In many respects, 2022 has been the light at the end of a very long and unknown tunnel. After almost two years of navigating the effects of the COVID-19 global pandemic, the world has slowly started getting back on its feet. Despite these setbacks, it was business as usual at Peace Parks Foundation, with 2022 bringing a lot of exciting tourism developments, rewilding programmes, historic translocations and uplifting community projects throughout southern Africa.
Join us this week on Peace Parks TV as Communications Coordinator, Lésa van Rooyen sits down with Peace Parks’ CEO Werner Myburgh, to reflect on the successes and challenges that 2022 brought with it. Today, we start in Mozambique with Limpopo and Banhine national parks.
Limpopo National Park
Herding 4 Health
This year marked the second full year of the Herding 4 Health programme’s implementation within Limpopo National Park. Six communities voluntarily subscribed to the programme, which now includes over 17 000 cattle and 600 farmers. Not only has this helped to restore the age-old tradition of cattle herding that has existed within Africa for centuries, but the implementation of predator-proof bomas has significantly reduced human-wildlife conflict. This year, only two cattle fell to predation, compared to the 200 to 300 cattle farmers lost annually before the programme was introduced.
Communities And Protected Areas
Funded by the German Government through KfW Development Bank, livelihood support was provided to Bingo – a large community that was living within the park. Through a consultative and voluntary process, the whole community relocated to the park’s buffer zone. Here they were provided with new homes, year-round water supply, livelihood opportunities and a range of basic services that were completely inaccessible within the park. This relocation was a major step towards becoming a thriving and resilient community.
Werner mentions that the upliftment of communities is incredibly important to Peace Parks as it goes hand in hand with conservation. As the saying goes, conservation without communities is just a conversation. With the impacts of climate change now being felt more than ever in recent history, there is increasing pressure on natural resources due to erratic rainfall, flooding and extreme temperatures.
It is therefore important that Peace Parks Foundation assists communities with moving into a system whereby the extraction of natural resources is transitioned into something more sustainable and environmentally friendly. One of the ways that this is being done is through farming-friendly practices called conservation agriculture. This involves the switch from traditional labour-intensive methods, which historically led to frequent poor yields, to a sustainable approach that has led to a high yield of healthy-looking crops.
Another way of doing this is by allowing the people who have lived off this land all their lives to move their cattle into national parks during times of drought to keep the animals fed and watered. This may be in stark contrast to the traditional way of thinking about conservation, but a critical part of shifting the lens.
Banhine National Park
Banhine National Park makes up for its lesser-known status with its sheer size and ever-changing landscape. Although it is largely inaccessible to most living creatures, our feathered avian friends rely heavily on this park as a stop-over on annual migrations.
Recently a large herd of buffalo also moved into the park, presumedly from Limpopo National Park, in search of better grazing and water. Another tip of the hat to the importance of protecting wildlife corridors and the interconnectivity of the landscape.
To help understand the movement of animals within these large system spaces better, Werner, his wife Kozette and a group from the COmON Foundation recently participated in a buffalo collaring operation. The GPS data collected from these tracking collars will help us identify which areas they are moving through and must be protected.
A Word Of Thanks
Both the COmON and UBS Optimus Foundation have recognised the importance of this park in the landscape. They have committed to a 5-year donor funding programme that will significantly boost the development of Banhine as a beacon of hope for the people living in this landscape. The budget has largely been designed to provide community livelihood support to promote the peaceful co-existence between people and wildlife.
2022 is filled with many highlights across all of Peace Parks Foundation, and thanks to our dedicated donors, partners and staff, we have seen a positive shift in the future of co-existence between people and nature.
