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Challenges
31 October 2009
Climate change, global economic recession, swine flu, impending water shortages, aggressive and ruthless religous intolerance - the world seems to be becoming an increasingly dangerous place. It also appears to be a planet that is being pushed into unexpected changes in the very environment that supports life in its many forms.
We are bombarded with a miraid of solutions that all seem to require immediate implementation if Mankind is to survive. Yet so many of these solutions seem to address the symptoms rather than the underlying cause. When did you last hear the term "human population explosion" or hear someone suggest that the human population should consider controlling its own growth rate or, worst of all, consider curbing its rate of consumption?
The truth is that all the problems we currently face as a planet have some cause in the fact that there are just to many people for the resources and planetary ecosystem to sustain. I wonder what it is that makes us so arrogant and demanding, yet need to be so politically correct, that we seem to be ignoring such a fundamental issue?
I do not have the answers but I do believe that the size of the human population, its current growth rate and consumption patterns are central to the future survival of Homo sapiens and to a host of other species. We do not have the right to ignore it.
DP
London
9 October 2009
This afternoon I was part of a discussion on finding international investment into wildlife conservation and safari tourism in Zimbabwe. With me were Clive Stockil, Chairman of the Save Valley Conservancy, and Ed Butler and Alexandra Dixon from Corporates for Crisis based in London. We had the pleasure of conducting our discussions in the wonderful surroundings at Chilo Lodge overlooking the Save River and the Gonarezhou National Park.
Unbeknown to us, at the same time, an unstoppable bush fire was roaring on a hot, October wind through the Senuko Safari Lodge owned by Clive in the Save Valley Conservancy. Set by poachers from the villages that have invaded the Conservancy, the destruction of much of the Lodge is yet another manifestation of the chaotic situation created by the Zimbabwe politics.
The discussions became even more sober and the questions of how to source investment to protect the Zimbabwe environment and to re-build a shattered economy, including the tourism industry, became even more urgent - and vexing. There are no easy answers. Moral and practical issues complicate all options and the risks are high.
However, I believe that the programme incorporated in the establishment of the Leadwood Institute Trust is one small part of the solution. Through the LIT programme we can work at grass-roots level to conserve the environment and develop locally viable economies. We can also help create a tourism business investment climate, by working with committed rural communities, that minmises the risk of central government interference. That fire has grabbed our attention and focused our efforts.
DP
Chilo Lodge, Mahenye
13 July 2009
It has been widely reported in the local and international media that poaching of rhino for horn has escalated rapidly in the last year - to the point where southern Africa is losing more than 12 per month. Demands for ever more anti-poaching resources are justified but the anti-poaching results are frequently not as effective in the long term as one would hope. High level political involvement and corruption are often cited as the primary reasons for the inability to halt the slide to extinction.
However, I am more and more convinced that if we do not find a way to manage the trade and produce controlled supplies of rhino horn that the rhino is a lost cause. We do need more policing resources but, most importantly, we need to give the people who have to do the poaching on the ground an economic stake in the animals. In other words, give them the chance to "own" and produce a high value, sustainable product - rhino horn - and to have a stake in the tourism business that their animals generate. The non-lethal, and thus sustainable, production of rhino horn can do just that. Rowen Martin, a well-known Zimbabwe ecologist, has developed a very plausible analysis that shows how it can be done.
Attempting to change a culture that is thousands of years old and relatively unaware of the current consequences of their demand is futile. Both the Oriental medicinal demand and the demand from the Yemen for dagger handles are potentially manageable. We need to engage with the governments of these purchasing / user countries to develop and mutually regulated trade. It will not stop all the poaching but it will change the whole dynamic and bring thousands of rural people living with or near rhinos into the "conservation" fold.
DP
KwaZulu Natal
3rd July 2009
Elephant in the Gratearter Limpopo Trans Frontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA)
Elephant are possibly the most evocative wild animal species in Africa. They are large, very large, with feeding habits to match. Critical elements in the ecology of the African savannahs and forests, elephants have the ability to radically alter habitats and the manner in which ecosystems function. When elephants occur in high densities these changes can be rapid and the effects unpredictable. Often these changes in habitat result in changes in animal species populations - detrimental to some and helpful to others.
