Protected Areas and Managing Parks from an Ecosystems Perspective Case Study: Kruger National Park, South Africa

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Protected Areas and Managing Parks from an
Ecosystems PerspectiveCase StudyKruger
National Park, South Africa
C. Pringle Lecture ECL 6080, 22 October 2009

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Basic Principles of Good Ecological Management

• Critical ecological processes must be maintained
• -key species management
• -habitat or ecosystem management
• B. Goals and objectives must derive from a deep
  understanding of the ecological properties of the
  system
• -you cant effectively manage what
  you dont understand
• -be eternally vigilant for
  unintended consequences of
• management
• C. Minimize external threats and maximize
  external benefits
• D. Conserve evolutionary processes
• -keep populations large enough to
  ensure against stochastic
• causes of extinction
• -ensure species retain sufficient
  genetic diversity to permit
• adaptation to changing
  environment

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Playing God Management decisions
The control of nature is a phrase conceived in
arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of
biology and the convenience of man

Rachel Carson (1907-1964)
Silent Spring (1962) Man, in
the words of one astute biologist, is faced with
the problem of escaping from his own
ingenuity. Loren Eisely
(1907-1977) Conservation is a bird that flies
faster than the shot we aim at it. Aldo
Leolpold 1953
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• Case Study
• Kruger National Park,
• South Africa
• Linking population and community
• ecology to ecosystem-level
• management of a protected area
• Importance of watershed management
• and minimizing hydrological effects
• originating outside of park boundaries
• National and international pressures
• faced by park managers in Kruger
• Contrast with US park management
• View from the socioeconomic context
• of Africa and make contrasts with US.

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Kruger is the largest of the 22 South African
National Park (SANParks government body
responsible for managing national parks)
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A Purist Approach
The precursor to SANParks - the National Parks
Board - historically had a purist approach from
that of other conservation organizations
- core areas of national parks considered
sacrosanct and managed with as little
deviation from natural ecological
processes as possible - example game
allowed to die naturally in parks during
droughts in contrast to the alternative of
culling and selling meat cheaply or donating it
to local black communities -
principal at stake was natural selection
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• 20,000 km2
• (half the size of Switzerland)
• Employs almost 4,000 people
• 1.2 million visitors/yr
• Park extends from north-
• to south (350 km) and is
• bisected by 7 major rivers
• that run from west to east.
• 300 tree species
• 49 fish species
• 33 amphibian species
• 118 reptile species
• 492 bird species
• 147 mammal species
• - elephants

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There is a fence around the park with 8 access
gates
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The Gardeners of Eden Syndrome?
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The Gardeners of Eden Syndrome?
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• Intensive water abstraction has
• made some perennial rivers
• ephemeral for prolonged periods
• of time

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• Crocodiles and hippos
• vulnerable to reduced
• water flows
• Keystone species which
• Play an important role
• in structuring riverine
• ecosystems and their
• loss can trigger
• cascading events in
• both aquatic and
• terrestrial foodwebs

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While elephants can dig down to water
in dessicated river beds..
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Most herbivorous mammals live within 6 km of
surface water and water dependence is a major
factor limiting their abundance
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To increase available habitat - park
managers provided artificial watering holes in
formerly waterless areas between major rivers.
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This altered the population dynamics of many
species and resulted in increased herbivore
populations
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followed by catastrophic collapses of the
inflated herbivore populations (e.g., in 1966
and 1983) which became food- limited resulting
in damaged vegetation - especially near rivers -
and..
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.temporary increases in carnivores and
scavengers for a year or two after the herbivore
population collapses followed by their
subsequent collapse as their food disappeared
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Kruger Park managers have largely stopped using
groundwater fed watering holes between
rivers to increase carrying capacity of park for
wildlife
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The elephant situation in Kruger - too much
of a good thing?
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African elephant 3-5 million elephants in
Africa in 1930s and 1940s
-habitat loss and heavy ivory poaching in
1970s and 1980s
-between 400,000- 660,000 elephants left in
Africa today
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• The elephant management controversy
• in Krueger National Park
• currently 12,000 elephants in park
  reproducing at 6-8 per year
• some believe that the parks habitat can
  only sustain 7,000 elephants over a long period
  different theories
• -elephants consume 440 lbs of plant
  matter in a single day and are
• causing major changes to the
  vegetation of the park, destroying trees
• and reducing habitat available for
  other species
• increased problems from human-elephant
  conflicts elephants break the parks boundary
  fences and eat crops buffalo escape (buffalo
  vectors for foot and mouth disease and bovine
  tuberculosis in livestock) elephant attacks.
• options for elephant population control
• -translocation to under-populated
  areas
• -contraception
• -establishment of trans-frontier
  conservation corridors
• and protected areas
• -annual culling

