EMPOWERING LOCAL LADIES THROUGH TECHNOLOGY
Esther Matthew, EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme, estherm@ewt.org.zaThe Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) has been operating in Loxton (Northern Cape) for the past 15 years, the EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme based in this one-primary-school-town. The Loxton school, JJ Booysen, burned down in 2017, including the school’s computer room, which has severely limited learner and community member exposure to technology. In 2018, we opened the EWT E-learning Centre, with support from Rand Merchant Bank, to fill the gap. To date, we have hosted three six-week courses for Grade 7s (11-13 years of age), two Google Earth courses for students and emerging farmers, and a photography course for teenagers that we hope to host once a year going forward. The centre was also used in 2019 to host adult literacy classes.
The Laslappies are a local, all-women needlework cooperative based in Loxton. Their cooperative was established in 2018, and their needlework was originally inspired by the Critically Endangered Riverine Rabbit occurring in the surrounding area. Since the start of the cooperative, the ladies have steadily grown their business and are now creating everything from curtains to face masks, both for the community and larger commercial companies.
The EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme supports these ladies’ efforts by providing them with additional opportunities and training, and the Laslappies started their first computer skills classes this month at the EWT’s E-learning Centre in Loxton. In these classes, the ladies will learn how to create documents, send emails, scan and print documents, and other skills beneficial for their business activities. We want to give special thanks to our two local volunteers, Llewellyn and Dante, for hosting these sessions. We hope to one day expand and improve the centre to provide training to larger groups of learners and community members.
This initiative is made possible by Rand Merchant Bank.
A LEGACY FOR LIFE
My involvement with EWT goes back to the late 1970s when I became aware of the amazing work being done even then by the EWT and its charismatic and committed Founder, Clive Walker.
I was particularly impressed that, despite running on a shoestring, based on funds raised from the sale of prints of Clive’s paintings (see here), and through the efforts of a dedicated volunteer Ladies Committee, EWT was able to make a discernible difference in Southern African conservation. It was not just the conservation of Cheetah and Wild Dog that drew my attention, but I was particularly moved by EWT’s contribution towards saving the desert elephants and desert rhinos in the remote regions of Namibia and the engagement of local communities to help make this happen.
I volunteered my services to Clive as a reasonably well-connected businessman and fundraiser, and one of my first successes for the EWT was to raise funds to repair the leaking roof of the old premises at the Johannesburg Zoo.
In the early 1980s, then EWT Chairperson Angus Morrison invited me to become a Trustee. By this stage, Dr John Ledger had become EWT’s Director, and the Trust was expanding its reach, building on the solid foundation created by Clive Walker and the earlier Trustees. As a Trustee, I continued to be active in the procurement and fundraising areas and was also privileged to represent EWT in various forums, including presenting a special award to the SANDF unit that did the most for conservation. Later on, I was instrumental in merging the African Raptor Information Centre into the EWT’s Raptor Conservation Group.
I migrated to Australia in 1999, where my future wife lived, but was requested by John Ledger to remain a Trustee. I did so until 2006 when I felt that as a Trustee living abroad, with limited opportunity to make a worthwhile contribution, I should step down and make way for other potential Trustees living in South Africa, who would be better able to serve EWT. However, my interest in EWT has never abated, not least because of my many years of involvement and my life membership of the organisation but importantly because of the great strides EWT is making in wildlife conservation and human engagement.
I had met Yolan Friedmann during my time with EWT when she was involved, together with Dr Paul Bartels, in an EWT-supported project to explore the viability of storing DNA samples for genome sequencing, with the potential to revolutionise biodiversity research. There was even talk of using the DNA of a Quagga skin at a museum in Holland to recreate the quagga and other extinct species. Australia has also experienced the loss of some flagship species, including the famed Tasmanian Tiger, and so from Australia, I contacted Yolan to explore possibilities for collaboration with the Australian Museum, who were interested in the work being conducted by her and Paul.
