World Largest Game Count Spotlighted on ABC

Greetings Everyone:

I'm happy to share another article about the world's largest game count I was able to participate in this year.

Recently, I shared an article by Dan O'Brien focusing on his WWF Northern Great Plains experiences, and I also want to share another article to help supplement the blog.

Below is the official write up [in bold] that my colleague here at WWF, Helge Denker wrote up about our experiences with the ABC film crew who came out recently to cover the world's largest game count.

Helge's article does a great job explaining how communities have a say in local resource management and the role the counts play in sustaining wildlife populations.


We both also submitted photos [the ones with gray borders] that will be used on ABC's website when they air the story. No telling now when they'll air this documentary, but everyone will know as soon as I'm made aware of its airing on Good Morning America and others.

My colleague Raymond recently gave me the official copy of the June 2009 game counts from the Northwest and its a great feeling looking down the Sesfontein column and knowing I helped count the 559 animals we saw that day ranging from oryx, giraffe, ostrich, springbok, elephant, and zebra. It would be neat to try and post this poster as a photo on here somehow... will work on it.

Little side notes:

Helge is a very talented photographer and writer based here in Windhoek and has been assisting National Geographic photographer Frans Lanting this week in the field. They're looking for black rhinos in the northwest -close to where this game count was conducted.

I have a link to Helge's photography website in my "websites of interest" you all should check out too! He also paints and one has a problem buying his stamps and post cards here in Namibia. They're mainly sold out everywhere he stocks them. Even the post office ladies know who he is when I ask for Helge stamps, but they say I have to use the other ones for now.

That's all for now!

Thank-you for reading!

Cheers,

A.E. Price

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THE WORLD’S LARGEST GAME COUNT IN THE SPOTLIGHT ON ABC NEWS

By Helge Denker, WWF in Namibia



Sesfontein airstrip. The charter plane is scheduled to arrive at dusk. An old man on a donkey cart appears out of the surrounding mopane woodland, greets us in passing and disappears again along a faint track leading towards the arc of rugged ridges that encloses the Sesfontein valley. Otherwise we are alone in the quiet African dusk, although the sounds of goats and the bray of a donkey hint at nearby village life. Chris Weaver, Managing Director of WWF in Namibia, Aaron Price, an intern from the Great Plains in the US, and I wait at the dusty landing strip, wondering whether we should turn on the headlights of our Land Cruisers to help guide the pilot. If it gets much darker, he won't be able to see the strip from the air.



Finally, the distant din of a single engine; a tiny speck of light, far off in the darkening sky. The Cessna 210 takes some minutes to cross the vast valley, passes overhead and then circles in front of the mountains to come in to land. Smooth touchdown. As the plane taxis to a halt in a cloud of dust, we walk over to greet ABC News anchor Dan Harris, cameraman Almin Karamehmedovic and Lee Poston from WWF-US. We transfer their luggage into our vehicles while the pilot secures the plane. As we drive off towards Sesfontein, it is already completely dark. Sesfontein ('Six Fountains') is a small settlement of around a thousand souls, a single fuel station (currently without diesel), a few informal shops and a small lodge. It is not our destination; it’s just the closest place with a landing strip. We drop off the pilot, who will stay at the lodge and return to Windhoek tomorrow, and head north-west along a dwindling dirt track climbing into the hills. This is the remote Kunene Region in north-western Namibia. The nearest tar road is over a hundred miles to the east.
In the bounce of the headlights, springbok and gemsbok – the most abundant of Namibia’s desert antelope – cross the bumpy track in front of the vehicle. Almin and Dan are riding with me and we immediately start discussing conservation and the state of wildlife in Namibia. They have come to Africa to cover a variety of environmental stories. Lee Poston is facilitating their visit to Namibia, where WWF has a country office. The group flew in to Johannesburg, South Africa, yesterday, and this morning on to Namibia’s capital, Windhoek. At Windhoek international airport, they were picked up by the charter plane that has brought them the 350 miles to Sesfontein – to cover the annual North-West Game Count.



Namibia’s Community-Based Natural Resource Management Programme is being internationally recognised as a global model for community-based conservation. Through policy changes in the mid-nineties, the Namibian government devolved rights to local communities to manage the natural resources in their area through the formation of conservancies (clearly defined tracts of land, which local communities manage through an elected committee and an approved management plan). People were suddenly able to derive direct and significant benefits from wildlife and other resources, something that was impossible under South African apartheid rule. This led to a rapid shift in mindset from seeing wildlife as a threat or at most meat to be poached for the pot, to embracing wildlife and affiliated natural resources as an opportunity for socioeconomic development. Natural resources are now actively utilised – and carefully managed – through tourism, hunting, game translocations and the harvesting of plant products. A remarkable and unparalleled wildlife recovery has been the result.
Conservancy formation has been demand-driven – as more and more community benefits have been generated, so more conservancies have formed. Today there are 55 registered communal conservancies in Namibia, covering around 30 million acres, which is over 15% of the country. This represents a marvellous expansion of the protected landscapes of Namibia. Many of the conservancies border national parks and have created buffer zones and wildlife corridors. Over 230,000 rural people – 12.5% of the national population – live within these conservancies and in 2007, US$ 5.6 million in benefits were generated for local communities.





