Elephants in the mist . . .
by Cailin Human
In a restful bundle, under a large Acacia erioloba, thirteen volunteers are sleeping next to their own matriarch. The sleeping bags breathe in the mist that have moved in from the coast 100km away to the Huab river’s dry July bed. At six we will wake and yesterday’s fire will feed us again in the new day. The shapes of misty trees and a lone elephant bull await us when we rise to roam the river bed in search of more of the desert giants . . .
During my days on patrol with EHRA (Elephant Human Relations Aid) in the north western part of the Namib Desert I was given a perspective on conservation and community development that moved my view of my own world dramatically. No less after an early morning mouthful of boiling water full of fragrant coffee grounds. A hot coal will make most of the “moer” sink to the bottom, but don’t stir!
This area, the southern Kunene region – traditionally known as Damaraland – borders the Erongo region to the south and to the north east is Etosha, which receives more rain. To the west it stretches parallel to the Skeleton Coast National Park, where petrified forests, vertical granite sea beds and granulated bubbles of lava render today’s foot- and 4x4 prints timeless.
EHRA is a Namibian-based nonprofit organization focusing on human-elephant relations. Their aim is to find solutions for peaceful future human-elephant relations, working with the Ministry of Environmental Affairs and Tourism (MET) and other NGOs in the area.
The MET can be rightfully proud of their progressive community-based policy in the area – today it is communal trust land. Every conservancy in the communal trust land falls under a conservation committee, and the trust land is headed by a traditional authority led by a chief.
The community consists of subsistence farmers whose livelihood depends on living a life in perfect harmony with nature. They are poor people and tourism offers them a good additional income. Over the past 25 years great progress has been made since various organisations have fought an all-out battle to put a stop to poaching in the area. Local communities started to understand the economic advantage of conserving the wildlife and became active conservation partners. The aim of the conservancies is to lead the local communities to profit financially from tourism in their area within the overarching concept of conservation.
EHRA started their volunteer project in May 2003, because they strive to run their conservation initiative independent of outside funding and donations. The project helps, amongst other things, to enclose and protect communal water points and to find alternative water sources for the elephants. Every volunteer project runs for two weeks at a time and operates from the EHRA base camps in the vicinity of Brandberg and the ephemeral Ugap river.
Here I must interrupt my story, because one can’t help but pause at Brandberg for at least a short while. I still want to climb this mountain: At 2573m above sea level it is Namibia’s highest mountain. In the meantime a microlite flight from Uis directly over Brandberg had me catching my breath. Brandberg is the land mark for Damaraland as Table Mountain is for the Cape Town metropole – you see it from far away, from different directions and it’s just as photogenic. Yes, and speaking of elephants, there are dassies on Brandberg too. It may be my imagination, but a satellite image of Brandberg looks just like an elephant’s footprint . . .
Back to the projects - It costs about R5 000 for two weeks. This includes all your meals and transport to and from Swakopmund. You must get to Swakopmund by yourself. You only take your personal things: sleeping bag, flashlight, camera, toiletries, batteries, sun hat and your own red wine etc. Not much packing is necessary, because when you are on patrol you sleep under the stars, and there are tents and A-frame structures at the EHRA base camp. EHRA provides all the necessary equipment and kitchen utensils at the base camp and on patrol.
You can know for sure that you will be participating in an unforgettable desert safari. You will feel like one of a unique handful of people in this almost untouched landscape with its elusive desert wildlife. For only a few people the two weeks are long enough.
EHRA’s volunteer projects are not for those with a sweet tooth, but rather for those who are after the true strong taste of nature. To put it differently: Don’t come here if you want to bottle-feed cuddly baby elephants. The terrain is rough and conditions in camp are very basic, especially when you are on patrol. This is unspoilt nature at its wildest – and it has been this dry for 55 million years. The Namib Desert is the second oldest desert on the planet (next to Chile’s Atacama Desert). Other animals besides elephants have found a refuge in this desert; among them are baboons, gemsbok, brown and spotted hyena, black-backed jackal, cheetahs, giraffes, kudus, lions, leopards, black rhino, springbuck and steenbok.
