Africa’s drylands in a changing world: Challenges for wildlife conservation under climate and land-use changes in the Greater Etosha Landscape

Proclaimed in 1907, Etosha National Park in northern Namibia is an iconic dryland system with a rich history of wildlife conservation and research. A recent research symposium on wildlife conservation in the Greater Etosha Landscape (GEL) highlighted increased concern of how intensification of global change will affect wildlife conservation based on participant responses to a questionnaire. The GEL includes Etosha and surrounding areas, the latter divided by a veteri nary fence into large, private farms to the south and communal areas of residential and farming land to the north. Here, we leverage our knowledge of this ecosystem to provide insight into the broader challenges facing wildlife conservation in this vulnerable dryland environment. We first look backward, summarizing the history of wildlife conservation and research trends in the GEL based on a literature review, providing a broad-scale understanding of the socioecological pro cesses that drive dryland system dynamics. We then look forward, focusing on eight key areas of challenge and opportunity for this ecosystem: climate change, water availability and quality, vegetation and fire management, adaptability of wildlife populations, disease risk, human wildlife conflict, wildlife crime, and human dimensions of wildlife conservation. Using this model system, we summarize key lessons and identify critical threats highlighting future research needs to support wildlife management. Research in the GEL has followed a trajectory seen elsewhere reflecting an increase in complexity and integration across biological scales over time. Yet, despite these trends, a gap exists between the scope of recent research efforts and the needs of wildlife conservation to adapt to climate and land-use changes. Given the complex nature of climate change, in addition to locally existing system stressors, a framework of forward-thinking adaptive management to address these challenges, supported by integrative and multidisciplinary research could be beneficial. One critical area for growth is to better integrate research and wildlife management across land-use types. Such efforts have the potential to support wildlife conservation efforts and human development goals, while building resilience against the impacts of climate change. While our conclusions reflect the specifics of the GEL ecosystem, they have direct relevance for other African dryland systems impacted by global change

Africa’s drylands in a changing world : challenges for wildlife conservation under climate and land-use changes in the greater Etosha landscape

Proclaimed in 1907, Etosha National Park in northern Namibia is an iconic dryland system with a rich history of wildlife conservation and research. A recent research symposium on wildlife conservation in the Greater Etosha Landscape (GEL) highlighted increased concern of how intensification of global change will affect wildlife conservation based on participant responses to a questionnaire. The GEL includes Etosha and surrounding areas, the latter divided by a veterinary fence into large, private farms to the south and communal areas of residential and farming land to the north. Here, we leverage our knowledge of this ecosystem to provide insight into the broader challenges facing wildlife conservation in this vulnerable dryland environment. We first look backward, summarizing the history of wildlife conservation and research trends in the GEL based on a literature review, providing a broad-scale understanding of the socioecological processes that drive dryland system dynamics. We then look forward, focusing on eight key areas of challenge and opportunity for this ecosystem: climate change, water availability and quality, vegetation and fire management, adaptability of wildlife populations, disease risk, human-wildlife conflict, wildlife crime, and human dimensions of wildlife conservation. Using this model system, we summarize key lessons and identify critical threats highlighting future research needs to support wildlife management. Research in the GEL has followed a trajectory seen elsewhere reflecting an increase in complexity and integration across biological scales over time. Yet, despite these trends, a gap exists between the scope of recent research efforts and the needs of wildlife conservation to adapt to climate and land-use changes. Given the complex nature of climate change, in addition to locally existing system stressors, a framework of forward-thinking adaptive management to address these challenges, supported by integrative and multidisciplinary research could be beneficial. One critical area for growth is to better integrate research and wildlife management across land-use types. Such efforts have the potential to support wildlife conservation efforts and human development goals, while building resilience against the impacts of climate change. While our conclusions reflect the specifics of the GEL ecosystem, they have direct relevance for other African dryland systems impacted by global change.DATA ACCESSIBILITY STATEMENT: Additional information about datasets and reports from the Etosha Ecological Institute can be obtained from Claudine Cloete ([email protected]). Additional information about the literature review can be obtained from Stéphanie Périquet ([email protected]).https://www.elsevier.com/locate/geccoMammal Research InstituteZoology and Entomolog

Body size and digestive system shape resource selection by ungulates : a cross-taxa test of the forage maturation hypothesis

The forage maturation hypothesis (FMH) states that energy intake for ungulates is maximised when forage biomass is at intermediate levels. Nevertheless, metabolic allometry and different digestive systems suggest that resource selection should vary across ungulate species. By combining GPS relocations with remotely sensed data on forage characteristics and surface water, we quantified the effect of body size and digestive system in determining movements of 30 populations of hindgut fermenters (equids) and ruminants across biomes. Selection for intermediate forage biomass was negatively related to body size, regardless of digestive system. Selection for proximity to surface water was stronger for equids relative to ruminants, regardless of body size. To be more generalisable, we suggest that the FMH explicitly incorporate contingencies in body size and digestive system, with small-bodied ruminants selecting more strongly for potential energy intake, and hindgut fermenters selecting more strongly for surface water.DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT : The dataset used in our analyses is available via Dryad repository (https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.jsxksn09f) following a year-long embargo from publication of the manuscript. The coordinates associated with mountain zebra data are not provided in an effort to protect critically endangered black rhino (Diceros bicornis) locations. Interested researchers can contact the data owner (Minnesota Zoo) directly for inquiries.https://wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/elehj2022Mammal Research InstituteZoology and Entomolog

Historicising black rhino in Namibia: colonial-era hunting, conservation custodianship, and plural values

The black rhinoceros (Diceros bicornis) is a threatened species of which the south-western subspecies (D. bicornis bicornis, synonym D. bicornis occidentalis) persists on communal land and elsewhere in Namibia. It does so despite its clearance from most of the animal’s former range due to the expansion of colonial-era hunting with firearms, and the concentration of marginalised Namibians alongside this high-value species in the challenging landscapes of north-west Namibia in particular. We trace what is known about the patterns and impacts of colonial-era hunting of rhino in the territory that is now the modern state of Namibia, introducing an online map of documented historical encounters with rhino in Namibia and the pressures on them from late 1700s. This map of historical encounters is currently complementing baseline information on the past distribution of black rhino in Namibia held by the Ministry of Environment, Forestry and Tourism (MEFT) in support of its collaborative Black Rhino Custodianship Programme (BRCP). We outline contemporary pressures on black rhino and conservation responses to these circumstances, tracing the emergence of a novel approach to rhino conservation in Namibia that recruits people living under different kinds of land tenure as ‘custodians’ of these animals, so as to support the reintroduction of both black and white rhino throughout their former range. We focus in on proactive rhino conservation work in communal-area conservancies of west Namibia which combines the translocation of black rhino to areas of its former range with an array of endeavours to pluralise the animal’s contemporary value, including rhino tourism, the recruit of local ‘rhino rangers’, and ‘rhino pride’ initiatives. In this context, and differently to custodians on freehold land, a vulnerable, large-bodied, space-requiring and sometimes dangerous mammal with very high international conservation value, simultaneously lives alongside peoples impoverished historically and with their own ambitions towards self-determination. This custodianship model of rhino conservation can be understood in part as a creative species conservation response to the very challenging structural circumstances effected by both past impacts on rhino and present inequality in land distribution and tenure, both of which add heat to questions of access to land and resources, including wildlife