One of the most outstanding features of the Neotropics is the presence of many large river basins, some of which harbour spectacular ecosystems, such as the Amazon River, the Orinoco River, and the Paraná River, each draining South America in different directions. Particularly noteworthy is the diversity of fish species found in these river systems, which is greater than those found in other continents, with estimates for the Amazon basin alone being over 2000 species, nearly half of which only occur in this region. Amongst this diversity, characins (Characiformes) and catfishes (Siluriformes) generally represent the highest species diversity and abundance. 

This plethora of fish species includes some that undertake amazing migrations. So far, migrations have been described for over 70 species in South America, a number that is expected to increase as more research is conducted within a region with long rivers and high seasonality. The aquatic environments of the Amazon basin are very varied not only due to its large coverage  (over six million sq. kilometres), but also due to differential rainfall resulting in seasonal flooding.  Hence, some fish species migrate up- and downstream to complete their life cycle, whereas others migrate between seasonally flooded plains and the main river channels. Combined with a genetic disposition, the main factors that modulate migration are rainfall patterns, light, and temperature. Fish migration is a complex phenomenon strongly associated with breeding behaviour. As a case in point, the goliath catfishes generally spawn in the western Amazon basin, closer to the Andes and up to 5000 kilometres away from the Atlantic Ocean. Eggs, larvae and juvenile fish drift downstream to the lower reaches of the basin, with some even settling in the Amazon River estuary, from where they undertake upstream migrations once they reach adulthood. 

Some of these migratory species are very important to the people that inhabit the Amazon basin, as they are a source of food and economic activity. It is estimated that about 80 percent of the annual commercial fisheries catch within this region corresponds to migratory fish. Examples include the pacú (Colossoma macropomum), which migrates between river channels and flooded plains, and the piramutaba (Brachyplatystoma vaillantii), a species of goliath catfish that migrates up- and downstream. This phenomenon is known as ‘Piracema’, an indigenous word for fish migration that means ‘river ascent’ (pira: fish; cema: uphill).

The future of these seemingly abundant migratory fish, however, is far from secure. Threats to fish populations in the Amazon basin are numerous—deforestation, overfishing, alteration of river courses, siltation, pollution, and introduction of exotic species, amongst others. However, the main threat to migratory fish is undoubtedly the interruption of water courses by hydroelectric dams, not only transforming free-flowing waters into still waters, but also interrupting fish migrations, such as the ones undertaken by the goliath catfishes. These dams change the flood pulse regime of rivers, cause artificial daily water level fluctuations, alter the interior natural circulation of the water body and temperature, bring biogeochemical changes, and increase turbidity, thereby reducing light penetration, with knock-on effects on food webs as primary productivity is compromised due to reduced photosynthetic activity. As the energy grid of South America is largely fed by river dams, with plans for expansion, disruption of migration will only worsen. 

Although the construction of dams in Brazilian rivers—which account for a large proportion of the Amazon basin—has been regulated by a policy framework that includes mitigation of threats to migratory fish, there remains uncertainty about the actual effectiveness of such policies for conserving these species. For instance, the design of some dams has included so-called fish passages, which indeed allow upstream movement of fish, but with little evidence of downstream movement. Additionally, the hatching and survival rates of fish born upstream of the reservoirs are unknown. Because the movements up- and downstream need to be completed in a cycle, dams are likely disrupting the life cycle of some migratory species, such as the goliath catfishes. A quick and superficial observation of the effectiveness of mitigation measures used in dam design is often illusory. For example, following the construction of the Salvajina dam, surviving adult fish provided food to local communities for some time in a section of the Cauca River in Colombia; however, the fish populations were ultimately depleted as there was no replenishment through breeding. 

Looking ahead, the conservation of migratory fish in the Amazon basin is not only being hampered by human activities, but also by a general lack of knowledge. First, our understanding of the fish diversity of the Amazon basin is still growing, as species continue to be discovered, which means we could be potentially losing species without knowing. Second, those species already described generally lack data on population status and trends, two pieces of information that are vitally important to inform conservation priorities and specific actions. And third, the migratory patterns of fish in the Amazon basin continue to be described, meaning that there are still large gaps in our knowledge that need to be filled,  before we can truly understand how dams and other human activities can impact their survival. Migratory fish are a very complex and fragile evolutionary group due to the heterogeneity of environments associated with their life cycles. Importantly, migratory fish could be considered as an umbrella species for conserving freshwater biodiversity, and thus have the potential to drive international conservation policies across the Amazon basin and other large river basins in the Neotropics and beyond.

Click here to read the article in Portuguese.

This article was translated to Portuguese by Eduardo Gallo-Cajiao.  Click here to read the original article in English.

Uma das características mais marcantes dos Neotrópicos é a presença de muitas bacias hidrográficas grandes, algumas das quais abrigam ecossistemas espetaculares, como as dos rios Amazonas, Orinoco e Paraná, cada um drenando a América do Sul em diferentes direções. Particularmente notável é a diversidade de espécies de peixes encontradas nesses sistemas fluviais, que é maior do que as encontradas em outros continentes, com estimativas apenas para a bacia amazônica de mais de 2.500 espécies, das quais quase metade ocorre apenas nesta bacia. Dentre essa diversidade, caracídeos (Characiformes) e bagres (Siluriformes) representam a maior diversidade e abundância de espécies.

Essa infinidade de espécies de peixes inclui algumas que realizam migrações incríveis. Até agora, foram descritas migrações para aproximadamente 70 espécies na América do Sul, número que deverá aumentar à medida que mais pesquisas forem realizadas em uma região com rios longos e de alta sazonalidade. Os ambientes aquáticos da bacia amazônica são muito variáveis não apenas devido à sua grande cobertura (mais de seis milhões de quilômetros quadrados), mas também devido às diferentes chuvas que resultam em inundações sazonais. Assim, algumas espécies de peixes migram rio acima e outras rio abaixo para completar seu ciclo de vida, enquanto outras migram entre planícies inundadas sazonalmente entre os principais canais dos rios. Combinados com uma disposição genética, os principais fatores que modulam a migração são os padrões de chuva, fotoperiodo e temperatura. A migração dos peixes é um fenômeno complexo fortemente associado ao comportamento reprodutivo. Como exemplo, os grandes bagres geralmente desovam na bacia amazônica ocidental, mais perto dos Andes e até 5.000 quilômetros de distância do Oceano Atlântico. Ovos, larvas e os peixes juvenis derivam rio abaixo para as áreas inundadas no curso inferior da bacia, com alguns até se estabelecendo no estuário do rio Amazonas, de onde realizam migrações rio acima quando atingem a idade adulta.  

