Why mining at Mapungubwe must be stopped…

This is the first time on my blog that I have used another person’s photography but those of you who have visited this site before will know how strongly I feel about plans to mine coal near to the wonderfully unique Mapungubwe National Park and World Heritage Site. This female leopard was found on the main road outside Mapungubwe National Park by carnivore researcher Wendy Collinson. Wendy is currently monitoring wildlife casualties on the road network surrounding Mapungubwe National Park and the De Beers Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve. The road network cuts through the proposed Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area and serves border posts with both Botswana and Zimbabwe, and so an increase in disturbance by non tourism or conservation related traffic to and from the proposed Vele colliery would be hugely detrimental to the region’s sensitive wildlife.

Wendy has yet to confirm whether the leopard hit on the R572 road is a beautiful female known to researchers as Leila. Leila was fitted with a GPS collar so that her movements could be monitored in an area where predator conflicts with farmers are common but the carcass found had no tracking collar.

South Africa’s self-governing environmental guardians the Green Scorpions swooped on the colliery site recently, gathering evidence that mining company Coal of Africa Ltd had acted outside of the legal permissions granted earlier this year. It’s hoped that current investigations by the environmental department will provide a lifeline for this awe inspiring and culturally significant landscape.

Visit my main website at www.conservationphotojournalism.com

Making money, not sense

I mentioned in a previous thread that South Africa’s Mapungubwe Cultural Landscape is under threat from a coal mining application. This week, the fight intensified to stop construction of an opencast and underground mine just six kilometres from the boundary of the Mapungubwe National Park with a host of non-governmental organisations appealing against developments in the process, including the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT), World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Birdlife, the Peace Parks Foundation, the Association of South African Professional Archaeologists, the Mapungubwe Action Group and the Wilderness Foundation South Africa.

Australian-based Coal of Africa Limited (CoAL) was recently granted the go-ahead to commence with the construction of the coal mine yet serious questions are being asked about the integrity and validity of the Environmental Management Plan (EMP) submitted by CoAL. The appeal details many specific concerns with the EMP, particularly how it misrepresents the consequences of mining in the area. Take a look for yourself, even to an untrained eye it is clear to see which side of the EMP’s bread is buttered.

I hope that I am wrong but I can’t help but feel this is all too little too late however. The load shedding which has afflicted South Africa in recent years has been due to a serious shortage in the country’s electricity supply. Desperate to avoid a repeat of such a ridiculous, embarrassing and shambolic situation in the future, the government was never likely to turn down a coal mining application with stocks running so low. The crippling transport strike which has damaged South Africa’s industries recently has also affected coal exports, mainly to India and China. With the government struggling to hit its coal export targets and pay for the country’s pre-world cup face-lift, the promise of a shiny new coal mine was never likely to be ignored.

The moral of the story? Never forget where you’ve come from. Mapungubwe is rightly celebrated as a great Southern African civilisation, the very place where kingdomship started in Southern Africa and a state that had vast trading links to East Africa and the Arab world. How ironic that it is the country’s modern day trade links that threaten to destroy and devalue that legacy.

Visit my main website at www.conservationphotojournalism.com

Underdogs on show at Mountainfilm Festival

A portfolio of twelve shots from my African Wild Dog project Underdogs has been selected to be shown at the annual Mountainfilm Festival in Telluride, Colorado on the weekend of the 29th of May. The selection of photographs was chosen by the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) to appear at the event alongside work by other conservation photographers. All work featured at ILCP’s 12Shots Reception at The Bubble Lounge encompasses the theme of ‘extinction’.

It’s hugely inspiring to have this body of work chosen under the banner of the ILCP, a non-profit organisation that works to further environmental and cultural conservation through ethical photography, especially at a time when I’m working hard at the back end of the Underdogs project to achieve its potential and justify the thousands of images taken, miles travelled and countless hours in front of my computer.

Visit my main website at www.conservationphotojournalism.com

Wild or painted…your call

The African wild dog is known by several names in just the English language. One of the more common alternatives is the name ‘painted dog’, which is more in line with the species’ scientific name. The name ‘painted dog’ is championed by many key conservationists including Greg Rasmussen, the director of Painted Dog Conservation, on the grounds that the name ‘wild dog’ evokes sentiments of rabid or feral dogs. Popular blogger retrieverman gives some thorough insight into this issue on his blog and argues that the name of this charismatic canid wouldn’t be such a moot point if the species wasn’t so seriously endangered and in need of some positive PR and rebranding.

