tell you that the greatest benefit that they have received since Ol Pejeta was formed as a conservancy, is the reduction in human-wildlife conflicts, particularly with elephants.”
Even though financial compensation schemes for farmers exist throughout East Africa, the process is often slow and only takes into account attacks carried out by the Big Five species. The lack of recognition for the economic loss of local farmers can easily trigger a feeling of resentment toward both wildlife and conservationists alike.
“If you can provide some immediate relief to individuals affected, then most people won’t carry out retaliation attacks,” says Drew. “There has been lots of work done in India on tigers showing that if we, the greater conservation community, value people’s livelihood and try to address their concerns, we’re more likely to get a positive response.”
In addition to retaliatory killings, the resentment building up in the communities can also make them turn a blind eye to poaching operations.
“Often in the past in East Africa, the communities were marginalised and didn’t engage in protected areas management,” explains Drew. “I think in that regard you get poachers becoming proverbial ‘Robin Hoods’. It doesn’t necessarily mean that the local people will conduct the poaching themselves, but it does mean that we won’t necessarily have people reporting poachers.”
According to a 2015 WWF report, more than 30,000 elephants – of which 8,500 are from East Africa – are still killed every year. Rhinos are also heavily targeted, as Richard explains: “There are always people trying to kill rhinos. Every single day of every single month there would be people plotting to kill rhinos on Ol Pejeta, and any of the other rhino sanctuaries in Laikipia.”
When a villager cannot see any benefit of having rhinos or elephants around, he might end up thinking, “just take these animals away. We get nothing from them, and they are just a cost,” explains Drew.
Strategies that work
That’s why new strategies are now being developed to protect crops from elephants. Repellent for elephants are diverse and can include methods as odd as chilli plants or even beehive fences. According to Save the Elephants, the latter solution has a success rate of 80%. This strategy also allows farmers to get extra income from the honey produced.
Improving the enclosures used to keep livestock, also called bomas, is another important first step forward. “It’s quite easy for predators to get in,” explains Shivani Bhalla, lion conservationist and founder of Ewaso Lions. “Reinforcing these bomas, making them stronger and talking to the community about actually strengthening them can make a big difference in stopping hyenas and other predators getting in, or discouraging livestock from straying away at night.”
In northern Tanzania, Laly Lichtenfeld, Executive Director of the African People and Wildlife Fund, worked with the local Maasai to improve their bomas to reduce attacks on cattle. One of the community members came up with the idea to use a local tree, called Commiphora, as fence posts. Hence, the Living Walls project was born.
“The Living Walls Project is a good example of how we work with Maasai pastoralists to develop conservation solutions that work from their point of view,” explains Laly. “The Living Walls project was a Maasai idea. They use the Commiphora in this part of Northern Tanzania around the outer part of their homesteads, but they never actually used them for the livestock corrals. Now it’s spreading like wildfire across northern Tanzania.”
To find out more about similar programmes, continue reading below the advert
But, even though these types of projects are essential, the best way to reach out to communities and make a change on the ground is to get them directly involved.
Shivani realised, after graduating, that lion conservation in non-protected areas was critical. So, she moved to Northern Kenya and started Ewaso Lions in collaboration with local Samburu communities.
In 2010, Jeneria Lekilelei founded the Warrior Watch programme, facilitated by Ewaso Lions, the first programme in northern Kenya to actively involve warriors in a conservation project. The idea came from the realisation that by spending most of their life in the wild, Samburu warriors accumulate important information on lions. The tasks of the warriors involve reducing human-wildlife conflicts, but also raising awareness among their communities of the value of wildlife.
“It’s important to have your key ambassador and your key role model who can be out there communicating and working with the communities; someone who believes in conservation and lions himself,” says Shivani. “I think that’s the key because then it’s not so much me going out telling everyone ‘please don’t kill a lion’, it’s a warrior telling others not to kill lions.” And that can make all the difference!
Watch an APW video on their human-wildlife conflict prevention initiative below
The importance of education
By working on mitigating human-wildlife conflicts and by allowing local communities to develop an alternative livelihood like touristic activities, it’s possible to turn them into powerful allies. Educating local kids, for example, can be a powerful tool to change the perception that local people have of elephants.
To raise kids to become wildlife protectors, it’s essential first to make sure they get the chance to go to school. At Ol Pejeta, this aspect is taken very seriously, and a portion of the money gained by the conservancy is reinvested in improving the education of kids from the neighbouring communities.
In East Africa, schools also have an essential role to play in the development of the future generation of conservationists. Not only can they raise awareness and interest in environmental issues amongst their pupils, but they can also diffuse this knowledge across entire communities.
“Our most successful route to involve entire communities is via the schools,” explains Liz Bourne, founder of Nature’s Frontline. “In Uganda, we are seen as a positive link with the National Parks and the rangers, which has had a knock-on effect on the communities’ perception of the parks, the environment and conservation. The children take home this positivity, and it is passed on to the parents.”
In Kenya, primary education is free, but secondary education is not. The cost to access high schools is around $200 per trimester, which for some families is unaffordable. That’s why Ol Pejeta offers its 36 neighbouring schools a chance to earn full bursaries, explains Ian Mungai, education officer working for Ol Pejeta.
“Bursaries are given to kids who are very much in need, and who are good performers,” says Emily Lerosion, education officer for the Ol Pejeta Community Department. “We perform a background check with both the schools and the local communities’ representatives to select the kids.”
The crucial part is that by allowing children to study, these bursaries also enable a new model to emerge in the local communities: one where education becomes valued and where opportunities for children to get access to education appears.
To supplement its bursary program, Ol Pejeta also partners with a Canadian organisation called PA-MOJA to build a network of sister schools between the two countries. This cultural exchange offers an exclusive opportunity for local communities’ students to learn about different lifestyles and share theirs with the Canadian students.
“It’s an opportunity to engage with people outside the country both culturally and intellectually,” says Ian. “But Kenyan kids also get a chance to show the outside world that we are much more than the stereotypes people might have of our country.”
Even though these types of projects are essential for kids to grow and develop their perceptions of the world, a more direct way of raising the new generations of conservationists is to bring them to the field, or to bring conservation into the classroom. This can then have a broader impact on how entire local communities value conservation.
Partnerships between NGOs and schools can also take the form of environmental classes and clubs where kids are given the opportunity to reflect on particular issues and topics. WWF, for example, has launched this type of project on the Kenyan coast.
“It essentially teaches children about the environment, what it does for us, and how we can protect it,” says Mxolisi Sibanda, regional manager East Africa for WWF UK. “We’ve had some work with schools to get kids to run environmental clubs and teach the kids how to conserve the marine environment in that part of the world.”
But it’s also essential for kids to learn in the field and get out of the classroom. Visiting parks or conservancies is an opportunity for local kids to actually see the wild animals they might have only heard of. It also gives them a chance to get involved in conservation through activities such as lion tracking and camera trap placement.
However, while city kids might be quite positive about wildlife from the beginning, lots of children in northern Kenya are herders and grow up having a negative vision of wildlife. For them, an elephant is a massive beast threatening their family, while lions and leopards are cattle predators that need to be carefully monitored and chased away.
Changing this perception is a challenge, but not one to scare Shivani. She has started running ‘Lion Kids Camps’ for local herders’ kids at Ewaso Lions. The children stay in the camp for a few days to experience activities such as wildlife education, game drives and an art competition.
“We feel that with herder children, we can have an immediate impact when we’re trying to save wildlife because they are the ones who live with livestock and wildlife every single day,” says Shivani. “So when they’re herding their livestock and they come across wildlife they can immediately choose not to do something negative against that wildlife species, whatever it may be.”
One kid at a time, all these organisations and schools are slowly building up the new generation of guides, park wardens, biologists and wildlife protectors. All it takes is to change kids’ perceptions and watch them bring the message across to entire communities.
“It’s quite incredible just to see the change in these kids happening so quickly,” says Shivani. “We just really devote a lot of time and attention to these kids because they’ve never been in any educational learning environment ever, so giving them education and lessons, it’s all-new for them, and they really do soak it in, it’s quite incredible to see.”
About the author
Julia Migné is a multimedia journalist and wildlife photographer specialising in environmental issues. She has written for Africa Geographic and BBC Wildlife among others. An endless traveller, she swears that she would visit one country for each letter of the alphabet. She believes in constructive journalism and co-launched an international platform featuring positive and inspiring stories from across the world: www.the-inkline.com
Written by Rosie Fletcher, Nkonzi Camp, South Luangwa National Park
At a time when the world is facing unprecedented levels of wildlife trafficking, it can be difficult to know how to counter these threats. But across Africa, conservationists have begun developing innovative approaches to help turn the tide on wildlife poaching.
Launched in 2014, Delta unit currently has three highly trained former rescue dogs from the US, with two more arriving this month, and six dedicated dog handlers all drawn from the local community. While detection dogs elsewhere in the world are trained to find drugs or explosives, Delta unit’s dogs are specially trained to sniff out ivory, firearms and ammunition, wire snares, pangolin and leopard skins, and certain types of bushmeat.
The scheme has already proven to be an enormous success. The team undertakes at least two daytime and two overnight operations each week, in and around South Luangwa. In 2016 alone, Delta unit searched 1,778 vehicles, 619 bicycles and 50 houses, recovering nine illegal firearms, four pairs of ivory and four pangolins, along with numerous snares, bush meat, and an entire truckload of illegal and extremely rare mukula logs. Over 30 suspects were also apprehended.
We had our own encounter with the dog detection unit last week while driving out of the South Luangwa National Park Gate. Here we were stopped by the team, who proceeded with a full inspection of our vehicle. Luckily the dogs weren’t interested in the shortbread biscuits leftover from our tea break. It was fantastic to witness this proactive anti-poaching work firsthand and to see the enthusiasm of the dogs and their handlers.
It can feel as though conservation success stories are hard to find these days, but in South Luangwa’s battle of pooches vs. poachers, the dogs are coming out on top!
It is now legal in South Africa to trade domestically in rhino horn after this country’s Constitutional Court recently overturned an eight-year ban on domestic trade based on a technicality. Given the current reality in this country, trade in rhino horn will surely help drive rhinos to extinction in our national parks. Allow me to explain why I hold this view.
The author somewhere in Africa
The debates surrounding the trade in rhino horn often involve taking a side based on one’s beliefs rather than science or commercial realities. My view is driven solely by the hard realities in South Africa – my home country – which are:
South Africa suffers from endemic fraud and corruption at all layers of society – including government, parastatal and among national park employees;
rhino poaching to supply the illegal markets in the Far East is rampant – stripping our national parks of their rhino populations;
the ‘sustainable use’ industry significantly contributes to South Africa’s conservation efforts – there are greater areas under some form of private conservation than our formally protected areas. But this pressure group includes big cat petting and lion walking operators, big cat bone traders and canned hunting operators implicated in illegal, unethical or at least highly questionable activities. A very relevant example was when Vietnamese criminals, working with South African hunters, realised that they could import rhino “hunting trophies” into Vietnam with little or no oversight. These and other examples are well documented in news media and social media. And yet the industry does not self-regulate – it does not call out the wrong-doers and expel them. By not taking a stand, the venerable sustainable use industry – which, in my view, does far more good than harm – has tainted its reputation and is not trusted by the public to behave legally and ethically in matters such as these;
illegal goods are trafficked internationally at alarming rates via legal channels – lubricated by bribery & corruption, fake documentation and slack or non-existent policing.
Don’t confuse rhino horn farming with the conservation of wild rhinos in our national parks. The two have nothing to do with one another, despite what the intensive pro-trade PR campaign may have told you. Yes, private rhino populations are an important backup resource for wild rhino populations in our national parks. Yes, we must find additional ways to enable private rhino owners to benefit from their rhinos and recoup the increasing anti-poaching costs. But this model on the table purports to benefit our wild rhinos – which constitutes misinformation.
