African Wildlife and Environment Issue 66

CONSERVATION

CONSERVATION

was 2 300 in Luando, with perhaps 250 in the much smaller Cangandala National Park just to the north. The population of this distinctive sub-species of sable ( Hippotragus niger variani ) is separated by some 700 kms from its closest con-specifics, ( Hippotragus niger niger in the southeastern extreme of the Cuando Cubango; and Hippotragus niger kirkii in Western Zambia). Scientists continue to speculate on the causes of this geographic separation, a puzzle that is repeated in many unusual distribution patterns in Angola’s rich but poorly researched biodiversity. My brief as ecologist was to produce management plans for the major parks, and to identify areas of special conservation importance - ‘biodiversity hotspots’, to proclaim as new protected areas. Surveying a country larger than South Africa, and where roads and communications were rudimentary at best, was an exciting challenge. We soon had a dozen new targets listed - the Miombo forests of Cabinda, with gorilla, chimpanzee and a dozen more mammals not yet protected in Angola’s parks; Morro Moco, Morro Namba and Serra da Neve, isolate relicts of Afro-montane forests with half a dozen endemic bird species, Lagoa Carumbo in the far northeast, with unusual swamp forests, gallery forests and the exceptionally rich fish fauna of the Congo drainage. All was looking so good, as we built our new home and research centre on a promontory above the mouth of the Cuanza River, with a sweeping view over the Atlantic. But the halcyon years of the 1970s came to a sudden halt on 25 April 1974. The ‘Carnation Revolution’, initially celebrated with such hope and excitement, soon transformed into a nightmare across Angola, Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau and Timor, as Portugal, after nearly 500 years of colonial misrule, abandoned her empire. Angola suffered worst. Angola’s vast oil, diamond, timber, agricultural and water resources providing too great a prize to be neglected by competing global and national interests. Minor political factions were soon swept up by the geo-politics of the Cold War, and the invasion of Angola by South African forces, soon to be confronted by Cubans supported by Russian advisors, led to the proxy war that destroyed the fabric of Angolan society, economy and environment. In 1975, as I witnessed the slaughter of buffalo, eland, roan and elephant, and the destruction of the parks’ infrastructure by MPLA, UNITA and FNLA troops, I penned an article for African Wildlife (Vol 30, No 1). It concluded: “The dark cloud that has moved over Angola will surely pass, but in its wake little of a once rich fauna and flora will remain.” Little did I realise how long it would take for the cloud to pass, and just how little wildlife would survive the coming storm. After departing from Angola in a column of 10 000 refugees in late August 1975, I had little prospect of returning. Over the succeeding 40 years, I have made over 20 return visits, mostly as an invited advisor to government and international conservation agencies, always with the naïve expectation that the collapse of the parks and the destruction of habitats and species could be halted. When the IUCN used the brief interregnum of 1992