The causes of the high densities in many protected areas in southern Africa are related to restrictions on the area available to elephant and their relatively high population growth rates. These restrictions could be fences, people occupying land or management techniques such as the provision of artificial water points.
Controversy rages around the "Elephant Question" along the lines of whether to manage or not; how to manage and whether elephant should be treated any differently to other animal, or even plant, species.
The advent of the TFCA concept has given scientists, and other concerned conservationists, the opportunity to answer some of the questions by providing vastly expanded range for the movement of elephants. Within these areas a number of possible self-regulating, population control mechanisms could come into play.
The diverse theories on elephant population dynamics and management need factual and valid information to test them. As was reported below, one of a number of studies doing just that has begun in the Gonarezhou National Park which forms the northern sector of the GLTFCA.
For three days from the 12th July a team, headed by Hugo van der Westhuizen from Frankfurt Zoological Society, captured and collared eight elephant in three areas of the Park. The operation was successful - no casualties and all collars are functioning.
The latter stage of the collaring exercise was joined by Kingsley Holgate and his Boundless Southern Africa Expedition. Boundless is an initiative of all the countries involved in the TFCA Programme to promote the concept and develop the tourism that will sustain it.
Kingsley's Expedition is bringing the concept to both the wider international audience and to the rural communities through which it passes. As a contribution to these communities the Expedition is using the promotion of art (school competitions); the promotion of health (distribution of mosquito nets and Aids Awareness material) and the promotion of sport (establishment of fields and distribution of soccer balls and netballs) to stimulate their participation in TFCA development.
DP
Gonarezhou National Park
8th May 2009
Elephant Management Research
There are few things that will dry your mouth quicker than a Gonarezhou elephant - head down, trunk curled and squealing loudly as it thunders toward you in a fast moving, angry cloud of dust - with every intention of doing damage.
Despite their reputation for a foul temperament, the elephant of Gonarezhou have a legitimate reason for their mistrust of Man. Hunted and hounded for as long as the oldest matriarchs memory, they pass on their fear to each generation and continue to ensure that all of us privileged to visit and work in the Gonarezhou, never lose our respect.
It is, therefore, particularly gratifying to see what promises to be a definitive and ground breaking investigation into their movement patterns and habitat utilisation come to fruition. Two cooperative studies, one based in northern Kruger National Park and another in the Gonarezhou National Park, will collar 16 elephant with satellite tracking devices during 2009. Funded by Frankfurt Zoological Society, Wilderness Wildlife Trust and Sindisa the project will run over the next three years and will cover Zimbabwe, South Africa and Mozambique. The aims are to identify elephant behaviour that will influence the planning and development of the Greater Limpopo Trans Frontier Conservation Area, and provide insights into population management options when elephant have substantially increased areas over which to roam than they have had in over a century.
Richard Worrall and Rupert Kelton have been instrumental in raising the Sindisa contribution to this project with their Tracks2Africa Expedition. They will be joining the capture and collaring exercise which is planned to begin in mid-July in the Gonarezhou NP.
DP
Save Valley Conservancy
2nd January 2009
New Year Greetings
To all who are reading this and to all those who have given their support to the Sindisa Foundation and to the people and projects we have been privileged to work with during 2008, may the New Year see you successfully pursue your aspirations and dreams. In doing so, may we all do something to make this World a better place for all the Life that inhabits it.
DP
KwaZulu Natal
1st January 2009
Challenges
The New Year brings renewed hope but in a volatile World that hope comes with immense challenges. In our small corner, the Zimbabwe situation has deteriorated beyond belief both on the humanitarian and environmental front. The absurdity of the politics and the shameful inability of African States to confront the obvious needs of the country, leaves us all having to devise innovative strategies to support the conservation of the natural enviroment and its wildlife and the development of rural communities.
Now is not the time to stand back. Now is the time to find a way, without supporting the cause of the problem. Those who have been working all these years to ensure the survival of a once thrivings wildlife resource and the prosperous tourism industry that it supported, deserve our committed support. That is the challenge of 2009.
DP
Kwazulu Natal
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