Because local rhino horn trade is now legal, the barn door is wide open for the legal siphoning of horns out of the country and into the bottomless pit in the Asian markets because of new loosely worded regulations with holes large enough to drive a tractor through. For details on how easy it is now to syphon horns out of the country, read Rhino Bombshell. Juxtapose that with South Africa’s well-earned reputation for fraud and corruption at the highest levels, and ask yourself how confident you feel that regulations will be respected.
Some would argue that the demand for rhino horn in South Africa is very low and that local trade won’t be strong. Fear not, because human nature is such that a resource in one country will soon find itself in another country if the incentive is strong enough. And we all know that international borders are notoriously porous when it comes to illicit goods. In any case, local rhino owners can now legally send two horns out for every willing foreign national they can find to carry them out of the country (only for their personal use, of course).
The pro-traders speak of plans to set up a central selling organisation, as De Beers did, to increase demand and manipulate the price. They also speak of encouraging commodity speculators to buy and sell rhino horn. This drives terror into the hearts of those who understand how financial instruments disconnect from the underlying commodity and drive processes that cannot be understood or controlled. Let’s roll the dice with our wild rhinos, then.
Contrary to the pro traders claim, selling farmed rhino horn will not reduce demand for wild rhino horn. In East Asian markets ‘wild’ horn is said to come with the bloody ear of the poached rhino – to prove authenticity and increase the price. It’s no secret that the Asian market prefers wild products to farmed products: “Farmers report a strong consumer preference and willingness to pay more for wild-sourced products”, and so there will be no let-up on the pressures that our conservation teams across the country face from the international criminal gangs that are stripping our national parks of rhinos. It’s also no secret that creating legal channels will help stimulate demand and provide a convenient channel through which to launder illegal horn.
I believe in sustainable utilisation that is transparent, well-regulated and ethical when the model holds up to stress testing and will ultimately benefit populations of animals in the wild (as opposed to small fenced farms and feedlots). Rhinos in small fenced areas are easy to protect; those in our national parks are not. Ask any SANParks ranger or anti-poaching unit member.
It boils down to this: Because of the situation in South Africa, permitting trade in rhino horn will increase the poaching of rhinos in our national parks and hasten this wonderful creature towards extinction in the wild. If our private rhino owners wish to find additional ways to monetize their rhinos (and who can blame them?), they need to develop a plan that is not so obviously full of holes.
There are records of lions inhabiting the northern Namib desert along the Skeleton Coast in Namibia as far back as 1934. Desert-adapted lions were observed to be common in the coastal regions, mountains, and rivers between the lower Kuiseb River and the Kunene River. They were believed to be plentiful in the Kaokoveld and along the Kunene valley. The Skeleton Coast National Park was proclaimed in 1967, and since then, they have been put on the map as an iconic species of this unique desert region.
However, today, their population is under threat from human influence, and human-lion conflict is the primary factor holding them back from truly thriving in their natural habitat.
Thankfully, there are good people behind the scenes fighting to ensure the survival of this magnificent, resilient species. Photographer Ingrid Mandt has been photographing the desert creatures of Namibia for 25 years, and here she provides us with a stunning portfolio of the iconic desert-adapted lions of Namibia. This gallery is an inspirational visual account of the resilience and highly adaptive nature of an iconic species facing real survival challenges, and we hope that these photographs move and inspire you to treasure the beauty and strength of one of Africa’s wildest species.
Contrary to the social media hysteria over the past few weeks, there will be no ‘Super Tusker’ ‘100 Pounder’ elephant hunted at Timbavati in the Greater Kruger. There was never going to be such a hunt.
That juicy but ultimately misleading story resulted in some pretty vicious social media attacks on lodges within Timbavati and calls to boycott Timbavati Private Nature Reserve lodges – the very lodges that represent the only viable alternative funding solution to trophy hunting, and have almost no say in the reserve’s management decisions.
The irony is that the real debate should be about the trophy hunts that do in fact happen at Timbavati (and other nearby reserves). I would like to believe that every reasonable person out there wishes that trophy hunting as a means of game reserve funding has to stop.
However, this debate requires accurate facts and proper context, in the interest of informed and responsible discourse. This issue – the use of trophy hunting for conservation benefit – is complex and emotional for most of us (me included) and it surely deserves better than what we have witnessed in the past few weeks. I ask that you please read to the very end of this long post.
THE BIG ISSUE
Four private nature reserves – Balule, Klaserie, Timbavati and Umbabat – collectively referred to as the Associated Private Nature Reserves (APNR), share an unfenced border with South Africa’s Kruger National Park and every year apply to the relevant authorities for their offtake permits (trophy hunting and culling). Revenue from trophy hunting pays for the management of the reserves and culling is done to reduce the impact of certain species (mainly impalas) on the vegetation, especially during periods of drought. Included in the most recent offtake application was the trophy hunting of elephants, lions, buffalos and rhinos. Leopards were also on the list, but that was a formality because there is a zero leopard hunting quota countrywide and therefore no such permit will be issued.
A journalist writing for an activist platform obtained a copy of the requested offtake figures for the four combined reserves from informal sources. He added the terms ‘100-Pounder’ and ‘Super Tusker’ to the equation, suggested impropriety surrounding the leopard issue, focused his anger on Timbavati (more specifically on Timbavati tourism lodges) and went public with a somewhat dramatic headline. The story was accepted at face value and republished by various publications and activists. One publication even added ‘canned’ hunting to their headline, to spice things up.
The two contextual matters that should frame this debate:
1. Zero poaching
Timbavati has suffered zero poaching incidents in the past 18 months, a period when neighbouring private reserves and the Kruger itself have experienced an unprecedented loss of rhinos and elephants to international wildlife crime syndicates. This rare success does not, in my opinion, justify keeping trophy hunting into the future, but it does demonstrate the calibre of management happening at Timbavati.
2. The ‘100-Pounder’, ‘Super Tusker’ elephant
Much of the uproar in social media circles was caused because the activist platform elevated the status of one particular elephant in the offtake application from ‘trophy bull’ to ‘100-Pounder’ and ‘Super Tusker’. And yet there never was going to be a ‘100 Pounder’ or ‘Super Tusker’ hunt.
Perhaps this was simply opportunistic marketing because the topic of ‘Super Tuskers’ was trending on social media and emotions (including mine) were running high after this tragic story the previous week about the loss of yet another of Tsavo’s Super Tuskers – giant elephants with tusks in excess of 100 pounds each – highly sought-after by trophy hunters.
The use of these specific terms by the activist platform demands a closer look.
Hunting any elephant is, in my opinion, just wrong – but for now, let’s focus on the facts of this particular situation. Regarding the offtake application in question, the ‘trophy bull’ requested specifically excluded Tuskers / Super Tuskers. Not only does the Timbavati protocol exclude all ‘iconic’, named, and collared elephants, management has also stated categorically that no 100-Pounder will be hunted even if one is found that is not named, collared, or iconic – as the agreed protocol and agreements with the relevant authorities specifically excludes all 100-Pounders. This information was provided to the journalist who wrote the story.
According to Timbavati management, the ‘trophy elephant’ in question will firstly be older than 50 years (they believe that these old bulls have lost too much condition to compete with younger breeding bulls and are therefore no longer contributing to the population. I disagree, but let’s move on for now), and secondly ‘tusk weight unlimited’ – a very vague and clumsy wording, but apparently meaning that they stopped defining elephant trophies by tusk size after advice by researchers that this practice was detrimental to the large tusked elephant gene pool.
During my research into this issue, I obtained the hunting records from Timbavati for the past 10 years. I discovered that no 100 Pounders were hunted during that period, and in a subsequent email discussion determined that no 100 Pounder has been hunted in the area for at least 19 years (current management memory). The heaviest tusk record I could trace over 10 years was 60 pounds in 2013. In other words, no Tuskers or Super Tuskers.
If ‘100-Pounder’ ‘Super Tuskers’ were never in the picture to begin with, why was this the headliner and main message being driven home by the journalist and activist platform? Was this a giant red herring?
Let’s now focus on Timbavati and why they use trophy hunting to fund their costs, so that we can come up with viable alternatives.
The 53,395 hectare Timbavati in the Greater Kruger National Park, South Africa, has used trophy hunting to finance the running of the reserve (including anti-poaching operations) since it was proclaimed in 1956. At the time, the land was farmed and had become degraded with very few wild animals around – despite sharing a border with the Kruger. The owners agreed to forgo farming income and place the land into permanent protected status, with restrictive title deed endorsement binding all future owners, and the ongoing costs to be funded by operations.
In the subsequent 37 years, wildlife numbers grew in this fenced reserve. In 1993, fences between Timbavati and Kruger were dropped to permit natural local migration of wildlife. Timbavati thus became part of one of Africa’s best conservation success stories, increasing the size of the Greater Kruger by 10% to 2.2 million hectares.
At Timbavati, trophy hunting is highly regulated, based on annual census and scientific assessment by external scientists, in the context of environmental factors. This leads to offtake applications and ultimately regulatory approval.
Wildlife populations in Timbavati
Over the past 20 years, annual population counts in Timbavati show stability in wildlife populations, subject to cycles associated with drought and abundance. The fact that animals can migrate freely into the massive neighbouring Kruger also adds an element of fluctuation to populations. I have studied the stats provided, conducted my own layman analysis, and asked questions with a critical eye.
Significantly, in the past 20 years, elephant populations in Timbavati have increased by 400% and rhinos by 500%. A rough, back-of-a-matchbox calculation of current densities of those two species reveals that, when compared to Kruger, Timbavati hosts many times the number of elephants and rhinos per 1,000 hectares (I am unable to reveal the precise figure, for security reasons). There are probably reasons associated with specific veld types and permanent water availability, or possibly even local migrations, at the time of year when the count occurs.
Costs to manage Timbavati
Timbavati currently requires about R20 million per year to manage the reserve. Almost 40% of that is spent on anti-poaching security (up from 15% two years ago). The security cost is expected to rise significantly in coming years as increasingly determined and well-resourced crime syndicates focus on the last remaining honey pots.
Timbavati is a privately-owned game reserve and therefore cannot rely on donors or taxpayers to fund its costs. The above annual cost is currently funded as follows:
♦ 61% by trophy hunting revenue
♦ 17% by tourism visitors (currently at R215 per visit)
♦ 22% by landowner levies
Poaching in Timbavati
As mentioned earlier, Timbavati has experienced zero poaching incidents in the past 18 months. For illustrative purposes only, let’s assume that Timbavati did not have such a strong management team, or that the necessary funding to control poaching was not available, and therefore suffered the same ratio of rhino poaching as its Kruger neighbour. Bearing in mind the relative areas under conservation and Kruger’s loss of 662 rhinos in 2016, Timbavati could conceivably have suffered the loss of 18 rhinos to poaching. If I factor in the relative density of rhinos in Timbavati, this figure balloons to a figure I can’t reveal due to security concerns. This potential loss of even 18 rhinos to poaching is in stark contrast to the one rhino that actually was trophy hunted in Timbavati in 2016.
Again, this is a back-of-a-matchbox calculation and not the stuff of headlines or bold claims, but it does provide the necessary context to the debate.
♦ Timbavati attracts approximately 24,000 photographic tourist visits to the reserve per annum, compared to 46 trophy hunters who will hunt 81 animals during the coming year (not the thousands claimed by the activists);
♦ The average trophy hunter in Timbavati brings in about 1,800 times the revenue to the reserve coffers compared to the average photographic tourist;
♦ Currently, the revenue from trophy hunting to fund reserve management and security amounts to 3.6 times that of the tourism contribution. More on how this model has to change further on.
A full comparison of trophy hunting to tourism is extremely complex, and here are just two qualitative factors to consider:
♦ Tourism generates more jobs and skills advancement than hunting, and is, therefore, more sustainable as an economic model acceptable to the all-important local communities, and to human social evolution;
♦ Hunting has a lower physical environmental footprint – buildings, roads, vehicles, power, water, sanitation, etc.
