The moon rises above the jagged mountains, casting a soft, pale light on clusters of towering agave stalks and their branches full of flowers. A gentle breeze sways the flowers and the pungent odour of the sweet nectar wafts towards us as we sit, silent and waiting, by the agave. We hear a soft whoosh by our heads. Suddenly our infrared camera screen comes alive with frantic activity as a group of seven small, brown bats flit up to the flowers in rapid-fire succession. A split second is all each bat needs to lap up the sugary nectar that fuels their nightly foraging bouts. They continue their aerial feeding dance for several minutes, until they decide it’s time to move on to the next agave patch. They will continue this pattern throughout the night, taking periodic rests among rock outcrops or their roosting caves, where they groom, socialize, and rest.

These hungry bats are endangered Mexican long-nosed bats (Leptonycteris nivalis). Undertaking a spectacular 1200-km annual migration, pregnant females leave the mating cave in central Mexico to seek out a handful of maternity caves in northern Mexico and the southwestern United States, to give birth to their single pup. Males stay behind in bachelor colonies.

Mexican long-nosed bats, along with their close relative the Lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae), feed on the energy-rich nectar from agave plants in the desert and mountain ecosystems they call home. Not quite as graceful or able to hover as hummingbirds, they get covered in yellow pollen
during their rhythmic feeding bouts. They move among agave patches throughout the night, spreading this pollen near and far. Able to carry and disperse pollen over 50 km in a night—much farther than most birds or insects—these bats are critical to connecting agave populations, helping maintain their genetic diversity and ultimately increasing resilience to threats, such as pest and disease outbreaks. However, these nectar-feeding bats aren’t the only players that have a close relationship with agaves. Another
key player? People.

Agaves and people

The next afternoon as the bats are tucked away in their cave, I take a walk with Armando, a Mexican farmer whose family lives in a communal ejido in the mountains of Nuevo León. We stroll through his parcela, the agricultural plot where he and his family grow corn, beans, and other crops. He stops along the fence line at a two-metre-tall agave with a large hole carved from the centre. Bending over, he scoops a cupful of cloudy liquid from the hole: agua miel, or “honey water”, the sap of the plant. I taste the liquid: it’s sweet but with a very plant-like taste. “Agaves are the sustenance of the ranch,” he says.

Like Armando, many rural ejidatarios (farmers) across Mexico harvest and use agave plants to obtain traditional beverages like agua miel and pulque (fermented agua miel); to distil liquors like tequila and mezcal for sale in local, regional, or even international markets; to feed to livestock, especially in times of drought; to serve as “living fences” that keep livestock out of crops or to delineate property boundaries; to retain soil and prevent erosion on hillslopes and along roadsides. Agaves sustain their livelihoods, allowing them to retain their homes and ties to the land even when other livelihood sources, such as livestock and farming, let them down. With increasing periods and severity of droughts and increasing desertification in Mexico, drought-tolerant agaves offer a lifeline for many families.

Armando points down to the base of the agave at several small baby agaves, called hijos, growing from the mother plant. These hijos are clones, underground offshoots that are genetically identical to the mother plant. Like their mother, they too will eventually shoot up a massive flowering stalk and offer nectar to bats and other animals. Clonal reproduction offers a safeguard to the mother plant in the event that seed production through pollination is not successful. For many agave species, sexual reproduction through seeds helps maintain genetic diversity, while clonal reproduction can help maintain population numbers.

In fact, Armando explains that for many agave species, proper “castration” of the mother plant—hollowing out the centre of the plant to create the hole where the agua miel collects—stimulates production of clonal hijos. This provides the harvester with new baby plants that they can then transplant as living fences or for future harvest. Thus, harvest of agaves, combined with sustainable ranching practices, can be an important way to safeguard agave populations for future use by people.

The importance of agaves for bat migration

When agaves are left to flower, they provide an important food source to nectar bats and are pollinated in turn, thus completing the cycle that benefits bats, agaves, and people. Rural communities throughout Mexico, as well as private and government lands in the U.S., are important stepping stones along the bats’ migratory route, connecting critical roosting caves with a path of foraging resources.

Back at the agave we had monitored the night before, the vibrant yellow flowers are beginning to shrivel in the sun and heat. As agave flowers shrivel across the landscape, the bats move along on their migration. Flower death does not, however, signal the end of the agave’s life cycle. The pollinated flowers soon become ovular fruits, with hundreds of tiny black seeds nestled inside. These fertilized seeds give the plant an opportunity to pass on its legacy in the form of new seedlings, if they successfully germinate.

