(Posted 07th March 2025)
Courtesy of African Elephant News and Don Pinnock, Daily Maverick
A sustainable future for elephants has to work alongside human social development if they’re to survive in South Africa’s rapidly changing landscape. That’s the core message of a strategy proposal issued for public discussion by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment.
What do we need to do in order for elephants and people to coexist and for both to thrive? That’s the question the National Elephant Heritage Strategy seeks to answer. Do people value them in a way that they’re going to allow elephants to share the country in which we all live? If so, how?
What we need to do, it suggests, is to look beyond the traditional management of biodiversity in isolation and consider the role of elephants in wider society. Reconstruct the fabric of land use so that people and elephants can coexist in living landscapes that interconnect to the benefit of both people and elephants.
The heritage strategy now out for public discussion attempts to answer these questions by putting a frame around what exists and projecting forward into what our relationship with elephants should be. It’s quite consciously a heritage and not a conservation strategy. We’re talking about very advanced, very complex and possibly controversial thinking.
The best person to unpack the proposal is Professor Rob Slotow of KZN University who was one of the drafters with a long history of thinking through elephant conservation and management.
Don Pinnock: The National Elephant Heritage Strategy is certainly generating a lot of discussion. Perhaps you could start by giving us some context. What makes this strategy different from previous approaches to elephant management in South Africa?
Rob Slotow: The way we’ve traditionally approached biodiversity management has been very biologically focused. We look at what causes increases or decreases in a species’ population, or what threatens an ecosystem. We tend to think in terms of over-harvesting or conflict. What’s missing is the broader social and political context in which biodiversity exists.
DP: So, are you saying that previous management plans have been too narrow in their focus?
RS: Exactly. If you look at the National Biodiversity Management Plans for rhinos, lions, or even cycads, they’re heavily focused on the biological aspects. They don’t adequately address the people context, the social issues that are crucial for biodiversity to persist in the modern age, although this is changing as they’re revised over time.
DP: You mentioned intangible rights, like spiritual or cultural values. How does the heritage strategy incorporate these elements, which are often overlooked in traditional management plans?
RS: That’s a key point. We recognise that there are elements of human rights and value systems that aren’t tangible in a purely biological sense. Spiritual rights, cultural rights, the intrinsic value of nature — these are all important considerations that need to be factored into management plans.
DP: In 2008 South Africa developed Norms and Standards for Elephant Management. How does the current strategy build upon or depart from that framework?
The challenge is that this framework lacked broader context. It operated in a vacuum, without addressing the broader socioecological system.
RS: The 2008 Norms and Standards were the outcome of the culling debate and a Ministerial Round Table. They provided detailed guidance for managing elephants, covering hunting, culling, contraception and translocation. However, the challenge is that this framework lacked broader context. It operated in a vacuum, without addressing the broader socioecological system.
DP: So, you’re suggesting that the 2008 framework, while detailed, didn’t provide a clear basis for decision-making when conflicting interests arise?
RS: Precisely. Every situation became a battle, with people wanting to do things and others telling them they couldn’t. There was no overarching framework to guide these decisions. Moreover, because the elephant management plans were tied to specific reserves, they tended to be isolated, failing to address the broader elephant conservation issues, and, importantly, the social context.
DP: You mentioned the need for a meta-population management plan. Could you elaborate on that?
RS: What we’re missing is a plan that connects all the elephant populations across different reserves. Instead of managing each reserve in isolation, we need to look at the national herd, considering the overall health and genetic diversity of the elephant population. This would allow for planned translocations to assist reserves where elephants are isolated from natural movement.
DP: You’ve spoken about Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), how does this fit into the bigger picture?
RS: Well, elephant range states which are parties to Cites are required to have a National African Elephant Action Plan which links to the overall African Elephant Action Plan. South Africa doesn’t have one, and the heritage strategy, combined with other elements such as the Norms and Standards and proposed National Elephant Meta-population Management Framework, will cover this in a way most suited to our unique context.
DP: The heritage strategy seems to sync with the concept of living landscapes conceptualised in the White Paper on Conservation and Sustainable Use of South Africa’s Biodiversity, the draft Revised National Biodiversity Economy Strategy and the SANParks Vision 204o. What does that mean in practical terms?
RS: “Living landscapes” refers to areas where people and biodiversity coexist. It means not confining conservation efforts to protected areas, but extending them into the broader landscape, considering the needs and concerns of local communities and the untapped potential of biodiversity on land with conservation compatible land use. It’s about access and benefit sharing, such as developing small and medium-sized enterprises in communities near wildlife properties, allowing them, for example, to benefit from tourism for which elephants are a key driver.