I was very happy to note Yolan’s later appointment as EWT CEO, and her impressive stewardship of EWT since then has reinforced my views that EWT is one of the most effective ‘conservation in action’ organisations in the world, and certainly in Southern Africa.
It is funny how the wheel turns because, in 2020, I joined a webinar organised by Jacana Publishers that featured Yolan and Clive Walker. It was an absolute eye and ear-opener to learn just how much this organisation has achieved over the years and continues to achieve today, and I seem to recall Yolan having used words to the effect that she dreams of a day when there will be no need for an EWT, but sadly, I can’t see that happening. EWT will and must continue to perform its vital role in line with its vision of “a world in which both humans and wildlife prosper in harmony with nature.”
Following that webinar, I have volunteered to assist EWT in Australia and New Zealand to help it to achieve this vision. In addition, I have decided to leave a bequest to the EWT because I believe it is the most effective conservation organisation in Southern Africa, with measurable successes in both human and animal terms. I believe that it behoves all who support the EWT’s vision and mission to do everything possible to help it to succeed, both in our lifetime and beyond, and that is what I am doing!
Rob Schneider, 2021
In the spring, a tree will be planted in Rob’s honour as the first in our Forever Forest. A tree will be added for each person who leaves a bequest to the EWT to acknowledge that their legacies will live on through the EWT’s conservation work.
If you too yearn for a better future for your children, leave a Legacy for Life by remembering the EWT in your will, and help us secure the health of our planet and its wildlife beyond your lifetime.
All bequests made to the EWT create legacies for life that are immeasurable and remembered through the survival of our endangered species and spaces.
FINDING YOUR FROG PRINCE(SS)
Dr Jeanne Tarrant, EWT’s Threatened Amphibian Programme Manager, jeannet@ewt.org.za
Background
South Africa (including Lesotho and eSwatini) has 135 frog (anuran) species, represented by 12 families, with over a third of the diversity within one family, the Pyxicephalidae. Over half of these species (54%) are endemic to the region, i.e. they don’t occur anywhere else in the world. Forty-four species (33%) fall into the IUCN threatened categories or where we don’t have enough data to assess them. While we have a fairly good understanding of the status of our Threatened frog species (assessed in 2010 and again in 2016), an assessment of our Least Concern species has not been published since 2004. Several new species have also since been described, which is very exciting, but these have not yet assessed for their threat status.
Species data
Since 2004 there has also been a massive increase in contributions of wildlife records by the public through online platforms such as iNaturalist, iSpot, and even Facebook. The collation of these ‘citizen science’ records contributeS significantly to improving our knowledge of species distribution. Accurate inferred distribution maps will be developed by consolidating these records, plus all of those existing in museum collections and private collections. These updated distribution maps are crucial for informing where and for which species conservation efforts need to be directed.
Find your Frog Prince(ss) Campaign
It is important that the public become involved in such projects and that citizen science records are used meaningfully. To this end, we launched an iNaturalist project that ran during March 2021 to feed into the thousands of records that already exist on this platform, and that will all be used to update the Atlas. One of this project’s goals is to inspire the next generation of frog biologists and conservationists to continue the very necessary work of conserving these species and their habitats well into the future to benefit people’s health and the planet.
To date, we received 400 observations of 48 species from 60 observers across the country
THE SOURCE OF OUR SURVIVAL
Bradley Gibbons, EWT African Crane Conservation Programme, bradleyg@ewt.org.zaIf you think about water, what is the first thing that comes to mind? Is it drinking water or having a shower or perhaps washing clothes? Imagine not being able to do any of these things – a world without water. That is simply impossible to comprehend. LIFE depends on water.
When some people are asked, “where does water come from?”, often the answer is “from a tap” or these days “from a bottle”. For many city dwellers, this may seem a logical answer, but many thousands of people living in rural areas must walk, sometimes many kilometres, to the closest river or stream to do their washing and take buckets filled with water back to their homes. They are very aware of the value of water, of its source, and the consequences of a river running dry.