Native to deserts and semi-arid habitats and with over 250 species worldwide, agaves have been part of cultural landscapes for over 10,000 years. However, agave populations and the habitats where they occur are being lost to various threats, such as expansion of agriculture, unsustainable ranching, urban development, and climate change. Loss of agaves affects both the migratory bats and the people that rely on them. Efforts to restore agave habitat are being undertaken by organizations like Bat Conservation International. Through diverse partnerships with NGOs, state and federal agencies, industry partners, and local communities across the southwestern United States and Mexico, Bat Conservation International is promoting agave planting, sustainable agave use, and other land use practices that support both threatened bat populations and human livelihoods.

Naturally dispersed by wind and water, tiny agave seeds get a helping hand from Bat Conservation International’s partners. By propagating and nurturing the seeds into little seedlings for planting back in the wild, these agaves get a new chance to grow tall on the landscape and once again feed the bats and provide sustenance and livelihoods to people. Exclusion of restored areas from herbivores helps ensure the plants’ survival. Community training in sustainable agriculture and ranching practices helps ensure that communities can make a living from their land long into the future. Long-term community conservation agreements ensure that the agaves are protected until they flower and that restoration efforts are co-designed in ways that benefit the communities. Market-based initiatives like the Bat Friendly™ Tequila and Mezcal project, launched by Dr. Rodrigo Medellín of the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and David Suro of the Tequila Interchange Project, work with liquor producers to certify agave farms that let five percent of their crop flower for pollinating bats.

These efforts to restore and protect a “nectar corridor” for migratory bats and communities require bi- national collaboration between Mexico and the U.S., bringing together people and linking ideas across a vast landscape. I think back to my walk earlier with Armando and recall a statement he made that couldn’t be truer or more motivational: “For us the agave is so noble that it gives us life.” Agaves do indeed give us life. But it’s not just us—agaves support a wealth of healthy ecosystems and wildlife species, some of them migratory. It is our responsibility to protect and restore agave habitats before it is too late and species like the Mexican long-nosed bat are lost forever.

Further Reading

Bat Conservation International. 2021. Agave restoration. https://www.batcon.org/our-work/protect-restore-landscapes/agave-restoration/. Accessed on October 5, 2021.

Bat Conservation International. 2020. Boosting bats by restoring Mexico’s agaves. https://www.batcon.org/article/boosting-bats-by-restoring-mexicos-agaves/. Accessed on October 5, 2021.

Bat Friendly Project. https://www.batfriendly.org/. Accessed on October 5, 2021

We wait as the sun disappears behind the darkening mountains, the chill of winter settling into our bones without the warm beams of daylight enshrining the high-altitude wetland valley. The only sounds are our gentle breathing—making clouds of vapour illuminated by a rising moon—and the distant trumpet of black-necked cranes flying towards their roosting ponds. Deep in the winter of the new year, we listen as they move invisibly through the cover of night: gentle rustles of dark grey and black feathers and a quiet ripple of icy water as they land together. Gangtey-Phobjikha valley has long been blessed with the presence of the revered Thrung Thrung Karmo, as black-necked cranes are known in Dzongkha and Monpa languages. These birds are winter migrants from the Tibetan Plateau where they breed, finding refuge in the warmer, wetland valleys of the Kingdom of Bhutan, Ladakh and Arunachal Pradesh in India, and parts of southern China.

Our team of scientists have been brought together by a single goal—to successfully capture and attach satellite transmitters to several black-necked cranes for a long-term study on their migratory patterns and movement ecology. The odds of success would feel immensely stacked against us, were it not for the collective wisdom and expertise of this team of crane scientists from Bhutan’s first and oldest non-governmental environmental organization, The Royal Society for the Protection of Nature (RSPN), and Crane Conservation Germany (Kranichschutz Deutschland).

As we sit quietly in the dark, listening, waiting for any sign that the capture set-up has been successful, the distant histories and memories of this place envelop me. For how many centuries has this protected valley sheltered Thrung Thrung Karmo and other migratory waterbirds from the harsh winter months of Tibet—the roof of the world? Here, where they are warmed by lower elevations and the welcome hospitality of the Bhutanese people that have called this valley home for generations. Many residents of Gangtey- Phobjikha consider the black-necked crane to be heavenly birds, divine messengers, and reincarnations of Bodhisattvas1. For many farmers, it is considered a blessing of good harvest for the year should migrating cranes land and dance in their fields of potatoes, turnips, barley, and buckwheat. Still others claim migrating cranes circumambulate the central monastery three times before descending into the valley in the winter, and again while ascending out of the valley on their way to their spring breeding grounds on the Tibetan Plateau.