Algumas dessas espécies migratórias são muito importantes para os povos que habitam a bacia amazônica, pois são fonte de proteina e atividade econômica. Estima-se que cerca de 80 por cento da pesca comercial anual nesta região corresponda a peixes migratórios. Exemplos incluem o pacú (Colossoma macropomum), que migra entre canais de rios e planícies alagadas, e a piramutaba (Brachyplatystoma vaillantii), uma espécie de bagre-golias que migra rio acima e abaixo. Migração esta chamada de ‘Piracema’, pelos indígenas (língua tupi) que significa ‘subida do rio’.

No entanto, o futuro desses peixes migratórios aparentemente abundantes, está longe de ser seguro. As ameaças às populações de peixes na bacia amazônica são inúmeras—como desmatamento, pesca predatória, alteração dos cursos dos rios, assoreamento, poluição e introdução de espécies exóticas, entre outras. No entanto, a principal ameaça aos peixes migratórios é, sem dúvida, a interrupção dos cursos d’água por hidrelétricas, não apenas transformando as águas de fluxo livre em águas paradas, mas também interrompendo as migrações de peixes, como as realizadas pelos bagres-golias. Essas barragens alteram o regime de pulso de inundação dos rios, causar flutuações diárias artificiais do nível da água,  alterando a circulação natural interna do corpo d’água e a temperatura, trazem alterações biogeoquímicas e, com isso, reduzindo ou aumentando a turbidez, alterando a penetração da luz, com efeitos indiretos nas teias alimentares, em alguns casos alterando a produtividade primária é comprometida devido à redução da atividade fotossintética. Como a rede de energia da América do Sul é amplamente alimentada por barragens fluviais, com planos de expansão, a interrupção da migração só vai piorar.

Embora a construção de barragens nos rios brasileiros—que respondem por grande parte da bacia amazônica—tenha sido regulamentada por uma estrutura política que inclui a mitigação das ameaças aos peixes migratórios, permanece a incerteza sobre a real eficácia de tais políticas para a conservação dessas espécies. Por exemplo, o projeto de algumas barragens incluiu as chamadas passagens de peixes, que de fato permitem o movimento dos peixes a montante, mas com pouca evidência de movimento a jusante. Além disso, as taxas de eclosão e sobrevivência dos peixes nascidos a montante dos reservatórios são desconhecidas. Como os movimentos a montante e a jusante precisam ser concluídos em um ciclo, as barragens estão interrompendo o ciclo de vida de algumas espécies migratórias, como os bagres-golias. Uma observação rápida e superficial da eficácia das medidas de mitigação utilizadas no projeto de barragens é muitas vezes ilusória. Por exemplo, após a construção da barragem de Salvajina, peixes adultos sobreviventes forneceram alimentos às comunidades locais por algum tempo em uma seção do rio Cauca na Colômbia; no entanto, as populações de peixes acabaram por se esgotar, pois não houve recrutamento..

Olhando para o futuro, a conservação de peixes migratórios na bacia amazônica está sendo prejudicada não apenas pelas atividades humanas, mas também por uma falta geral de conhecimento. Primeiro, nossa compreensão da diversidade de peixes da bacia amazônica ainda está crescendo, à medida que as espécies continuam a ser descobertas, o que significa que estamos perdendo espécies sem conhece-las. Em segundo lugar, a maioria das espécies já descritas carecem de dados sobre o status e as tendências populacionais, duas informações que são de vital importância para informar as prioridades de conservação e ações específicas. E terceiro, os padrões migratórios de peixes na bacia amazônica continuam a ser descritos, o que significa que ainda existem grandes lacunas em nosso conhecimento que precisam ser preenchidas, antes que possamos realmente entender como as barragens e outras atividades humanas podem afetar sua sobrevivência. Os peixes migradores constituem um grupo muito complexo e frágil devido à heterogeneidade de ambientes associados aos seus ciclos de vida. É importante ressaltar que os peixes migratórios podem ser considerados uma espécie guarda-chuva para a conservação da biodiversidade de água doce e, portanto, têm o potencial de impulsionar políticas internacionais de conservação em toda a bacia amazônica e outras grandes bacias hidrográficas nos neotrópicos e além.

Conservation in Africa today continues to be strongly shaped by economic realities. For conservation to succeed, it needs to contribute to reducing poverty and uplifting the economic aspirations of a rapidly growing population with huge demand for employment and upward mobility. Conservation efforts also must face the reality that many wild species—particularly the region’s iconic large mammals—create real costs that are imposed on local people living alongside wildlife. Fortunately, Africa’s wildlife resources also have immense economic value and are one of Africa’s greatest actual and potential sources of competitive economic opportunity. This value is, however, poorly understood and largely not taken into consideration in decision-making, policy development or in practice.

59 percent of Africans live in rural areas and are heavily dependent on natural resources for subsistence and livelihoods. Local and national economies also rely heavily on natural resources, the sustainable use of which is crucial for ensuring economic resilience and a prosperous future. However, these resources are rapidly declining in the face of various, mostly human-induced threats, with serious implications for conservation, human welfare, and the wildlife economy. African countries must effectively manage their natural resources for them to deliver a sustainable fow of benefts, and to harness the value of wildlife for conservation in both protected areas, as well as on private and community lands.

State of the wildlife economy in Africa

The old adage ‘you can’t manage what you don’t measure’ applies equally to the value of wildlife. It was a key impetus for the African Leadership University to develop a State of the Wildlife Economy in Africa report. An understanding of the wildlife economy and the value of these activities to local, national, and regional economies is essential for encouraging greater investment in wildlife—the asset base of the wildlife economy—so that governments will see wildlife as a key strategic asset, as well as a key growth opportunity. The hope is that by encouraging a ‘growth mentality’ and identifying opportunities, governments, private sector, and all stakeholders will invest more in sustaining the region’s natural assets (i.e., in long-term conservation as a key pillar of Africa’s economic development).

