by Mary Adams, AWC The Hague and Human Rights co-chair
I recently went on safari in the Balule Nature Reserve in South Africa. This reserve was created in the 1990s by private landowners to create a larger, open system for animals to move freely. In 2004, along with other privately owned reserves, Balule was incorporated into Greater Kruger National Park (GKNP). The “Greater Kruger” refers to 860,000 acres of protected land to the west of Kruger Park and provides a substantial area for wildlife to roam freely. That means it is essential that levels of flora and fauna be sustained for a diversified wildlife population.
My safari trip was in September 2024, during Southern Africa’s worst drought in 100 years. This drought was caused by El Nino, when an abnormal warming of the waters in the eastern Pacific changes world weather patterns, and higher average temperatures are produced by greenhouse gas emissions.1 The landscape that I saw from the back of the safari jeep was an environmental war zone of uprooted, broken and ring-barked trees, dead wood, and very few tall trees. It was like watching a forest slowly become a burnt, brown grassland.
Drought seriously threatens species such as rhinos, lions and elephants and reduces the amount of food available. The African Elephant is the world’s largest land mammal, weighing up to 7 tonnes. An elephant’s daily intake is 600 pounds of food. Elephants eat grasses and leafy material from trees and shrubs. They strip bark from trees, push over large trees to eat the nutrients in the roots, and break branches to get at leaves. This provides them with sustenance but also plays a vital role in maintaining the ecosystem’s balance. By controlling the growth of certain plant species, elephants prevent overgrazing and promote biodiversity by allowing other vegetation to flourish. Large trees also have important ecosystem functions and play a significant role in cycling of nutrients, providing food and shelter as well as nesting sites for vultures and raptors.
Unlike many endangered populations in Africa, elephants in GKNP are growing at a rapid rate. GKNP’s current census is 30,000 elephants “With a natural growth rate of 6–8 percent a year, the population currently has the potential to double their numbers every decade,” said Dr Hector Magome, Conservation Services Director of South African National Parks (SANParks), the government department responsible for managing the country’s 22 national parks. In other words, Kruger National Park doesn’t seem big enough to accommodate their growing elephant population. The result is that the benefits of elephants opening up the dense bush is slowly turning into habitat degradation. This raises a dilemma about elephants as an endangered species and their role in preserving biodiversity juxtaposed against the need to preserve large trees as Africa’s natural landscape.
In Namibia’s north-eastern Caprivi Strip, where Angola, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe all meet, there are thousands of elephants crossing borders at any given time. In northern Botswana alone there are an estimated 100,000-plus elephants growing at a rate of 5 percent a year, and they are damaging the vegetation in protected areas such as Chobe National Park at a record pac. Elephant numbers in this part of southern Africa far exceed the population in Kruger. Given today’s land distribution, the challenge is to find solutions which enable large trees and elephants to both coexist and thrive.
Click here for a short video of an elephant in action.
These are some of the complexities discussed at length in African conservation circles. The issue is that there isn’t a single successful method or solution that will work in every environment or protected area. The areas covered are simply too diverse, and more often than not, there isn’t enough financial support available. “Our obligation is to manage and conserve biodiversity,” remarked Dr Magome. “We have to do something to manage the situation, both for the ecosystem, the people who live near the park and for those who visit it.” This challenge of protecting large trees requires careful research and the input of elephant management in national parks and private reserves, environmental conservationists, biodiversity experts, civil society and academic research.
As my safari jeep bounced over the sandy roads and zigzagged through the ragged bush, we had a lot of elephant sightings. They are majestic and intelligent animals. We spotted raptors and vultures sitting atop trees, hunting and nesting. Often we get caught up in the excitement of a game drive and forget that when we leave, wildlife management issues must be addressed to ensure that our next safari is an enriching experience. As ecotourists, we need to educate ourselves.
- Footnotes:
- 1 Nearly 68 million suffering from drought in Southern Africa, says regional bloc | Reuters
- Sources:
- The elephants of the Kruger and Greater Kruger - has the bell tolled? | Kruger2Canyon
- A numbers game: Managing elephants in southern Africa | WWF
- For additional information:
- To learn about mitigation methods, check this study from Elephants Alive, an organization that ensures the survival of elephants using science-based solutions.
- Ecosystem engineers—the elephant’s role in the climate crisis | International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW)
- About Elephants | Save the Elephants
All photos and videos courtesy of the author.