Rubbing my hands together for warmth, waiting in the darkened silence, I dwell on the many connections that have formed through the centuries between cranes and mountain communities, manifest in paintings of cranes on the walls of traditional farmhouses; cranes ornately carved into the eaves of the wooden gateway of Gangtey Goenpa, the central monastery of the valley; stories of cranes threaded into traditional dances and woven into songs that mimic their characteristic call: Thrung Thrung, Thrung Thrung. I am reminded of one such traditional Bhutanese song, shared with me many years ago by my friend and colleague, Jigme—the guiding voice of this field excursion, who is in turn a leader in crane conservation and research in the country. I sit next to him as we wait some more through the night, a gentle wind blowing around us, sweeping through the expansive valley, covered in frost, when this song loops in my mind:

This song of antiquity, amongst many others of its kind, marks a long history between the people of this Kingdom and the cranes, which migrate from areas such as Lithang in Kham Province, Tibet. This region, which is intricately tied to Tibetan Buddhist histories and living traditions, was the birthplace of the Seventh and Tenth Dalai Lama. As I sing the song silently like a mantra in my head, I recognize its reminiscence to a verse, attributed to the Sixth Dalai Lama, Tsangyang Gyatso, frequently taken as a reference to his commencing rebirth: “Oh white crane, lend me your wings, I’m not going far and away, I’ll return through the land of Lithang, and thence, return again.” Inscribed in both this poetic verse and traditional song are geographical and historical linkages to Eastern Tibet. Each is animated by the migration of the world’s only alpine crane species, the black-necked crane, traversing across the Eastern Himalayas through centuries of song, dance, and recorded tradition.

The moon is high in the sky now, casting a silvery glow across the valley floor. Still, no sign of movement from the roosting cranes. Jigme keeps a watchful eye through the darkness, as I stay lost in thought. Another story enters my mind, shared with me by Sonam, a Bhutanese cultural scholar and friend. He tells me of a 17th century religious teacher who lived in this very valley we wait in now: Tendzin Lekrpai Dondrup, the Second Gangteng Trulku3 (born in 1645). Unable to return to Tibet to see his precious teacher, reportedly the Third reincarnation of Pema Lingpa4, Tendzin wished to send a message. In his melancholic reverence, he sings a song to the black-necked cranes of the valley, asking them to carry his message of respect to his master as they fly back to Tibet, high over the green mountain passes, when the winter frost thaws.

A distant splash breaks my concentration. Our group jumps to attention as we realize that a roosting crane may be caught. We rush off into the night, wading through the ice-laced waters and frosted wetland grasses, to spot an adult crane perfectly held by a leg hold—a time-honored trapping practice, perfected over many years by crane researchers around the world. The hold is released as Jigme cradles the crane gently under his arm. He walks slowly back across the wetland to the field truck, where he kneels in front of the team, a crane tucked safely at his side. The crane is fitted with a solar-powered transmitter—a small device as big as a bundle of incense sticks—that connects to the global cellular network and communicates geographic positions at regular intervals. This device, a humble, microchipped messenger, will tell us precisely where this crane goes, by sending regular signals along the path of their upcoming spring migration to Tibet. As we release the crane to rejoin the others, into the peaceful embrace of night, I am filled with gratitude for the many ways in which we tell our collective stories, and for our world’s many messengers—the songs and signals that are sent upon the wings of the crane—in the present century, those that have passed, and those still to come.

Whether through old songs, narrative verse, or solar-powered transmitter, the black-necked cranes are indeed our precious predecessors, hosts of the skies and the valleys, well-deserving of our reverence. As we drive home to warm beds and peaceful dreams, I am transported to an interview conversation held six years ago with the current Gangtey Khenpo—head of the central monastery of the Gangtey-Phobjikha valley. I had asked him about the significance of cranes in this place, and he replied: “Actually, the land is sacred, and the cranes are noble creatures… The cranes are enlightened, they are also found in heaven. They are very noble, show kindness, help each other, and are very compassionate. They are different from the other birds. They can fly high up, like an airplane… one of foreign disciples did research on this. He wrote a letter on the neck of the crane, and that crane was seen again .”