For many years, the focus of the wildlife economy has been on ecotourism. However, COVID-19 and the catastrophic impacts of the pandemic on the ecotourism industry have starkly highlighted the need to diversify the wildlife economy, as well as ecotourism itself, to build resilience and reduce risk. Other important activities with scope for further growth include wildlife ranching, carbon credit projects, film and photography, wildlife estates, non-timber forest products, and fsheries. The report includes detailed information on all of the above aspects of the wildlife economy, as well as the potential challenges and opportunities related to each. Some of the key regional trends highlighted in the report are summarized below.

Key regional trends

Most African countries engage in a diversity of wildlife economy activities, at varying degrees of intensity and scale. Ecotourism is by far the largest activity in most countries, especially in eastern and southern Africa. Yet, despite its ubiquitous nature, detailed data on ecotourism was found to be inconsistent. Forest products are of widespread importance across the subcontinent. However, a large part of the market is informal and, therefore, not accounted for. There is also a signifcant amount of illegal trade and unsustainable use, especially charcoal, which remains the most important source of household energy in most African countries. At the same time, this extensive use highlights the high level of demand for forest products and the huge potential of legal market opportunities.

Wild meat is one of the most valuable forest products in Africa, after timber. Wild meat hunting is largely legal in central and western Africa—where consumption is more prevalent due to strong wild meat-eating cultures and traditions—although it is poorly regulated. Conversely, it is illegal or heavily restricted in many east and southern Africa countries, where wildlife has high tourism value. Wild meat hunting is a key driver of species decline across Africa and African countries need to improve monitoring and research related to it.

Trophy hunting is practiced in a number of countries, and in some, such as Cameroon, Namibia, and South Africa, comprises a large part of local and national economies. There is, however, a lack of comparable data related to hunting, most of which is outdated. And wildlife ranching is prevalent in southern Africa—Namibia, South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe—because of enabling legal conditions and policies that provide secure private and, in some cases such as Namibia, communal user rights over wildlife. As a result of COVID-19, many other countries are looking at this as a key activity to diversify the wildlife economy—for example Kenya, Rwanda, and Tanzania.

The report found that the carbon market in Africa has great potential, in terms of the revenues that can be earned and as a means to support conservation, but it is largely untapped. This is due to a combination of policy and legal provisions—relating to property rights surrounding carbon and forests, which would give communities and the private sector rights and, therefore, incentives to engage in the carbon market—as well as a lack of awareness and/or understanding of the carbon market. Where communities have rights to beneft from carbon projects, it has been shown that there can be considerable positive fnancial impacts.

Finally, wildlife film and photography is underdeveloped in almost all countries. It should be seriously considered as a future opportunity for employment and revenue, both locally and nationally. The same holds for wildlife- or ‘ecoestates’, which can provide a mechanism for integrating housing development in natural landscapes in a way that conserves biodiversity, but also provides innovative fnancing for conservation of these landscapes through land purchases, rentals, levies, etc.

Examples and case studies

At a national level, the report includes many examples that highlight the positive impact of different policies and institutional arrangements for unlocking the potential of the wildlife economy. For example, in South Africa, the Game Theft Act (1991) provides certain ownership rights to landowners over wild animals held in adequately enclosed areas. This has provided incentives for a major shift in farming activities, with the sale of wild meat in South Africa now generating approximately USD 56 million annually.

In Rwanda, the Rwanda Development Board (RDB), which was established in 2008 out of a merger of eight government institutions, is a government institution with a mandate to accelerate the country’s economic development by being a ‘One Stop Centre’ for business and investments, and thus providing an enabling environment for the private sector to invest. The government of Rwanda also revised the investment law, in order to facilitate the growth of new sectors and attract new investments, by means of various incentives. The establishment of such a supportive, enabling environment is important for attracting investors in the wildlife economy.

In Namibia and Kenya, community conservancies have been supported and established on a large scale to create formal, legal mechanisms for communities to beneft from wildlife enterprises and uses. In Namibia, over 80 conservancies now generate over USD 10 million in annual revenue and income from tourism, hunting, and other natural resource uses. In Zambia, a new institutional framework for community forest management uses legislation to vest rights to forest products, including carbon, in community forest managers, thereby allowing communities to beneft from their forests in new and important ways.

Strengthening the wildlife economy

Some key recommendations in the report include the need to raise awareness and increase knowledge related to different wildlife economy activities. This is because many stakeholders, especially local communities, are not aware of alternatives or how and where they can get involved. The overall strengthening of policy, legal, and regulatory provisions governing natural resources—particularly property rights over wildlife, forest, and fsheries—is critical to unlocking the potential of the wildlife economy. There also needs to be an improvement in overall governance and the business environment, including institutional arrangements for beneft-sharing, to ensure greater inclusiveness and equity and to garner support from local communities. Essential to the long-term sustainability of wildlife and wildlife
economies is investment by government, the private sector, and communities in the conservation of wildlife—the asset base of the wildlife economy.

The pandemic has highlighted the importance of collaboration and strategic partnerships at all levels, as well as the need for a government strategy to provide direction, guidance, and structural coordination to all stakeholders. The wildlife economy includes a diverse range of stakeholder groups across several sectors. Hence, strategic direction is important to avoid overlapping mandates, a lack of role clarity, and conflicting policies and actions.

In addition, broader diversifcation of wildlife economy activities and products is important in order to reduce risk, build resilience and engage more stakeholders, sharing benefts more widely. The establishment of systems and protocols for data collection and analysis for Africa, at all levels from the community to national, is also critical to promote data-driven decision-making going forward.

Ultimately, we need to change the narrative about wildlife to drive investment and conservation outcomes. Wildlife is a key strategic asset contributing to African development and livelihoods and we need to grow this asset and invest in it.

Further reading

Snyman, S., D. Sumba, F. Vorhies, E. Gitari, C. Enders, A. Ahenkan, A.F.K. Pambo et al. 2021. State of the Wildlife Economy in Africa. African Leadership University, School of Wildlife Conservation, Kigali, Rwanda.