We already have good examples to draw on, such as Dinokeng north of Pretoria. There are about 176 landowners comprising government land, private farms, and many smallholdings. The Gauteng government got them all together and collectively they formed a Big Five Reserve by dropping fences. There was no land expropriation. Those landowners who didn’t want to join were allowed to continue their land-use and were simply fenced out, forming islands within the broader reserve. The lions and elephants now just walk around those properties.
The capital growth has been tremendous and jobs for local people and the value of land in the area have rocketed.
DP: Are there communities actually existing with elephants, given that almost all elephants live in fenced reserves?
RS: The concept of community living with elephants is a broad one and would include communities outside fenced reserves. A lot of private reserves have relationships with surrounding communities, and most state reserves have formal linkages in that many state reserves with elephants (and some private reserves) have some form of claimant relationship with communities that once lived there.
DP: Given that almost all elephants are state, provincial or privately owned and the tourism opportunities on these properties generally have been extensively utilised, how will communities be able to benefit from elephants?
New models can provide win-win options, noting especially that the White Paper and the heritage strategy say partnerships are essential. Business as usual is not socioecologically sustainable.
RS: That is true under the current models which do not promote (one could say prevent) access and benefit flows to surrounding communities in a meaningful way. New models can provide win-win options, noting especially that the White Paper and the heritage strategy say partnerships are essential. Business as usual is not socioecologically sustainable.
DP: I guess what you’re looking at is similar to parts of places in Botswana, Namibia and Kenya.
RS: Of course. In many of those areas you have wild animals not in parks roaming around or using corridors over state land, community land and private land, often with a range of land uses. Free-roaming animals are not a new thing to Africa, it’s just that we’re no longer accustomed to it here.
DP: In those areas there’s sometimes human-elephant conflict. How does the strategy address this issue?
RS: We need to find ways for elephants and people to coexist, whether it’s through protected areas with fences or by allowing elephants to roam freely in certain areas.
In places like the Mapungubwe area or west of northern Kruger, where elephants roam widely, we need to move beyond simply culling problem animals. We need to explore alternatives, working proactively with local communities and land owners for win-win solutions.
Fenced islands, like in Dinokeng, can protect key agricultural production land with tomatoes or oranges or community villages, and local people can be employed as elephant shepherds to guide elephants away from settlements. The heritage strategy calls for African Solutions for African Opportunities.
DP: You mentioned elephants moving into northern KZN from Kruger. What’s the appropriate response in such situations?
The future of our elephants is in our hands. (Photo: Rob Slotow)
RS: The current response is often to shoot the elephants outside of protected areas. But we need to think more strategically. These elephants could be showing us where we need to create corridors for biodiversity, not just for elephants but for the dispersal and gene flow of other species and overall ecosystem health. We need to mitigate the costs for communities affected by these elephants, perhaps by fencing villages or implementing herding programmes, which is working elsewhere. Education, awareness, and capacity development for novel solutions are all critical aspects highlighted in the enablers with the heritage strategy.
DP: The comment has been made about elephants overbreeding in small reserves. Is this something that concerns you?
RS: We may have a preconceived idea of how many elephants should be in a reserve, including even for large reserves such as Kruger. This is often influenced by the fact that there were initially no elephants there. When we see numbers increasing, it naturally raises concerns. However, what we are learning is that elephants are part of the natural system and serve important ecological roles, even at high densities. It is essential that their density varies in space and time.
We find that even in small reserves there are areas of high use, and lower use, refugia where they retreat and spend time and areas in which they feel threatened and move through much more quickly, feeding less.
In other words, we shouldn’t set a number and manage for that number, but rather, the context of the reserve needs to be taken into account – what their objectives are about and what the natural system in that reserve is telling us.
DP: There was a report recently that said provincial reserves were failing to protect the biodiversity they were set up to protect, let alone create employment opportunities.
RS: It’s not necessarily true. In the context of elephants, all of the provincial reserves are doing very well in protecting their elephant populations. It is also not correct that provincial protected areas have not created jobs. Remember the heritage strategy is about new ways of thinking that aim to improve socioecological sustainability. It’s not intended as a blueprint for addressing the financial and governance sustainability of provincial reserves.
DP: Finally, what role does engagement and consultation play in the Elephant Heritage Strategy?
RS: Engagement and consultation are crucial. The strategy emphasizes the participation and influence of stakeholders, not only in the drafting process but also in the implementation of the strategy. It’s about ensuring that the people on the ground, the managers and local communities, have a stronger say in the decisions that affect them.
It’s also about a holistic approach that provides space and opportunity for different viewpoints and value systems to be considered and integrated into African solutions for African opportunities. It’s about both people and nature thriving.
DP: Rob, thanks for clarifying the key principles and aims of the strategy. It certainly represents a significant shift in how South Africa approaches elephant conservation.