Perhaps it is the majesty of these magnificent, migratory birds that has fostered such goodwill and inspiration through the generations, and why many dedicated individuals have worked tirelessly to protect critical habitats within their migratory flyway—a route regularly used by large numbers of migrating birds. We see ourselves in them, in their strength, ability, grace, fidelity to place and partner. If we learn to hold their many stories and embrace diverse ways of telling them—across culture, language, discipline, and time—perhaps we can better serve them, as they serve us.

As a conservation social scientist, these memories paint for me a living tapestry—by song and by satellite—of cranes as messengers. Messengers that speak to the richness that can be illuminated when science embraces multiple ways of transmitting knowledge to inform conservation decision-making. It’s an achievable goal that can be equitably and inclusively accomplished in partnership with indigenous peoples and local communities. If we choose to listen, these types of historical connections and animating stories can be found threaded through just about everything. And if we do more than listen, we will realize they can add depth, dimension, and meaning to our growing scientific knowledge base through collective environmental and political action. Stories, precious messages from our predecessors, improve our capacity to understand the world’s many challenges and complexities. If we work together in partnership with communities who hold generations of storied expertise, then we will be better positioned to know, conserve, and protect migratory species, like the Thrung Thrung Karmo.

Footnotes

¹Bodhisattva, wylie (byang chub sems dpa’), is a beingon the path of enlightenment for the sake of others

²Translated from Dzongkha to English by Tandin Wangmo

³Trulku, Wylie (prul sku), is a reincarnate custodian in a lineage of Tibetan Buddhism, often recognized as the rebirth of a previous practitioner.

⁴Pema Lingpa was a famous 15th century Bhutanese saint and revered discoverer of spiritual treasures, or Terchen, Wylie (gter chen)

From hiking in the forest to navigating to the best slice of pizza in New York City, GPS technology has transformed our everyday lives and become a mainstay in our travel and business sectors. For wildlife researchers, GPS technology has been nothing short of revolutionary. The first living being tracked from space was an elk, fitted with a cartoonishly large tracking collar by pioneering wildlife researchers Frank and John Craighead near Jackson Hole, Wyoming in February 1970. Dubbed ‘Monique the Space Elk’ by the national media, Monique’s rudimentary collar weighed a whopping 10 kg (the weight of an average car tyre), cost roughly USD 25,000, and boasted an average positional error of approximately 50 km² (about 10,000 football pitches).

Today, some 31 Global Positioning System satellites encircle the earth, providing geolocation information to GPS receivers almost anywhere with unprecedented precision (within 2–10 metres or better in optimal conditions). At the same time, the weight, storage capacity, and cost of GPS tracking devices have all improved significantly. These advancements have allowed for an increasing diversity of species—from meadowlarks to blue whales—to be tracked for days, months, or years at temporal resolutions (hours, minutes, or seconds) that would have seemed unimaginable during initial experiments so many decades ago.

Countless discoveries have been made thanks to data collected via GPS. Researchers have mapped the migratory pathways of ungulates across the North American intermountain west, estimated the area requirements of Mongolian gazelle—an astounding 11 times the size of Yellowstone National Park, revealed the importance of collective decision-making in gregarious primates, and assessed the role of long-term memory in how marine and terrestrial mammals select resources. These findings illustrate a brief snapshot of the breadth of research being conducted by scientists globally using GPS and highlight the importance of this technology in spurring scientific discovery.

Nearly concurrent to the development of GPS technology, earth scientists were also looking to the stars to better understand our changing planet. The recent launch of Landsat 9 in September 2021 marks an almost 50-year record of earth observation, with satellites capturing the entire surface of the earth every eight days at roughly 30-metre spatial resolution. Importantly, these data have been made freely available to the global science community, promoting a surge in earth science research and discovery. Data collected from successive satellite missions has led to a better understanding of agricultural productivity, changes in land-cover, forest health, water quality, climate, and even variation in the size of the polar ice cap. By linking these remotely sensed data sources and their derivatives with animal tracking data, researchers have appropriately taken advantage of the vast quantity of information now available to conduct global-scale analyses. These activities are providing an improved understanding of the range of conditions that are driving changes in the persistence of long-range species migrations and most recently, are providing insight into how animals are responding to reductions in human activities resulting from COVID-19 restrictions.