Snyman, S., F. Nelson, D. Sumba, F. Vorhies, C. Enders. (2021). Roadmap for Africa’s Wildlife Economy. A summary of Snyman, S., D. Sumba, F. Vorhies, E. Gitari, C. Enders, A. Ahenkan, A.F.K. Pambo et al. 2021. State of the Wildlife Economy in Africa. African Leadership University, School of Wildlife Conservation, Kigali, Rwanda.

The wildlife of the Sahara and bordering Sahelian grasslands are some of the most threatened on Earth. Drought, desertifcation, habitat loss and, above all, over hunting, have reduced many species to the verge of extinction. Animals such as the addax (Addax nasomaculatus), dama gazelle (Nanger dama), and cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus hecki) have disappeared from over 95 percent of the territories where they were found earlier. One of the region’s most iconic species, the scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah), became extinct in the wild in the 1980s, and several others are severely threatened over large parts of their range. This includes species such as the Barbary sheep (Ammotragus lervia), dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas), slender-horned gazelle (Gazella leptoceros), Cuvier’s gazelle (Gazella cuvieri), striped hyena (Hyaena hyaena), ostrich (Struthio camelus camelus), and Nubian (Neotis nuba) and Arabian (Ardeotis arabs) bustards.

Over much of the Sahel and Sahara the fate of these unique species is being played out against a dramatic backdrop of climate change, unsustainable land use, political instability, and armed insurgency. Despite this daunting situation, efforts led by the Sahara Conservation Fund (SCF) over the past 20 years have achieved important milestones, including putting Saharan conservation more frmly on the global conservation map. Working with diverse partners in Chad and Niger, efforts are underway to save the remaining wild populations of addax, dama and dorcas gazelles, to restore the scimitar-horned oryx, and to reinforce populations of the almost extinct addax.

Unlike many endangered species today, the oryx’s disappearance was largely due to overhunting rather than habitat loss. Up until the early 1960s, the species was still relatively common over much of its Sahelian range, from Mali in the west, through Niger and Chad, and into Sudan. Always a target species for traditional hunters, using dogs and horses to hunt them, the impact on population size was probably quite low and highly seasonal. As pastoral development opened up the hitherto waterless and largely uninhabited grasslands used by the oryx, the impact of traditional hunting increased, as did the number of all-terrain vehicles and modern firearms.

With virtually no protection or law enforcement, oryx numbers rapidly plummeted and by the end of the 1970s the species was confned to a couple of populations in eastern Niger and central Chad. At that time, the wild population almost certainly numbered less than 5000 individuals, with most of these in the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Game Reserve in central Chad. In 1979, civil war broke out in Chad, wiping out much of the larger desert wildlife in the Ouadi Rimé reserve and elsewhere. The last oryx was reportedly shot in Chad in the late 1980s. Fortunately, oryx held in captivity were quite numerous.

Today, although the oryx’s native grasslands of central Chad are impacted by serious overstocking of livestock, overgrazing and bushfres, wildlife still has access to large areas of suitable habitat. Recognising the opportunity and with encouraging support from regional governments, the Sahara Conservation Fund began collecting data to develop a plan to reintroduce the oryx from captive-bred sources into a suitable site. Meetings were held in 2010 and 2012 and the selected reintroduction site was the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim reserve in Chad—the oryx’s previous stronghold.

Following a feasibility study carried out in 2015, March 2016 marked a major milestone for regional conservation efforts. 25 oryx bred in captivity were fown from Abu Dhabi to Chad to seed one of the world’s most ambitious reintroduction programmes. From this founding population, 218 oryx have been reintroduced into the wild to date and by mid-2021 these had grown to a free-roaming population of around 380 animals. There have been setbacks, including deaths from disease, calf predation, and possibly malnutrition during hard times, but the overall trend continues to be very positive.

Bringing back the addax

In the neighbouring Sahara, the addax population has been following an inexorable downward decline for many decades. Today, the entire remaining wild population of a few dozen animals is confned to the Tin Toumma desert of eastern Niger. Two decades ago, the addax population had stabilized at around 300–400 animals. But with the discovery of oil in eastern Niger and the fall of the Ghaddaf regime across the border in Libya, new threats to their survival emerged in the form of massive disturbance from oil exploration, an infux of arms and four-wheel drive vehicles from Libya, and uncontrollable poaching by the armed forces sent to protect the oil workers.

The extinction of a species, either locally or globally, is not simply the loss of a unique plant or animal amongst many others but often the disappearance of a key element in a complex local web of life. For species like the addax, it is also the loss of innate and learned behaviour that, in addition to physical and morphological adaptations, permit the animals to survive and thrive in one of the world’s most hostile environments. Reintroduction may be able to bring back similar animals biologically, but it can never replace the intrinsic knowledge and culture of the animals that lived, learned, and evolved in that place over countless generations. Preventing, at all costs, the extinction of wild populations of animals, however small their numbers, is essential.

Encouraged by the results of the efforts to restore the scimitar-horned oryx, the Government of Chad, the Environment Agency of Abu Dhabi, and the Sahara Conservation Fund decided to include the addax as part of their reintroduction programme. In 2020, the frst addax were released into the wild and today they total over 50 animals. Plans are also underway to supplement populations of the critically endangered dama gazelle, a magnifcent Sahelian species now reduced to four tiny, isolated populations in Chad and Niger. In association with African Parks Network, ostriches from southern Chad are also being reintroduced into the Ouadi Rimé and Ennedi reserves.

The need for long-term conservation

While the reintroduction of the scimitar-horned oryx, and more recently the addax, has posed a host of logistical challenges, the longer-term conservation of these species will depend on the successful management of the large arid landscapes in which they reside. Much has changed across the grasslands of the Sahel since the 1990s. Land that was largely unoccupied for most of the year is now dominated by livestock and the consequent impacts of competition for natural wet season waterholes, overgrazing and loss of preferred plant species, disturbance, bushfres, and the spread of cattle-borne diseases. In Chad, at least, hunting is under control for now, but could become a major problem should insecurity and civil unrest occur. Human activities apart, there is also the impact of habitat loss through long-term climate change and desertifcation. Coming to terms with this new paradigm is far more challenging than simply
controlling poaching.

