Limpopo National Park Research Articles

Baobabs and elephants in Kruger National Park: nowhere to hide

AbstractBaobab size class distributions were surveyed in the Limpopo National Park (LNP), Mozambique, and the Kruger National Park (KNP), South Africa. There are very few elephants in the LNP and the baobab population there had a reverse J‐shaped size class distribution with many small baobabs. In contrast, the elephant‐impacted baobab population of KNP displayed a mono‐modal size‐class distribution, with a lack in recruitment. Within KNP, elephant impact (percentage bark stripped up to the height of 3 m) decreased with increasing rockiness and slope steepness. We interpret this to suggest that steep rocky slopes are inaccessible to elephants and therefore these sites may act as a refuge for baobabs. In such inaccessible areas, the baobab population has a similar size‐class distribution to that of the populations in the LNP. However, these baobab refugia are restricted in the northern KNP landscape and are therefore probably not large enough to sustain a viable baobab population.

COMMUNITIES AND TRANSFRONTIER PARKS IN THE SOUTHERN AFRICAN DEVELOPMENT COMMUNITY: THE CASE OF LIMPOPO NATIONAL PARK, MOZAMBIQUE

ABSTRACT The merger of three national parks—South Africa's Kruger, Mozambique's Limpopo and Zimbabwe's Gonarezhou—into an 89 000 km2 conservation area—the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Park (GLTP)—is supposed to boost tourism, protect biodiversity and promote harmony between neighbouring states in southern Africa (De Villiers, 1999; Hanks, 2000; Rupert, 2001). Not one of the anticipated outcomes will be realized if the position or role of local communities (social dynamics) within this mega-conservation area plays a subordinate role. In most African countries the high failure rate of official conservation programmes and policies in both the colonial and post-colonial periods can be ascribed to a tendency to view environmental problems mainly in ecological, physical and technical terms (Agrawal and Gibson, 1999). The predominantly ecological perspective ignores the necessity of a fair and equitable balance between use and preservation in a world that perpetuates the value of human beings at the expense of other life forms (Fennel, 2003). The social aspects of the environment have been neglected both in analysis and policies (Ghai, 1992). For the sake of ecological integrity, the architects of the GLTP sought to open national frontiers for hoofed crossings (Wolmer, 2001). This paper focuses on the global and continental contexts for transfrontier conservation areas, and demonstrates the link between conservation and tourism in the current environmental geopolitical discourse. It also comments of the resettlement of approximately 6000 people from the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique as a factor that can constrain the successful establishment of the GLTP.

Plant communities, wetlands and landscapes of the Parque Nacional de Banhine, Moçambique

The Parque Nacional de Banhine (Banhine National Park) was proclaimed during 1972. It covers 600 000 ha in Moçambique to the east of the Limpopo River. Until recently, this park, originally and popularly known as the ‘Serengeti of Moçambique’, was characterised by neglect and illegal hunting that caused the demise of most of its large wildlife. New initiatives aimed at rehabilitating the park have been launched within the scope of the Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park. A vegetation map was required as input to its management plan. The major objectives of the study were firstly to understand the environmental determinants of the vegetation, secondly to identify and describe individual plant communities in terms of species composition and structure and thirdly to delineate landscapes in terms of their plant community and wetland make-up, environmental determinants and distribution. A combination of fieldwork and analysis of LANDSAT satellite imagery was used. A total of 115 sample plots were surveyed. Another 222 sample points were briefly assessed from the air to establish the extent of the different landscapes. The ordination results clearly indicate the overriding importance of moisture availability in determining vegetation composition in the Parque Nacional de Banhine. Eleven distinct plant communities were recognised. They are described in terms of their structure, composition and distribution. These plant communities have strong affinities to a number of communities found in the Limpopo National Park to the west. The sandveld community is relatively the most species-rich of all communities. Different combinations of these plant communities can be grouped in five major landscapes, namely the Wetland, Grassland, Mopane, Sandveld and Androstachys landscape. These different landscapes hold six different wetland types as defined by the RAMSAR classification. The landscapes with their individual plant communities and wetland types represent a unique combination of habitats that have great intrinsic conservation value. These habitats are key to the long-term maintenance and survival of a diverse avifauna, including the original ostrich population, as well as wattled cranes.

Tin mining in Malaya in 1924 : Eng. and Mining Jour. Press, Aug. 22, 1925, p. 308

Over the past decade, South Africa’s Kruger National Park has become embroiled in a rhino poaching crisis. In response, state authorities are applying military logics, personnel, training, and equipment to protect endangered black and threatened white rhinos. Many suspected poachers are Mozambicans, including those who are resident in Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park (LNP). Based on a sequence of fieldwork conducted in the LNP between 2003 and 2016, we examine the relationship between this extremely tense and armed clash and the thousands of already socially and economically marginalized LNP residents targeted for resettlement as part of conserving rhino habitat. As they await relocation, the basic human security of residents has become deeply undermined by decreased access to services and environmental resources and the criminalization of their livelihoods. While much of the critical scholarship on anti-poaching focuses on the spectacular forms of violence that characterize rhino poaching, beneath this a more structural and “slower” form of violence persists. Seeking to develop an understanding of violence that extends beyond the spectacular, we argue that the cumulative losses and instability that have followed conservation created the conditions under which rhino poaching unfolded in the LNP. Communities found guilty of rhino poaching by mere association bear tremendous costs while the reduction of resettlement to an urgent need to control aberrant human behavior masks tremendous opportunity costs forgone. Better understandings of these costs and their links to violence need be taken seriously in any discussion of poaching response and poaching motivation.