On the matter of culling
Culling is an integral aspect to game reserve management, even for an area the size of the Kruger National Park. The vast majority of the offtake figures applied for by the four game reserves in question relates specifically to the culling of impalas.
Many well-known game reserves in South Africa that market themselves as being free of trophy hunting take part in culling and/or live capture exercises. This is an inconvenient truth that is seldom discussed openly. Perhaps it’s time for the naked truth?
Comparing Timbavati and Sabi Sand revenue models
The Sabi Sand Game Reserve is a renowned safari mecca not far south of Timbavati and is host to some of this country’s top safari brands, including Londolozi, Singita and Mala Mala. They too used to derive revenue from trophy hunting, until the density and price tag of lodges was sufficient to switch entirely to funding from tourism. To this day, Sabi Sand Wildtuin management meetings host active debate about the use of trophy hunting to meet costs, but thankfully the ‘no’ vote seems to prevail.
Timbavati seems to be on that same journey, and it is my fervent hope that they achieve the same end-goal.
Revenue comparison between Timbavati and the Sabi Sands, two similarly-sized game reserves:
♦ Sabi Sand: 716 beds at a price tag of R4,000 – R23,000 per person per night
♦ Timbavati: 259 beds at a price tag of R2,000 – R11,000 per person per night
In a nutshell, Sabi Sand generates several times the tourism revenue of Timbavati because it has more beds and attracts a higher price tag, and is, therefore, able to generate sufficient management funding without the need for trophy hunting.
In simple terms, the only solution is to build up tourism revenue for Timbavati to the extent that trophy hunting is no longer required, as has been achieved by Sabi Sand. Juxtapose that end goal with the current activist campaign to boycott Timbavati lodges, and the likely consequence of trophy hunting further entrenching itself.
Based on current costs and extensive data made available by some of the Timbavati lodges and by Timbavati reserve management (two separate bodies), the following:
♦ Timbavati lodges would need to raise tourism levies by a factor of almost five times the current revenue. This could be done by a combination of more lodges/beds, and by increasing the conservation levy per visit.
♦ Too many lodges/beds would surely ruin what is a sought-after, low-density safari experience. Timbavati currently enjoys 24,000 visits per annum – a revised 110,000 visits seems very high for this particular area. Lodges cannot for logistical reasons operate at extremely high occupancies, and most Timbavati lodges already operate at almost 60% average occupancy for the year. Therefore, this solution in effect boils down to the building of four to five times as many lodges/beds as to what currently exists.
♦ Increasing the conservation levy from the current R215 to R985 per visit – more than double that being charged by the more populous Sabi Sand if one assumes a 3-day visit.
Right now, the Timbavati lodge owners are engaged in this debate and actively negotiating with Timbavati reserve management for a new model that could conceivably result in a reduced dependency on trophy hunting to fund the reserve. Note though that most lodges have very little say in these matters, as not only are many of them simply tenants, but they are also not mandated to make reserve management decisions.
This solution will I would imagine require years to implement – and in the meantime, Timbavati reserve management requires funding to continue their work.
Timbavati management
I first met Timbavati chief warden Bryan Havemann in mid-2016 when I cycled through Timbavati as part of a fundraising exercise to combat poaching. During a brief discussion, he asked if I was prepared to meet with him to discuss how best to communicate the realities of sustainable utilisation to members of the public. In February this year, he again contacted me and we arranged that I would visit his bushveld office during the time when I had planned to visit several lodges in the reserve. Two days before my visit this social media storm broke cover, and so what was going to be a casual discussion turned into an inquisition from my side as to what was really going on.
Let me be frank. I am impressed with the man, with the research-based adaptive strategy that has been implemented and what has been achieved. I have serious misgivings about their trophy hunting dependency and have communicated that in no uncertain terms to Havemann, and to a broader body of his colleagues.
But I also accept that my perspective is that of a largely desk-bound urban person. To cut to the core, Timbavati’s track record speaks for itself. I have no doubt that the management team will continue to apply themselves totally to whatever needs to be done to keep Timbavati safe from the wildlife trafficking criminals that are operating with seeming impunity elsewhere. Reality suggests that it’s unlikely that the zero-poaching scorecard will prevail indefinitely, but hopefully, the Timbavati team will react to incidents with the precision and dedication displayed so far.
Final thoughts
Trophy hunting is a colonial-era industry that celebrates killing animals for fun and ego. Surely this industry no longer has a place in Africa if there are suitable alternatives for conservation funding?
Timbavati does have an alternative, and it’s now time to evolve their funding model by increasing the conservation levies paid by tourists and eventually doing away with trophy hunting. I hope that tourists will accept this increase in price and feel proud at being part of the solution.
The journey is not a linear one – game reserve management teams all over Africa face daily realities that cannot be whisked away by a fit of keyboard warrior rage, or advice such as ‘put all the animals somewhere safe’. And activist thuggery is not the way forward either, where fake reporting, instant utopian solutions, and emotional bulldozing dominates discussion, and reasonable experienced voices are drowned out.
I, for one, choose fact over fiction, and practical workable solutions over keyboard hype. I hope fervently that enough of you agree with me to help evolve Timbavati and others from dependence on trophy hunting to tourism for that much-needed management and anti-poaching revenue. After all, Sabi Sand was afforded that freedom.
And above all, I ask that each of you go on safari somewhere in Africa, as soon as possible. And then go again.
Professional wildlife photographer Greg du Toit has photographed some of Africa’s wildest, remotest and largest ecosystems. His artwork has hung in both the London and Sydney natural history museums and his ‘Authentic Africa’ collections have been exhibited across the globe, from New York to Singapore. African wildlife is his speciality, and his preferred genre is fine-art wildlife photography, whereby his photographic works are easily recognised by the tangible mood, primitive energy and vibrant colours that they convey.
In this body of work, entitled ‘In the Footsteps of Giants‘, Greg spent three years photographing elephants around Africa in unique settings and locations – mainly from inside waterholes! Read the photographer’s note on this portfolio below:
“I hope that through this body of work people will appreciate what incredibly wonderful creatures elephants are. Sadly, Africa has lost 70% of its elephant population in the last 40 years and alarmingly, in these modern times, elephants are being hunted and poached at a faster rate than they are being born. Hunters come out to shoot elephants so that they can take trophies home to brag. Poachers kill elephants just so that their teeth can be turned into ornaments. I hope that this body of work will help create greater love and appreciation for elephants and awaken the collective human conscience so that these wonderfully intelligent and gentle giants will be around for future generations to see and enjoy. Climbing into the water to photograph them would be a minimal price to pay if this were to happen.”
See more of Greg’s work on his website and follow him on Instagram
This is a significant photograph, on a personal level, I mean. Yes, it won me the highest accolade in world wildlife photography back in 2013, but more than this, it sparked me on a three-year journey that has been simply incredible.
When I took this shot, I thought it was the end of my journey with elephants as it came after many years of trying to capture the mysterious quality of elephants in a photograph. But, as it turns out, it was only the beginning. Since taking this shot, I have spent the last three years working on my ‘In The Footsteps Of Giants’ project whereby I have spent hundreds of hours with elephants. I have flown in helicopters looking for giant tuskers, and I have descended into an extinct volcano (Ngorongoro) to do the same. I have been to the Congo basin and the Skeleton Coast in search of elephants. I have even sat inside a waterhole with them. It has been a spellbinding journey, and now I have this body of work that I can proudly share with the world.
The snowcapped peak and glaciers of Mount Kilimanjaro feed the swamps at her base, and one of my goals for my ‘In The Footsteps Of Giants’ project was to capture an elephant herd making its evening sojourn across Africa’s dry plains.
Here, you see a herd in the twilight, crossing the dry lakebed of Amboseli National Park, with the base of Mount Kilimanjaro in the background. Having quenched their thirst, they are heading back to their feeding grounds for the night. The parade of elephants disturbed insects in the grass, much to the delight of the accompanying egrets. Everything in nature is connected.
Elephants fit into that special category of animals with tangible souls. They are undoubtedly intelligent; but are far more than that. When you spend time with them, you eventually come to recognise something of yourself in them, and for this reason, it was essential for this project that I capture the eye, or rather the soul, of an elephant. I took hundreds upon hundreds of photographs of elephants’ eyes, but this shot rose to the top for me. This is the frame that connects me with this magnificent beast, and I hope it does the same for you.
Young elephant bulls often wrestle with one another. This behaviour, while fun, is also critical as it prepares the young males for the more serious fights that they will one day face when they have to ward off rival bulls for mating rights.
The beauty of a photograph lies in its ability to capture a single moment in time. In a fraction of a second, the camera affords us the gift of suspending a singular point in both time and space. For this image, I tried to delay the recording of this moment, and I managed to delay it just long enough for the energy of the young bulls fighting to transfer into my camera. Any longer and the moment would have dissolved.
Seeing a Big Tusker is now an infrequent occurrence because their gene pool has been thinned out, by both hunters and poachers. But, they do still exist, and we must make sure that they always do! For to see such an animal is like seeing a dinosaur; it is a living version of the ancient mammoth and a most mythical beast. It was in Kenya that I, late one evening, came across this incredible tusker and not knowing quite how to photograph him, I chose to exclude his head and body. I wanted to draw attention to his large tusks, but more than that, I wanted to preserve the mystery of this mythical beast and to present my subject as a prehistoric giant stepping into the frame.
It was late November and the end of a drought in Botswana’s Tuli Block. On this particular afternoon in the waterhole, there had been nonstop action, and although I was in the water, I was sweating. This was partly due to the heat and partly because the largest land mammals on planet earth surrounded me! Their toenails looked huge as they towered above me!
It might be hard to appreciate looking at this photo, but the waterhole is the size of a small domestic swimming pool, so I was right under their noses – or should I say trunks? The life of a wildlife photographer can, at times, be very boring – and at other times, extremely exciting, to the point where you are flirting with the thin line that separates life and death. Thankfully, I have enough experience now to slow down and appreciate those special moments when I am right on the line. Here you see me dropping my camera and taking it all in, just for a moment.
One of the significant advantages of photographing at the waterhole was that the elephants, although they knew I was there, never saw me as a threat. Elephants are wonderful mothers and very protective of their herd, but the elephants in the Tuli Block of Botswana know that it is a safe haven for them, and the mothers are more relaxed than in other parts of Africa.
Being a professional wildlife photographer, I am often afforded a window into the world of wild animals – and this is a great delight and privilege, but never more so than when a baby elephant goes about its business of learning life’s lessons. Here you see this young elephant trying to get to grips with her trunk and how exactly she should go about having a drink. Her mother stands patiently above her.
One of the most amazing things to witness in the African bush is an elephant herd getting excited about a visit to the waterhole. Although elephants can’t officially run (they can only speed walk), it must be said that they come closest to running when approaching a waterhole.
The herd gets visibly excited as they rush towards the water, and here you see a little calf leading the charge.
With a baby elephant only two metres away, and at eye level, it splashed mud everywhere. As I focused on its eye, my camera got covered in mud. Just another day at the office for me! And a reminder to have fun and play!
Occasionally one is treated to a special sunset, the kind that glows long after the sun has disappeared below the horizon. It was when leading a predator safari in the Maasai Mara that my guests and I witnessed one such sunset, and by positioning ourselves in a valley, we had a magnificent and silhouetted subject in the form of an elephant. The pachyderm was slowly walking along the ridge, plucking grass – and in the very last light of the day, I managed to squeeze out one more frame. This is that special frame.
This big boy had swum out into the middle of the Zambezi River, where he was enjoying the cool water and the lush green grass on an island. It was late November and the hottest time of year in the Zambezi Valley. I longed to jump in with the bull and celebrate life just the way he was. I even asked my guide if I could, but he was quick to point out the danger of crocodiles!
He was right, of course.
