The pandemic has seen a drastic decline in tourists visiting safari and game parks, but funding and conservation efforts are more critical today than ever before.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I wish to see all the rangers get back to work. These iconic animals need us to speak for them… we have to protect them for the next generation, but it’s hard. So many rangers have lost their jobs.”<cite>Leitah Mkhabela, of the all-female Black Mambas Anti-Poaching Unit</cite></blockquote>



As the sun sets resolutely over the Kruger National Park, South Africa’s famed wildlife reserve in the Limpopo province, rangers begin their evening patrols on game vehicles and on foot in areas frequented by poachers. And this long, dreary nocturnal expedition in the wild will continue into the wee hours.



As office-goers emptied out of the concrete jungles of the cities during the pandemic, in sharp contrast, these rangers soldiered on in their jobs preserving life in the wilderness.



The pandemic may have seen a drastic decline in their numbers worldwide, but their role is perhaps more critical than ever before.



In a time of a global pandemic that finds its origins in a zoonotic virus, conservation efforts are more important than ever to prevent future contagion from becoming a threat.



With many of the lodges in the 19,485km2 Kruger park struggling to achieve pre-pandemic tourist numbers, novel ways of funding must be found, or many people and animals who depend on the wildlife economy for survival will be without a future.



The rangers, who continue to be employed, count themselves lucky. Many of their colleagues were retrenched in the wake of the pandemic, or had to take hefty pay cuts.   



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;The pandemic took a lot of jobs [in conservation] away, and with it, people&#8217;s dignity. You have people selling their homes, their cars, just to survive.&#8221;<cite>Craig Spencer, former Head Warden of Balule Nature Reserve</cite></blockquote>



And this is a trend worldwide, not just in Africa.



With the spread of Covid-19 from early 2020, many countries took an understandably stringent approach to travel restrictions and lockdowns. In the absence of tested, available vaccines and lack of a clear understanding of the transmission and mortality of the deadly coronavirus, across the world, airports and borders were closed to non-essential travel, thus decimating world tourism numbers.



South Africa was affected too, as it entered a strict 21-day lockdown from March 26, 2020, barring all non-critical work, travel and business. The lockdown has been extended in differing levels until today.



It saw foreign arrivals into the country drop by 71% in comparison to 2019. With the tourism sector contributing almost 3% to the GDP and almost 4.5% of South African employment rates, the lockdowns took aim at the heart of livelihoods supported by the tourism sector – with the wildlife economy particularly hard-hit.



This impact is reflected across the continent as well as globally, with all 10 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries suffering at least a 65% decline in foreign tourists from 2019 to 2020 (Stats SA). According to papers published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which surveyed rangers and conservation efforts across 60 countries, a quarter of rangers saw their salaries reduced or delayed, and about 20% surveyed lost their jobs due to the pandemic, with African rangers some of the hardest hit. “We have not been able to get our usual donations and incomes for our work. Most people are sitting at home without incomes – and in the communities, when there is no money, there is no food. That’s where the poaching comes in,” says Leitah Mkabela, an anti-poaching ranger and team supervisor of the all-female Black Mambas Anti-Poaching Unit, to FORBES AFRICA.



The Black Mambas, one of South Africa’s most well-known ranger groups, has been one of the few that has managed to retain all of their staff. However, with budget and staffing cuts rife amongst most other ranger organizations and game reserve hospitality, the entire local economy that the reserves support have taken an economic knock that will take years to recover from. At the Balule Nature Reserve where the Black Mambas operate, the variety of lodges are the primary income for the reserve. Part of the Greater Kruger National Park Reserve, Balule is home to dozens of lodges which on average employ 3.5 people per bed, according to former Head Warden Craig Spencer, with the reserve generating an income in the millions of dollars a year, primarily from foreign tourists. The lodges employ almost exclusively from the local communities – with many having had to lay off staff due to the pandemic and recovery rates slow, people have become desperate. “Almost every aspect of conservation depends on the wildlife economy, be it entrance fees at lodges, funding from zoo visits, accommodation…&nbsp; The pandemic hit us very hard,” says Spencer in an interview with FORBES AFRICA. “The pandemic took a lot of jobs [in conservation] away, and with it, people’s dignity. You have people selling their homes, their cars, just to survive.”



