On March 26, when South African President Cyril Ramaphosa announced that it ended the country’s borders and final tourism to help curb the spread of COVID-19, Kayla Wilkens had only one idea of one thing: how would she feed elephants?
Wilkens, general manager of the Fairy Glen personal safari complex, located about 115 km from the gates of Cape Town, knew that the park’s budget depended on tourism; without this income, it would be difficult to care for lions, rhinos, zebras and antelopes. that populate the 500-hectare reserve. That night, Wilkens, an environmental advocate who can count on love the story of the arrival or birth of almost every animal on the property, sat down with his spouse and Fairy Glen owner, Pieter De Jager, to plan for the future.
If they gave up their own wages, fired two of their 30 employees, closed security patrols, and postponed repairs, they think they could last a few months. Lifetime savings would allow them to buy enough food and materials for an additional month. if they didn’t want to call the vet. After that, they deserve to prepare for the worst. “We had to force ourselves to think about maybe having to sacrifice our animals rather than let them starve,” he says, in a broken voice at that idea. “We can’t just throw them out and expect them to take care of themselves. “
The elephants, rhinos, buffaloes, lions and leopards that make up the ancient list of the “Big Five” may be wild animals, but in South Africa’s personal hunting stocks, the ghost of nature is based on costly maintenance scaffolding. thousands of dollars a year to buy, feed, raise, care for and protect the animals in their parks, the cash they get from safaris and luxury hotels on the property. It is a privatized form of conservation that not only helps keep endangered species alive. , but it also protects large areas of wildlife rich in developmental biodiversity. The sharp drop in tourism has put many of South Africa’s 500 personal playgrounds on their knees, according to a survey through a local tourism agency, which reported that about 90% of safari-related businesses think they wouldn’t do so even if foreign borders were opened immediately.
Africa’s main national parks, such as Kruger in South Africa, Masai Mara in Kenya and Serengeti in Tanzania, which are safaris as African destinations, are also threatened. For decades, African governments have resisted calls to exploit wilderness areas, such as conservation and hiking promises to be even more sustainable and lucrative. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, hiking in Africa accounts for about $71 billion a year. Now, with stagnant safaris, investment in personal and public reserves is running low, even when they face constant expenses to keep their animals alive. A survey of more than 340 tour operators in southern and eastern Africa conducted through the Safaribookings. com online safari platform in August reported a 75% drop in revenue over the more than six months.
“The spending of safari tourists is the main conservation funder in Africa,” says Max Graham, a Kenyan-based environmental advocate and founder of Space For Giants, a foreign charity that protects African elephants and their landscapes. “That money is gone, leaving everyone struggling to pay rangers, maintain security or networking programs. People who are wasting their jobs or whose small businesses are collapsing can simply turn to agriculture or wild animal meat hunting to make the end of the month, accelerating the loss of biodiversity-rich herb habitats and selling illegal wildlife trade.
In the short term, this means that veterinary care, endangered species rehabilitation systems and networked schooling efforts have been reduced, but if tourism numbers do not increase and wildlife stops paying, the temptation will be to turn some of Africa’s 8,400 spaces into more profit-profit businesses, such as oil extraction , logging, mining or agriculture. Residents will be less willing to suffer from the predation of lions and elephants that are unleashed in their fields if there is no payment in the form of jobs and source of tourism income. “When you’ve lost your source of income to COVID and have your vegetable lawn to survive, you’re not going to tolerate an elephant tearing it apart,” says Jake Rendle-Worthington, an animal psychologist who runs a Small Elephant Rehabilitation Program. Near Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. La police of his domain reported the death of several wild elephants by cyanide poisoning; Last week, he discovered a bag of poisoned oranges hanging from a tree not far from his elephant sanctuary.