This ability to monitor shifts in animal movement at large spatial scales is increasingly important as anthropogenic pressures drive the alarming loss of animal migrations globally. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology, for example, estimates that nearly three billion migratory birds have been lost since 1970, representing a 28 percent decline in bird abundance over the past half-century. Studies led by researchers from Utah State University also show that large-bodied herbivores may be at the highest risk of extinction, with barriers from development further limiting the ability of animals to move and acquire the resources required for survival. These findings are concerning on many levels, but perhaps most importantly because animal migrations facilitate the redistribution of energy. The hooves of approximately 1.3 million migrating wildebeest, for example, aerate the soil with every step, circulating nutrients contained within their feces throughout the ecosystem, forming the foundation for ecological food webs and giving rise to diverse biological communities and burgeoning local economies.

To address the mounting challenges of these declines, researchers have joined forces to encourage information sharing and increase the diversity of species being tracked. As an example, researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior initiated Movebank in 2007, a free and online digital archive for tracking data that now contains nearly three billion tracking locations from over 1,000 species. More recently, initiatives like the Migratory Connectivity in the Ocean (MiCO) and the Global Initiative on Ungulate Migration (GIUM) have (literally) begun putting migrations on the map, with the aim of engaging policy makers and government officials with data highlighting actual movement pathways from tracked animals, to inform decision-making processes.

Still, much work remains to be done to increase the range of species that can be monitored effectively. Current GPS tag weight limits are around 5g, far too heavy for around 70 percent of birds and 65 percent of mammals that call our planet home. Various developers are pushing on this weight limit boundary, with low power GPS tags now as small as 1g that work for short periods—weeks or potentially months, if the frequency of data collection is reduced to less than a few points per day. Scientists associated with the ICARUS initiative are pushing on these restriction thresholds by developing a solar powered tag that could collect hourly data for multiple years, transmitting data on individual animals to a low-orbit receiving antenna attached to the International Space Station. Others, such as non-profits like Smart Parks, are taking advantage of technological spillover and working with a growing community of scientists and engineers to openly share their designs, creating new cost-effective solutions. Continuing to push these technological boundaries offers promise in increasing our understanding of migration, with fine-scale data that can be incorporated into analyses to assess species responses to human-driven environmental change.

These new data streams, however, are complicated in nature and require a unique set of skills to analyse. As a result, collaboration is again necessary to facilitate the sharing of new skills and ideas, often from other disciplines like physics or computer science, to ‘crack the code’ and develop tools that make use of the fine-scale data being collected. The Continuous-Time Movement Modeling framework represents a good example of years of development by quantitative ecologists working together globally, all the while aiming to democratise tools to the broader scientific community through user-friendly interfaces and specialised trainings (i.e., AniMove).

To save animal migrations from disappearing altogether, researchers must continue to push on these technological and analytical boundaries. In addition, researchers will need to broaden collaborations with other researchers, with officials in government and non-government organisations, and with members of local communities where studies are focused. Saving migratory routes will require researchers to connect with audiences beyond traditional academic outlets to provide results in a format that will inspire policy makers and the public to preserve and protect this invaluable phenomenon. Institutions could facilitate this process by evaluating employee contributions to outreach and communication as part of annual performance reviews. At the same time, researchers could create engaging learning opportunities for students by developing lesson plans with educators to showcase the near real-time tracking data being collected (such as the annotated track of a female pronghorn known to researchers as 700031A, as she traverses a diverse land-use matrix in central Wyoming). Indigenous knowledge about contemporary or even extinct migrations could also be incorporated into analyses where data are lacking. Lastly, training the next generation of scientists with the new tools that are being developed is also critical, inclusive of funding opportunities to facilitate trainings in countries where access to resources is more limited. If COVID-19 has taught us anything, it is that global communication networks are allowing us to communicate across continents and time zones like never before. While virtual meetings and seminars are no substitute for developing long-term relationships with partners, they do offer more cost-effective means (and a reduced carbon footprint) to build the required set of skills to analyse data with partners globally.

While the field of movement ecology is a relatively young discipline (formalised in circa 2008), tremendous opportunity exists to build upon promising early achievements. Future studies will likely focus on broadening the historically narrow emphasis on tracking single taxa and individuals, with greater attention on ecosystem- wide interactions between different species. Technology has certainly helped spur this revolution forward, but saving these migrations will require an explicit focus on collaboration between local and international institutions, necessitating scientists to step beyond their comfort in academic dialogue to use data collected to impact decision-making processes and better engage the public. As shown effectively by the Census of Marine Life’s Tagging of Pacific Predators (TOPP) project, migration knows no political boundaries. Therefore, saving migrations requires government officials at the highest international levels to develop agreements of mutual interest to find ways to facilitate connectivity across rapidly changing land and seascapes.