In the first week of a project volunteers must earn their right to search for the elusive desert elephants, and to document and photograph them. Tasks include building stone walls around local farmers’ windmills, maintenance and repairs at the local school and gathering data among the local community about elephant behaviour and routes. In this unique way you contribute personally to conservation and community development in Namibia and become directly involved with EHRA’s vital work – managing conflict between the subsistence farmers and the desert elephants as they compete for water.
Water sources are scarce in the Namib Desert, and in order to prevent conflict between man and elephant the competition for the water must be managed correctly. Increasing water usage by lodges and man (especially through boreholes) in this sought-after tourism area causes a lowering of the natural water table, resulting in less surface water. The elephants therefore start scouting for alternative water sources, which is when they arrive uninvited at the subsistence farmers’ water points.
Imagine you are a poor fellow trying to make a living from a few cows, goats and chickens in a 100mm-a-year rainfall region north west of Brandberg. When you grew up there were no elephants, because here, between the Huab and Ugap riviers, were no elephants until the early 90s - not since the 1940s. You are responsible for your own water supply and maintaining your water pump. If you are lucky, you have a diesel pump and do not have to pump drinking water for your animals manually, but diesel is an expensive commodity for a subsistence farmer. (Not so long ago it was more expensive than petrol). The sun goes down like a red, orange and yellow flag and then you see them. An elephant or three (or more) are chasing your cows from the water trough next to your house with its corrugated iron roof – not as if you or the cows have any say in the matter. You just stand there and watch how litres of water is sucked up matter-of-factly through a few long (invading) trunks. You hope and pray that the big feet will not flatten your small patch of corn on their way back to the koppies, and especially that the water in the trough will slake their thirst so that they will not also attempt to reach the water under your pump.
Then you hear from your neighbours who live behind the next koppie that the MET granted a hunting permit to your conservation committee for an elephant bull in your conservation area. You sell this permit to a foreign trophy hunter, earning R80 000 overnight! What better solution could there be for your problems with the annoying elephants?!
The furor that starts up about the issuing of the hunting permits further adds to the conflict, and you are approached by a few enthusiastic nature lovers who plead the elephants’ case! The desert elephants, together with black rhino (Diceros bicornis bicornis), almost became extinct as a result of plundering by poachers between 1970 and 1983. Now only a few of these special desert-dwelling elephants are left and they must be protected by all means (and be offered water?). Because, according to the enthusiastic green people, the money you can make from the elephants is much more than the damage they can do – the magic wand is TOURISM.
But the question is how will tourism and conservation generate more money for the local community? Until they earn substantially more money from Damaraland and the tourism potential of its wildlife, the problems will not go away.
The situation is complex. Managing natural resources sustainably is the foundation of social and economic development. The people who live here are rural poor people who want economic development. They have rights, and they have legitimate complaints and problems with regard to the elephants. However, Namibia also has a national and international responsibility to protect this unique subpopulation of desert elephant.
From September 2006 until September 2007 12 adult elephant bulls were shot in the greater Kunene area – the permits were issued by the MET for shooting so-called problem animals. Were all 12 permits really necessary? Besides issuing such permits to kill problem animals, hunting permits are also issued to the conservancies from time to time which are sold to trophy hunters for the direct financial gain of the community in that conservancy.
In 2008 EHRA realized the shocking fact that one of the three trophy permits for elephants in the western Kunene region would be shared by two conservation areas, namely Sorris Sorris and Otjimboyo, which borders the Ugap rivier. In terms of the data known to EHRA (based in the Sorris Sorris conservancy) there was only one elephant bull here that would be large enough to be regarded as a trophy. The bull’s name is “Voortrekker” and he is well-known in the Ugap river region. He is regarded to be the father of the Ugap elephant herds, because he had led all four of the resident herds to the region in the past 10 years. Younger, nomadic bulls also visit the area, but not one of them has reached such stature that the cows would allow them to breed with them.
EHRA knew that both these conservation areas were desperate for the income that would be generated by this trophy hunt. Up to that time the people here had received little or no benefit from tolerating elephants in their subsistence farming environment.