Negative impacts due to the pandemic have also occurred at the policy level, which could have far-reaching implications for the wildlife economy, with funds being reallocated away from previous wildlife protection efforts or protection efforts being side-lined in order to stimulate economic growth in challenging times; one such example can be seen in Kenya, which has earmarked a new national roadway, a high-end restaurant and amphitheater within Nairobi National Park, despite reservations from local conservation groups, as documented by the IUCN. South Africa has largely managed to avoid similar challenges, with the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries retaining its $550 million budget for the 2020/2021 fiscal year – however, much of these funds have been allocated to make up for losses in the sector due to declining tourism. While the pandemic has offered a once-in-a-century challenge to the wildlife economy, there is, however, a glimmer of hope. As vaccination rates have increased worldwide, travel has tentatively risen as well. The South African National Parks are seeing increased numbers of attendees, and with the increases in tourism numbers come both community support initiatives and unique fundraisers to support wildlife initiatives. One fundraiser takes the form of the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, which aims to raise monies to support anti-poaching ranger operations by donating to rangers who will run a 21km race on August 21, 2021. With 150 ranger teams competing from across the continent, the competition has already raised several hundred thousand dollars so far. The funds will be used to provide salaries and support ranger services to many organizations. Many rangers have also initiated community assistance programs. The Mambas have provided food parcels for 90 desperate families throughout the lockdown, as well as begun to build community food gardens and opened boreholes during the pandemic, along with their anti-poaching duties. “The iconic animals need us – we have to speak for them. When we face the poachers, some might be from the community you’re coming from,” says Mkabela. “When people are struggling, they will take that bushmeat and sell it for maize meal. The food parcels, the gardens we build, we say ‘we are on your side’ – that’s how we’ve managed to keep the poaching down in our community.” “I think overall it has made the industry more resilient,” says Spencer. “The industry is surviving and growing closer bonds to their communities. We are all in this together.”

Alfred Dunhill Championship – Day One

Covid And Conservation – The Pandemic’s Effects On The Wildlife Economy In South Africa

The beasts and the drama of the African bush, far from the harsh lights of big city Johannesburg.  



<hr class="wp-block-separator"/>



There is a mystique about the African bush that enchants
visitors from all over the world. Some of them become so captivated they decide
to stay on, or return time and again. 



Even a born and bred African like me, albeit of European
descent, cannot say no to a few days of “bundu bashing”. There is nothing quite
like escaping the bumper-to-bumper traffic and constant hum of the big city, to
experience a range of smells as you move through the bush. The scent of the
long grass. The whiff from the marula trees. The odor of fresh dung. 



And at night, when you look up to the canopy of the sky, you
feel as though you could reach out and touch the stars. The Southern Cross.
Orion’s Belt. The river of the Milky Way. Venus, the morning and the evening
star. The red glint of Mars.



On the day our group arrives at the exclusive Sable Camp at
MalaMala within the larger Sabi Sands Game Reserve, which shares a 19-kilometer
open border with South Africa’s Kruger National Park, it is hot and humid. 



<div class="wp-block-image"><figure class="aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="932" height="617" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stai1.png.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40700" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stai1.png.png 932w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stai1.png-300x199.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stai1.png-600x397.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stai1.png-768x508.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 932px) 100vw, 932px" /><figcaption> Sabi Sands Game Reserve. Picture: Jill de Villiers</figcaption></figure></div>



On this day in the country’s Mpumalanga province, it hits 39
degrees. We settle in and get ready for the first game drive of our stay. 



We are here for the launch of a beautiful book by renowned
wildlife photographers Gerald Hinde and Will Taylor – both men with a deep love
for animals and African landscapes. We pile onto four game-viewing vehicles to
find and photograph the heroes and heroines of their book – The Big Seven:
Adventures in Search of Africa’s Iconic Species.



The roads are rough and rudimentary as we head into the bush, cameras with long lenses at hand. We drive along a river bed. As the sun moves slowly down towards the western horizon, its rays glint in the waves of green and yellow grass. The wheels skid in the white sand. We drive past a large bush and suddenly an elephant appears, tugging and tearing at the foliage. He looks at us and flaps his ears lazily. 



READ MORE | <a rel="noreferrer noopener" aria-label="In Search Of Africa’s Last Eden (opens in a new tab)" href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/travel/2019/03/25/in-search-of-africas-last-eden/" target="_blank">In Search Of Africa’s Last Eden</a>



A bit further on, after literally bashing through the bush,
off-road, we see her. Slinky and quiet, her pelt shines in the setting sun. The
lone female leopard looks at us with the disdain of a cat disturbed by
bothersome humans. She slinks through the bush as we follow her. Then she sits
perfectly still, slowly turning her head from side to side. 