Further Reading:

Harrison, A. L., D. P. Costa, A. J. Winship, S. R. Benson, S. J. Bograd, M. Antolos, A. B. Carlisle et al. 2018. The political biogeography of migratory marine predators. Nature Ecology & Evolution 2: 1571–1578.

Kauffman, M. J., F. Cagnacci, S. Chamaillé-Jammes, M. Hebblewhite, J. G. C. Hopcraft, J. A. Merkle, T. Mueller et al. 2021. Mapping out a future for ungulate migrations. Science 372 (6542): 566–569.

Kays, R., M. C. Crofoot, W. Jetz, M. Wikelski. 2015. Terrestrial animal tracking as an eye on life and planet. Science 348 (6240).

If you are reading this, you are likely a human. We humans are terrestrial beasts—we live on land and we can learn to swim, but we require air to breathe. Through our skin, we can feel changes in air or water temperature, the wind blowing, and even water currents nudging or pushing against us. We can hear a range of sounds, taste with our tongues, and communicate with our voices. We are also visual creatures—we can see a spectrum of color, and use color and light to communicate with each other. As humans, we experience the world through sensory windows unique to us; hence, it is easy for us to forget that other creatures may experience and sense the world in very different ways.

Now imagine that you are a sea turtle hatchling, smaller than a deck of cards. You are so small you can easily fit in a human hand. You slowly become aware of your surroundings—you are in a closed dark space. You feel movement around you. The temperature drops a little and that movement becomes more frantic. Something gritty gets in your eyes and many leathery appendages hit your face and body. The temperature drops a little more and you feel a sense of urgency—to move, to climb up through a collapsing substrate. As you climb, it feels like you are swimming through something thick that you can’t quite grasp, like trying to climb up an escalator that is going down. You suddenly emerge from your collapsing hole with other small beings just like you, all boiling out onto a beach at night.

You are on your own now.

Everything looks blurry; there is darkness behind you and a faint glow of light in front of you. You are drawn to the light. You also develop a sense of place—you imprint on the Earth’s magnetic field, taking note of this location because it will be important sometime in the future. You may have a sense of where you must now go. You start to move and crawl, crawl, crawl towards this brighter horizon. The moon and the stars are reflecting in the ocean. There is where you must go. To get there you may encounter rocks, hills, and valleys you must traverse—some of these are far, far larger than you. It takes time and every second you spend crawling towards the bright horizon you are in danger. Large strange creatures may try to attack and drag you away. They have claws and beaks. They are much stronger and faster than you. If you are lucky, if you are quick, and if you persist, you reach the ocean.

Enormous walls of water crash on top of and around you, tumbling you in the surf, relentlessly pushing you back towards the beach and the predators you need to avoid. But you are energized and keep moving. You orient into the onslaught of each wave, using the force of the wave to direct your movements. Your vision clears when you are underwater and what was fuzzy on land becomes clear in the ocean. You swim through the surf into surface waters that rise and fall with less urgency. You keep swimming, swimming, swimming at the sea surface. Your lungs are so small that you can’t afford to remain at depth for long. You swim through the sunrise and a day of sunshine that heats your shell and your body, helping to quicken your movements. Then sunset, cooling through another night of darkness. As you swim, large creatures appear below you or swoop down at you from above. You use up your energy reserves, energy from the yolk that gave you life in your dark egg, to swim, swim, swim away from these new predators. Swimming into deeper waters that hopefully offer you safety. You must reach those waters before your energy reserves are exhausted.

As you swim, swim, swim, you encounter a change in the water—a physical force that pulls at you. You are near the end of your energy reserves and you can’t fight the force. When you finally give in to this pull, allowing your body to move and drift with the water, you find that you travel faster and you can rest a little. You have encountered a surface current that helps you move away from shore, away from the near-shore predators, the hungry birds and fishes that are interested in eating you as an afternoon snack. As you ride the current, this oceanic highway, you encounter some floating algae—brown and tangled, it traps water at the surface of the ocean, wrapping you in warmth. You climb on top of this algal mat and finally rest.

You are safe.

