In southern Africa, a vast, cross-border nature and landscape conservation area extends over five countries. This is where endangered populations of wild animals and plants can recover. However, there is no absence of conflicts.  Researchers from the University of Cologne (UoC) are on the scene when nature conservation meets local interests.

By Jan Voelkel

At first glance, the corn field looks good. Most plants stand in rows in the sandy soil. On closer inspection, however, some look rather sad, because the stems and the yellow cobs have been eaten.  Here in the Zambezi region of southern Africa, maize is an important staple. The farmer is predictably disappointed and frustrated while pointing at his plants.  Harvesting high yields is complicated enough due to difficult weather and climate conditions, and now the field has also been looted. It cannot be said that the perpetrators have sneaked in secretly. After all, a single one weighs up to six tons. Elephants use the fields as they move across the country along the routes of their elephant corridors. There is also a suspicion that the animals also target fields. Because some of those that lie beyond their routes will be plundered in the months of March and April.

The region is part of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, KAZA for short. It is one of the largest nature reserves in the world and covers parts of Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. With three million people and 520,000 square kilometres of land, KAZA is a gigantic environmental protection project in which humans and animals coexist. What initially seems idyllic, however, also involves conflicts. ›More environmental protection sounds good, of course. Everyone would advocate that nature should be protected there. For the farmers and the general population on the ground, however, the measures are very concrete and are often criticized,‹ says UoC ethnologist Professor Dr Michael Bollig.

In the project ›Rewilding the Anthropocene‹, Bollig and his team are investigating the interconnections between humans, flora and fauna in the KAZA area. In this vast nature conservation landscape, the effects of the Anthropocene – the age since humans decisively shaped the biological, geological and atmospheric processes on Earth – are particularly striking with new efforts to protect species and maintain a healthy ecological balance. The aim of the research project is to better understand the complexity of large-scale renaturation measures. These empirical findings can then be incorporated into the future planning of nature conservation – especially with regard to local participation processes and the coexistence of humans, flora and fauna.

At a global level, the goals are ambitious. At the last UN Biodiversity Conference, the international community has set itself the goal of placing 30 percent of the land and sea area worldwide under nature protection by 2030. ›If we want to implement this, we will see more such large-scale projects in the next decade. The problems will be similar everywhere,‹ says Michael Bollig. Accordingly, the findings derived from the research of the UoC scientists are valuable. 

There are some rather specific questions: How and to what extent are locals at an advantage or disadvantage from nature conservation? How do people perceive environmental protection on a local level; how do they discuss it and how can costs and benefits be distributed fairly? ›We deal with different levels,‹ says Bollig. ›Because, depending on who you ask – whether local farmers or employees of NGOs and ministries – the assessments of what is appropriate and fair are quite different.‹ One man’s meat is another man’s poison. 

For example, the elephant population in Botswana is the largest in the world with around 130,000 animals. On the one hand, these animals have probably multiplied strongly due to the ban on hunting from 2014 to 2019, on the other hand, many have immigrated to Botswana due to the 27-year civil war in neighbouring Angola. This is a great success: The animals are still threatened today in many parts of the African continent by the trade in ivory and armed conflicts. As distributors of seeds and landscape designers in forests, they are important for the ecological balance.

Stroboscope: Elephants don't like discos

Emilie Köhler is a doctoral student in the field of elephant management in KAZA. During her research time on the ground, she accompanied the NGO ‘Elephants without Borders’ in their work in the so-called Chobe Enclave and held talks with local farmers. This enclave is located close to Chobe National Park, part of KAZA in Botswana, and often has problems with elephants. ›Meanwhile, the country almost has too many elephants,‹ says Köhler. But there’s a problem: The animals are not only thick-skinned but also very stubborn. They insist on their routes, trampling fields or feeding themselves on the cultivated grain. 

However, they are not the baddies. The spread of agriculture and larger human settlements also restrict the habitat of elephants. They are experiencing rapid change. Resources and land are becoming scarcer for all due to growing human and animal populations. The reality of life of the farmers facing the animals is often hard. Some of them sleep in their fields for months and try to protect their crops with drums or the loud crack of a whip.