Lycaon pictus, to be diplomatic, lives in a continent where it vies for the limelight with other big brand carnivores like lions and leopards and is all too often overlooked by game reserve managers and tourists on safari, not to mention persecuted by farmers. Does the very name ‘African wild dog’ make you think of some feral demon that preys on a farmer’s livelihood and threatens our safety. Does the name jeopardise the conservation push to save the species from sliding further toward extinction? Or does it evoke thoughts of the true African wilderness?

Let me know your thoughts…

Circles of death

Poaching is one of those topics that wherever you go it is bound to draw debate – often controversial, sometimes heated but never dull. It’s a topic that I feel strongly about even though it’s often hard to form clearly-defined principles. The news of the choice to award Swazi environmentalist Thuli Mahama the Goldman Environmental Prize highlights some of the issues that make poaching a polarised and murky topic.

On paper, the recognition of the work of Mahama is a victory for common sense. After all, many of the fat cats, officials and game reserve employees that get caught poaching the animals that they are charged to protect often get off scott-free. All the while, the desperate rural villager poaching meat to feed his starving family is hit so hard with the heavy hand of the law that it often costs them their lives. And this is what Mahama has been fighting for – an end to the violent anti-poaching tactics that leads to suspected poachers being hunted down, killed or beaten. She wants to see poachers prosecuted through the correct legal channels.

Like I said, on paper the theory is noble. If the work of people like Mahama can ensure that all poachers are treated equally and convicted, no matter what their status, then it will be a victory for conservation. However, out on Africa’s plains of reality, just as in other parts of the world, the situation is much less clear-cut. Poachers are often armed, sometimes set booby traps and more often than not work in groups. As a result, plenty of game rangers and anti-poaching scouts are killed by poachers every year.

Let us assume that arrests are made – this does not always end in a prosecution or even result in a poacher being deterred from crossing that line again in the future. The late Bruce Bryden, former chief ranger in South Africa’s Kruger National Park, recalls how his successful arrest of a gang of poachers from Mozambique turned sour. The group were simply released from custody on the grounds that they were all high-ranking police or security officials.

One of the most difficult areas to draw judgement on is the issue of dealing with the hungry subsistence poacher who is out to catch an impala for his family compared to dealing with the poacher who is looking to pocket cash in return for rhino horn, ivory or tiger bone. It is the latter that attracts the scorn of the media (and rightly so when their quarries are the critically endangered) while the simple hunter-gatherer often attracts pity.

Mahama points out that the poaching carried out by the hungry rural villager is ‘nothing more than the odd killing of an antelope or warthog’ but while that may be their intent, the method of setting dozens of wire snares also leads to the maiming or slow and painful death of countless other species that the hunter-gatherer has no interest in eating. As a result, this ‘subsistence’ poaching can have a greater negative affect on the overall biodiversity of an area through this kind of secondary impact.

But we can’t afford to sit back and compare how or why animals are poached or what a poacher’s intent may be. We are losing too many species and habitats at such an alarming rate…and in a year when we are supposed to be celebrating biodiversity! Yes, poachers do need to be dealt with through the legal processes championed by Mahama but at a time when rhino poaching is on the increase again we also need to look broader toward the issues of security, demand and trade. As chief executive of SANParks Dr David Mabunda recently said:

No matter how hard we try to reduce or stamp out this inferno, the solution will come from…taking the war to the “Armani-suits and silk tie” clad rhino dealers and reduce the demand in South East Asia through international interventions driven by CITES.

In reality, it’s a multi-tiered offensive that nations need to invest in when it comes to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Japan later this year. Greater legal protection of wildlife and a crack-down on trade will no doubt be discussed but, on the ground, better protection of endangered species and habitats is a necessity. That includes more anti-poaching patrols in sensitive areas, better fences along human-wildlife conflict boundaries and certainly a better deal for the army of grossly underpaid yet committed game rangers and scouts whose difficult and dangerous job it is to protect our natural wealth. No longer can we sit back and expect someone to be a guardian of an endangered species on a pitiful salary when if it wasn’t for their devotion they could be earning far more money illegally plundering that same species.