All I could do was lie down on the boat and watch with fascination as the largest land mammal on earth frolicked in the water. The sun eventually set, and the watery foreground turned into an orange swirl. Light rays refracted, reflected and bounced onto the face of my subject. Our eyes locked, and I immediately recognised that I could potentially capture a photograph that conveyed the beauty and mystery of one of God’s greatest creatures. Moments like this are what make me feel so incredibly privileged to do what I do, and I am so grateful that the camera allows me to share them with you.
My wife and I were canoeing on the Zambezi River when out of the blue, this elephant came charging at us from beyond the riverbank. There was nowhere to hide, and so I dropped my oar and picked up my camera (much to the dismay of my poor wife, I might add). More often than not, when an elephant comes rushing at you kicking up a storm, they are ‘mock charging’ and have no intention of harming you, rather just giving you a friendly warning sign to move away.
In a remote forest clearing in the Zambezi Valley, I spent the afternoon with this elephant bull. He was most interested in the pods of the Winterthorn tree and in an attempt to reach them, he leaned in and stretched his trunk as high as he could. The soft afternoon light was filtering through the forest, creating orange and blue hues. It was a magical scene.
It had long been a dream of mine to see and photograph a Namibian desert-adapted elephant. It remains an incredible mystery to me how these gigantic creatures can survive in a harsh desert.
I was more than chuffed to finally catch up with this bull on the Skelton Coast of Namibia.
Following the bull, as he passed by a sand dune, I knew that this would be the frame that I had come here for. I had to travel all the way to the Congo to get a shot of a forest elephant and juxtaposed against this frame, I can only marvel at the adaptability of this incredible species. I believe that we will win the fight to halt elephant poaching and that they will roam deserts, forests and savannahs for future generations to see and enjoy. I must believe this, I am a wildlife photographer and an ambassador for wild creatures. It is my duty to bring inspiring portraits of elephants to the world. It was, after all, Sir David Attenborough, who once said that “images have the power to affect how we feel about the natural world and therefore how we treat it.”
At work inside the waterhole for my ‘In The Footsteps Of Giants‘ project. I hope that this body of work will be remembered, not because of the crazy photographer who climbed into a waterhole, but rather for the awareness it raised and for drawing attention to elephants. All animals are special and consequential and need to be conserved, but elephants seem to me to be extra special animals. They possess a rare kind of intelligence and cognitive understanding. They are giant, yet gentle creatures and they are also a keystone species to the ecosystem, meaning that should they go extinct, the entire ecosystem will fail. We need to continue working hard to ensure that doesn’t happen.
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The early morning phone call came into the Wildlife Works offices in Tsavo, Kenya. A baby elephant had been hit by a large truck. Written by Raabia Hawa, Founder of Walk With Rangers
Head ranger Eric Sagwe responded swiftly, using the donated anti-poaching vehicle. He set off, with numerous thoughts running through his mind, “They must be mistaking it for another smaller animal, surely not a baby elephant! What if it’s still alive?”
When he arrived at the scene, people had begun to gather around…
There he lay, an elephant not more than two or three weeks old, his young life terminated. Just like that.
According to community members who had witnessed the incident, a family of elephants crossing the busy highway that dissects East and West Tsavo turned back when faced by the barrier of the new elevated Mombasa-Nairobi standard gauge railway – the biggest infrastructure project in Kenya since the country’s independence. Unaware of the underpasses provided for elephants, the herd turned back in the confusion and panic, and the little one was struck by an oncoming truck.
People crowded the scene, eager to utilise the calf for meat. Thankfully, Eric wasn’t going to have any of it and carried the calf’s lifeless body into the vehicle. With a heavy heart, he drove deep into the bush, where he left the baby elephant in a peaceful spot.
The controversial railway line has impacted on communities living around Kenya’s famed Tsavo ecosystem, with human-wildlife conflict cases rising significantly since the construction began; putting pressure on wildlife, and inevitably transferring that pressure to people – a fact that perhaps was overlooked during the planning process.
My regular drive to Tsavo regularly reveals numerous roadkills – from hyenas to mongooses, squirrels, giraffes and even endangered Grevy’s zebras. Even lions, the majestic symbol of Kenya’s Coat of Arms, have been forever silenced on this highway.
Tsavo’s elephants have been an iconic species for Kenya since it’s independence. They bring in much-needed revenue for the tourism industry, thereby contributing significantly to the nation’s GDP and to employment levels. We revere elephants and respect their close family structures and contributions to the ecosystem services we all enjoy, even in the cities.
We mourn the loss of such a young life, but perhaps this young elephant’s legacy is to help us inform you what is happening here in Tsavo.
Africa is untamed, rugged and breathtakingly beautiful. It offers the adventure traveller a kaleidoscope of experiences that will imprint the essence of Africa on your soul for life. From stark desert landscapes to lush green plains teeming with wildlife, Africa is unique in its diversity and sheer natural splendour. This is Elephant Ignite territory.
Sadly, Africa is also a continent mercilessly targeted by poachers, stripping it of its wildlife and threatening one of its most majestic inhabitants, the African elephant, with extinction. In the last decade, Central Africa has lost 64% of its elephant population as a result of the ivory trade. A staggering 30 000 elephants are killed every year across Africa – and sadly, it has now become a battle for survival for these majestic and gentle giants.
Enter the all-female crew of the Elephant Ignite Expedition, a group of passionate ladies from vastly different walks of life who embarked on a 16 000km, 100-day journey across 10 African countries to cast the spotlight on the poaching crisis. The expedition focussed on community upliftment, youth education, public awareness for wildlife crime and poaching, and a fundraising drive to support the organisations that are fighting the critical conservation battles on the frontline.
Travelling through South Africa, Swaziland, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, Namibia, Botswana, Zambia, Tanzania, Malawi and Kenya, the ladies visited 37 conservation organisations to get involved and to gain a deeper understanding of the work they do. They distributed 20 000 educational booklets to schools and communities along the way, and also delivered talks and performances focussed around conservation amongst the youth. The entire crew self-funded all their participation costs, and the proceeds from the fundraising campaigns were directed to the nominated beneficiary projects.
“Every one of us can make a difference, no matter how big or small. We set out determined to ignite a fire in the hearts and minds of Africans, that would ultimately help to fight the war that is raging against our wildlife. We finished 100 days later, stronger than ever and even more dedicated to doing more for our wildlife. I am exceptionally proud and honoured to have organised and led this crew of amazing ladies with such big hearts, and to have raised awareness, connected organisations and hopefully come up with some solutions for how we can initiate change ” said expedition leader, Carla Geyser from registered NPO Blue Sky Society Trust. The Elephant Ignite Expedition was one of the Trust’s conservation projects for 2016.
In true female style, the rugged-looking vehicles received some rather emotionally charged, but very apt names: ‘Courage’, ‘Hope’ and ‘Love’. Courage, loosely defined as , “the ability to do something that frightens you,” aptly named for all the courageous people out there with the incredibly tough task of living and working on the front lines to keep Africa’s wildlife safe. Also, because an all-women, African expedition – the first of its kind in the word – was an incredibly courageous undertaking and took some real guts.
Hope, because the people so passionately committed to African conservation give hope for all the endangered species on the continent. Elephant Ignite also hopes that their journey helped to ignite passion and inspire change, providing the people they met along the way a renewed sense of hope that they have what it takes to continue fighting the good fight.
Love, because without love and compassion, there would be no hope or courage for people to do what they do and make the sacrifices necessary to save Africa’s wildlife. The Elephant Ignite crew are full of love for Africa’s special places and wildlife, and on this particular journey, they came together as a powerful sisterhood in the battle for Africa’s elephants.
Travelling through some of Africa’s most scenic and awe-inspiringly beautiful regions was one of the most memorable experiences for this tough-as-nails group. Always on the move, they covered long distances under the challenging conditions expected of any real African adventure – with water crossings and heavy sand on some of the characteristic African dirt roads putting their adventure driving skills to the test!
For the team, the journey was a roller coaster of emotions, and they embraced Mother Africa with loads of laughter, the odd tear and an unwavering sense of connected sisterhood.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS
Along their journey, the team had the incredible opportunity to spend time and get involved hands-on with some on-the-ground conservation efforts in critical conservation areas in Africa. Here, they detail some of the most memorable moments from their active participation in the various conservation efforts they got involved in along the way.
A hands-on elephant collaring operation of three elephants with Dr Michelle Henley from Elephants Alive in Hoedspruit. The crew was part of the immobilisation team and stepped in to assist with data collection, sampling and measurements. The expedition also funded a tracking collar for one of the female elephants and Dr Henley announced that they would be naming the female “Ignite” in honour of the expedition’s elephant conservation efforts. The team have a follow-up visit scheduled for 2017 to report back on the progress of this project.
Taking part in an active anti-poaching roadblock with Conservation South Luangwa and their canine unit in Zambia that positioned the team on the frontline of anti-poaching operations, where they truly discovered how dangerous it is for the teams on the ground.
The expedition donated funds to install a borehole and water pump in Mndanka village in Malawi – a community bordering on the Kasungu National Park where the human-elephant conflict is extreme. The community had no access to water and used to go into the park for water, putting them at risk for conflict with elephants. With access to water, their risk of elephant encounters is reduced, and they now grow crops and oyster mushrooms as the first step in a sustainable permaculture initiative. Newly installed beehive fences also help keep the elephants at bay. The expedition officially unveiled the pump and had a tour of the new agricultural initiatives.
A visit to farmers in rural Kenya where the beehive fences that EIE donated as part of the Elephants and Bees Project with Dr Lucy King are helping to mitigate human-elephant conflict. EIE sponsored hives to protect the crops for two rural farmers, Phelicia Wanyika and Josiah Kimanga in Mwambiti Village, Sagalla. This project is gaining traction across Africa and providing tangible benefits to protect the communities and elephants.
A visit to the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust‘s release facility in Voi, Kenya. The DSWT team care selflessly for orphaned elephant calves, never leaving their sides and sleeping with the young calves at night. Once they are a bit older, the calves are allowed to roam into the wild for extended periods and taught to be more independent. This facility cares for the slightly older calves and prepares them for their release back into the wild.
A tour of Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya’s Laikipia region and meeting ‘Sudan’, the last living male Northern white rhino left in the world, destined for extinction. Standing next to this magnificent animal, everyone was overcome with deep sadness and shame at the realisation that humanity has failed the rhino as a species, as we have failed so many others before him.
Meet ‘Sudan’ in the video below.
The immobilisation and successful treatment of an injured elephant cow in Kenya with Kenya Wildlife Services. The cow was found with spear wounds, and members of the team supported KWS during the rescue mission. Just a couple of days later, on a visit to Save the Elephants research camp, yet another emergency search and rescue mission prompted the team to rush out and locate an orphaned calf “Shaba” in Samburu National Park. The mother was killed, leaving behind two calves; the older calf was reunited with the herd and the young baby, successfully darted and airlifted to safety at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary. Shaba is doing very well and proved to be a real leader, already taking on a matriarch role at the sanctuary.
This expedition was a real journey with purpose, allowing the team to explore Mother Africa and experience her in all her splendour. Breathtakingly beautiful, at times brutal, but always ready to welcome and inspire. It has ignited a passion in each of the ladies to protect and commit to sharing stories of the work done by the extraordinary wildlife warriors on the frontline of African wildlife conservation.
To find out more about the expedition team, continue reading below the advert.
THE TEAM
The team consisted of six permanent crew members that completed the entire journey, and seven alternating crew that joined for shorter periods. Each permanent crew member had a stake in the planning and on the expedition, the duties were shared between all team members. A duty roster ensured that the workload was covered and that each person pulled their weight. The responsibilities included: cooking, washing up, maintenance and safety.
