Southern Africa

“In stark contrast to its northern relative, the recovery of the southern white rhino sub-species is one of the world's greatest conservation success stories, according to conservation group WWF. In the late 1800s it was considered extinct, but a small population of perhaps 50 animals was rediscovered in Natal, South Africa. The subsequent creation of protected areas and breeding rhinos on private ranches has been a spectacular success. Though poaching is still a problem, the population has swelled to 11,000 and growing, making this the most numerous of all rhino sub-species. The success can partly be attributed to allowing rhinos to be bought and sold for tourism and sport hunting. "Giving them an economic value caused them to bounce back like crazy," says Robinson at the WCS.”

“The park is considered to be of continental importance for black rhino conservation, because it is one of a few reserves which is large enough to accommodate a genetically and demographically viable population of black rhinos. The Kruger National Park also houses a fast growing population of about 3,000 white rhinos. This large white rhino population acts as an effective buffer against black rhino poaching as poachers are more likely to encounter the more numerous white rhinos than black rhinos. In the past 10 years only one black rhino has been lost through poaching."

“Few people realize that the Kalahari sands represent the largest uninterrupted expanse of sand anywhere on Earth, stretching from the Congo north of the equator to south of the Gariep River in South Africa. In the far south especially, rain is scarce and natural freestanding water almost entirely absent. Yet plants, animals and the last remaining clans of San or Bushman hunter-gatherers still live in this hostile world, having adapted to it in unique and fascinating ways. Fortunately this desert is well-conserved: two enormous game reserves, the Kalahari National Park (KGNP) in Botswana and the Gemsbok National Park (GNP) in South Africa have recently been amalgamated into southern Africa’s first transfrontier conservation area, the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. This uninterrupted expanse of protected area covers eight million hectares - and the Kalahari lion is unquestionably its premier icon.”

A memorandum of understanding was signed for the creation of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park in 2000. "At close to 3,600,000 ha in extent, the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP) represents one of the crowning jewels of conservation efforts in Africa. Broadly categorized as lowland flat savannah, a diverse mix of landscape types contribute toward the mosaic of habitats that supports a wealth of biotic diversity in the GLTP."

Hwange National Park is the largest, oldest game reserve in Zimbabwe. The park is roughly the size of Belgium and consists mostly of savanna, scrubland and scattered woodland. It contains 108 mammal species, the highest diversity of mammals of any National Park in the world and is frequented by one of the world's largest elephant herds.

"The huge desert Kalahari Gemsbok national park was declared in 1930 to protect this rare species of oryx, as well as springbok and hartebeest . . . A sea change appears to have taken place in South African attitudes towards wild animals at this time."

"The original elephant section of the park was proclaimed in 1931, when only sixteen elephants remained in the area. Today this finely tuned ecosystem is sanctuary to over 550 elephants, lions, buffalo, black rhino, spotted hyena, leopard, a variety of antelope and zebra species, as well as the unique Addo flightless dung beetle, found almost exclusively in Addo."

In 1929 the Serengeti is designated a game reserve. In 1937 the hunting of lions within the area is completely banned and in 1951 the reserve land becomes the basis for the Serengeti National Park.

"Kruger National Park game reserve, c.8,000 sq mi (20,720 sq km), Limpopo and Mpumalanga, NE South Africa. One of the world's largest wildlife sanctuaries, it has almost every species of game found in southern Africa . . . The park was originally founded as the Sabi Game Reserve (1898) by Paul Kruger; it was enlarged and made a national park in 1926. In 2002 it became part of the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park, which encompasses parklands in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe."

“. . . in the case of Cape Town, the peripheral Cape Flats exposed, and continues to expose, residents to harsh winds, flooding due to high water tables, and large volumes of dust from mobile sands. Certainly these areas are less proximate to the recreational and cultural (and associated work) opportunities presented by Table Mountain. The Cape Flats have numerous ecosystem disservices. There can be little confusion around the fact that apartheid spatial planning took an informed view and disadvantaged certain people by placing them in uncontrollable, untamed, and difficult ecologies.”

“Great misapprehension prevails on the subject [of fire], caused mainly by looking at it from the point of view of an inhabitant of Northern Europe. The veldt fire here is not an incendiary disaster but a natural process, that usually is only dangerous when ignorantly interrupted or for some reason or other, too long deferred.” Fires were also, however, a threat to colonial property and infrastructure. Europeans brought patters of settlement far more permanent (and vulnerable to fire) than those of semi-nomadic indigenous peoples who occupied the region before them.

- David Ernest Hutchins, British forester

“‘The only thing of value the interior of Africa produces at present in any quantity is ivory.’ Drummond fully expected the disappearance of the elephant in a matter of a few years; as a source of ivory the animal had been ‘too great a success.’ He saw no development of ‘legitimate industries’ in Africa ‘so long as a tusk remains,’ and put the matter in the bluntest possible terms: ‘The sooner the last elephant falls before the hunter’s bullet, the better for Africa.’”

- Henry Drummond, Scottish evangelist

"Well into the nineteenth century, it was plentiful throughout southern South Africa; while it was being heavily hunted for meat and trophies, and its habitat appropriated for farms and ranches, the event of its extinction in the wild went almost unnoticed. The last wild quagga was killed in 1878. Once there were herds of quaggas in South Africa, and then there weren't. For a while, quaggas were kept in zoos, but the last captive specimen died in Amsterdam's Artis Magistra Zoo on August 12, 1883"

“On this side of the river elephant hunting is at an end, all the elephants being killed or driven away . . . [I] spent ten years of my life elephant hunting in the interior and every year elephants were becoming scarcer and wilder south of the Zambezi, so that it had become almost impossible to make a living by hunting at all.”

- Frederick Selous, British hunter and conservationist