This new home buoys you as you travel. The sun rises and sets, rises and sets. At night, overhead you are surrounded by a bowl of darkness with the twinkling lights of the stars, and the glow of the moon. This new home continues to slowly drift along the oceanic highway. Sometimes, in the middle of the ocean, the winds start to blow, causing the waves to get larger, crashing on top of you and your algal home. When this happens, your home starts to break up—bunches of algae float apart from each other, diminishing your safe, warm, food-filled algal home until it is scattered over kilometres of ocean.

You realize that you generally know where you are in the world—you were born with the ability to sense the Earth’s magnetic field—you have an internal “map” sense, similar to an internal GPS or compass. So, when you feel the temperatures dropping too much and your body and limbs start to slow down due to the cold, or when you start traveling to places that are too far to the north or south, away from waters where you are most comfortable, you know you must move, and travel back to the safety that is ingrained in your understanding of where you are and where you should be. And if you are lucky, you are able to find more of the brown, floating algae that provides warmth, food, and safety from predators lurking—swimming and circling—below your perch on top of the tangled habitat. While you drift with the algae, you bask in the warmth of the sun. This warmth makes you hungry and you find plenty of food lurking in the tangled algal mats you call home. You are cold-blooded; the more you eat and the warmer you are, the faster you grow— outgrowing the jaws of those predators who live and wait, hungry, just below you.

The years pass.

You have grown larger than a dinner plate or even a toilet seat. You find you can dive deeper and deeper, relying less and less on the sea surface as a place of safety. You can now hold your breath longer and you find that you are able to outswim and outsmart some of those predators that lurk in the waters beneath. You need more and more food to sustain your larger size—food that isn’t available in the quantities you require in the open ocean. These resources are thousands of kilometres away, in those treacherous, predator-filled coastal waters that you first encountered as a hatchling. So, you slowly make your way back. Perhaps you use your innate compass sense and your “GPS superpower” on your return journey, or perhaps you simply follow the currents. You are bigger now, no longer the snack-size of a deck of cards, making it harder for other creatures to eat you.

As you transition back to coastal habitats, your diet changes and you start spending more time at depth, diving through different temperature layers searching for food on the seafloor. You no longer nibble on the small creatures found hiding in floating algal habitats offshore. If you are a green sea turtle, you may become a vegetarian—a coastal lawnmower, grazing on seagrasses and algae found growing in shallow coastal waters. If you are a loggerhead, then you become the terror of the same creatures that once would have eaten you! You develop a taste for crabs, those scary creatures that once chased you as a hatchling. You discover that your powerful jaws are built to crush and you start feeding on whelks, horseshoe crabs, and other crunchy creatures. But the abrupt changes to your diet combined with diminished resources or polluted waters can stress your body. You may get sick, or become infected with a virus that causes tumors to grow on your skin. You might have hitchhikers join you on your travels. Algae or barnacles may grow on your back, or little crabs, leeches, and other small creatures may make a home on your body. Too much algae or too many creatures may slow you down, making it harder to swim through the water.

From your oceanic home, you have migrated to coastal foraging grounds—areas along the shallower continental shelf waters or closer to land within bays, lagoons, and rivers. Some of these foraging grounds may be too cold for you in the winter, so when the temperatures drop at the end of the summer and the days grow shorter, you become restless and feel the need to swim, swim, swim out of the cooling waters. You may spend the winter on the edge of warmer currents within deeper shelf waters. You bide your time, waiting for the seas to warm in the spring so you can follow the warming temperatures back to the productive foraging grounds you visited before. Back to the bays, lagoons, and rivers that provide a banquet of prey for you during the warm months, making the winter wait worthwhile. You face a number of threats in these coastal habitats. Human activities are everywhere; any time you travel between habitats, you swim through a gauntlet of fishing gears, boats, and unhealthy waters that assault you and your senses. Over time, the once-abundant food in your foraging areas may become scarce, causing you to spend more and more energy searching for the resources that will help you grow, grow, grow to maturity.

Decades pass.

If you are clever and fast enough to avoid the increasing human presence in your coastal home, you mature into an adult female, ready to reproduce. Your growth slows, your hormones change, and you feel the urge to migrate back to those beaches that you crawled down decades before as a hatchling. You feed, feed, feed in anticipation of your reproductive migration—fuelling up for the long journey back to your natal beaches, because you know you won’t eat again until much later. You might use your “GPS superpower” once again to return to the region you “bookmarked” in your brain when you were a hatchling. To the same beaches that your mother, your grandmother, sisters, and cousins all return to every few years, to find mates and to lay eggs.