Conservancy management includes active monitoring of wildlife population numbers and trends. Since the year 2000, this has been done through coordinated annual game counts. The North-West Game Count is the largest road-based game count in the world. It is a truly Namibian conservation initiative of immense proportion and ambition: Between 250 and 300 people actively participate to count game throughout an area of some 17.5 million acres, covering a total distance of over 4,350 miles of count transects in the process. The count is done more or less simultaneously in 27 adjacent conservancies over a three week period, to avoid double counting of game through natural wildlife movements.



The count underlines the success of conservancies in monitoring, managing and utilising their natural resources sustainably, which has led to the impressive recovery of wildlife populations and the equally remarkable benefits to communities. The count also highlights the conservation benefits of partnerships at local, national and international levels. It is a superb example of positive collaboration between the conservancies themselves, the Ministry of Environment & Tourism (MET) and a number of facilitating NGOs. A lot of food for discussion, and we talk basically non-stop while we drive for another good hour through the darkness – covering only 25 miles along a track that becomes fainter and bumpier as we go along.

Finally we arrive at Ganamub, which is no more than a scattering of huts and stock enclosures, a water reservoir – and, for three nights, the base camp of the game count team. There are around 30 or so people camping here; their tents are scattered in small clusters under trees along a dry riverbed. My colleagues and I have already set up tents for our group. Dinner around the campfire, bright stars above. Talk of tomorrow’s counting schedule, African wildlife, conservation. We saw fresh tracks of lion this morning, and the talk invariably turns to them. In the African night, wildlife and the dangers it might pose suddenly become very tangible. But we are in no danger – the lions are elusive and avoid humans, especially in a large group like this. But it is wonderful to know that they are around, and that their numbers in the North-West have increased from around 25 in the late nineties to well over 100 today. We don’t talk for too much longer. Everyone is tired from the long day and we soon head to our tents. Counting starts early.

First light. The crisp, cold air of the African dawn. People huddled in small groups around smoky fires. A quick bowl of cereal and a hot cup of coffee. Counting will start at 7:00, just as the sun peaks over the eastern ridges. There are several counting teams, always consisting of a driver, a record keeper and two or more counters. Staff and volunteers from the conservancies, from MET, from the local NGO Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation (IRNDC) and from WWF in Namibia. All counting is done from the back of an open four-wheel-drive, and each team covers a fixed route, or transect. The vehicle is stopped for each sighting of game, which is meticulously recorded – the species and number of animals, the time, the distance travelled along the transect, the distance of the game from the track.

Counting along any particular transect is usually finished by around midday. Teams return to camp and compile data. Once all transects in the conservancy have been counted (usually within two days, depending on the number of routes to be covered and vehicles available), all transect data is consolidated into overall data for the conservancy and is discussed at a feedback session. This might take place under a tree, with data sheets pasted to the side of a Land Cruiser. There is a lot of community interest, and people discuss how the data fits in with the day-to-day monitoring done by the conservancy throughout the year. WWF Natural Resource Management (NRM) Technician Raymond Peters and NRM consultant Dave Ward take time to compare this year’s data with that of previous counts. Population numbers and trends are very important in determining utilisation quotas and the community understands the value of monitoring. In a few weeks time, all the data from the count will be brought together and analysed in Windhoek, and then turned into a results poster that is used by all stakeholders for information sharing and planning purposes.



The ABC News team has a wonderful time on the count, getting good footage of desert-adapted elephant, giraffe, ostrich, zebra, gemsbok, springbok and a variety of smaller wildlife. Our search for the elusive black rhino and desert lions remains unsuccessful – we only find fresh tracks. But the scenery makes up for the wildlife that we do not see. Vast desert plains, now covered in yellow grass after a good rainy season, rugged mountains and tree-lined ephemeral rivers provide spectacular backdrops. The local, often still very traditional, cultures add another dimension and put the wildlife in its context of rural livelihoods. We are not in a national park; we are on communal land, where local people live with – sometimes dangerous – wildlife.

While the focus of the trip is the wildlife count, we also visit some of the visible benefits that have been created through community-based resource management: the new school at Puros (which was built by Wilderness Safaris as part of a joint-venture agreement), the conservancy office, the recently installed water infrastructure, local lodges and campsites – some owned and run by the community, others with joint-venture agreements – that provide significant benefits to the conservancy and to community members through job creation and direct income. These benefits are vital in ensuring long-term conservation, as they enable communities to live with wildlife, rather than perceiving it as a source of conflict with other land uses.




Long days filled with countless impressions of Africa, of wildlife and people and livestock – living together. But journalists are always on a tight schedule and the charter plane soon returns to pick up the team, this time from Puros airstrip, even smaller, more remote, than Sesfontein. The team will fly back to Windhoek, and from there on to South Africa, Madagascar and Uganda to cover other conservation initiatives. Each story will have its own particular accents and points of interest, but the successes of community-based conservation as seen through the North-West Game Count will be a unique highlight.