Created in 1969, the Réserve de faune de Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim allows the pursuit of traditional forms of resource use, including grazing, use of dead wood, and access to natural waterholes and wells. What this arrangement failed to recognize was the vast increase in the numbers of people, livestock, and wells. Other rules and regulations are also completely out of date, necessitating a major overhaul of the reserve’s decree and limits, not only to bring it up to date, but also to permit management of space and natural resources for the long-term beneft of both humans and wildlife.

While most of the local people in and around the vast Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim reserve are genuinely happy to see the return of the iconic and truly impressive addax and oryx, they currently have no real vested interest in their long-term conservation. Direct benefts are few and indirect ones—such as improved rangeland management, bushfre control, and the potential of future tourism development—are largely intangible. In the long term, improved rangeland management and the restoration of currently degraded grazing resources could be strong incentives.

To achieve long-lasting results in the social and environmental context of a largely mobile pastoral society requires not only working at a larger scale—the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim reserve is twice the size of Belgium—but also in a way that truly incorporates social needs and priorities with those of conservation. The two are not incompatible, but even if they were, the realities of today dictate the pursuit of cooperation and cohabitation. Exclusion of the human element from landscapes so critical to the survival of people with virtually no viable alternatives is neither just nor practical. The promising growth in delegated management and private-public partnerships over the past decade is highlighting what can be achieved using new models of protected area administration. Thanks to support from the European Union, an experiment in management of the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim reserve with full participation from the local population is underway. The development of an effective and sustainable conservation model in the region will hopefully emerge, beneftting the interests of both people and wildlife while providing a valuable example to other protected areas in the Sahara and the Sahel.

Natural history documentaries set in East Africa’s iconic savannah landscapes abound with enchanting scenes of wildlife and wilderness. But something critical is generally missing from this archetypal savannah scene: people and their livestock living alongside wildlife. This idea of wilderness, a wild place without people, doesn’t not exist.

Conventional conservation thinking—in Africa and around much of the world—tends to hold that livestock ruin the land through overgrazing and are bad for the planet. Cattle release greenhouse gases and large swathes of the Amazon forest have been cleared for ranching. There have been harrowing stories of livestock invading national parks and herders spearing lions and elephants. But in East Africa’s rangelands, wildlife is found in areas that have been created by pastoralists and managed principally for livestock. Maintaining livestock and finding solutions to the challenges faced by livestock herders can also help us to conserve wildlife. Here’s how.

Going beyond protected areas

Partitioning off vast protected areas from people and their livestock has been the mainstay of conservation practice for over a century. Protected areas now cover at least 15 percent of Earth’s land surface. And at the recent World Conservation Congress in September 2021, members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature approved a motion to protect at least 30 percent of land and ocean by 2030. However, many conservation researchers and practitioners believe that continually expanding protection by creating spaces that are devoid of people is impractical and misguided. Instead, habitat conservation should value rural people, and include them, their land and livelihoods within conservation projects that span entire landscapes. Indeed, despite increases in the area designated as protected in countries like Kenya and Tanzania, wildlife populations are still declining, and much of the remaining wildlife and biodiversity are found outside of protected areas.

In this vein, research from a number of rangeland scholars shows that sustainable livestock rearing can help conserve the world’s remaining rangelands, which make up an incredible 40 percent of the world’s land area. Rangelands are defined by low and erratic rainfall, yet they host large herds of migratory animals, like bison and wildebeest. But in places like the North American prairie and the savannas of East Africa, most animals are domestic livestock, who also extensively graze these areas. These livestock are cultural and economic centrepieces of these landscapes and must be at the heart of any conservation solution.

In East Africa today, conservation is largely focused on finding ways to ensure that extensive rangelands, including savannah ecosystems, remain intact and deliver value for people, their livestock, and wildlife, who move widely across the boundaries of different protected and unprotected areas.

Threats to livestock are threats to wildlife

Understanding the ecology of rangelands in East Africa is crucial if we wish to protect the wildlife living there and foster more effective and resilient conservation strategies.

Patterns of rainfall in East Africa’s rangelands are inherently erratic, with wide oscillations around annual means, and a relatively predictable long dry season running from June to October. When rain does fall on the rangelands, several species of large mammals generally migrate hundreds of kilometres for the fish of vegetation that follows. During droughts, these animals search out the last patches of vegetation and remaining trickles or puddles of water. In the Mara-Serengeti ecosystem this leads to the world-famous migration of over 1.5 million wildebeest and zebra each year, covering nearly 1000 km in their annual round-trip migration, chasing rainfall and pulses of vegetation.

Likewise, resilient livestock management requires large-scale mobility for the ecological and economic benefits it brings. Herders and livestock move to access resources, while also resting other pastures, allowing vegetation to recover, and acting as reserves during long periods of droughts.

But space for wildlife is now rapidly shrinking across rangelands. From East Africa, to Tibet and Mongolia, urban areas are growing, land is being subdivided into individually-owned units, agriculture is being mechanised, and fences are springing up to demarcate ownership. If other land uses are perceived to be more profitable, financial and political pressures lead to the transformation of previously wildlife-friendly pastoral landscapes. Therefore, areas with the highest potential land value are likely to experience land transformation, if the opportunity cost cannot be met. For instance, recent research from southern Kenya demonstrates that land prices are increasing astronomically as urbanisation continues and speculators buy up parcels of land. This has led to large-scale fencing of landscapes, with around 40,000km of fencing in southern Kenya—enough to encircle the earth—further limiting the migration of wildlife between the remaining patches of intact habitat.

Importantly, these threats to wildlife populations are the very same threats that are experienced by herders and their livestock. As the space for these herders and their livestock shrinks, the health and number of livestock decrease, the rangelands degrade, and people’s livelihoods suffer.

As a result of these twin challenges, conservation efforts in East Africa’s rangelands today are increasingly focused on addressing the problems of subdivision, fragmentation, and range degradation, by generating incentives for pastoralist communities to maintain healthy, connected, communal rangelands.

Opportunities for wildlife conservation by overcoming threats to livestock

Before colonial changes in livestock policy, the Maasai in southern Kenya managed their livestock over vast areas using principles they call “eramatere”. The rules on where to graze, and for how long, were enforced through close social ties that tightly linked people and their extended families together. It’s much harder to break the rules when it jeopardises the well-being of a close friend or family member. This compelled individuals to make decisions that benefited the whole community.