It is probably a little-known fact that mountains, approximately 10% of the country’s land area, supply water to about half of the country. These mountains are the “water factories” that feed their precious “blue gold” into rivers such as the Vaal, which carries it through the country to be syphoned off to supply towns and cities such as Johannesburg.
An example of a massive “water factory” is the Eastern Great Escarpment region found in north western KwaZulu-Natal and north eastern Free State that forms an important part of the Thukela and Vaal Rivers catchments. A water source area such as this one needs to be protected at all costs, not only for the supply of water for future generations but also for its biodiversity value. If these mountains are compromised in any way due to unsustainable developments or habitat degradation, there are massive impacts on the supply of fresh, clean water to many thousands of people.
The Endangered Wildlife Trust is engaging with landowners in the Eastern Greater Escarpment to get their commitment to conserving their farms through biodiversity stewardship, whereby their farms are formally proclaimed as Protected Environments or private Nature Reserves, depending on the biodiversity value of the farm. By doing so, farmers will help safeguard these water sources into the future. A classic example of a Biodiversity Stewardship site is the uMsonti Nature Reserve proclaimed in May 2019, located south-west of Newcastle in the region formally known as ‘Holkrans’. Not only does this site safeguard the forest patches but also protects the source of the water for the Thirsti water bottling plant.
Please make use of water-saving tips to reduce your water usage and contribute in any way you can to the protection of the mountains and catchment areas that supply the water critical to our sustainability and continued quality of life in this semi-arid country.
BEGGING FOR BUNNIES
Esther Matthew, Drylands Conservation Programme Specialist Field Officer, estherm@ewt.org.za . With Easter coming up, we know you will be on the hunt for the Easter bunny, and if you see him or anyone resembling him, we want proof! The EWT’s Drylands Conservation Programme is trying to gather more information on all the South African lagomorph species (that’s rabbits and hares!). We are specifically looking at their distributions within the Northern, Western, and Eastern Cape provinces and the potential overlap of different species’ distributions in these areas. Have you seen one of our furry friends? We are looking for photos that you have taken or any camera trap images of rabbits and hares in South Africa. Become a citizen scientist by contributing your images to the study of rabbits and hares in the country. We will happily accept any images, with or without species identification, as long as it is submitted with a location, preferably a GPS point.
In the process, of course, we hope to get a few photos of our elusive Riverine Rabbits in areas where we don’t have recent records. Riverine Rabbits are Critically Endangered and very difficult to find, and we encourage the public to assist us in gathering more information on the distribution of this mysterious species. However, please note, we do not, under any circumstances, encourage the handling or capturing of any wild rabbit or hares. Please send all of your bunny photos and locations to estherm@ewt.org.za. The locations you submit will not be made available to the public to prevent poaching, but the locations will add value to datasets for research and the conservation of the species. We will use the images to identify the species and contribute to updating the distribution maps!This initiative is sponsored by The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund and Rand Merchant Bank.
SCIENCE SNIPPETS: SUCCESSFULLY REARING ORPHANED CHEETAH IN THEIR NATURAL HABITAT
Adaptation from the article: Warmenhove C, Canning G, Davidson-Phillips S, van der Merwe V, Burger A, Davidson-Phillips P, Naude VN. 2020. Successful in situ supplementary feeding leads to the independence of orphaned cheetah cubs. Conservation Science and Practice. e353: 1-3. https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.353
This paper provides evidence that orphaned Cheetah cubs can successfully, under certain conditions, be left in the wild with supplementary feeding from at least 7.5 months of age, and they will learn how to hunt and otherwise fend for themselves. The decision to take this approach was influenced by the low densities of other large carnivores, including Lion, Leopard, and Spotted Hyaena, and reduced predator visibility due to the terrain. While these species are present on Welgevonden Game Reserve, the low risk of interspecies competition was considered acceptable. This study reveals a credible alternative strategy for supporting orphaned cheetah in their natural habitat instead of removing them and placing them in captive facilities.
