26 elephants from Namibia moved to Angola’s only private conservation area
26 elephants from Namibia moved to Angola’s only private conservation area
Jim Tan, Mongabay
October 7, 2024
See link
https://news.mongabay.com/2024/10/26-elephants-from-namibia-moved-to-angolas-only-private-conservation-area/for
photos.
On Sept. 2, a team from Namibia’s Okonjati Game Reserve completed the last
of four arduous translocations, taking a total of 26 elephants across the
border to Cuatir Conservation Area in Angola.
The 200-square-kilometer (77-square-mile) Cuatir Conservation Area, set up
by Namibian-born conservationist Stefan van Wyk, is possibly the only
private conservation area currently in Angola.
“I think Stefan is creating something new in Angola,” says Miguel Xavier,
director of Angola’s National Institute for Biodiversity and Protected
Areas (INBAC). “We don’t have this kind of structure in Angola, personally,
I think it’s a good opportunity.”
The conservation and ecotourism potential of southeastern Angola has been
an increasingly hot topic in recent years among conservationists looking to
create space for wildlife, and among Angolan leaders peering across the
border at the tourism dollars pouring into Botswana’s Okavango Delta.
Wildlife populations in the vast Cuando Cubango province in southeastern
Angola were decimated during the nation’s 27-year civil war. Since the war,
which ended in 2002, the province has remained sparsely populated, in large
part due to poor access; the 360-kilometer (220-mile) journey from Mavinga
to the provincial capital of Menongue often takes well over 12 hours in a
six-wheel truck. Southeastern Angola offers a rare opportunity of available
space for wildlife in an increasingly crowded world.
Private conservation areas are a common feature in other Southern African
countries. One study found that private conservation areas in South Africa
provide an effective addition to state-run national parks to help conserve
biodiversity. In neighboring Namibia, the Ministry of Environment and
Tourism’s register of private game reserves includes 153 private game
reserves covering 13,116 km2 (5,064 mi2). But a study of the list found at
least an additional eight unregistered private reserves totaling 5,470 km2
(2,112 mi2).
So far, despite considerable rhetoric around the conservation potential of
the region, little concrete progress has been made on the ground. Mavinga
and Luengue-Luiana national parks in southeastern Angola remain largely
theoretical concepts, with little infrastructure on the ground.
“There’s a whole lot of spin-off values over and above just having a couple
of these elephants [in Cuatir],” says John Mendhelson, a Namibian
conservation who has worked extensively in Angola. “Making people aware of
the value of private investment, the value of somebody with the gumption to
do this kind of thing.”
Van Wyk’s project at Cuatir began when he flew over the land in January
2013 and saw a large area near the Okavango River with no settlements
nearby.
“I rented a helicopter, and I went there and then I saw these big antelope
tracks and I knew, OK, there’s life there,” he says.
With a long history of working in Angola, van Wyk was able to secure a
60-year lease on the land and began building the infrastructure of what is
today Cuatir Conservation Area. It was five years before he saw any of the
roan antelope (Hippotragus equinus) that lived on the land in the flesh.
“They went nocturnal after all the other animals got killed in the war
years,” van Wyk says. “It took many, many years for them to come out and
show their faces.”
Over the years, van Wyk has brought more animals in while others have
naturally returned, and Cuatir is now one of the few places in southeastern
Angola where wildlife can be easily found — now including elephants
(Loxodonta africana).
Alex Oelofse, owner of the Okonjati reserve in Namibia where the elephants
came from, says the number of jumbos on his reserve was more than double
what it should have been prior to the translocation. This was exacerbated
by an extended period of drought between 2013 to 2019. And, because
Okonjati is a fenced reserve, its elephants don’t have the option of
naturally migrating elsewhere when conditions deteriorate.
“At some point, you need to make the decision, how are you going to manage
the herd before they destroy everything?” Oelofse says. “Very fortunately,
Stefan was looking for elephants.”
Namibia is not the only one of Angola’s neighbors where elephant
populations in some areas are now seen as a problem; Botswana’s president
has been outspoken about the impact of human-wildlife conflict in his
country. One of the hopes for the Kavango-Zambezi Conservation Area that
straddles the border region of Namibia, Angola, Botswana, Zambia and
Zimbabwe was that restoring elephants’ old migration routes across borders
would alleviate pressure in areas such as northern Botswana. For this to
become a reality, Angola’s southeastern parks will need to be better
equipped to protect elephants from poachers entering from Zambia, as well
as have infrastructure in place to generate revenue from tourism.
In the meantime, Cuatir Conservation Area stands as an example of an
alternative approach for conservation in Angola.
“The most amazing part about southeast Angola where Stefan is now is that
there’s so few people,” Oelofse says. “If the government approaches it
right and brings the private sector in and can show the locals living there
that they can earn a very decent income from tourism and by protecting
wildlife, you could turn that whole area into something amazing.”