But cultures are changing, and so too are these principles. It is now vital to understand how we can support or rekindle indigenous management practices as a way to sustain landscapes that support both wildlife and livestock. For instance, in Kenya’s South Rift Valley, communities are working with the South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO) to overcome these challenges by adapting and improving traditional governance systems, and reinforcing social ties all across multiple scales. This improves the ability to manage livestock at a landscape-scale and, consequently, preserves rangeland health. In doing so, the communities are indirectly preserving the resources and mobility that wildlife too needs to survive.

To achieve this, SORALO works with local governance bodies to map, plan, and monitor the foraging of livestock. Spatial planning helps communities to plan the future use of their land and balance the tradeoffs with competing interests of agriculture and urban development. SORALO also supports traditional governance institutions to adapt to the modern legal systems and gives them the rights to support their management choices. They support networking and planning with neighbouring groups of herders and their governing bodies. At a time when there is increasing pressure to stay in one place, these efforts help to ensure that the crucial mobility to follow rain and resources can continue.

In doing so, decisions made about livestock grazing beneft the entire community, not just certain individuals. Grazing can happen at a scale that is large enough to access erratic vegetation and water, and to rest those patches of grass which have been overgrazed or that need to be preserved for prolonged drought. This means that people have healthier livestock, which are less likely to die during droughts.

Indeed, research from southern Kenya’s rangelands shows that a combination of effective traditional livestock management, which includes mobility and access to wet and dry season grazing areas, can help to maintain resilience and ensure that a diverse and abundant wildlife community can coexist with people and livestock in these landscapes.

Healthy rangelands with livestock and wildlife also allow for the possibility of supplementary and diversifed revenue. This includes equitable eco-tourism partnerships, payment for ecosystem services— like the Chyulu Hills Conservation Trust’s carbon credit project, which pays local landowners to manage and restore their rangelands—and sale of rangeland products, such as plants, honey, and other food. All of these can increase the economic value of livestock-wildlife landscapes, and thus help to reduce the threat of land degradation, fragmentation, and conversion to urban development, crop agriculture or land speculation. And by generating suffcient economic returns, people may not feel that they need alternative income streams to support their families. In all this, livestock—the most valuable product in rangelands—are key, and conservation efforts need to be founded on improving rangeland management and productivity, which will in turn beneft wildlife.

Building conservation from a community world view

By focussing on the potential of livestock, communities can preserve rangeland health, prevent rangeland fragmentation, and build pride in their landscapes, an approach we have termed “inside-out” conservation. In other words, by improving the cultural, economic and ecological sustainability of livestock production systems in rangelands—including both traditional and commercial production systems—wildlife can also benefit. Best of all, this approach doesn’t require large sums of money to incentivise landowners to change their livelihoods or lifestyles, and it doesn’t require governments or conservation NGOs to impose top-down rules and regulations on herders that can lead to conflict. By drawing on lessons from the past and from current systems that function well, such an approach reminds us of the possibility of coexistence across landscapes.

Although these approaches are critical to the future of East Africa’s rangelands, they still face challenges. Livestock and their products are the most important revenue generator in rangelands. We need to find more ways to generate greater economic returns from them. We need to do more to ensure that benefits from ecotourism or payments for ecosystem services are equitably distributed and reach the people who are doing the most to conserve their living resources. And beyond economics, we need to ensure that the rights, knowledge, and experiences of people living and managing these rangelands are recognised as vital in any conservation activities. We need to do more to maintain or restore the cultural pride of healthy landscapes, livestock, and wildlife. Without the “place” for wildlife in people’s lives, the “space” created for them may not matter.

Further reading:

Russell, S., P. Tyrrell and D. Western. 2018. Seasonal interactions of pastoralists and wildlife in relation to pasture in an African savanna ecosystem. Journal of Arid Environments 154: 70–81. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaridenv.2018.03.007

Tyrrell, P., S. Russell and D. Western. 2017. Seasonal movements of wildlife and livestock in a heterogenous pastoral landscape: Implications for coexistence and community-based conservation. Global Ecology and Conservation 12: 59–72. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gecco.2017.08.006

Western, D., P. Tyrrell, P. Brehony, S. Russell, G. Western and J. Kamanga. 2020. Conservation from the inside-out: Winning space and a place for wildlife in working landscapes. People and Nature 2(2): 279–291. https://doi.org/10.1002/pan3.10077

Not long ago, I was walking in a place that I have visited many times before in northern Tanzania—the Randilen Wildlife Management Area. This is a community-owned and run conservation area that forms a key refuge for wildlife during seasonal movements between Tarangire National Park and Lake Manyara National Park, two of Tanzania’s most famous protected areas. It is used by elephants, zebras, wildebeests, giraffes, lions, and several other animals that move across the park boundaries onto surrounding lands.

But that day in Randilen was my frst time spotting six lions all together in that area. I had never observed lions there before, but now suddenly I was seeing six in a single place, and on foot no less. It was a thrilling encounter and a marker of real conservation progress on the ground. Randilen is just one example of wildlife population recovery thanks to local action and leadership, supported by collaborations at the landscape scale. Moreover, the return of wildlife is happening alongside improvements in well-being and economic security for the local communities.

For the Northern Tanzania Rangelands Initiative (NTRI), a collaboration of different organisations working across the landscape, this is what successful conservation is all about. NTRI works to support local leadership and forge stronger links between different organizations around a shared, common vision for the landscape. In Randilen, community management efforts are being supported by two NGOs—The Nature Conservancy and Honeyguide, an innovative Tanzanian organization that specializes in improving local management and business planning so people can beneft from their wildlife and resources.

A threatened landscape

The northern Tanzania rangelands are witness to some of the world’s largest mammal migrations, including thousands of zebra, wildebeest, and other species that migrate between famous protected areas like the Ngorongoro Crater, Tarangire National Park or the Mt Kilimanjaro National Park. The rangelands are also home to the Maasai pastoral communities that have resided here for countless generations. Their lifestyle and norms guided them to use natural resources sustainably, meaning that there was a healthy balance between levels of resource consumption and regeneration.

