Scavenging for Resources

by Sergei Bluman, of University of Vermont

Yesterday, the group came together for our tenth Conservation Biology class. The lecture (led by Paige Mathison, Westminster College) was about unequal and privileged access to natural resources in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. To simulate the issues that arise in dealing with sharing and distributing resources, she designed a scavenger hunt. She separated us out into 3 teams of 4, and gave each team 3 tasks to complete in 3 minutes. The catch was that each team was also given a limitation. One team had to blind fold one member and bring that person everywhere they went, one team could only hold and move one item per person at a time, and one team was restricted to the platforms around the kitchen tent.

With only 3 minutes of time, we all frantically grabbed what we could within the time and rules given, and tried to work together to win the game. By the end of the 3 minutes, no one won. No single team fully completed all three tasks regardless of how active or well each team worked together. Paige had given us tasks that couldn’t be completed without help from extra team members, stealing, or cheating.

The simulation was very accurate to challenges we find in conservation policy making, land and resource management, and socioeconomic interactions between communities, the environment, and the government. Teams were fighting over similar or even the exact same resources, and all wanted to gain exclusive access to a “win”. Some resources are very delicate, limited, or valuable and we find that people are often greedy, fearful of outsiders and mistreatment/misuse of resources, and exclusive in resource distribution domestically and internationally, so by only trying to fulfill the immediate needs of a few, we all lose out in one way or another.

One team needed to gather mopane (Colophospermum mopane) tree leaves, but there weren’t any mopane leaves within reach of the platforms, so that team needed the help of another team to get access to that resource. Many rural communities have limited access to many amenities, technology, and information that urban environments in Botswana and other more developed nations have easy access to, so they need the help of government and researchers to protect their rights, supply their communities with technology and resources to support their families and livelihoods, pass policies that address their needs and issues, and consistent, reliable communication so they can continue to grow and develop with the rest of the country and world at large. Similarly without the aid of rural communities and researchers, the government can’t make apt policies that are well informed about the ecological conditions and issues experienced in the Delta by both people and wildlife. To govern a body well, there must be consistent participation, trust, and shared responsibility to enforce rules, protect rights, and solve problems comprehensively and complimentarily for different groups.

The platform limitation is similar to the role of fences in Botswana. There are various physical fences set by the government to divide protected wildlife areas from agricultural lands for crops and livestock. These fences are important because they allow Botswana to standardize their livestock industries to the standards of the European Union, which allows them to sell their meat to international markets. The beef industry is the second largest annual grossing source of income in Botswana (behind diamond mining), so farmers heavily rely on their cattle to survive.

The veterinary fences are meant to keep livestock safe from wildlife and potential diseases spread by wildlife, and to prevent wildlife from leaving the safety of protected areas. However, many wildlife are athletic and creative, and can jump (Greater Kudu (Tragelaphusstrepsiceros) or leopard (Panthera pardus)) or dig (e.g. spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta)) under the fences, getting into farmland, and often harming or killing livestock. When wildlife venture across fences, they are often noticed and apprehended immediately (especially predators). Farmers tend to respond by killing out of retaliation of livestock kills or to prevent the possibility of a kill – regardless of size (e.g. elephants (Loxodonta africana), lions (Panthera leo), African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus), etc.) species importance and diversity (keystone species, indicator species, endangered, vulnerable, etc.), or behavior (actually hunting, just passing through, running away).

The various fences allow the cattle industry to thrive, but it isn’t always appropriate for the needs of the rural communities and the wildlife. Rural communities aren’t allowed to sell their cattle because they are in the protected areas, and are given strict quotas and restrictions for hunting. And with the Hunting Ban of 2014, hunting mammals for sustenance is illegal, so it’s even harder for those communities to feed their families and maintain their livelihoods to survive and abide by the laws when they are hit with bad crop seasons, wildlife attacks and crop damage, or changes in policy that cut or exclude their benefits. The system isn’t very flexible for the most disadvantaged, and without proper representation and adequate amenities and benefits (i.e. schools, food, water, electricity, etc.) it’s understandable that rural farmers will poach and overexploit resources that they have used for generations.