As darkness settles, the vehicle lights come on and we head
back to the lodge. In an outdoor boma, tables are set up in the round, and a
five-star dinner is served under the expanse of the night sky. We are treated
like royalty by all of the staff of MalaMala. Most of them come from the
community that now owns the reserve, after the conclusion of a successful land
claim deal in 2014.&nbsp; 



The next day dawns. Overcast, with a soft, insistent rain.
The temperature has dropped 14 degrees. Donning rain ponchos, the group of
adventurers set forth on the morning game drive. The mission is to encounter
every one of the Big Seven. The traditional Big Five tourists flock to game
reserves to see are: elephant, lion, rhino, leopard and buffalo. Two more have
been added, both on the endangered list – the wild dog and cheetah. 



<figure class="wp-block-image"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="928" height="610" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stia2.png.png" alt="" class="wp-image-40701" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stia2.png.png 928w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stia2.png-300x197.png 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stia2.png-600x394.png 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/stia2.png-768x505.png 768w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 928px) 100vw, 928px" /><figcaption> Elephant at Sabi Sands Game Reserve. Picture: Jill de Villiers </figcaption></figure>



Just as humans are shy of rain, so are animals. They lie low
in the grass or huddle under trees where they can’t be seen. An hour or so into
the drive, the drizzle lifts and we see movement in the grass. 



A lioness lifts her head and looks at us. Slowly, slowly, one
lion after another stands up to look at the vehicles. There are, at least,
eight of them. They lose interest in us again, and stretch out on the ground. 



The time to leave comes far too soon. The quiet and beauty
of the bush have soaked into my soul and I feel completely at peace and one
with the sky and the grass and the trees and the animals and the river and the
world.&nbsp;

STIA

The Tableaux Of The Wild

With South Africa in the midst of its worst drought in more than two decades, a trip through the Kruger National Park is dusty and desolate. Areas of the park that were once lush are now withered; the watering holes are now cracked earth.
Driving through the park is like following a trail of death, with the sour smell of decomposing flesh. There are as many sightings of skulls and bones as there are herds of the park’s most abundant antelope, the impala.
It’s not as grim as it seems though. Izak Smit, a Systems Ecology scientist in the Kruger National Park, one of Africa’s largest nature reserves, says it helps the park’s ecosystem.
“These droughts have a natural regulatory role to play,” says Smit.
The current buffalo population is at its highest since the numbers were first counted in the 1960s, he says.
“The buffalo numbers can’t continue to increase forever. The numbers go up and then they go down. In wet years, people think the animals are doing great but some species suffer, like the predators, they find it harder to catch prey,” he says.
The lack of water also brings an evolutionary theory into play – the survival of the fittest.
“Your older individuals, your young individuals and the sickly individuals are the ones that are most affected. The healthier and stronger animals will survive longer. The animals that are the strongest will be able to best survive and they will carry the gene pool forward.”
Some animals seem to be thriving in the tough conditions. Vultures flock throughout the park, squabbling over the plentiful carcasses. The crocodiles that have managed to secure the few remaining pools in the Sabie River also seem gorged. A dead buffalo, floating in the water, was ignored by three of the red-toothed reptiles that were within meters of an easy meal.
As 100-meter-tall dust devils twist their way across the arid land, the animals jostle for shade under large trees that haven’t lost their leaves yet. At a lookout point at Mlondozi Dam, near the border with Mozambique, the riverbed was empty and the dam wall was exposed over the parched soil. Nearby, three hippos crammed in shallow water, which would probably dry up in a few days. With no other water sources nearby, the hippos were facing death.
Some have called for human intervention, saying the natural effects of the drought are felt more by the animals because of the unnatural barriers in their way – fences.
“We monitor the situation but there is very little intervention that can and should be done. We’re trying to manage for a healthy ecosystem, not for healthy animals. With the size of the park, interventions will be small-scale and might not achieve the desired effect. We need to allow nature to take its course,” says Smit.
The drought is the most severe South Africa has experienced since 1991/1992 and it could get worse.
“We are now in a dryer period compared to 1991 and 1992, so it seems that this drought is more severe than the previous one,” he says.
Smit says you can’t predict how long it will take for the area to recover.
“We’ll have to see how it plays out.”
The animals in the Kruger National Park hope its sooner rather than later.