Despite all viral images of lions sunbathing on empty roads and reported breeding peaks of animals that saved the disturbing presence of safari paparazzi, the slowdown in tourism foreshadows an animal welfare crisis for some of the maximum species. in danger of Africa. Nowhere is this more visual than in the small personal game reserves that make up most of South Africa’s tourism industry, which employs about 1. 5 million other people and contributes 7% of GDP.
When De Jager made the decision to turn his family’s dairy farm into a nature reserve 20 years ago, his concept was to reintroduce the game and predators that once roamed the Western Cape in South Africa, before the region was conquered. through vineyards and fruit orchards with the arrival of colonialism. Like Noah, he brought a pair of rhinos, a pair of elephants, a pride of lions, and various species of antelope, as well as ostriches, zebras, buffalo, and a donkey to his remote mountain paradise. His vision was to maintain and educate: Fairy Glen is, or was, before COVID, a normal prevention for school teams in the area, and one of the few places where students can get an up-close look at iconic wildlife. South Africa: Most of the country’s game reserves are in the northeast, near the Kruger Park, a two-hour flight or two-day drive. But 90% of the paying visitors come from a canopy of 100, consistent with 100 of the reserve’s current prices, Wilkens says. In South Africa, at least, those laid off in line with individual reserve staff can apply for unemployment benefits, but that doesn’t help animals that need constant care and attention. Nor does the ongoing expense of locating meat for the lions and fodder for the elephants, who consume around 300 kg of grass and vegetables a day, help.
“They’re much-loved animals to support, and that doesn’t change, even in the middle of a pandemic,” says Wilkens, who says their monthly operating prices seamlessly exceed a million rands a month, or $30,000. She controlled to avoid her worst-case scenario. Unusually heavy rains mean there has been enough fodder for grazing animals. And when some men died in a violent storm, Wilkens was able to feed the lions with the corpses. A local poultry farm also donates chickens.
But staff reductions and security patrols have had consequences. On the night of July 27, one of the rhinos disappeared. Wilkens sought all the assets and surrounding domain for days, with the help of police investigators and a K9 team. A week later, he had to settle for being robbed. But why? The rhino, known as Higgins, was a local celebrity: in 2011, he was attacked and blinded by poachers who cut his horn with a machete, possibly to sell it on the foreign black market, where the rhino horn is almost worth its weight. . in gold (or cocaine). Did poachers mistook Higgins for his partner, who was also attacked but still has some of his horn?Was it some kind of revenge for firing the staff?Delight shook Wilkens, who has a special connection to Higgins. “I can’t help yet to think that we, as homeowners, let our pets down because we couldn’t afford the protection they needed because of the loss of income,” she says.
In general, poaching of portions of animals such as pangolin scales, rhino horn and elephant tusks decreased in African game reserves during the COVID period, largely due to disruptions in foreign travel that prevent criminal unions from obtaining such products in their markets in China and Vietnam. But conservation organizations say the slaughter of wild animals threatened by their meat, the so-called “wild animal meat poaching,” is increasing. Uganda Wildlife Authority recorded a 125% increase in wildlife crime cases between February and May 2020, most of which concerned wild animal meat cases. The Kenya Wildlife Service recorded a 51% increase over the same period.
The rise in poaching for bushmeat, says Space for Giants’ Graham, is largely due to the drop in wildlife tourism. When guides, rangers, and station personnel no longer have the source of income to buy food, some will still not have the option of resorting to hunting in the spaces they once protected. Tumi Morema, a wildlife crime investigator who has worked for anti-poaching personal security agencies around South Africa’s Kruger Park for over 20 years, calls it poaching “for marijuana” rather than poaching for money. In his region, young people who discovered daylight-hour jobs in the city are now heading to reserves in search of game. “Nowadays, when a guy comes home with meat, he’s not a thief or a poacher, he’s just a hero. ” Even Wilkens, in Fairy Glen, suspects that some of his antelopes might have ended up as dinner for someone. “It’s devastating for us,” he said, “but it’s also understandable. They have young to feed. If it were in the same position, the maximum would probably do the same.
