A bittersweet realisation dawned on Bernard van Lente, Peace Parks Foundation’s Head of Operations and Development at Zinave National Park, while patrolling the park at sunrise late in 2023. The rewilded animals in the park’s sanctuary, built park to protect them, had flourished and outgrown it.
“We were in the middle of a terrible drought induced by El Niño, and the animal sanctuary was bursting at its seams,” Van Lente said. “We had worked hard to achieve good growth in animal numbers but this meant we would have to move quickly.”
Insufficient grazing is detrimental to the animals’ health and would impact birth rates at a time when this increase was critical. His suspicions were confirmed by a game census followed by a field evaluation that measured the animals’ grazing conditions, carried out towards the end of the year.
Van Lente knew that driving herds of animals out of the sanctuary would not be an easy process, yet the true extent of the challenges ahead would only become evident with time. The sanctuary had been built eight years earlier at the start of an initiative by the Mozambican Government and Peace Parks Foundation to rewild Zinave, as co-managers of the park. Animals were translocated from South Africa and Botswana – including vulnerable rhinos – and housed in a fenced and highly protected area measuring 186 km2 at the park’s inner core.
As of November last year, 2,450 animals relocated to the park had expanded in number to more than 7,000. By rewilding the landscape, the government’s National Administration for Conservation Areas and Peace Parks had accelerated the recovery of a badly damaged ecosystem.
This signalled a remarkable turnaround for Zinave, known ten years earlier as ‘the silent park’, and it is an achievement Van Lente is proud of. As he viewed the sanctuary’s flourishing herds on his dawn patrol that day, he set a goal of moving 600 of them out in the coming months – but simply releasing them into the wider park was not an option.
“Zinave spans an impressive 4,000 km2, which is a massive area to secure with limited resources. For this reason, we focused our security efforts on the sanctuary. We would need to double the size of the sanctuary to provide enough grazing and maintain the high level of protection already in place,” he said.
At first, the process seemed straightforward. Zinave’s team built a new section onto the old sanctuary and removed a five-kilometre stretch of fence between them. By November 2023, they had doubled the size of the inner sanctum to 350 km2, which would provide sufficient grazing to maintain the uptick in numbers.
“The new sanctuary had tall grass, so the bulk grazers had to be driven in first. Species that prefer short grass, such as white rhinos and elands, would be next,” he said. Experience had taught him that animals are unpredictable, and the next part proved trickier.
“Grazers like blue wildebeest and zebra are sharp. They remember fences long after they are removed and will not cross an old fence line willingly. This meant we would need to push them across,” he said.
Their first approach – to drive animals towards the fence opening using Zinave’s Robinson R44 helicopter, normally used for game management work and anti-poaching activities – brought slow progress. After two weeks, only a herd of buffalo and a few other stragglers had crossed over.
“We realised that we needed a more foolproof strategy to speed up the process,” Van Lente said.
Justin Landrey, Sanctuary Supervisor, and his team of six set about building a funnel-shaped game capture boma made of nylon sails with sides measuring 200m by 200m. The wide mouth of the boma – the entry point – was placed in the old sanctuary, while the narrow end extended into the new section. On either side of the mouth, two-metre-high sails were hung on a wire, ready to be drawn across like curtains to trap the animals inside.
Getting them there was anything but straightforward.
“The boma can hold animals in batches of up to 30 at a time. We could drive them in using the helicopter, but we couldn’t chase them too far as it distresses them,” Van Lente said.
To move animals over distances of up to 5 kilometres with the aid of an aircraft, favourable weather conditions are essential. Helicopter pilot Delport Botma chose to fly alone as the process takes some skill as herds often disperse when pursued. “Winds below 15 knots an hour allow agile flying, and temperatures under 30 degrees Celsius are best for maintaining the good condition of animals,” he said.
The day of the exercise, 15 March 2024, dawned hot and dry. By 9 am the expected temperatures would be too high to guide the herds safely, which meant an early start was crucial.
On patrol at sunrise, with his team of six people in place at the boma, Landrey located waterbucks within suitable range and radioed in their position. Just after 6 am, Botma took to the skies in the helicopter and approached the herd, then used the aircraft’s noise and downdraft to push them at a steady pace to the gap in the fence.
“I was waiting at the boma as the waterbucks came towards us,” Landrey said. “As soon as they were inside, we ran the sails closed behind them.” The first one located the narrow opening and crossed to the other side of the sanctuary, and the rest followed. “We were in high spirits. After all our hard work, our efforts paid off.”
That day, it took almost two hours to drive 16 waterbucks and 3 zebras into the new grazing area, as the team tested the newly built boma and made changes until the process worked. With temperatures soaring by mid-morning, it became unsafe to continue pushing the herds, and Delport called it a day.
Over the next week, they drove across 170 bulk grazers – 104 buffalos, 24 waterbucks, 41 zebras and a blue wildebeest – which got to work shortening the long grasses. Within three weeks, they were joined by the first intermediate feeders, a herd of impala.
By November, the daily temperatures had grown too hot to continue, but Van Lente was satisfied with their progress. “From March to November, we pushed 600 animals into the sanctuary extension, achieving our goal for the year,” he said.
This brought to 1,000 the estimated number of animals in the sanctuary extension, adding to those that already lived there – kudu, warthog, bushpig, monkey, baboon and small antelopes. Zinave has recently welcomed six male lions, thought to have entered the park on their own from Limpopo or Gonarezhou national parks.
“Previously, lions never stayed in Zinave because there was not enough prey for them to survive on. Their presence indicates a balanced ecosystem,” Van Lente said. The predators have boosted the status of Zinave to Mozambique’s first ‘big five’ park with economic benefits for the surrounding communities, who receive 20% of its revenue.
The rewilding efforts have been an illustrious achievement in a relatively short period, and Van Lente is pleased. “The animals are growing at a rapid rate and we don’t need to manage the numbers. If we can continue to prevent poaching, nature will look after itself,” he said.
This is a success story with global significance – thriving landscapes are essential for tipping the scales in the race to combat climate change. In addition, Zinave’s restored habitat has strengthened the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area as a key ecological corridor.
At the heart of Zinave’s conservation efforts are the local communities. As well as providing employment opportunities through the park, ANAC and Peace Parks have improved water supply systems and supported agriculture projects, women’s empowerment initiatives and literacy classes.
With visitor numbers already more than doubling from 2022 to 2023, the park looks set to become a sought-after tourist destination that improves the resilience of and brings economic prosperity to the surrounding communities.
*Peace Parks Foundation has a vision to restore and rewild key protected areas to unlock the lasting ecological functioning of five transboundary landscapes spanning 675,000 km2 in southern Africa, the impact of which will be profound for climate change mitigation, biodiversity conservation and community development. In partnership with governments, donors, wildlife professionals and non-government organisations, 18,170 animals of 31 unique species have been relocated to 13 parks by Peace Parks to date.
