Off to meet earth addicts in game country

A road trip along one of the main arteries leading towards the Botswana border is bound to hold a handful of surprises.
It creates ample opportunity for getting to grips with haughty warthogs sniffing around boundary fences, a host of safari operators and guest lodges heralding travellers with attractive signage posted in significant spots and the sight of donkey carts and tractors put to work. In that part of the world turn-offs to places with eye-catcher names, like Schiermonikoog (sic), Mara, Marowe and Ga-Mmalebogo, are in abundance.
Not all road trips proceed without the odd discomfort. The road towards the Botswana border doesn’t only expose the traveller to game country alone, but to treacherous clusters of lethal potholes, more specifically around Alldays, which must have a relation to the convoys of heavy vehicles making use of Limpopo infrastructure as thoroughfare to destinations afar.
As the dubious tarred surface snakes past the offerings of the farming hub of Alldays, the new Volkswagen Amarok V6 courtesy Volkswagen Polokwane effortlessly devours kilometre upon kilometre on the one-day return trip. Offering all the bells and whistles any hard core bundu basher could desire, the workhorse delivers Polokwane Observer’s road trippers to a research hub on a farm in the area. There a team of dedicated earth addicts are engaged in the tracking of and traipsing after predators and primates in conflict with humans as part of ongoing research funded by non-profit environmental organisation Earthwatch Institute.

Alldays Wildlife and Communities Research Centre (AWCRC)
At AWCRC, based at Campfornis some 10 km from town since September last year, the members of an evidently enthusiastic team of researchers and assistants are quick to point out that the focus is not on glamorous volunteer work that is sold as a romantic excursion to international students who are keen on ticking off the African experience on bucket lists. When accepted by the Primate and Predator Project (PPP) of Durham University in the United Kingdom hosted at the centre, team members get their hands dirty as they are absorbed in raw conservation work. Seemingly at the end of a day in the wild volunteers on the project are able to journal actual encounters with species that roam that end of the country. As PPP team head Leah Findlay puts it, “Saving the world one Alldays at a time” is what the small team does, with the full understanding that they can’t change the world but set an example that might just start a chain reaction.
But before Findlay and AWCRC volunteer coordinator and farm trials assistant Jeanette Fouché get peppered with questions about the work they do, there is a pit stop at Briershof Primary School in town where the team weekly engages an approximate 20 excited learners between Grades R and 6 on environmental education issues as part of AWCRC’s community outreach work.
Briershof Primary School
The private institution commenced with operations in January 2013 and owes its establishment to Anthony and Emma Peniston, who back then struggled to find an appropriate institution in the area when their daughter, Charlie had to start schooling. According to Emma, who is co-director and also part of the teaching staff at the school, they initially realised the need for such a school in the community. The multi-racial learner complement has since grown from an initial 13 to 18 boys and girls and nowadays the school employs four permanent and part-time teachers as well as a teaching assistant, explains Anthony who points out that each child receives special attention. The school sponsors the education of up to six kids from the surrounding area at a time, he adds. The institution is part of the Foundations For Farming initiative and already boasts a bronze award received from the Eco-Schools programme last year, it is learnt.
Thursday’s lesson about air pollution turns out to be as big a hit as a recent one featuring the water element. Findlay and Fouché are joined by colleague Jamie McKaughan and volunteers Hannah Riches, Lottie Cross and Pierce McKeon who share information through an interactive session on the playground.

AWCRC work on Primate and Predator Project
Later on in the confines of a cool thatched workplace at Campfornis and confronted by a mountain of chocolate brownies, Findlay and Fouché unpack the work done in terms of Durham University’s project that gets developed by Findlay and is overseen by Fouché.
It includes various facets of research aimed at reducing human-wildlife conflict, snare sweeping, litter picking, environmental education, setting up camera traps for capturing footage of the movement of free-roaming transitory species such as cheetah and leopard on three different farms as well as deterrents testing against troublesome primates that is conducted in liaison with commercial farmers in the area. In this regard they explain that tried barrier crop spraying through the use of chillies and investigating the possibility of keeping primates out of crops with electric fencing form part of the project.
According to Findlay they focus their research on baboons that cause most damage to crops, although the likes of bush pigs and warthogs cause almost as much destruction. She mentions that she was informed that there is no solution for keeping primates at bay, but stresses that she is adamant about finding one.
Asked about the challenges they encounter they listed funding, access to a single functioning laptop, costly camera equipment used to obtain images in 40 respective locations, the current drought as they rely on crop-growing farmers for experiments, logistics related to travels to distant farms and their safety due to the fact that wild animals pose a danger as factors to be taken into consideration. At the same time Findlay emphasised that without the international funding from Earthwatch Institute they wouldn’t have been able to exist.
In conclusion they reference the Alldays heat, the bugs and small animals like snakes as somewhat of a constant battle with nature that they are fighting while unacquainted with the African bush. Still it sounds terribly exciting.
All the way back to Polokwane the conversation in the confines of the Amarok’s cabin centres around the story of a team of volunteer researchers living on a farm in the middle of almost nowhere with only a single computer serving as their connection with civilisation, fighting off avocado-stealing baboons to which they haven’t found a solution yet.
It was a pleasant drive home.