Craig Spencer, director of the Balule semi-private nature reserve on the western flank of Kruger Park, says he hasn’t noticed much poaching for bushmeat yet, but warns that if the economy doesn’t pick up quickly, it’s only a matter of time. . In 2013, Spencer founded the Black Mambas women’s anti-poaching team, which combines network education with presence patrols on the floor that have played a key role in protecting rhinos and other animals in the reserve. it can be even more difficult to eradicate, with long-term consequences for wildlife. “With rhinos, we fight the real criminals. But as soon as it becomes a subsistence point, you have Robin Hood syndrome and not it can be prevented The police will be understanding, the courts will be understanding, and poacher gangs will sell them online, and other people will have to buy them.
Poaching of wild animal meat to survive is unlikely to threaten entire species, but as a practice it can contribute to the points that triggered the pandemic in the first place, preparing humanity for a new cycle of viral epidemics, Graham says. “It is vital to note here that it is the other people who over-exploit herbal environments (logging, agriculture, the wild animal meat industry) that have led to the passage of animals to humans from diseases such as COVID-19, SARS and Ebola. “One of the main theories of COVID-19 is that it originated in bats and then jumped into pangolins (small reptile-like mammals) before infecting humans. Pangolins, whose scales are sought after for classical Chinese medicine, are the most trafficked animals in Africa.
As lockdown restrictions subsided, there were symptoms of softness at the end of the tunnel for the safari park, incompatible with obstacles. On August 15, five months after implementing one of the strictest lockdowns in the world, President Ramaphosa announced that foreign visitors are still banned. , domestic recreational trips would be compatible with those allowed, adding guided tours in open safari vehicles. But domestic tourists are unlikely to compensate for the difference in destinations that largely house foreigners. Unique safari packages in line with the diversity of sound reserves from $200 to $1800 consistent with the child-consistent day, far beyond the success of most South Africans, especially in the worst economy the country has ever known.
Spencer of Black Mambas has already turned to other funding resources, spending most of his days soliciting donations from foreign supporters. A German NGO has promised to cover its veterinary bills and an Australian zoo is helping with wages. there is little left for other expenses. Poachers, who live for their fortnightly rotations, have a $57 food budget consistent with the week for a team of six. “I can’t go on like Spencer. No it’s sustainable to beg money here and everywhere. “
COVID-19 has revealed a serious flaw in conservation investment strategy, Graham says, prompting managers to drive existing movements to diversify away from tourism. “There are many tactics to fund conservation without the need for an unmarried safari tourist to visit. “suggests, by raising offsets of carbon, bonds and endowments as alternatives. Large parks like Kruger and Masai-Mara are both carbon sinks and biodiversity reserves, he says. More and more giant corporations are committed to offsetting their carbon emissions through forest cover and regeneration, and reserves would possibly be the first to benefit. “Carbon conservation can also be your future. “
Spencer is not so sure it’s enough. ” I agree that all our eggs were in this exclusive basket called tourism, and now we realize how fragile this economy was, but if we are going to start talking about alternatives, then the landscape can be subjected to death through a thousand cuts. “Creating reserves as carbon capture spaces without focusing on animal welfare, or even human well-being, can lead to other emission relief targets that can see the installation of wind turbines or solar panels that would be so destructive to wildlife. Tourism has at least preserved the landscape, he says, because even though tourists expect luxury, they demand a facade of true wild nature, no matter what happens in the scenes to house it.
Still, Spencer adds, the last few months without tourists have been a blessing disguised for wildlife. Rhinos breed, he says, just like hyenas. Without the constant tension of the landscape, the animals regained a sense of freedom that he had not noticed. decades. ” It’s like they’re owning the job again,” he says. “If we could find a way to manage these national parks without the need for this mass tourism intervention, it would obviously be ideal, but I don’t think it’s feasible I think we want tourism, whether we like it or not.