The cattle industry has been a prominent source of income for many people in Botswana since the country’s birth, but other industries are on the rise. Ecotourism is a close third for generating money by attracting many tourists from around the world to come learn and take in the natural beauty and unique biodiversity found in Northern Botswana – and will likely overtake the cattle industry in the next few years. With ecotourism on the rise, it’s important to balance the needs of farmers with the needs of wildlife, so the fences have become a key point of debate in managing human-wildlife conflict and preserving wildlife populations.

Wildlife that are restricted to protected areas are often negatively affected by the presence of fences. Migrating antelope species (e.g. wildebeest (Connochaetes taurinus)) don’t live by man-made rules and barriers, and tend to get injured and killed trying to cross the fences. Their annual migrations – which have formed over millennia – often are blocked by fences, which negatively impact their behavior and survivability. If they are stranded in an area with limited water or food and are unable to make it to their mating grounds, then whole populations can suffer.

Similarly, the advance of civilization in the development of towns and roads brings more light and sound pollution, which often forces wildlife deeper into their territory and can even fragment their habitat. This limits species’ access to resources and changes their behavior and distributions, which can alter the landscape. For example, elephants are ecosystem engineers – meaning they can physically alter the landscape in short time scales – and when a new paved road is built across a concession, elephants might not be comfortable with the color and feeling of the road, and new prevalence of vehicles in their habitat. If they decide avoid crossing it and stop crossing into areas as often, or even all together, then they will overgraze the areas where they are – changing the appearance and makeup of the landscape – and new species may come to dominate the areas where they are not. These changes can be very serious (e.g. soil degradation or severe deforestation from elephants in an area), and harm many species on large time and spatial scales.

After the scavenger hunt, we concluded that to successfully meet the standards of ecological conservation efforts to preserve the Delta’s biodiversity, the needs of the people, and generate wealth, there must be proactive land-use conflict resolution mechanisms (sharing resources and distributing according to need and diverse interests) and collective responsibility. There must be clear rules, but flexibility is important to account for disadvantaged groups and new information.

In approaching conservation issues of today it’s important solutions are found collaboratively and creatively. After the scavenger hunt, we discussed an interesting alternative to barriers. One cool paper (Jackson et al. 2012) investigated the effectiveness of foreign scent marking to prevent African wild dogs from leaving their protected areas to expand their ranges into areas where they will likely be hunted. By collecting or synthetically making African wild dog scents, or the scents of species that they fear (e.g. lion), and periodically applying it at the borders of farmland and non-protected areas, researchers successful prevented a pack of wild dogs from entering dangerous territory. The dogs responded to the scents by moving closer to the geometric center of their range. This creative alternative can be applied to other species, and will save both the government and researchers money in maintaining populations of wildlife because they won’t have to capture and recapture individuals as often that venture into areas where they shouldn’t be. Additionally, it can potentially make the use of physical fences obsolete in the future, allowing populations of predators and herbivores to move more freely while saving lives of both livestock and wildlife species. This alternative isn’t affective enough to work 100% of the time, and needs to be complimented by other clever techniques, but it shows that there can be a future in wildlife management without the use of physical barriers.

Just as different bird species can partition resources supplied in the same tree by using different areas of the tree, or using the same resources at different times of the day, we as people can also use our natural resources in interactive, cooperative ways that can be sustainable, flexible, and accommodating for a variety of interests and functions. Whether we like it or not, we need each other, and can create systems and techniques that both meet the needs of industry, people, and wildlife.

Class photo. Back Row (Left to Right): Selma, Emmali, Jake, Joseph, KG, Cosmos, Inno, Sergei. Front Row (Left to Right): Sam, Annie, Paige, Caroline, Anna, Kaggie.