Africa, part 2: Conflict and conservation
Tanzania focuses on reducing the risks of living alongside wildlife, while preserving threatened species
This is the second in a two-part series.
Everyone loves elephants — everyone except farmers living next to national parks and game reserves in Africa. There, a war is waged daily against the cropraiding pachyderms that like to eat some of the same food as humans including watermelon, corn, potatoes and beans.
It is estimated they damage 569 hectares each year.
“Herds can be as large as 80 animals so they can eat a family’s entire supply of crops,” says Filbert Ludovick. “The families are very poor, so it’s a big problem.”
My husband and I are in Tanzania on a 12-day National Geographic Journey with G Adventures, and Ludovick is our guide. In addition to going on numerous wildlife drives in some of the more famous as well as underexplored parks and reserves, there is an educational component, including a lecture on research projects at the Serengeti Wildlife Research Centre.
There, Kwaslema Malle, a specialist in human/wildlife interaction, tells us about human/elephant conflict, especially in villages located within a few kilometres of a protected area. Elephants damage crops and infrastructure such as water tanks and buildings, block people from accessing firewood, schools and stores — and sometimes, they attack.
“People gather firewood from the forest to cook and children walk for kilometres to get to school. It can be risky,” Malle says.
To protect themselves and their crops, villagers will sometimes kill the elephants.
This is one of the reasons the country’s elephant population has dropped dramatically, from 109,051 in 2009 to 42,871 in 2014 (a census is underway to update that number). Other reasons include loss of habitat, pesticide use, trophy hunting and ivory poaching.
In an effort to reduce conflict, the centre has been conducting research on best practices. Traditional techniques to try to scare elephants away include making noise, and using fire and smoke.
“Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t,” Malle says.
One initiative proving effective involves bees. Boxes with hives inside are hung from posts around the perimeters of farms and when an elephant touches one, the bees buzz, resulting in the elephant trumpeting an alarm call and the herd running away. This strategy has a second advantage — the honey can be harvested and sold.
Another initiative involves chili peppers. Elephants don’t like the smell, so farmers put rope soaked in chili oil around their properties. However, it is tedious work and only lasts about a month in the dry season and seven days in the rainy season.
“We are also experimenting with electric fencing powered by solar energy, but it is expensive,” Malle says. “And we are trying to educate people about which crops to grow that won’t attract elephants and to encourage them to live at least 5 km from a park.
“Overall, we need community involvement and acceptance.”
The thought of these majestic creatures no longer roaming this earth is heart-wrenching, so learning that Tanzania is working on solutions is encouraging, as is seeing lots of elephants on our remaining game drives.
After the Serengeti we head to the Ngorongoro Crater, which spans 260 sq. km and was created when a volcano exploded and collapsed in on itself some three million years ago.
We are hoping to see one of the 26 endangered black rhinos that call the area home, but they remain elusive. Despite this, there is lots to gawk at including flamingos, hyenas, buffalo and lions.
The second half of our journey takes us south to Ruaha National Park, Tanzania’s largest and one of its most remote. We stay at the Ruaha River Lodge in a stone chalet that overlooks the river and spend hours watching baboons, elephants and giraffe from
our veranda. Early one morning I hear thudding footsteps outside and then a huge splash. I dash from my bed to a window in time to see a hippo wading upstream. The next day a giraffe, perhaps intrigued by my bright fuchsia shirt, clops through the water, stopping mere metres away. We become statues, barely breathing, as he gazes at us, and us at him.
On our game drives we travel along the park’s rugged terrain, which changes from forests and woodland to rocky escarpments. It is teeming with wildlife, and one day we see more than 100 elephants, with one herd digging metre-deep holes in a sandy riverbed to get cold water.
Ludovick points out a giraffe that has spots “like burnt popcorn,” two bushbucks with “satellite ears” and a colourful saddle-billed stork, one of the tallest in the world at 1.5 m.
We laugh when he calls a group of bachelor impalas “losers” because they don’t have a harem, and cross our fingers when our driver sees footprints of a leopard and her cubs.
We never find them but do come across a herd of African buffalo that stampede up a hill, some snorting and turning aggressively.
That evening Ludovick tells us about the Ruaha Carnivore Project, which is helping to develop conservation strategies.
“Ruaha has some of the most valuable large carnivore populations left in the world,” he says, “including large cheetah and leopard populations, the second most lions and the third biggest wild dog population.”
However, even in this remote wilderness they are threatened by many factors — including conflict with local people. The project’s goals are to gather data on carnivore numbers and ecology in order to help develop effective conservation strategies, and to work more closely with communities to reduce conflict.
“Lions have had 80 per cent of their range reduced and there are only 24,000 left in the world,” Ludovick says. “We need to change the attitudes of people.”
Our final two days are spent in the Selous Game Reserve, called a hidden gem because of its remote location. Sadly, hunting is still allowed in most of the park, with only eight per cent reserved for photographic tourism.
We stay at the Rufiji River Camp and go on a sunset boat tour, viewing hippos and Nile crocodiles by the dozens.
That night I am woken by something crashing through the underbrush near our tent, branches snapping. I hear the grunting of hippos in the river, and worry one of them is foraging a few metres away. Although the tent is on a platform, the fact that the hippo is the world’s deadliest large land mammal has me on edge.
In the morning Ludovick, who was in the next tent over, informs me that it was just a giraffe getting a midnight snack. Whew!
He says Selous has been playfully nicknamed Giraffic Park because of its large giraffe population, and on our game drive we see one, then two, then 20. We also see more crocs and hippos in a gorgeous lake and palm tree setting, along with lions, yellow baboons, zebras, antelopes and gazelles.
On our final day we roll out of bed early and go on a guided walk, the only time we are accompanied by an armed conservation officer. We are warned to avoid running if we see a lion, as that would trigger its predator/ prey response, and not to move at all if we see an elephant.
On the walk we are shown elephant footprints the size of serving trays, an aardvark’s burrow, a giraffe skull and hippo bones. Baboons cross our path, warthogs scurry off and giraffes eye us warily.
“That was lovely,” Ludovick says, summing up the walk and the entire trip, and we nod in agreement.