World Elephant Day: Why SA’s approach is worth trumpeting about

They say that it is best to eat an elephant one bite at a time, which is a philosophy that the South African government is using with success to manage the country’s elephant population.

World Elephant Day, celebrated today, allows South African conservationists to reflect on the status of these gentle giants.

“Across the world, this occasion has been observed annually since its inauguration in 2012, to highlight the status of countries’ elephant management practices, allowing opportunity to highlight lessons learnt through both success stories and areas of challenge,” reads a statement by SANParks’ head of communications, JP Louw.

He says the theme this year is ‘Evidence-based conservation – The success story behind South Africa’s elephant management lessons’. “This seeks to encourage continuous engagement around elephant management across South Africa on the basis of evidence-based scientific data, which is at the backbone of today’s healthy elephant populations.”

Human-elephant conflict

The statement explains that despite ivory poaching, human-elephant conflict, and habitat change, which has seen elephant populations heavily impacted in other places in southern Africa, SA’s population has been increasing over the past century and currently stands at around 44 000 animals.

“Most of South Africa’s elephants can be found inside state-protected areas, while SANParks manages about 75% of the country’s elephants in five national parks. The Kruger National Park has around 30 000. About a further 800 are in Addo Elephant National Park, around 600 at Mapungubwe National Park, just under 400 at Marakele National Park and one in Garden Route National Park.”

Louw says because elephants increasingly use human-inhabited landscapes, planning and actions around human-elephant conflict are critical.

“There are a range of novel mechanisms that are being trialled in the region to mitigate this conflict. These include chasing elephants out of communal areas, fencing elephants out from sensitive areas, creating elephant barriers (ditches), closing human-made waterholes, setting up deterrents like beehives on fences, exploring crop insurances as well as introducing wildlife bonds.”

Not a white elephant

The efforts of managing the population are not a ‘white elephant’ (something that is more trouble than it is worth), as Louw adds that elephants play a vital role in seed dispersal, bush thinning, influencing fire patterns, and felling trees that then become resources and habitats for other species.

“As a large and impactful megaherbivore, they also change ecosystems in ways that may be viewed as undesirable, impacting tall trees and certain sensitive habitats negatively, and those impacts need to be managed. Re-establishing natural resource gradients has been at the forefront of management responses and this included removal of artificial water points and expanding conservation areas through establishing transfrontier parks.”

Conservation efforts

Louw says the present-day approach is anchored around habitat management and mitigating the negative impact of elephants on nature and people.

“In other words, SANParks applies itself to how to maintain, restore or modify natural habitats that support and enhance the health, diversity, and productivity of ecosystems. This approach supports elephant well-being, reduces human-wildlife conflict, and promotes community beneficiation while maintaining the resilience of ecosystems.”

He adds that the conservationists of today face ‘different challenges to those from the early 1900s’.

“Back then, the greatest concern was a depleted elephant population and how to recover it. Today, it is about maximising the socio-ecological role of elephants while minimising the cost to the well-being of people and nature.”