The maintenance involved setting up the camp chairs and tables, making fires and spraying all the tents with a special mosquito repellent. The safety person had to charge two-way radios and GPS’s for the following day’s use. She also had to remain with the vehicles during stops to ensure that no-one tampered with them, and ran extra checks on locks or items left behind. Security is critical when travelling in Africa…
THE VEHICLES
The Elephant Ignite expedition would not have been possible without the three fully-kitted safari vehicles sponsored by Avis 4×4 Safari Rentals/Overland 360. The 4×4 Ford Ranger proved itself as a reliable, all-terrain workhorse. The ladies prepared for off-road driving under the watchful eye of 4×4 instructors and braved a selection of difficult obstacles during their training sessions. From rough ditches, fearsome hills, steep declines, deep sand, mud and water – even with the added weight of carrying a ‘mini motel’ on the back of the vehicles – the Ford Rangers performed reliably and brilliantly.
View a map of all the national parks and reserves visited on the expedition below
About the authors
Expedition leader Carla Geyser (founder of the Blue Sky Society Trust) started dreaming about doing an expedition dedicated to elephants in 2012. She just loves elephants and wanted to do something special to make a difference for them, and to say thank you to the people on the ground who work continuously to ensure their survival. The Elephant Ignite Expedition was her way of paying tribute to these majestic animals.
Permanent crew member Yolande Kruger is extremely passionate about Africa, and serves as an executive board member of the Lawrence Anthony Earth Organisation. She is also a patron of the Blue Sky Society Trust. She believes that elephants are an iconic species, and that everyday individuals can do more to support and create awareness for the survival of these majestic animals. This was her motive on this expedition, and Elephant Ignite is a brand that she is proud to be associated with.
Most of us take elephants for granted.Written by Carla Geyser
They are the largest land mammal on earth and a key part of the Big Five. We often get to marvel at their beauty on African wildlife postcards or admire them while watching National Geographic documentaries. Most people think it’s the rhino that is the only animal under threat, but sadly elephants are right up there alongside them.
These magnificent lumbering giants are steadily being butchered at an alarming rate. Elephants are one of the major casualties of a poaching war against wildlife that has completely spiralled out of control. If you live in Africa and have had contact with the wildlife it is hard not to have the urge to protect them fiercely. But what can we all do about it?
The Elephant Ignite Expedition was an idea that I came up with as a way to raise money and awareness for elephant conservation projects. My idea was to bring a group of passionate and skilled women to see first-hand just what the real threats were against these mighty creatures. To harness their talents and to try and find solutions.
This epic expedition was a means to highlight in the worldwide media what is happening to these animals on a grand scale. The expedition was plotted over 15,787 kilometres over a period of 100 days.
This dynamic all-female crew left Durban on Women’s Day, 9 August 2016, and proceeded to visit ten different countries, visiting 37 projects that work tirelessly to save the dwindling elephant populations. All this was done within 100 days. An amazing achievement!
I have been asked plenty of time: why only women? Well, elephants have always been one of my passions – they seem to embody everything that is good about Africa and family. Elephants are wise old souls and they are deeply intelligent.
The herd is managed by a matriarch. There are things that we as a species can learn from the matriarch. She leads her herd with great strength and confidence, secure in any decisions she needs to make, but at the same time leading with a firm, but gentle hand. Elephants are full of compassion and empathy, and they are not shy to show their emotions. Most of all a matriarch relies on her network. She does nothing alone and has her family and all the other elephants to lean on. As a combined unit they achieve a WHOLE lot more than as individuals.
We can learn SO much from our wildlife if we just open our eyes, our ears and our hearts.
Another giant has fallen to poachers, and the remaining estimated 50-100 Tuskers survive in small pockets across East and Southern Africa, pursued by poachers and trophy hunters alike. You see, it’s their tusks, 100 pounds on each side to qualify as a ‘Tusker’, that is their crowning glory and their death sentence.
Our blog post earlier this week goes into the details of Satao 2’s death, so my team and I wish to pay tribute to him, as we did in 2014 for his erstwhile companion Satao, also claimed by a poacher’s arrow. Every time one of these gentle giants goes down to a poacher or trophy hunter, we lose another part of Africa’s soul.
In the following tributes, you will hear from some of those who had the privilege of being near Satao 2 recently, touched by his massive, gentle presence and saddened at his death. You will also learn more about Tsavo National Park in Kenya and what you can do to help.
There are, of course, many good people working under incredible pressure all over Africa to stem the tide of poaching. On this occasion, though, the spotlight falls on the good people of Kenyan Wildlife Services and the Tsavo Trust, who work tirelessly to safeguard Tsavo’s gentle giants.
Richard Moller, who runs Tsavo Trust, has called for a few Tsavo Tuskers to be granted Presidential Security Decree, as was the case with Marsabit National Park’s famous tusker ‘Ahmed’ in the early 1970s. Now, there is a campaign worth supporting!
If you feel emotional, angry or downright frustrated about the situation, consider finding out about Tsavo Trust and donating some of your hard-earned money. Every little bit helps.
“I am pretty gutted, really. Satao 2 was a good-natured elephant and very approachable, one of those easy old boys to find. Many of the others are much more challenging to see.
Satao 2 has been a film star for many film crews enjoying Tsavo and its last remaining iconic Tuskers. Most recently, Tsavo hosted the BBC “My Family and Me” shoot that took place in mid-2016 and aired in Britain in December 2016 – Satao 2 was showcased to millions of people.
During our ‘Big Tusker Project’ surveillance, we logged Satao 2 no fewer than 160 times since December 2013 – that’s once every 6.5 days on average. Although this undoubtedly did help in his security and gave us a better understanding of his home range (and that of the other impressive emerging Tuskers that he roamed with), this incident shows some gaps need to be filled. There is an urgent need to step up activities with regard to Tsavo’s super tuskers.
Many will miss him.”
Richard Moller
Chief Conservation Officer, Tsavo Trust
“I feel a strong sense of connection to the big tuskers and I made my way to Tsavo National Park in 2016 to spend a week with some of these exceptional, majestic elephant bulls that still survive in Africa. Finding them was not easy, but searching for 11 hours a day eventually ensured success, and I was fortunate to closely observe three of the remaining Tuskers on the continent. Luck was on my side, and I had daily sightings of Satao 2, watching him for hours, flanked by another large bull that seemed so small alongside him in the dry savannah. Drinking at waterholes amongst the herd, he commanded complete respect from all the other elephants. His towering presence will remain with me forever, vividly etched into my memories. His death is another immeasurable loss to the big elephant gene pool and, of course, to Kenya’s tourism industry. Now, more than ever, the last remaining Tuskers need presidential protection.”
Dex Kotze
Businessman, conservation activist and fundraiser
“After hearing about the death of Satao 1 three years ago, I visited Tsavo to look for emerging tuskers. Finally, after days of searching, we spotted a wonderful younger bull called Satao 2 from the air. As we circled over him, I snapped this shot, and I was so ecstatic. His tusks were not as big as those of Satao 1, but my guide exclaimed: “give him ten years, and he will be as big as Satao 1!” Leaving Tsavo, I was so relieved that Satao 2 was ‘in the pipeline’, so to speak, to become one of Africa’s great tuskers. As it turns out, this was not to be. On my visit, I saw many more emerging tuskers – so perhaps now is not the time to mourn.
Now is the time to act! If you want to help, please donate to the ‘Big Tusker Project’ (run by the Tsavo Trust), which not only does aerial surveillance but puts armed scout units on the ground. Every cent helps to employ more scouts. I have visited this project on the ground, and it is excellent. Seriously, every cent helps!”
Greg du Toit
Professional wildlife photographer and guide and winner of ‘Wildlife Photographer of the Year 2013.’
Note from the editor: Apologies for the grainy picture. Greg is currently guiding in Tanzania, and could not email us a higher resolution picture.
The name tuskers or super tuskers, or ‘hundred pounders’ in hunting terms, is reserved for male elephants with at least one tusk of 100 pounds (45,45kg). They tend to be larger than other elephants and stand out in a herd, even when accompanied by other large males.
Trophy hunters have sought out big-tusked elephants since the ‘great white hunter’ days; to this day, they still kill these giant elephants for bragging rights. Yet today, the most immediate threat to tuskers and all elephants is poaching to supply the insatiable demand from the Far East for ivory. Most tuskers have been wiped out after many years of poaching and trophy hunting, and the gene pool is severely compromised.
The massive 44,000 km² Tsavo Conservation Area is home to the world’s highest population of large-tusked elephants, with 6 super tuskers and 15 emerging tuskers (young bulls with the genes and potential to become tuskers). Seven cows with tusks reaching the ground are also being monitored.
Every tusker plays a vital role in the genetic stability of elephant populations and should, in the ideal world, be granted individual protection against those wishing to kill them.
Richard Moller, CEO of Tsavo Trust, has called for a few Tsavo Tuskers to be granted Presidential Security Decree, as was the case with Marsabit National Park’s famous Tusker ‘Ahmed’ in the early 1970s.
East and West Tsavo National Parks combine with the neighbouring Chyulu Hills National Park to form one of Africa’s largest wildlife areas – the Tsavo Conservation Area of 44,000 km2
Tsavo West is dominated by magnificent hills that tower over the surrounding arid plains and shelter the crystal-clear waters of Mzima Springs, where you can sit in an underwater glass chamber to watch hippos and crocodiles. Tsavo East, on the other hand, is a flat thorn and baobab savannah – ideal for spectacular views of the large elephant herds and huge bulls that are famously always covered in red dust.
The view across the arid plains to the iconic Mount Kilimanjaro is spectacular.
One way to contribute to the conservation of Tsavo and the super tuskers is to visit the area on safari. In doing so, you not only contribute to Kenyan revenue but also help lodges employ and upskill local people. For a few years now, we have offered the popular Walking with Giants safari in Tsavo to those of our guests who enjoy an authentic mobile camp safari from a bygone era.
The Tsavo Trust operates the Big Tusker Project in conjunction with Kenyan Wildlife Services. They focus on aerial and ground surveillance and data capture, backed up by the KWS’ rapid reaction teams that deal with poaching incidents.
This successful cooperative model with KWS has substantially reduced poaching in the area despite a chronic shortage of funding.
Tsavo Trust CEO Richard Moller and his co-pilot Josh Outram spend over 60 hours per month logging the movements of Tsavo’s elephants. Since their inception, they have donated more than US$300,000 worth of anti-poaching vehicles and equipment to KWS.
They also work closely with local communities, as they fully appreciate that the survival of Africa’s iconic species depends on the participation of people who live on park borders. Human-wildlife conflict is the cause of so many wild animal deaths in Africa, and no conservation project can succeed without the total involvement of communities at a meaningful level.
Giada and Gianluca Ventura from Italy visited a Maasai village during their recent Kenyan safari and had this to say:
“We had always wanted to visit a Maasai village and witness the famous adumu (‘jumping dance’) as performed by the Morani. During our stay at Sentinel Mara Camp in the Maasai Mara, our dream came true!
We had read many stories regarding the Maasai warriors and wished to understand why they were so widely employed by camps and hotels as askari (guards). Approaching the village, our first clue dawned on us when Dominic, our Maasai guide, pointed to a hyena apparently on the horizon: “Guys… do you see the blood on her face?” The blood?! We couldn’t even see the hyena!
Arriving at the village in the middle of wild Africa, we noticed the fence made of acacia branches with thorns and wondered if it was solid enough to protect the village against wild animals like lions, leopards, and hyenas.
We were greeted by the boss of the clan (who thanked us for coming to visit the village) and invited us to wait for the women coming from inside the kraal. It was an amazing welcome! Maasai women sang in front of us while wearing beautiful bangles and strings of coloured beads around their necks. Giada was especially pleased about the chance of doing some jewellery shopping at the village!
