Introduction to the South Africa and South Africa/Mozambique Expeditions

The majority of big game areas in South Africa are fenced in order to avoid problems with conflicts between communities and dangerous animals. However this restricts movement of species such as elephant, which can in-turn lead to excessive damage of habitat within the reserve (through confining the elephants, which damage the vegetation as they pass through or browse, to too small an area over a long period of time) and an imbalance within the reserve ecosystem.

A project called the Space for Elephants Initiative in KwaZulu Natal has persuaded a number of private game reserves to drop their fences to create a contiguous area, that, when completed, will enable elephants currently confined within fenced reserves in KwaZulu Natal to complete annual migrations along ancient migration routes. There is a long way to go before these routes are completely open but there is tremendous momentum with a number of fences already being dropped. Private reserves constitute over 60% of the protected areas in South Africa, so projects such as this which encourage cooperation between the reserves through mutually beneficial practices can be hugely important for conservation management within southern Africa.

 

Operation Wallacea and our South African partners, WEI, are coordinating the research on the impact of the expansion of the elephants on the vegetation and associated diversity of key taxa. There are several reserves in the KwaZulu Natal region that have recently dropped their fences, some of which have never had elephants, some of which have had elephants for a long time. This provides an ideal study location to tease out the impacts of elephant on vegetation and other taxa since there are several areas, with consistent vegetation communities, which have different "elephant histories" in terms of how long each area has had elephants.

The survey has been designed to collect bird data tied to habitat variables from over 50 large sites across the KwaZulu region. These biodiversity survey methods are also incredibly useful for other reserves who want to monitor ecosystem changes due to the impacts of alien species, climate change, elephant damage or fire management practices. The Operation Wallacea teams have established long-term biodiversity monitoring protocols in the sourveld reserve of Welgevonden and in 2011 will also be working in the nearby reserve of Lapalala, to examine the bird and habitat communities as well as the distribution of large game species across the reserves.


Additionally this data is being collected in the Mdluli concession in Kruger National Park, again enabling the concession managers to observe changes in biodiversity in the area as a result of management actions or other factors. In order to test the usefulness of bird and habitat data as biodiversity indicators a number of sites around the Mdluli Concession have been selected for year round monitoring of a range of other taxa (invertebrates, amphibians, reptiles, mammals) in addition to the bird and habitat data.

To strengthen the already wide-ranging biodiversity surveys that are being conducted, in 2011 Operation Wallacea will also be surveying the Manyeleti reserve, situated to the West of Kruger. This reserve is of particular importance because it extends the Trans-Frontier Conservation Area that links the Limpopo Park in Mozambique and the Kruger Park in South Africa. Adding sites like these to the survey portfolio strengthens the range of habitat types and geographical regions that the survey results can be extrapolated across.

Further management techniques are being examined in the Pongola reserve in Kwa Zulu Natal, where a number of male elephants have been vasectomised in order to control the elephant populations. The Opwall teams are surveying the make-up and locations of the elephant herds, and the behaviour or various individuals following this management intervention.