During your journey, you bump into male turtles who will court you by gently biting the back of your neck and rear flippers. Those that you like, you will choose as your mate. You have your pick; more than one is successful in getting your attention! Those that you don’t like, you treat them like any other predator and try to swim away or hide from them on the seafloor. And then, when you are “home”, back in your natal waters, you prepare to leave the ocean and return to the beaches where you once hatched. When the sun goes down, you swim towards shore, getting pushed by the waves towards the beach, where you emerge from the water and slowly drag your now enormous body across. Your vision blurs and things are not as clear to you as they are underwater. The beach is different than you remember. More lights. You get a bit confused, unsure of where to go once on the beach. There are many artificial lights glowing on the beach and you aren’t sure if you should be scared of or attracted to them.

The beach is different than you remember.

There are more signs of humans and the creatures that humans attract—raccoons, dogs, coyotes, even armadillos. Your perception of the beach environment has changed now that you are an adult female turtle. What once were rocks, hills, and mountains are now small shells or ripples in the sand made by human footprints or human vehicles. The beach is smaller, due to human development and storm erosion. You need to find a suitable place to lay your eggs. Somewhere that the eggs will be safe and protected from terrestrial predators, high tides, and beach erosion. You will dig, dig, dig your nest patiently, slowly. You carefully lay your eggs, then cover, cover, cover them. You will leave them there on the beach, incubated by the sun and the warmth of the sand, until your hatchlings emerge, just like you did many decades ago. You will repeat this process for more than a month, returning to lay more eggs every week or two.

When you lay your last nest of the season, you start the long migration back to the foraging grounds you know, where you will find food to recover from the excitement of the last several months. You will remain on these foraging grounds for a couple of years. Banking more energy to make the long migration—the remigration—back to your natal, and now nesting beaches to mate, and lay more eggs before once again returning to your foraging grounds to refuel.

Over the decades, it becomes harder and harder to find the food and energy you need to make this mating and nesting migration. You once only needed two years to refuel, but now it may take you three or four years to bank the energy needed for the long trip home to your natal beaches. And over the decades, you notice that there are more and more changes to those nesting beaches—more erosion and habitat loss, obstacles like seawalls appear, blocking your path up the beach to lay your eggs. It now takes you even more time and energy to find safe places to lay your eggs; you may not have the energy to nestas many times as you once did.

Sea turtles have been following this life-long pattern of migration and movement across varied habitats for millions of years and you are no different. You continue to repeat the cycle of foraging, migrating, mating, nesting, migrating, foraging until you are too old, or until the threats from humans make it impossible for you to continue. Or, perhaps, until humans realize how their actions and activities may make you work harder, harder, and harder to achieve your basic life goals: to survive, to thrive, and to reproduce.

There is a human idiom that states before you judge someone, you should walk a mile in their shoes. What if we humans tried to swim a mile, or thousands of miles with your flippers? We humans are terrestrial creatures and experience the world differently than sea turtles; we lack the same sensory “window” and capabilities to sense and experience the world as turtles do. Sadly, humans can’t sense the Earth’s magnetic field and we don’t have an innate sense of place. Like the young, oceanic stage sea turtles, we, too, must remain close to the sea surface to breathe. We can sometimes feel layers of temperatures when we wade into the ocean, or be buffeted by currents. But we do not have to swim thousands of kilometres to reach our destinations, so we may not realize that there are hidden highways, currents, within the oceans that can help a turtle travel from one place to another. And we may not realize that our actions add up over time, over the lifetime of sea turtles, making their lives so much harder. Maybe, if humans could better understand and imagine what sea turtle lives are like, it is then possible to define effective conservation measures to better protect them from the gauntlet of human activities that turtles encounter over the course of their long, long, long lives.

Further Reading

Lohmann K., C. Lohmann, L. Ehrhart, D. A. Bagley and T. Swing. 2004. Geomagnetic map used in sea-turtle navigation. Nature 428, 909–910. https://doi.org/10.1038/428909a

Mansfield K. L. , J. Wyneken, W. Porter, J. Luo. 2014. First satellite tracks of neonate sea turtles redefine the “lost years” oceanic niche. Proceedings of the Royal Society B 281: 20133039. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2013.3039

Mansfield K. L. and N. F. Putman. 2013. Oceanic Habits and Habitats. Caretta caretta. In: The Biology of Sea Turtles, Volume III (eds. Wyneken, J., K. J. Lohmann and J. A. Musick). Pp 189–205. CRC Press.

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.