We had fun (and learned a lot) trying to light a fire in less than three minutes – using just two sticks of wood and elephant dung. Amazing! I remember trying this in Italy, but of course, without the elephant dung! And then came the ‘jumping dance’. I was invited to participate in it and lifted from the ground and jumped so high that it was impossible to take a good photo of my superb athleticism! Jokes aside, it was a privilege assisting with the adumu – a dance usually performed during the coming-of-age ceremony where adult boys are initiated into warrior men.
We also visited a Maasai hut, which was very small and had only three rooms – the entrance, a shelter for some animals, and the main room. It wasn’t even high enough to stand upright! A tiny hole in the roof let a little light into the hut, but we were told its main purpose was to let the smoke from the smouldering fire – used for cooking and warmth – escape. Exiting the hut, we had to wear sunglasses to protect our eyes from the contrasting glare!
Our visit was almost over, and we were about to leave when Giada grabbed my arm and turned me back towards the assortment of fantastic Maasai jewellery and other items that were proudly displayed for sale. How could I have forgotten?! Now was the time to buy some really special souvenirs!”
Find out about the Maasai Mara for your next African safari – find a ready-made safari or ask us to build one just for you.
SATAO 2 is dead, and another of the last tuskers left in Africa has been poached, leaving only 6 of these giants in the Tsavo Conservation Area in southern Kenya. This is a devastating blow to elephant conservation and super tusker genes.
SATAO 2 was named after SATAO, the iconic giant who was poached in 2014 and was one of the largest tuskers left on Earth. A ‘tusker’ is an elephant whose tusks each weigh more than 100 lbs / 45,45kg. The tusks of Satao 2 weighed 51kg and 50.5kg.
Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) rangers discovered the gruesome kill site before the poachers had the time to remove the tusks. Although not totally certain, indications are that a poison arrow killed SATAO 2. In subsequent investigations, two people have been apprehended and weapons seized. KWS continues to work hard to rid Tsavo of poaching teams that roam the reserve.
The massive 44,000 km² Tsavo Conservation Area (twice the size of South Africa’s Kruger National Park) is home to the highest population of large-tusked elephants in the world, with 6 ‘super tuskers’ (of approximately 25-30 in the whole of Africa) and 15 emerging tuskers (young bulls who have the genes and potential to become tuskers). There are also seven cows with tusks reaching the ground that are being monitored.
Elephant populations in the area crashed due to poaching from the highs of 45,000 in the early 1970s to fewer than 6,000 in 1989. Since then the population has recovered to 11,000 (last aerial census in 2014) due to the formation of the KWS and the international ban on ivory trade – although there has again been an increase in poaching since then. For further information see our magazine issue The Silent Giants of Tsavo.
The Tsavo Trust operates the Big Tusker Project in conjunction with KWS and focusses on aerial and ground surveillance and data capture, backed up by the KWS’ rapid reaction teams that deal with poaching incidents.
SATAO 2’s death, and the recent spike in poaching, represent a significant threat to the world’s last-remaining tuskers and Tsavo’s precious elephant population. PLEASE consider supporting the Tsavo Trust in their brave battle to keep these elephants safe from the ruthless poaching syndicates.
Tsavo Trust CEO Richard Moller would like to see one or two of the iconic Tsavo super tuskers enjoy a Presidential Security Decree, as was the case with the famous tusker called Ahmed of Marsabit National Park in Kenya in the early 1970s. If successfully repeated, this will be a momentous achievement in conservation leadership by an African president.
The combined effects of drought and poaching have reduced estimated white rhino numbers in South Africa’s Kruger National Park by 18% during the past year, according to the latest official figures. See point 4 below, for more information about this specific statistic. This amid a decline in poaching statistics generally.
South African Minister of Environmental Affairs Edna Molewa last night issued a lengthy report back on the Integrated Strategic Management of Rhino during 2016. Here then are the 10 facts from her report that we think you should be aware of. Read the entire announcement here.
1. A total of 1 054 rhinos were poached nationwide in 2016 (1 175 in 2015) – a decline of 10.3%;
2. Specifically for the Kruger National Park, a total of 662 rhino carcasses were found in 2016 (826 in 2015) – a decline of 19.85%;
3. Again for Kruger, there were a staggering 2 883 instances of poaching-related activities in 2016 (2 466 in 2015) – an increase of 16.9%. These include poaching camps, contacts, crossings, sightings, tracks and shots fired. These criminal gangs are armed to the teeth, well-funded and part of transnational syndicates who will stop at nothing to get their hands on rhino horn;
4. White rhino population estimate in Kruger is 6 649 – 7 830 (corresponding 2015 estimate was 8 365 – 9 337) – a decrease of 18%. It must be noted that there was an increase in natural deaths of white rhinos due to the unprecedented drought conditions;
5. Black rhino population estimate in Kruger is 349 – 465 (corresponding 2015 estimate was 313 – 453 – an increase of 6%. The drought effect was not as noticeable on black rhinos;
6. 46 elephants were poached in the Kruger (no 2015 figure provided);
7. 11 rhinos were internally translocated away from boundaries in the Kruger for security reasons – part of an ongoing internal translocation strategy;
8. 106 rhinos were translocated from national parks to private strongholds, and none of these were poached;
9. There are approximately 38 orphans under the care of Kruger National Park and partners and Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife;
10. 680 poachers and traffickers were arrested for rhino-related poaching offences nationally (317 in 2015). Of this number, 417 were arrested in or near the Kruger National Park. 148 firearms were seized inside the Kruger, and 6 just outside the park.
Earlier this year, South African Environmental Affairs minister Edna Molewa announced a ZERO quota for leopard hunts in 2017, a continuation of the 2016 ruling.
This after an alert by the country’s Scientific Authority that the number of leopards in the country was unknown and that trophy hunting posed a high risk to the survival of the species.
But in the latest development, Molewa has proposed control measures relating to the trophy hunting of leopards that will apply once the quota is reinstated. Conservation-minded people should read the summary below to better understand the situation regarding leopard hunting in South Africa and respond to the Minister (you have 30 days).
Here is a brief summary of the notice, which attempts to establish a framework for future leopard trophy hunts:
1. Most leopards are hunted by way of baiting (using a carcass to draw the leopard in), from a shooting distance of 50-80m.
2. Leopard Hunting Zones (LHZ) will be determined, based on leopard populations and hunting pressure. No individual property may be included in more than one permit application.
3. Male leopards can be accurately aged based on the dewlap size (the dewlap is the loose flap of skin on the throat).
4. Harvesting male leopards older than 7 years has the least effect on population stability because at that age they will have held their territory for long enough to allow one litter to grow to independence. Accordingly, only male leopards that are 7 years or older may be hunted. If this rule is broken, the relevant LHZ will receive no quota for the following year.
5. Each hunt requires a permit in the name of the hunting client or the local professional hunter, for each leopard to be hunted (multiple leopard hunt applications will be accepted). These permits must be applied for before September, for hunts taking place in the following year.
6. The professional hunter accompanying the client must pass a once-off ‘leopard hunting examination’. Bizarrely this website permits an unlimited number of practise exams, before the official exam is taken online. Professional hunters that can provide evidence that they have undergone approved training in the determination of a leopard’s age do not need to pass the exam.
7. Each leopard trophy must be inspected within 24 hours of the hunt by an environmental management inspector of the relevant permit-issuing authority, and DNA samples taken.
8. If any hunt contributes to the destabilisation of the relevant leopard population, appropriate action will be taken against the professional hunter to curtail their leopard hunts and/or institute criminal proceedings.
Interested parties have 30 days from 8 February 2017 to make representations or to object in writing, to Ms Makganthe Maleka mamaleka@environment.gov.za and +27 (0)12 399 8865
Download your copy of the relevant Government Gazette notice (the leopard-related content is after the rhino-related content)
As our guide brought the open game vehicle coasting to a halt, the only sound was of waves breaking gently on the sand. That morning, Sodwana Bay had been clamorous with tractors and trailers, speedboats and scuba divers. But now, late at night, the beach was utterly empty. And out there, somewhere, an ancient and awe-inspiring story was unfolding.
You see, as well as being one of the world’s top dive sites, Sodwana Bay in the iSimangaliso Wetland Park is also one of the very few places in southern Africa where sea turtles nest. Of the five species of turtles found in these seas, the two largest come here to lay their eggs. ISimangaliso is Africa’s last primary nesting site for leatherbacks and loggerheads.
Each year, from November to January, the giant tracks of female leatherback and loggerhead turtles emerge from the surf, looking like paths left by aquatic tanks. A couple of months later, the tiny, almost invisible trails of baby turtles scatter from holes below the dunes. Not all of them reach the sea.
It was mid-January, so we were just in time to witness both sides of this 100-million-year-old ritual. Our guide was Peter Jacobs of Ufudu Turtle Tours. He’s an honorary wildlife officer with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife who’s passionate about protecting Sodwana Bay’s sea turtles. The tours he runs on this 10-mile stretch of beach aren’t just for entertainment. They’re a way to create a public appreciation for these magnificent creatures – and some awareness of their plight.
After Peter gave us an introductory talk about sea turtles, we drove north along the beach, below the high tide mark. The only illumination came from our dim yellow headlights, the pale glow of a gibbous moon slipping between clouds, and the rhythmic slash of the lighthouse on the hill. Unfortunately, said Peter, this was too much light. Ideally, the lighthouse would be turned off, and so would our headlights. Nothing besides the moon and stars should shine on a beach where turtles are nesting.
That’s because turtles are incredibly sensitive to light. Female turtles navigate towards the shore using the dark outline of vegetated dunes against the night sky. Hatchlings find their way to the sea by orienting themselves to its reflective glimmer. Any artificial light at a sea turtle nesting site dramatically lowers their chances of success.
And it’s not as if their odds are particularly good in the first place. Although leatherback and loggerhead turtles usually lay around 100 eggs in a nest, and dig on average five nests in a season, it’s estimated that scarcely one in a thousand hatchlings make it to maturity.
From the moment a sea turtle egg hits the damp sand of a nest, it’s under threat. Once the female turtle has dragged herself laboriously back to the ocean, the eggs are left entirely unprotected. Dogs and jackals, ants and ghost crabs, snakes, gulls, rats, cats and mongooses all adore a tasty turtle egg.
Then, once the turtle hatches, it has to push its way up through the sand and hope for a clear passage to the sea. This, however, is highly unlikely. While adult leatherbacks and loggerheads weigh hundreds of pounds and are virtually immune to natural predators, their hatchlings are just a couple of inches long and weigh less than two ounces.
Thousands of stalk-eyed ghost crabs patrol the dunes, waiting to drag the tiny turtles away. If a hatchling doesn’t reach water before daylight, it will die of dehydration or be scooped up by gulls and raptors. Even if a baby turtle successfully reaches the ocean, there’s no respite. Squid, fish, sharks and eels are all waiting to gobble it up.
Peter stopped the vehicle a short stretch along the beach. He explained that he and a group of volunteers monitor each nest they locate. A loggerhead nest nearby was due to hatch any day now. Perhaps we would be lucky enough to see it happen. We waited while he trotted up the dune with a red torch (red light doesn’t confuse turtles) and jumped out to join him when he beckoned.
“We just missed it,” said Peter, kneeling beside a hollow in the sand, around which some rubbery egg fragments lay. “They probably came out about half an hour ago. Let’s see if there are any stragglers left in the nest.” He dug carefully. “Aaah, this one hatched but didn’t make it. It might have suffocated.”
There were no live turtles in the nest, but Peter noticed several trails leading away from it towards the dunes. He suggested we fetch our torches to see if we could find any hatchlings that had been kidnapped by ghost crabs.
Holding my headlamp close to the ground to minimise its range, I followed a pair of tracks into the hollow of a dune. “Oh! I’ve found one!” The little loggerhead had turned towards my torchlight and was determinedly forging its way onwards with three flippers.
“A crab must have dragged it by its front flipper and damaged it,” said Peter when he saw it. “It’s highly unlikely that this one would have survived anyway. It’s lost in the dunes, out of sight of the sea, and it’s injured. So I’m going to allow you to help it.”