Now with development pressures increasing across the landscape, including the construction of new roads and power lines, major towns like Arusha have spread into surrounding rangelands. Consequently, these areas have started to witness an influx of people and increasing competition for natural resources. This has created many conficting resource interests: more people need land for farming and settlement, others need pasture to graze livestock, and occupying the same space is the wildlife that supports a billion-dollar tourism industry in northern Tanzania. As resources decreased, we began to see an increase in conflict.

Working together to achieve big changes

To tackle this problem, local conservationists began to think about optimising existing efforts to work with communities, with the help of additional resources, increased coordination, and collaboration. For example, local organizations like Honeyguide, the Ujamaa Community Resource Team (winner of the Goldman Environmental Prize in 2016), and Tanzania People & Wildlife were already working to develop new approaches for promoting coexistence between people and wildlife. Meanwhile, international conservation groups like Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) were supporting these efforts as well as working with the government.

Given the range and scale of conservation challenges, it became evident that an individual or an organisation could not hope to address them alone. We began to view the landscape as one large system, with wildlife moving from one national park to another through communal lands and farmed areas and settlements. Thus, we realized the need to operate collectively at the landscape level, while acknowledging that most organisations at the time were operating independently in silos.

Those insights led to the formation of the NTRI in 2011. It is a consortium of ten organisations: Oikos, Tanzania People & Wildlife, Carbon Tanzania, Honeyguide, WCS, Dorobo Fund, Ujamaa Community Resource Team (UCRT), Pathfnder International, Maliasili, and TNC. We are united around a common goal and vision, with different backgrounds, skill sets, and resource access, coming together with a common strategic approach to work with indigenous peoples and local communities in the rangelands to tackle these challenges.

NTRI partners pursue several key strategies to address conservation challenges in the landscape. A key one is to help the communities with land use planning as well as securing ownership of their land and rights to its resources, in order to protect both the land and people’s rights, and keep the landscape connected to allow livestock and wildlife to continue moving freely across it.

Second, we support and strengthen management and governance strategies that address the drivers of habitat degradation and fragmentation. Third, we work to add economic value to livestock and wildlife enterprises to incentivise sustainable land use and promote equitable sharing of benefts.

Working as a consortium brings many advantages. For example, in addition to the conservation organisations, one of the partners, Pathfnder International, brings expertise in addressing health and environmental conservation in an integrated way, further enhancing the group’s ability to bring in expertise, experience and resources from different angles.

Working as a consortium has also allowed us to support innovative approaches to beneft both people and nature in the landscape. Makame, another community-owned and managed Wildlife Management Area (WMA), has weathered the total loss of tourism earnings caused by COVID-19 because it has a new and growing revenue stream selling carbon offsets.

Multiple efforts from multiple angles are needed for a project like that to succeed: law enforcement to protect the community’s assets, in this case the vegetation storing the carbon; community buy-in to conserve a portion of land and avoid deforestation in that area; strong governance and management; revenue to carry out all the necessary carbon assessments, and a partner who would enable the communities to access carbon financing. Collaboration between NTRI partners such as Carbon Tanzania, UCRT, TNC, and Honeyguide has been key to this pioneering initiative that is now helping restore and protect over 350,000 hectares of rugged woodland and savannah.

The combined impact of all our partner organisations working together is greater than the sum of its parts. Through the NTRI partnership, over 900,000 hectares are now under improved natural resource management, with a little over 15 percent of degraded rangelands already in a better condition, and the functionality of two crucial wildlife corridors maintained, giving wildlife access to 440,000 hectares of connected habitat. By sustainably managing rangeland resources, two WMAs and 48 villages have improved their ability to adapt to challenges resulting from climate change.

Approximately 47,000 people have beneftted from various conservation activities, including beekeeping, leather crafts, village game scouts, crop protection, rangeland monitoring and management, holistic grazing management, and early work for invasive species control and management. We have helped establish 80 COCOBAs (community savings banks) in 21 program villages with 2,221 members who have a total benefit share collection to date of more than $500,000.

Lessons learned

The NTRI partners have learned many lessons so far about how to develop and sustain collaborations amongst different types of organizations in a complex, dynamic, and changing landscape.

First, for effective cooperation between multiple stakeholders at different levels, there must be an acceptance
of collaboration as a way forward, guided by effective and concrete ways of engaging them. There must be tangible benefts to the collaboration for all the parties involved.

Second, developing a common vision that everyone buys into is key for working towards shared objectives.

Third, partnerships succeed when, in addition to shared goals, plans, data, and other information, partners deliberately align or adjust their actions to achieve mutually agreed on objectives.

Finally, it is important to recognise that organisations work at different paces as well as value individual contributions, regardless of the magnitude. Every partner has a role to play as a piece in the puzzle, and diverse pieces are needed to solve the challenges of landscape-scale conservation in East Africa today.

The African region (including Madagascar) has the highest concentration of nonhuman primate diversity on Earth. In all, the continent is home to 42 percent of the world’s 713 primate species and subspecies and more than half of all primate genera. Five of the top 12 countries on Earth for primate diversity are African— Madagascar, Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, Cameroon, and Nigeria. Madagascar alone is second on the world list and has the highest number of endemic primate taxa of any country on Earth. Also of considerable interest is the fact that we continue to discover new species and subspecies of primates. 97 species and subspecies were described for the frst time in the past two decades, and more than half of them are from Africa—50 lemurs from Madagascar, and three prosimians (two galagos and a potto) and four monkeys, including a new genus, Rungwecebus (the Kipunji), from mainland Africa.

African primates play an important role in our research on numerous aspects of human biology and the cognitive sciences, as well as in understanding the threats of emerging diseases. Arguably more fundamental and critical is their role in sustaining the healthy ecosystems vital for human livelihoods and in their presence in the cultures and folklore of many African societies. Sadly, as is the case in all other parts of the tropical world, the primates of Africa, and Madagascar in particular, are severely threatened. The latest IUCN Species Survival Commission Red List assessments carried out between 2012 and 2016, showed that 63 percent of all primates worldwide are threatened—the highest degree of threat for any of the larger groups of mammals— and with many of the Critically Endangered species literally on the verge of extinction.