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What has happened in other areas when elephant
populations increase? In northern Botswana there
are an estimated 100,000-plus elephants growing
at a rate of 5 per yr and damaging vegetation
in protected areas such as Chobe National Park
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Culling in Kruger practiced from
1960s-1995 500-600 elephants killed/yr To
maintain population between 7,000-8,000
Give hunting quotas to local communities?
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The Cultural Context of Management
Decisions
Balancing the African philosophy with
western ideals to protect international
tourism If it pays - it stays..there is
something wrong when the opportunity to produce
hundreds of tons of meat a year is spurned on the
grounds of sentimentality
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Rogue elephants and the importance of
matriarchy and clans
young single and out of control Rhinos are
being murdered and the killers are juvenile
delinquents of the elephantine kind
Rhino bashing
article in NY TIMES October 1997
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Contraception costly primarily funded by
international agencies
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Elephant translocation expensive and labor
intensive - up to 14 transferred at a
time - translocating one elephant can cost
as much as US 8,000
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Establishment of trans-frontier conservation
areas to conserve elephants
-plan to establish an International Park via
cross-border collaboration Between Mozambique,
South Africa and Zimbabwe -would expand
protected area from 20,000 to 35,000 km2 -
hopefully leading to the development of a larger
Transfrontier Conservation Area of 99,800 km2
with a mosaic of different land
uses -international funding from Germany, World
Bank, USAID, IUCN, and Peace Parks
Foundation -involves the translocation of
1000 Elephants in Kruger to Mozambique
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What does the future hold for elephants?

• WWF launched its African Elephant Programme in
  2000
• -increase protection and management of
  elephants in Africa
• -build capacity within elephant range
  countries to manage and
• mitigate conflict between humans
  and elephants
• -control illegal trade in elephant products
• CITES says No to ivory stockpile sale in Oct
  2006 (after giving Botswana, Namibia and South
  Africa permission in 2002 to sell 60 tons despite
  widespread opposition by many governments and
  NGOs). Conservation groups are concerned that
  any relaxation on
• the ban on ivory will result in a explosion
  in both demand and supply of ivory, and a
  flooding of the market of both legal and illegal
  stocks which translates to tens of thousands of
  slaughtered elephants.

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• Effects of human activities
• outside of the park
• - Water abstraction from rivers
• (1.5 million people live near Kruger in
• South Africa and several hundred
• thousand in bordering Mozambique)
• irrigation farming
• tree farming
• - Water pollution and erosion
• cattle grazing
• mining
• large towns and cities
• industrial activities
• Acid Rain (coal burning in cities
• SW of the park result in harmful
• acid deposition in park

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Communities west of Kruger
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Sugar plantations south of Kruger
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Irrigation of sugarcane plantations
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Highlands irrigated crops to the west of
Kruger
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Reservoirs in rivers upstream of Kruger
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Exotic Eucalyptus plantations west of Kruger in
highlands
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Tea plantation west of Kruger in higlands
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Worker homes at tea plantation
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• Management solutions for Kruger Parks water
• quantity and quality problems establishing water
• rights for nature
• Changing operating criteria of existing dams
  outside and upstream
• of Kruger to release water at critical periods
  and also to minimize
• effects of salts and smothering sediments
• Constructing additional dams to better regulate
  water flow into the
• park during low flows.
• Working with local stakeholders (industries to
  recycle effluents
• mine operators divert streams around mine
  operations)
• 4. Environmental outreach activities and local
  environmental activist
• groups (e.g. Olifants River Forum)
• Working with government (Department of Water
  Affairs) to treat
• acid waters emanating from abandoned mines to
  place holds on all

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National pressures facing managers of Kruger Park

• Human rights issues
• -improving affirmative action programs,
  equal
• employment opportunities and
  non-discriminatory
• wage structure
• Changes in elite culture of traditional park
• administration and management
• C. Environmental outreach - involving an
  alienated and
• often disinterested national majority
• D. Maintenance of financial self-sufficiency

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International pressures

• Wildlife management across international
  boundaries
• (Mozambique, Zimbabwe)
• 1. international cooperation to
  establish trans
• boundary protected area
• 2. control of poaching and human
  invasions
• B. International Animal Rights Groups
• 1. elephant relocation (versus
  culling)
• 2. development and implementation
  of large
• mammal birth control

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Food for thought
Would the creation of Kruger National Park have
been possible in the absence of apartheid? Can
its continued existence be maintained in light
of social, political and economic
concerns? What else can be done to insure the
perpetuity of this Park?