This sounded like an odd thing for Peter to say, but he told us that people’s attempts to help turtle hatchlings could often do more harm than good. Picking them up transmits bacteria they’re not equipped to fight. And carrying them to the sea instead of letting them walk means their flippers don’t get the vital exercise they need to strengthen them for swimming.
So we scooped the little loggerhead up in a handful of sand and carried it back to the nest. Then, since we were desperate to be helpful, Peter allowed us to use torches to guide it to the water.
By now, I had named the turtle Fynn. (There’s no way to tell a turtle’s sex by sight, so I’d decided he was a boy.) I growled whenever someone shone a torch, or turned on a cellphone or camera that wasn’t directly in line with his path to the sea, because, each time, no matter how faint it was, Fynn would turn towards the light, and away from the water.
So I crawled in front of him with my torch, smoothing the sand, and saying stupid things like “Come on, Fynn! You’re a champ! You can do it!” Never has 100 metres felt so far. But at last, Fynn’s first wave washed over him. His flippers waggled with what looked like delight. We clapped and cheered. Then another wave whisked him out and away.
Beyond the beach, endless dangers waited: marlin, barracuda, tiger sharks – predators too numerous to name. And then there are the human perils of plastic, pollution, poaching, fishing lines, nets and boats. Fynn has less than a one in a thousand chance of reaching adulthood. But, at least he lived long enough to swim.
Exhilarated by this remarkable encounter, I felt that the evening couldn’t possibly get any better. Although, as we enjoyed a midnight feast on the beach, I admitted that it would be nice to see a leatherback turtle too.
Leatherback turtles are the rockstars of the turtle world. They grow the longest (up to 7 feet), weigh the most (up to almost a ton), swim the fastest (up to 22 miles an hour), dive the deepest (up to 1,200 metres) and range the furthest (from Norway to New Zealand). And they do this all on a strict diet of jellyfish, which are 95 per cent water.
So it was an immense thrill, when, on our way back along the beach, Peter spotted the massive shape of a female leatherback. She’d already reached the dunes and was looking for a place to lay her eggs. We waited quietly in the dark until she started digging. Only then did Peter permit us to approach, on condition that we kept well behind her and did not use torches, cellphones or cameras.
She was a giantess, dwarfing us all. And she was beautiful. Her soft, leathery carapace was deep blue-black splotched with white. It looked as though she had mapped the galaxies. Her dappled flippers and neck shaded down to shell-like pink. The salt glands above her large, dark eyes made it seem as though she was shedding soulful tears, and her breath hissed sharply with the effort of digging.
Patiently, methodically, meticulously, the leatherback’s rear flippers scooped and slapped the sand aside. Even though the tide was rising and our time was running out, we were mesmerised. At last, the nest was as deep as the turtle could make it and her eggs, looking precisely like ping pong balls, started to drop into it.
With luck, in a few weeks, most of those eggs would hatch. Dozens of miniature leatherback turtles would toddle towards the starlit sea. And then, perhaps, many years later, one of her offspring would emerge again on this beach – in almost the same spot – to repeat this mysterious cycle of life.
Ufudu Turtle Tours conduct turtle tours in Sodwana Bay from November to May. Tours are around low tide times in the evenings or late at night and last around four hours.
With coral reefs that boast two-thirds of the species diversity of the Great Barrier Reef in an area a tenth of the size, scuba diving in Sodwana Bay is not to be missed. Coral Divers is a PADI 5 star Gold Palm IDC Centre, offering every level of dive instruction.
Even if you’ve never scuba dived before, they’ll have you safely under the sea within a day. In just three dives, I was lucky enough to see ragged-toothed sharks, green turtles, eagle rays, moray eels and hundreds of species of fish and corals.
The Fig Forest guided walking trail in uMkhuze offers birders the chance to spot the incredibly rare Pel’s fishing owl. We weren’t in luck that day, but we did see squadrons of trumpeter hornbills, thousands of butterflies, and, of course, spectacular sycamore figs.
On a night game drive in the Eastern Shores section of iSimangaliso with SHAKAbarker Tours, we learned how to spot chameleons in the dark, and saw plenty of larger animals, including elephants, kudu, buffalo and hippopotamus.
Alison Westwood is a South African travel writer based in Cape Town. She’s written and photographed for magazines, travel websites and travel guides, and has recently co-authored a book about Secret Cape Town.
Alison has interviewed some of Africa’s most interesting travellers as well as investigating all sorts of travel-related issues, from elephant culling to carbon-offsets. In addition to travelling, Alison loves to hike. She blogs about getting lost in the mountains on 52 Cape Town Hikes.
The Tikki Hywood Trust is an organisation that focuses on the conservation of lesser-known endangered animals. Their flagship species – pangolins – has found its way into mainstream media as the most trafficked animal in the world.
What is the Tikki Hywood Trust?
The Trust is a wildlife-based Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) whose focus is on generating awareness based on the legislation that governs conservation practices. Founder Lisa Hywood wanted to do something that honoured the memory of her father who inspired a love of the wild and an ability to get results. It is this ethos and the determination to preserve the heritage that is our natural world, which drives the Trusts’ work with pangolins.
“We are not a zoo in any way. We are not open to the public. We do not have a volunteer program” – Tikki Hywood Trust
Lisa is adamant that, “conservation is not just cute and cuddly”. While her childhood passion and first love are the animals that she fights so hard to protect, she maintains an expansive view of conservation that reaches over and beyond the animals. “Sitting with members of different departments, developing strategies, strengthening wildlife protection, challenging legislation which protects wildlife and training different groups of people, officials stake holders… this is all part of conservation. That is the reality of conservation,” she says.
“We always wanted to be able to get these pangolins back into their wild” – Tikki Hywood Trust
In the early days…
What most people don’t know about the Tikki Hywood Trust is that the animal that launched them was the elephant. In 1994, due to the drought in Zimbabwe, the Trust was involved with the first translocation of 40 bull elephants. It was an experience that made a lasting impression on Lisa.
What is more remarkable, however, are the parallels she draws between the two species. “With elephants,” she begins “we relate to them because we can see the similarities between ourselves and them. But I can honestly say that pangolins, even though they are incredibly different, have intelligence that I don’t even think we have begun to understand.”
The lack of knowledge and understanding of the pangolin inspired so much of the Trusts’ work with pangolins. In 1994, Lisa received her first pangolin in what she describes vividly as a “foul-smelling sack” that contained a “heavy lump”. Not knowing what to do, Lisa began walking with the pangolin. Her name was Negomo and it was this intensive interaction, observation and dedication to her that enabled the Trust to help pangolins around the world.
“The government of Zimbabwe, through the judiciary have sent a very strong message to wildlife criminals. We now need countries in Africa and destination countries in Asia to follow suit if we have a hope of winning this war” – Tikki Hywood Trust
Awareness and the importance of legisation
The Tikki Hywood Trust’s approach is based on conservation, education and legislation. Lisa says that in Zimbabwe, the key species in terms of legislation is the pangolin, “when we do change legislation we don’t just change it for the pangolin. We change it for the A-Z of all species”. It is through the work that the Tikki Hywood Trust has done that legislation for wildlife has been changed and Lisa says that the challenge is to get stakeholders to focus on and to understand the laws pertaining to wildlife and prosecution within their own countries.
Many stakeholders, from conservation officials to police and the judiciary are unaware of the law. As a result of this many poachers simply fall through the cracks before they even get to court. The onus, therefore, falls on educating the various stakeholders and addressing legal loopholes that are outdated. “Don’t be afraid to address the law. If it is not working then we must address it because it is the law and the law is there to act as a deterrent,” says Lisa.
“It is only when the law acts as a deterrent that we are having a positive effect” – Tikki Hywood Trust
As an example, South Africa has the strongest legislation pertaining to pangolin protection in the world. Illegal possession of a pangolin can result in a fine of US$694,000 and ten years in jail. Despite this hefty punishment, there have been no convictions for pangolin poaching. The result, Lisa believes, of a lack of awareness from law enforcement and judiciary. It indicates a disconnection between the legislation and what is happening on the ground.
In Zimbabwe, the punishment is 9 years on the first offence, 11 years on the second offence and a US$5,000 fine. In 2015 forty-seven poachers were convicted to 9 years in jail. For people who are trying to provide for their families, this is a hefty price to pay and so acts as a real deterrent. Lisa maintains that “education is key across the board”. In 2016 alone, the Trust did 5 workshops with the judiciary, stakeholders, police and personnel that are involved from point of arrest to prosecution. In this way, through education, the Tikki Hywood Trust affects positive change.
“What is important to understand is that the demand is coming from Asia” – Tikki Hywood Trust
Trust and collaboration
In a very real way, the Tikki Hywood Trust is forging connections across different social spectrums. In December of 2016, Lisa flew to London for the launch of the Patrick Mavros collection of pangolin jewellery; a collection that was three years in the making. It was through this collaboration that Adrian Steirn was invited to document the Trust’s work. The series of images “The Pangolin Men” was exhibited alongside the jewellery at the launch. While 10% of the proceeds go towards pangolin conservation, more importantly, the marriage of the different mediums got everyone talking about pangolins!
In a way that transcends the usual conservation models, the Tikki Hywood Trust, through these collaborations, is spreading the word and generating both interest and awareness. As Lisa says, it is not about the individual, “you have to join at the hands and walk together.”
“Where and how we can we do the best we can” – Tikki Hywood Trust
And the future?
The scary thing for Lisa is that the Tikki Hywood Trust has expanded on its own. As an entity, it has grown because the policies have had an impact on the ground and this is what makes a real difference to wildlife. “One day,” says Lisa, “I am not going to be here and I want to know that the work we have done will continue, and will continue to have an impact in a positive way”.
The Tikki Hywood Trust has the potential to continue this work because it is a multifaceted team that has developed over 22 years. It is not just people that are linked directly to the Trust but groups of people, from the police to the magistrates to the public prosecutor, Zimbabweans who want a heritage for tomorrow. “We have all come together, shared the passion and the drive and the determination,” says Lisa, and what she finds incredibly encouraging is that the “strength that we have presented to one another is what creates and achieves the results at the end of the day.”
“This is a silent war and we don’t know how many tons are getting to the end-user and how many there are. The same goes for ivory, for every bust how many get passed?” – Tikki Hywood Trust
The Tikki Hywood Trust is leading by example. “Utilizing conservation and education as stepping stones towards a future where humans live in harmony with wildlife”. It is organisations like this that show us that wildlife touches everybody and that no matter who you are or where you live you can take responsibility for the world that you live in.
On Monday, three white rhino orphans were peacefully released into their new home within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park.
Survivors of mothers who were poached for their horns in various other Kwa-Zulu Natal game reserves, the male and two females are around five years old and have formed a close bond while being cared by dedicated Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife staff.
According to iSimangaliso CEO Andrew Zaloumis, “We are very pleased that we can offer these three orphans a new home and brighter future. As a Park undertaking major ecosystems restoration, iSimangaliso offers an ideal habitat for them. The reintroduction of historically occurring species is a critical part of this. Despite the severe drought in KZN, there are parts of iSimangaliso that have received decent rainfall, providing good grass, water and a softer, friendlier refuge for the orphans. iSimangaliso has a long-term conservation partnership with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife, which is doing an excellent job rehabilitating rhino orphans. We thank them and the Peace Parks organisation – which funded the costs of this relocation – for making this possible.”
The iSimangaliso Wetland Park World Heritage Site has undergone an extensive rewilding programme over the past 15 years, and the ongoing rehabilitation of the habitat has enabled the reintroduction of all historically occurring species into the Park – lion, wild dog, cheetah, oribi, tsessebe, buffalo, elephant, giraffe, black and white rhino – with the exception of the eland. The drought placed a hold on the last of these planned relocations, but eland are now being sourced for introduction given improved conditions. This last historic step will complete the process.