Visit my main website at www.conservationphotojournalism.com

Land of giants

The recent storms in South Africa’s northern Limpopo Province may have been big but they measure up against the region’s landscapes and wildlife. From its trees to its birds, mammals and the river itself, the valley of the great Limpopo River is a land of giants!

The vast landscapes of this place near where South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana meet are dominated by baobabs. These colossal trees support a whole community of wildlife – elephants eat the bark, bats feed on the nectar of the flowers (and in turn pollinate them) and barn owls roost and nest in holes in their large boughs. Many particularly large trees still bear the pegs that allowed humans to climb up and collect rain water collected in troughs in the boughs. In such a hot climate in a place where ground water will have been shared with wild animals, this would have been a vital source of fresh water…if you can reach it.

During the dry winter months, large herds of elephants move into the valley from dryer areas over the river in Botswana. The riverine forest comes alive with a mass of grey bodies shepherding their youngsters and hoovering-up vegetation and the remaining water.

Herds of eland, Africa’s largest antelope, also roam the plains of the valley. Like in much of their range, black rhino’s are here but they are hard to see. The larger and more common white rhino has become synonymous with the Limpopo valley since the discovery in 1932 of a little golden rhino at the World Heritage Site at Mapungubwe.

Even the birds here are big enough to make small children and dog owners feel wary. Black eagles rule by day, surveying the land for their quarry from a perch high up on a sandstone cliff or by soaring the thermals on huge wings. The floodplains are home to marauding secretarybirds, storks, ground hornbills and kori bustards, the heaviest flying bird in the world, while the night is owned by owls. The elusive and sought-after Pel’s fishing owl uses the large trees lining the river to roost in by day and hunt from by night. Also in the riverine bush, hunting silently on a two-metre wingspan in almost complete darkness, the giant (or Verreaux’s) eagle owl hawks for birds and small mammals.

But as rich in wildlife and archaeology as this valley is, it is a landscape under threat. If proposed coal mining in the area is allowed to go ahead, pollution is not only likely to threaten the local ecosystem but important sites further down the Limpopo River system in the Kruger National Park and Mozambique as well.

Plans for the mine at Vele, just six kilometres east of the Mapungubwe World Heritage Site, also threaten to derail proposals for a major transfrontier conservation area between South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, a scheme committed to by the government. The Endangered Wildlife Trust and BirdLife South Africa are just two of the many organisations fighting the mining application. And while no-one can be certain what either the short-term or lasting affects of the mine will be on this overlooked and sacred corner of South Africa, with so much to experience in this land of giants, my advice is to go there and to go there now!

Visit my main website at www.conservationphotojournalism.com

The translocation of Rory

As the son of Stellar, the charismatic alpha female Wild Dog on South Africa’s Venetia Limpopo Nature Reserve, Rory has come from good stock. The problem is that following the unexpected deaths of the two other males in his pack, Abel and Baker, Rory recently became the only possible mate if his mother Stellar was to bear a litter of pups again.

With just a few hundred African Wild Dogs left in South Africa, if Rory were to mate with Stellar it would fly in the face of conservation efforts to build a genetically viable population. So the decision was made to dart Rory and to move him to another reserve to start a new pack. Rory would then be replaced at Venetia by males brought in from Botswana…creating two breeding packs in the process.

The Venetia dogs were moved into a boma (a large enclosure) to make the darting and translocation process easier. This will also allow the pack to be monitored closely when the females are introduced to the new boys from over the border.

The morning of 17 February was overcast. A good sign as it meant Rory would be less likely to overheat during his long journey to KwaZulu-Natal. But he had to be darted first…surely a straight-forward task in a fenced area with strategically-positioned bait? You’d think so.

Five darts and five long hours later and Rory finally went to ground under the influence of the tranquiliser drug. The team of vets and researchers went straight to work removing the darts, disinfecting the dart wounds and removing his radio collar.

After being doused with water to keep him cool, Rory was placed in a crate, loaded onto the back of a Land Rover and driven the 900km’s to his new home.