Drought animal

‘We Need To Allow Nature To Take Its Course’

Diplomatic channels between South Africa and Mozambique have come alive with activity over the vexed question of rhino poaching. The poachers use Mozambique as a springboard for their deadly sorties across the border into the Kruger National Park. South Africa’s flagship reserve, with an estimated 12,000 rhinos, is one of the world’s great sanctuaries for the endangered species.
High-level meetings are scheduled between the conservation authorities of the two countries, to inspect conditions along the boundary where the incursions happen. This is a marked difference from the arms-length exchanges, since the outbreak of poaching three years ago.
Mozambique and Vietnam—the biggest suppliers, to Asia, of the highly prized rhino-horn powder—received stern criticism at the March meeting of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), in Bangkok, Thailand. The South African delegation pleaded for international assistance, in a motion adopted by the global assembly of conservationists. CITES asked Mozambique to explain its efforts to curb the poaching. It instructed the country to tighten its anti-poaching laws and to step up its enforcement against the poachers and smugglers.
The urgent need for closer cooperation between the countries was noted in a report by Mavuso Msimang, the rhinoceros conservation issue manager of South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs. The brief is to solicit the widest possible range of views on how to conserve and manage the endangered species.
In 1996, Msimang, a notable anti-apartheid campaigner, became the first black chief executive of South African National Parks (SANParks), which is a custodian of the country’s national reserves. He became known as ‘Mr Fix-it’ for the roles he played in diverse areas of government after he left SANParks.
Msimang canvassed opinions of everybody connected to rhinos and their conservation. The report he handed over, late last year, to the department’s minister, Edna Molewa, had,  inexplicably, not been made public by the time of the CITES meeting, though parts of it had been disclosed in increments.
He proposes the need for tougher and better coordinated security action between government agencies, ranging from more highly trained and well-equipped game rangers to the armed forces and even SARS (South African Revenue Service). His most contentious recommendation was that legal trade in rhino be allowed on a well-regulated basis, as a way of undercutting the lucrative black market.
He says that there is no silver bullet. The antidote to poaching needs to consist of a wide-ranging set of measures. One of these would have to be engagement with Mozambique over poaching incursions by way of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which the two countries and Zimbabwe established by treaty in 2003. The transfrontier agreements also need to be upgraded to provide for anti-poaching operations.
The crisis has shattered the dream, which was born in the era of South Africa’s Nelson Mandela and Mozambique’s Joaquim Chissano. It was a pact of supreme trust in which their two countries agreed to open their adjoining national parks, across national boundaries, to allow the animals wider roaming areas and to promote tourism. The arrangement was talked of as the world’s biggest animal kingdom and a jewel for global tourism.
Then the rhino poachers struck. In 2008, they killed what was then considered a worrisome 36 animals in the Kruger. Last year, the tally for the park stood at 425 of the 668 killed throughout the country. Within the first four months of this year, the national toll had exceeded 220.
Kruger’s rangers have received combat training and the police and army have been called in. Spotter planes have come into use, as have helicopters for rapid response. More and more, the fire-fights leave corpses behind. Within a short few years, this peace park, as transfrontier parks are called, has turned into a war zone.
David Mabunda, SANParks CEO, noted that 90% of the poachers come from Mozambique and that they were well-armed, with apparent military training.
“Many go back in body bags. Others get arrested. But they just keep coming,” he says.
South African public sentiment has started turning against the transfrontier scheme, especially as it involved dropping the old high-security fence that, during the border-war years, shielded the Kruger from Mozambique.
“There will be no other way [than putting up the fence] if the relentless incursions of poachers from Mozambique continue,” says Mabunda.
The fears for the scheme were evident from Werner Myburgh—CEO of the Peace Parks Foundation, that Afrikaner industrialist and conservationist Anton Rupert set up in 1997, with Mandela and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands as its patrons.
“It would spell the end of the scheme,” he says.
Big donors, among them the German and French governments, would lose faith and funding, for the Mozambican part of the project in particular, would dry up. Around 6,000 people from Mozambique’s adjacent Limpopo Park, a million hectare tract of land that the Chissano government turned into a reserve for the specific purpose of the transfrontier project, would have to be relocated. Last year, these villagers agreed, after years of excruciating negotiations, to move to host villages outside the park. This would serve anti-poaching operations by making it impossible for the poachers to use the villages as hiding places.
The fear is that reconstruction of the fence would create the impression that the reserve scheme is collapsing and that this would not only jeopardize the translocation, but cause more people to move into the park. This could worsen the poaching problem rather than resolve it.
Myburgh insists that it is, therefore, for the sake of the rhinos that the fence should stay down and that the transfrontier scheme should be pursued with greater vigor. The treaty provides for a joint security committee which, if functioning properly, should serve as a perfect agency for sharing information and running joint anti-poaching operations.

Tag: Kruger National Park

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Covid And Conservation – The Pandemic’s Effects On The Wildlife Economy In South Africa

The Tableaux Of The Wild

‘We Need To Allow Nature To Take Its Course’

A Deadly War Shatters The Peace Park