As the number of private game reserves increase, they are often criticised for being
short-sighted and financially motivated at the expense of nature. But, argues Hanno Kilian, research manager at Welgevonden Private Game Reserve, that small game reserves can conserve biodiversity without disappointing tourists, by using creative measures such as small-scale pastures. Roelof Bezuidenhout reports.
Instead of downplaying the contribution of private game reserves (PGRs) to South Africa’s biodiversity, the conservation fraternity should help them find ways to make apparently conflicting land-use practices compatible. So says Hanno Kilian, research manager at Welgevonden Private Game Reserve in the scenic but nutrient-poor Waterberg Mountains. There, the sourveld can’t support game all year round, making it hard to compete with the big parks for game viewing or satisfy basic conservation requirements.
One innovative solution, Hanno says, is to create grazing lawns of kweek (Cynodon dactylon) on old crop lands, increasing the small reserve’s carrying capacity and enhancing game viewing with rejuvenated land supporting larger concentrations of animals. While this approach seems at odds with the conservation of natural biodiversity, Hanno argues that it actually supports it, by reducing unnatural grazing pressure on veld.
The pressure of competition
Hanno explains that to compete in an increasingly over-traded market, many small reserves in South Africa are compelled to deliver an experience more suited to big, state-owned conservation areas. And to be competitive, they often adopt management practices to satisfy the inflated, short-term expectations of visitors and investors.
“Today’s tourists have less time on their hands and crave instant gratification,” he says. “Typically, ecotourists who visit low-volume, high-margin game lodges want pampered luxury and lots of action in their two- to three-day stay, with sightings of the Big Five high on their list. Of course, they’re willing to pay lots of money for the privilege.”
“It’s difficult for the private sector to focus on conservation. Setting up and running a game reserve is expensive and owners need reasonable financial returns right from the start. This is usually achieved through high-margin, low-volume ecotourism, with success generally dependant on the quality of game viewing on offer.
“But it can lead to overstocking, bush clearing or keeping species in habitats not ideal for them – all of which could compromise biodiversity – for the sake of game viewing and tourist income.”
Biodiversity versus ecotourism
Hanno says Welgevonden’s management team deals proactively with the conflict between biodiversity conservation and ecotourism, moving away from conventional conservation to a more liberal, adaptable approach focusing on grassland management rather than reactive wildlife management. “Any conservation area must be managed when it’s fenced and a fragment of a larger ecosystem,” Hanno points out. “In larger conservation areas, management is mostly limited to controlling stocking density, water distribution and fire. The more intensive grassland management common in agriculture is frowned upon because it’s seen as unnatural.
“However, management of small reserves must be more intense. It boils down to the scale of the operations and having to manage processes to compensate for the system being fragmented and fenced.” Small reserves, he says, only exist because of the needs and expectations of private sector investors, and although these may be unrealistic at times, the conservation community must accept that small reserve managers sometimes need unorthodox methods, including intensive management, to solve unique problems. “Nevertheless, the small reserves have a role to play in biodiversity conservation. Their management should be viewed in the context of a game production system, which has to be managed differently from large conservation areas.”
How they do it at Welgevonden
Welgevonden was established in 1993 when a private sector initiative combined several game, cattle and agricultural farms. The developers fenced the property and introduced large numbers of game. On the sourveld, it’s difficult to support year-round populations of high-density grazers, even though JPH Acocks, in Veld Types of South Africa, describes the grassveld as floristically rich. ”It made us wonder how a management team could ever deliver a satisfactory game viewing experience here,” Hanno says.
He feels the reserve would have been better developed as a pristine landscape destination with a focus on scenery, flora and low-density mammals. Its establishment as a private wildlife destination was almost certainly a response to uninformed market demands, and since its inception more and more landowners have switched from private to commercial game reserves to try recover their costs.
Meanwhile, the demand for competitive large mammal viewing, particularly the Big Five, is ever-increasing.
“To attract and keep capital and return on investment, the reserve had to find ways to satisfy this demand,” Hanno says. But it became increasingly clear that maintaining high-density herbivores year-round in a nutrient-poor environment wasn’t sustainable. “Reproduction wasn’t good enough and predation reduced game numbers dramatically. In turn this meant fewer predators, less frequent viewing, and unhappy tourists and owners,” says Hanno. “Managing lions in confined reserves isn’t easy and we had to find a suitable programme, which included reducing lion numbers and replacing depleted prey.”
Supporting nature with artifice
In the early years, old agricultural land were left to return to natural savanna and Hanno’s team found them in various stages of recovery. They began to see the old agricultural land, which make up about 5% of the 34 000ha reserve, as an opportunity to improve the part of the landscape that was already transformed without compromising the reserve’s ecological integrity. By comparing the palatability of the old land to that of the unpalatable veld, they could establish high-nutrient areas the high-density species could use year-round. “We slashed, fertilised and removed woody encroachers such as bankrupt bush (Stoebe vulgaris) and fever tea bush (Lippia javanica) to improve the productivity and palatability of the grass layer,” says Hanno.
Herbivores are expected to concentrate on the old lands’ more palatable grass, creating self-perpetuating grazing lawns with more nutrients in comparatively small areas. Hanno expects this to ease the unnatural impact of year-round grazing on natural habitat types, while making the reserve’s game populations considerably more visible and their distributions more predictable. “One can’t argue with the fact that our old lands’ biodiversity will decline over time, but the palatable kweek grass (Cynodon dactylon) will dominate the vegetation and can withstand heavy grazing,” Hanno argues.
“Game viewing requirements should be satisfied with fewer animals than if the same management regime was applied across the reserve.” Contact Welgevonden Private Game Reserve on (014) 755 4392, e-mail [email protected], or visit www.welgevonden.org. |fw