The interviews conducted by Köhler often reveal a sceptical view of nature conservation – at least on a local level. ›The local farmers basically regard the elephants as ‘property’ of the state or the nature conservation organization, because they prescribe the measures for the protection of the animals,‹ says Köhler. ›So these institutions must provide compensation from the perspective of the population.‹ 

There is also a positive outlook. Many people say that they learn more about wildlife through the protected areas and attach importance to the fact that subsequent generations will still learn what elephants, lions and other wildlife look like. But state compensation is generally perceived to be too low. In the Chobe Enclave, ‘Elephants without Borders’ therefore helps farmers to protect their crops and reduce conflict by setting up various defence systems such as electric fences or strobe lights. KAZA aims to ensure a friendly coexistence of elephants and humans, coordinated rules and protective measures by the five member states, and in the long term a redistribution of elephants from densely populated areas such as Botswana and Zimbabwe to areas in Angola that have been less used by them so far.

Without local support from the chiefs, nothing is possible

The fact that there is an important role for the local population to play in the planning and decision-making of nature conservation measures is also highlighted by doctoral student Paula Alexiou.   In the KAZA area and especially in western Zambia, it is investigating the extraction of rosewood – a local species of rosewood that is in great demand on the world market. There is hardly any reliable data on the cutting of these trees, as much of it is illegal. ›But since 2020, rosewood has been the most widely traded product in terms of volume and value from nature conservation areas worldwide. It even exceeds ivory in its commercial value,‹ says Alexiou.

China, in particular, is heavily involved in trade. Local Chinese sawmills buy logs and process them before they are shipped to China. The price range is enormous. Local authorities from the villages usually have to pay 100 Zambian Kwacha per tree cut down – that is about 5 euros. The sawmills in turn buy the wood from timber traders for about 150 euros per cubic meter, with a full-grown tree supplying several cubic meters. Chinese traders sell the logs on the world market for 10 to 20 times more. 

It is clear who will benefit the most in this case. In addition, rosewood was a protected tree species in Zambia's western province under the traditional forest law. The tree was not allowed to be felled because of its fruits, which serve as an important source of food. Not only does the deforestation of the tree eliminate an important source of food today, but small farmers from the villages say that the fertility of the soil is impaired, which makes it difficult for them to produce enough crops. Nature and environmental protection – in other words, the regulation and management of natural resources – have a very concrete economic impact here. Better and fairer licensing for the felling of trees can help make these impacts more tolerable for the local population.

Many NGOs, such as the WWF, but also the government ministries of the neighbouring states, are therefore now trying to establish committees at local level, in which representatives from the villages are elected. ›Especially in southwest Zambia, the traditional authorities, the chiefs, have a great deal of power,‹ says Alexiou. ›The government has now acknowledged that if economic stakeholders apply for tree-felling or usage licenses and the Chiefs do not agree, it does not work. This affects wood, but also other resources in the region.‹ Through the committees and the involvement of local authorities, those affected on the ground have more co-determination and can introduce their own issues into the debates.

Even if things are not all plain sailing everywhere. At various levels, there are efforts to distribute profits more equitably and to keep them on the ground through greater participation and better resource management. And local participation can help to better estimate and minimize the environmental impact of resource use.

Balancing the interests of humans and animals and preventing global demand for raw materials from being exploited and taken out of the country in an uncontrolled manner – these are just two of the pressing issues that Michael Bollig and his team are addressing. However, the findings gained from the KAZA protected area can help to advance nature conservation worldwide – for the benefit of people and the entire flora and fauna.

REWILDING THE ANTHROPOCENE

Since January 2022, the research project has been funded by the European Research Council as part of an ERC Advanced Grant for Professor Dr Michael Bollig with a total of almost 2.5 million euros.
Founded in 2011, the KAZA protected area is known worldwide for its pioneering nature conservation. The research project captures the changing socio-ecological relationships between humans and other species in one of the largest and most comprehensive conservation experiments in the world. It consists of six field studies that address elephants and various carnivores, but also microbe and virus-borne pathogens in their dynamic relationships with man-made environmental infrastructures and technologies, organizations and scientific activities against the background of nature conservation measures.
Rewilding the Anthropocene cooperates closely with the Global South Studies Center (GSSC) and the Cologne Collaborative Research Center TR228 ‘Future Rural Africa’, which works on the effects of land use change, ecological dynamics and changing societies in eastern and southern Africa. 
More information: https://rewilding.de 

Further information:
GSSC | Global South Studies Center
Prof. Dr. Michael Bollig