Sure, this kind of intervention can sometimes be stressful for animals but when we as humans have driven a species like the African Wild Dog to the margins of existence, it’s a good thing there are people prepared to sit and be bitten by mosquito’s in 35 degree heat for five hours and then drive 900km’s just to give an animal a fighting chance of survival.

Transcending boundaries – wild dogs in a modern landscape

In a region bustling with development and about to welcome one of the world’s largest sporting events in the FIFA World Cup, in a continent that has just counted it’s one billionth person, it is hard to see space for the expansion of safe habitat for a pack animal like the African wild dog. But new protection and landscape-scale conservation efforts may offer hope.

Wild dog packs utilise such huge areas that there are few reserves in Southern Africa big enough to home sustainable, stand-alone populations. When one or more dogs disperse to form a new pack, their reliance on safe and suitable habitat becomes even greater. Thankfully, the UN Environment Programme has made the move to upgrade the status of the species to migratory. This not only promises greater protection but also calls for further regional cooperation towards securing agreements over transfrontier conservation areas like the Greater Mapungubwe area.

The heart of the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) lies at the confluence of the Limpopo and Shashe rivers – the meeting point of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. If this vision of a cross-border haven can be realised then it may secure the future of the few wild dog packs living in the region. Lions, the wild dog’s greatest natural enemy, are low in numbers here but this does not mean the dogs can live without threat or fear.

Rural communities live off the land here through necessity as well as tradition. The snares left by poachers and the diseases carried by domestic dogs used by hunters are a real threat to wild dogs, as well as the ever- busier roads transecting the habitat and a local farming and hunting community that is largely unwelcoming to carnivores.

Despite such threats, the area has already received the vote of confidence as a safe habitat for wild dogs with the translocation of a pack from South Africa’s Marekele National Park to Botswana’s Northern Tuli Game Reserve in 2007. Since then, the pack has thrived in its Limpopo forest home with 25 pups in the last two years.

In KwaZulu-Natal in eastern South Africa, wild dog numbers are on the increase too despite a declining international population. The region’s jewel-in-the-crown, the Hluhluwe-imfolozi Park, can boast arguably the country’s most stable population and with new packs now established on geographically isolated reserves elsewhere in the province, the new challenge facing conservationists is how to maintain the genetic balance of the population.

Rather than imitating natural movements by physically darting and translocating wild dogs between these reserves, Endangered Wildlife Trust officers are working with local rural communities to establish safe routes of dispersal to link isolated populations.

They may be subtly different yet both the proposed Greater Mapungubwe TFCA and the KwaZulu-Natal approaches to African wild dog conservation offer solutions for the future of a migratory species in a changing landscape. In both cases, those responsible for the safeguarding and development of the species will have to deal with the challenges dished out by a constricting human world. Although by engaging with local communities, landowners and farmers, it can be hoped that both processes will allow for a wider understanding and appreciation of the wild dog. Though in some areas, simple tolerance would be a victory.

28 Stories exhibition round-up

The launch of the show 28 Stories and the first showing of my current project Underdogs kicked off in successful style on Wednesday the 9th in London’s Elephant & Castle. The exhibition was attended by Endangered Wildlife Trust representatives, renowned animal behaviourist and African wild dog expert Peter Neville, as well as photographers Ed Kashi and Simon Norfolk. Thank you to all those who came on the night. The first draft of the book Underdogs: the fight to save South Africa’s wild dogs was met with a favourable response. Keep an eye on this blog for more news about the book and this project in the new year.

‘Underdogs’ launch at London exhibition

The last few months have been long, relatively sleepless but hopefully fruitful. My project on African wild dogs is finally approaching its launch at the 28 Stories exhibition in London on Wednesday 9 December. On show will be my book Underdogs: The Fight to Save South Africa’s Wild Dogs as well as photographs from the project so please join me at the private view from 6pm on the 9th.

Underdogs deals with the fight to save South Africa’s remaining wild dogs, a population that echoes the issues facing wild dog conservation across Africa. The African wild dog carries the unenviable title of the continent’s second most endangered carnivore and estimated numbers are tumbling towards just 3,000 across a continent whose human population recently topped one billion.

This will hopefully be the first of many guises the project will take and so I’m looking forward to 2010 already! After all, with the priviledge I feel having shared the world of five packs over the last 12 months, I don’t take my responsibility to these dogs lightly.