EHRA therefore made a financial offer to the two conservation areas to compensate them for relinquishing their trophy rights. When this memorandum was signed a contract had already been concluded with a professional hunter! EHRA saved Voortrekker’s life in the nick of time. (The MET assisted the hunter to find a trophy hunting permit in another part of Namibia where there was a specific problem with a specific elephant bull).
The 2008 EHRA trek raised funds for purchasing the trophy hunting permit from the two conservation areas. They raised a total of N$140 000 - N$60 000 for each of the two conservation areas as well as N$10 000 for each area in the form of venison for the communities in lieu of the elephant meat that they would have received.
The funds raised by the 2009 EHRA trek will be used for the GPS collaring of the elephant bulls in the southern Kunene region. We hope that “Voortrekker” will receive the first collar!
Hunting permits should not be issued before accurate numbers of the desert elephants have been researched and documented. In terms of the previous comprehensive census by MET, 8 years ago, approximately 760 desert elephants are left in the Kunene region. However, EHRA’s data indicate that only approximately 160 of these live west of the 100mm rainfall area, and are, in other words, true desert-adapted elephants who know how to survive in this harsh region. If this knowledge were to die, the elephants would also disappear.
Johannes Haasbroek, operational manager and founder of EHRA, warns that the killing of bull elephants can have a grave effect on the social structure of elephant herds. Their data show clearly that there already are worrying inequalities in the ratio of bulls to cows in at least two conservancies in the Ugap river area. Furthermore, the bulls have a very important social role in disciplining adolescent bulls and transferring ecological intelligence to them. This inherited knowledge is necessary for the protection of the natural resources, especially water – the misuse of these resources will only lead to more conflict with people, who will place more pressure on the government to have more elephants killed.
And this domino effect can lead to the total extinction of the desert elephants.
My favourite cliché is: “We borrow this land from our children, we did not inherit it.” And I believe that these children will lead us to make the necessary changes with regard to conservation and development. No conservation plan has a future without sustained educational programmes and involvement with school facilities and curricula. The local communities in this communal trust land must be continually empowered to make decisions about the joint management of their natural resources within the conservation framework from which they profit financially in a sustainable way.
One point of focus for the EHRA volunteer project is their involvement with the Abraham Garieseb primary school in the Aniexab settlement, in the Sorris Sorris conservancy. The school has approximately 215 pupils. In July 2005, when I spent my first two weeks with EHRA, five second-hand computers had just been received from a donor in England. Since then volunteers have been teaching the teachers how to use the equipment and slowly, but surely, the children have also started to learn computer skills.
When Gerson, the maintenance manager at the EHRA base camp in the Ugap River, greets you in Damara, he says: “!Gâi!gaxa daoba ai-!â úhâ!”. Enjoy the rest of your journey . . . When I return there I want to learn to say in Damara: “See you again soon, my friend.” Because I always want to return to that place where my mind expands to fill the spaces. I hope that it will remain such a vast and spacious place for ever, for man and elephant.
* Definition of the desert elephants:
Namibia’s desert elephants are the same species as the Savanna elephants - Loxidonta Africana Africana. The desert elephants, with their larger feet and lighter body mass, have adapted to survive in the extreme desert conditions. They can live without water for up to four days.
Should a Bushveld elephant end up here, he would make himself unpopular with his desert cousins if he were to uproot a thorn or mopani tree as he would in his own habitat. The desert elephants know that they must look after their resources.
Herein lies the crux of the survival of the desert elephants – their most important asset is their knowledge of where to find water and food and of how the seasons influence the availability and distribution, and this knowledge is transferred from one generation to the next.
Johannes Haasbroek, operational manager and founder of EHRA, tells us that: “After six years of observation in the environment I am convinced that the desert elephants are a separate group. It is only the desert bulls that roam and have contact with other elephants. The cows in this area are area bound and always stay in the same area with their calves. Therefore the desert elephant genes remain separate.
Contact details:
Elephant Human Relations Aid
PO Box 2146
Swakopmund
Namibia
Tel/Fax: + 264 (0)64 504183
Email: elephant@iway.na
Website: www.desertelephant.org
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