and the interior Tchamalinde mountains, populated by millions of grand specimens of that most enigmatic of plants, Welwitschia mirabilis , herds of oryx, springbok, mountain and plains zebra, the occasional black rhino, leopard, lion, brown hyaena, and families of bat eared foxes, suricates, and black-backed jackal. Desert elephant would enter the park along the Cunene, where hippo and crocodile still abounded. Iona was rightly our favourite destination, even though our base camp was an eight-hour gut-wrenching 4x4 trip from the nearest shop at the old port of Mossamedes. We shared the massive park with two game rangers, five game guards, and with a community of nomadic OvaHimba pastoralists, about 300 in number, with their cattle and goats. Their impact was trivial, occupying as they did the far eastern hills of the park, well removed from the intermontane basins that stretched up from the Marienfluss of the Kaokoveld across the Cunene. It is these plains, with their golden swards of desert grasses, pock-marked by fairy circles, flanked by red dunes and black mountains, which were the prime habitat for oryx, springbok and zebra. The landscapes were as pristine and ancient as the Namib Desert, and the crisp silence as complete as a tomb. For solitude, Bicuar National Park, 100 kms east of the then charming village of Sá da Bandeira (Lubango today), could not be beaten. Here the game population was recovering from decimations of the ‘free hunting’ period of the 1950s, and great herds of roan, eland, wildebeest, zebra, buffalo and elephant were repopulating the woodlands and serene mulolas (dambos) that drained the gentle folds of the plateau, forming a thumbprint pattern of grasslands running down to the Cunene. Some remnant herds of black-faced impala survived along the river, and oribi, reedbuck and defassa waterbuck enjoyed the wide chana of Uieba, which was a seasonal grassy wetland where saddle billed storks and wattled cranes could be found. But the most special park for us was Luando, home of the giant sable, ‘the most magnificent of all antelope’ as described by its discoverer, Frank Varian. Luando, like Quiçama and Iona, had the most ideal of natural borders, the sinuous Luando river floodplain to the east, and the rocky Cuanza to the west, protecting 828 000 ha of rolling hills and valleys from intrusive development. Despite a human population of 18 000 villagers, dispersed over 67 small hamlets, the giant sable were free to roam unperturbed by the Songo, Suela and Luimbe people, who held the antelope in high regard. At our base, Quimbango, the park warden, José Alves, had worked with the renowned antelope specialist, Dick Estes, in the year before our arrival, habituating herds of giant sable to his ageing Land Rover. Driving (or rather forcing), the old vehicle between the dense Brachystegia trees that give shade to the sable, one could enter within the herds, up to thirty strong, which comprised of red-brown cows and fawn calves, and the solitary jet black macho grande - the territorial bull that defended his turf against the ever ambitious younger bulls. Luando bulls have sweeping horns of up to 65 inches in length. The estimate in the early 1970s was that the giant sable population

The author and his wife Merle at the ruins of their house at Barra do Cuanza, Quiçama, 2004. The house was completed in 1975, but soon became the target for mortar practice from the military camp across the river.

less than 1% of its vast area, was fenced off and a mixed bag of animals introduced. These included giraffe, zebras, wildebeest, ostriches and other species that had never occurred in the park. Just three years ago, the Minister responsible for conservation introduced even more alien species into what is now nothing better than a private zoo. In Iona, where Hartman’s zebra are now extinct, or have hybridized with donkeys, solar-powered boreholes have been established for the benefit of the invading herds of cattle and goats, which now resort to eating the leather-tough leaves of ancient Welwitschia . In Bicuar, a 50 km fence has been built, starting nowhere and going nowhere, while the Warden has planted orange and mango groves around the base camp to attract elephants for non-existent tourists. Worst of all, in the terminally neglected giant sable reserves, a roan antelope bull had started hybridizing with the last population of giant sable cows. In a rare positive development in Angola’s conservation story, Angolan born biologist Pedro Vaz Pinto, almost single handedly, has rescued giant sable from imminent extinction through an amazing breeding programme. His work deserves an article in its own right. The driving forces of environmental collapse have not been the usual suspects of land transformation, i.e. over-grazing, invasive plants, or climate change. The

to undertake a survey of the state of the environment, I was able to join the team of Angolan and international specialists to do a rapid assessment. We concluded, from visits in the field and interviews in sixteen provinces, that: “Since 1975, most, if not all populations of large mammals have been severely reduced, if not eliminated. Wholesale slaughter of elephant, rhino, eland, roan, oryx, springbok, zebra, bushbuck, reedbuck, lechwe and many other species occurred in all parks and reserves. It is possible that some nucleus herds still survive, sufficient to recover if given effective protection.” Despite the efforts of a small handful of excellent Angolan conservationists, the downward spiral accelerated during the third decade of war, which only ended in 2002 with the death of Jonas Savimbi. Our hope was that peace would bring the return of the wild. Quite the contrary occurred. Instead of accepting the multiple offers of help from international conservation organisations, such as IUCN, African Parks, Conservation International, Peace Parks Foundation, and international funding agencies such as UNDP, UNESCO and the World Bank, the officials in Luanda simply sat on their idle hands. The parks and reserves were left to decay and to invasion. Where government did step in, it was for the wrong reasons. In Quiçama, a tiny corner of the park,

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