Says Zaloumis, “The restocking, management and monitoring of many of our rare and endangered species is primarily supported by participants in our Eco-Series events – like the iSimangaliso MTB 4 Day bike ride in August each year. This ‘safari from the saddle’ is the largest contributor to the Parks’ Rare and Endangered Species Fund.
These events enable visitors to engage with and discover iSimangaliso in unique ways while making a tangible difference to species conservation. Runners, riders, divers and adventurers are invited to explore the options to support conservation of rare and endangered species by participating in one of our superb annual events.”
The newly described Ankarana or Sheth’s dwarf lemur is tiny, weighing just over 100 grams. Its body is only about 16 to 17 centimetres long, with an additional 16 centimetres long tail, making it one of the smallest lemurs in its genus Cheirogaleus.
The newly described Ankarana dwarf lemur. Photos taken at Ankarana Special Reserve by Richard Randriamampionona. Photo courtesy of Cynthia L. Frasier et al, in Primate Conservation, 2016
The lemur has a grey body and a white underbelly, and its tiny hands and feet are lightly colored, the researchers report in a recent study published in the journal Primate Conservation.
The researchers have named the new dwarf lemur Cheirogaleus shethi after Brian Sheth, the Chair of the Board of the NGO Global Wildlife Conservation.
“Brian is deeply committed to biodiversity conservation worldwide, and is a leading philanthropist for species and ecosystem conservation,” the authors write in the paper. “He has supported many projects in Madagascar, including research and the establishment and management of nature reserves. His passion and drive to help save the diversity of life on our planet has been an inspiration to all around him.”
The lemur was first identified in 2014, but researchers have only just confirmed it as a distinct species by analyzing its DNA. The new lemur is separated from other species of dwarf lemurs both genetically, and geographically, the authors say.
So far, the Ankarana or Sheth’s dwarf lemur is known only from northern Madagascar, along the forest corridor from Ankarana Special Reserve east to the Analamerana Special Reserve, down to the Bekaraoka forest in the Loky-Manambato Protected Area. Much of this corridor lies within Madagascar’s system of protected areas, the researchers say, and effective management of the protected areas is essential to maintaining connectivity between different populations of the dwarf lemur.
Scientists are yet to determine its population and conservation status.
“Additional fieldwork is necessary to establish baseline data on population density and the extent of the range to determine to which IUCN Red List category this species belongs,” the authors write.
The researchers add that like the Sheth’s dwarf lemur, several other dwarf lemurs likely remain to be described.
In a somewhat bewildering announcement today, South African Environmental Affairs Minister Edna Molewa has declared that she plans to permit the trade in rhino horn domestically and, in what looks like a loophole big enough to drive a tractor through, the export internationally of horn for ‘personal purposes’. This after years of repeated attempts by her in court to resist applications by local rhino farmers to trade horn on the domestic market.
Anyone wanting to take advantage of the proposed legislation will need to acquire the necessary permits, and the rhino horn has to be genetically profiled by a suitably registered scientific institution. Non-South African citizens and residents may also apply for the necessary permits, so long as their home country provides a letter stating that domestic legislation is in place to prevent the contravention of the relevant ‘provisions of CITES’.
Those wishing to export rhino horn (for ‘personal purposes’ only) are limited to two horns per person. Not long ago similarly flimsy regulations relating to trophy hunting were famously massaged by members of the trophy hunting industry and wildlife trafficking kingpin Chemlong Lemtongthai (currently residing in jail as a result), in order to illegally trade in rhino horn – by the use of Thai strippers and prostitutes posing as huntresses, each there to bag their rhino kill and export the horn as a ‘trophy’, again for ‘personal’ purposes.
Anybody in contravention of the proposed legislation will be fined up to R5 million or sent to jail for up to 5 years, or both. Repeat offenders will receive double those punishments.
The focus in this proposed legislation on permits to control this extremely lucrative industry could be a concern for informed conservationists – in a country that has a notoriously bad implementation of permit requirements and rampant and rising fraud and corruption amongst government officials.
Interested parties have 30 days to make representations or to object, to Ms Magdel Boshoff at MBoshoff@environment.gov.za
Free-roaming wildlife populations are crashing in many areas, and natural habitat is being destroyed at an alarming rate. There is a conservation war going on, and the other side is winning hands down – why is that?
For the sake of simplicity, I refer to the two sides in this war as the ‘Exploiters’ and the ‘Protectors’. I do generalise enormously, please bear with me.
The Exploiters have money, lots of it. They also have focus and the determination to do whatever it takes to achieve their goals – they will ruin entire ecosystems and communities in pursuit of a specific hardwood or mineral and kill animals in the most barbaric way to extract specific body parts. They will threaten, terrify and kill people and bribe whoever it takes. They research, plan and execute their extraction strategies with military precision and their leaders live in financial and legal twilight zones, protected by a ring of violence, corruption and morally bankrupt government officials, bankers, accountants and lawyers. They have hoovered up vast swathes of Earth’s bounty and they will continue to do so until there is nothing left.
Some of them live amongst you, although you may not recognise them in this light. Perhaps they are not involved in poaching (as you define it), or other obvious illegal exploitations, and so you don’t see them as exploiters. Perhaps they wear suits, and work in respected companies and governments. Extraction industries such as mining, commercial fishing, hardwood logging and fossil fuel energy provide products that humans need, but many of them do so at massive cost to the environment – and leave taxpayers and rural communities to carry the cost. Great business model – bank the revenue and leave others to pay the bills.
The Protectors, on the other hand, are largely a ragtag, passionate bunch of do-gooders (myself included) all beavering away in various ways, driven by the strong belief that somehow, sometime, things will change.
Protectors are ALWAYS under-resourced. Try securing funding from banks, investment companies and the wealthy elite to save a species or wetland. On the other hand, go to the same places to fund a diamond mine or oil refinery – no problem. Why is that? In solving this riddle, perhaps you will come to better understand why we are in this mess and why the Exploiters are winning. Hands down.
Protectors often spend a good deal of time, energy and money passionately fighting each other in a glorious orgy of personal agendas. Social media has ramped up this phenomenon, providing a fertile breeding ground for Protectors to shout the odds, bicker and jockey for attention. Amongst the many committed and effective activists out there are a growing number of self-proclaimed online activists, some of whom extract precious donations to fund their lifestyles, many of whom have no clear strategy other than to pay their bills and feed their egos. At best these warriors preach to their close circle of disciples, at worst they confuse Joe Public with their emotional outbursts, and desensitize good people about the real conservation issues.
Some Protectors have organised themselves into groups and institutions – WWF, Conservation International and Greenpeace for example. Many of these do fine jobs, many on limited budgets, and are staffed by outstanding people – others have become bloated bureaucracies with high overheads. And again, these wildlife warriors fight tooth and nail for attention and funding, to feed personal careers and pay the overheads. And then there is CITES. For some reason, many Protectors don’t realise that CITES is an agreement between governments, politicians and businessmen about how much of nature can be consumed without completely destroying it. In other words, CITES represents the Exploiters, not the Protectors.
I could go on and on trying to summarise the chaotic world that is nature conservation. But I won’t. The industry is too wrapped up in personal agendas, lifestyle activists and destructive territorialism to ever be understood fully.
And therein lies the problem – Protectors operate in an underfunded environment with no industry cohesion or business model to speak of, driven largely by passion and dogged by infighting and personal agendas. Compare that to the focussed, ruthless Exploiter business model. In my experience, ruthless strategy trumps misguided passion hands down. And while Protectors run in circles, the Exploiters continue the massacre – all the time operating in the shadows, perfecting their extraction techniques and hoovering up the spoils.
As if finding the Cape parrot – Africa’s rarest – is not enough of a challenge, my wife and I went about this daunting task accompanied by our 20-month-old toddler!
Renate and I always try to fit in a bit of quality time together before heading to the coast for the greater family Christmas obligations. This year we decided on a 4-night stay in Magoebaskloof, to find said rarest parrot and do some serious birding (avec our bundle of joy and mischief).
Our birding mission for the trip was to get photos of some forest specials and to spend time with South Africa’s only endemic parrot – and to get photos of it in the process!
Cape parrots (Poicephalus robustus) are threatened by a cocktail of threats including illegal capture, disease and low breeding success due to the large scale destruction of their mist-belt forest homes (they depend on yellowwood trees for nesting sites and food). So yes, they are seriously special – and being a forest bird, really tough to get good views of.
We stayed at Kuhestan Organic Farm, a perfectly located farm if you are into birding.
After arrival, we set out from the farm to explore the immediate surroundings. The going was slow…really slow! Our daughter wanted to play with every stick, rock, creepy-crawly or whatever she could find – we did about 300m in more than an hour and didn’t even get into the forest patch! Renate and I looked at each other with large eyes – how are we going to do this?? We heard a narina trogon and a buff-spotted flufftail calling tantalisingly from the forest patch, but we couldn’t get that far. But at least our daughter had some fun!
The next morning, I headed for the forest with Paul (a bird guide from the area). My tactic was to go with a guide who would show me the productive sites, that would give me a better feel for the area, and then during the next three days bird these areas with my wife and daughter.
Paul and I enjoyed awesome views of narina trogon, African emerald cuckoo, orange ground-thrush (although high up in a tree), yellow-streaked greenbull, black-fronted bushshrike, olive woodpecker, Barratt’s warbler and the highlight of the morning – awesome views of a buff-spotted flufftail! I messed up the photo though, but was really happy with an excellent view of the bird!
We also visited the beautiful Debegeni waterfalls, where we picked up a rarity/ palearctic vagrant, the grey wagtail! It was really skittish, but luckily I was able to get a decent photo.
In the next few days we birded the area and I was able to get photographs of most of the forest specials, except the Cape parrot – although we did glimpse a few brief fly-bys…
We also visited Kurisa Moya Nature Lodge, one of our favourite forest birding destinations, and added photos of forest canary, green twinspot, swee waxbill and African firefinch to our list.
We really enjoyed our stay at Kuhestan Organic Farm. The owners provided us with fresh bread and milk daily, as well as a freshly harvested mixture of berries, which our daughter loved! The gardens and lawns are exquisite, and the cottages really comfortable. It must be one of the best located farms if you are into birding! Highly recommended.
But still, a decent Cape parrot sighting evaded us, and we were already in the post-lunch session of our last day…
Our luck changed on the last afternoon! It is crazy how often it happens that on the last stretch you get your target! A mere 10 minutes’ drive from Kuhestan we came across a huge flock of more than 40 Cape parrots – feeding in the Mexican cherry trees alongside the main road! We had checked out this area during the previous 3 days, but without luck – and now they are here, giving us a show! We spent the next hour or so with the flock, they got used to our presence and moved lower down in the trees, which of course meant better photos! Such a privilege spending time with Cape parrots – a moment we will never forget.
We did well, especially our little daughter. She enjoyed the forest a lot, and absolutely loved the Cape parrots – I think probably because it was the only forest bird she actually saw!
Magoebaskloof is on your way if you are visiting central Kruger National Park or the Lowveld from Johannesburg, so make sure to spend some time there and explore these wonderful forests and waterfalls.
Travel in Africa is about knowing when and where to go, and with whom. A few weeks too early/late or a few kilometres off course, and you could miss the greatest show on Earth. And wouldn’t that be a pity?
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Julia Migné is a multimedia journalist and wildlife photographer specialising in environmental issues. She has written for Africa Geographic and BBC Wildlife among others. An endless traveller, she swears that she would visit one country for each letter of the alphabet. She believes in constructive journalism and co-launched an international platform featuring positive and inspiring stories from across the world: 
Expedition leader Carla Geyser (founder of the 
Permanent crew member Yolande Kruger is extremely passionate about Africa, and serves as an executive board member of the 
Alison Westwood is a South African travel writer based in Cape Town. She’s written and photographed for magazines, travel websites and travel guides, and has recently co-authored a book about 