There are several reasons for this decline in primate populations. Foremost is habitat destruction and fragmentation, mostly as a result of logging, large-scale mining, and agroindustry (notably oil palm and soy plantations), but with many other factors at play as well. In West and Central Africa, for example, bushmeat hunting is a major cause of primate declines, and the same is true for Madagascar. Primates are also killed for medicinal purposes, for the ornamental use of various body parts (for example, black-and-white colobus, geladas), and as crop pests (for example, baboons, vervets). Outbreaks of major diseases in Africa can also be of serious concern, both for nonhuman primates and humans, with recent Ebola outbreaks having killed large numbers of gorillas and chimps in certain countries (such as Congo-Brazzaville).

In recognition of the importance of primates in Africa and to further stimulate the development of concerted domestic efforts to curb the threats to their continued survival, a number of African primatologists worked to advance the establishment of a primate-focused group—the African Primatological Society (APS). This group would provide a platform for sharing data, information, tools, and technical assistance to support Africa’s preparedness and domestic efforts in primate research and conservation,as well as to encourage greater participation and leadership of African primatologists. This initiative began as a genuine attempt to increase the robustness of African involvement in international primatological meetings and in decision-making bodies; enriching their capacity to engage and influence stakeholders and policies within their home country; and improving the quality of their scientific inputs and roles in major dialogues or activities relating to African primates.

The APS was formally established during an inaugural Congress in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire in July 2017. The congress brought together about 150 experts, including aspiring primatologists, researchers, conservation practitioners, tourism stakeholders, and policy makers from 22 African countries, along with a few dozen people from other countries across the globe.

Two years later, the second congress of the APS was held in Entebbe, Uganda in September 2019. The event was a resounding success, bringing together over 300 primate experts to discuss the theme ‘Challenges and Opportunities in Primate Conservation in Africa’, and to fnd ways to promote active participation of native African primatologists in the international primatological arena. With 250 out of 312 delegates hailing from 24 different African countries, the APS more than achieved its goal of providing an accessible platform for African primatologists to collaborate, network, and discuss pressing challenges and issues, opportunities, and potential solutions towards protecting Africa’s primates and their habitats.

The two congresses benefitted from the avid support of various stakeholders in academia, non-governmental organizations, civil society groups, national and local governments, funding agencies, public and industry scientists, local, national and international media, and delegates from all regions of Africa (North, West, Central, East, Southern Africa, and Madagascar).

The added value to the congresses was the deliberate inclusive approach, which involved students from African institutions working on primates for their dissertations. This bottom-up or ‘catch-them-young’ initiative will help us also focus on prospective primatologists across age and gender. It was also gratifying to see how we were able to mobilize the international community and governments to play their role to advance and support the goals and objectives of African primatology at large.

One main recommendation that was emphasized during the congress was for members to not only have a greater level of commitment to the new society, but also to promote public dialogue and effective policy advocacy within their own sphere of influence. Genuine inclusivity was also highlighted as a way to boost the participation of all primatological expertise and interests on the continent.

The congresses have underscored the following action points and agenda to inform the work needed to be
done for the effective conservation of African primates and for the development of African primatologists in
the wake of the establishment of the African Primatological Society:

Africa-based training programs needed

In general, African countries are faced with major challenges concerning the lack of adequate resources, equipment, dynamic institutions, and governance. A well-designed training program and infrastructure will play an important role in enabling many African primatologists to learn from best practices of peers, and to obtain continuous input on their performance. The turnout of African participants at the congresses has shown that the region has a high proportion of people conducting research on or working for the conservation of African primates. However, to promote growth, enhance the quality of their work, and increase the level of their involvement in primatological communities, there must be some structural training and environment that will empower them. To achieve this, leadership-based training that is grounded in a robust scientific curriculum is required to build and equip both experienced and upcoming primatologists.

Strengthen regional and global integration of African primatologists

Regional and global integration is needed to overcome the limitations of Africa’s small but growing mass of primatologists, and also to give the continent a stronger voice in the conservation and management of its primates. Until the birth of the APS, many African primatologists and primatological groups, such as the Groupe d’Etude et de Recherche sur les Primates de Madagascar (GERP) and the Primate Ecology and Genetic Group (PEGG), South Africa, have been working in isolation from the rest of the larger community of Africans and non-Africans working on primates. The African Primatological Consortium (APC) headquartered in Uganda is an excellent example of regional integration to create a forum for a collaborative research community for primatologists in Africa. The impact of these fragmented communities or individual primatologists on the conservation and management of primates has, however, been limited in addressing many of the conservation development issues on the continent. Active and increased African participation in international primatological meetings should also be encouraged so as to promote global integration.

Develop a red colobus action plan

Certain groups of African primates besides the great apes—man’s closest living relatives—are of particular concern. Of these the red colobus monkeys of the genus Piliocolobus are a prime example. 18 species and one subspecies are currently recognized and all are threatened, with seven being in the Critically Endangered category. Workshops were organized during the two congresses to develop an action plan for the conservation of these remarkable animals, which involved a large network of red colobus researchers and conservationists. The action plan was launched at the 2018 Congress of the International Primatological Society in Nairobi, Kenya. It focuses on site-specifc activities, but also uses common themes to leverage efficiencies of scale.

Develop and/or revise other action plans

Other primate groups, such as the lemurs of Madagascar, are in urgent need of attention. A lemur action plan for 2013–2016 was successfully funded, but there is much that still needs to be done. A Red-Listing Workshop for Lemurs was held in Madagascar in November 2017, with the objective of updating our knowledge of these species and revising the action plan. Action plans for other taxa and regions are also needed, and a major initiative is underway for the 16 mangabeys and mandrills, 13 of which are currently threatened.

Finally, it is vital that African primatologists engage in a multi-sectoral approach to promote conservation efforts that include governments, local communities, the private sector and NGOs.

References

Estrada, A., P. Garber, A. B. Rylands, C. Roos, E. Fernandez-Duque, A. Di Fiore, K. A. I. Nekaris et al. 2017. Impending extinction crisis of the world’s primates: why primates matter. Science Advances 3: e1600946. DOI 10.1126/sciadv.1600946.

Imong I., R. Ikemeh, I. Kone and D. Ndeloh. 2016. The Birth of the African Primatological Society for the future of African Primates. African Primates 11(1): 49-50.

IUCN SSC, PSG. 2021. Primate Specialist Group taxonomic data base. A. B. Rylands and R. A. Mittermeier. 13 October 2021.