Kruger rangers share conservation experiences in Ghana

“If gold medals were given to the world’s friendliest peoples, Ghanaians would definitely be semi-finalists.” So states a Ghanaian website, in its tourism bumf to attract world travellers to its shores. Kruger National Park section ranger at Kingfisherspruit, Richard Sowry, agrees, having just returned from a two-week stay, mostly spent in the north west of the country
in and around the village of Widnaba. “The people are extremely friendly even though they are really poor.” Richard and Dalton Mabasa, section ranger at Pretoriuskop, visited Ghana on an Earthwatch sponsorship.

They were part of a group of nine – two Wildlife Scientists from KZN Wildlife, Dr Steven Henley from Save the Elephants (based in the Timbavati Private Nature Reserve near Orpen Gate), two Kenyan Researchers, a Kenyan Earthwatch co-ordinator/ University Lecturer, and another Kenyan from Save the Elephants, Kenya. “We caught a plane at midnight from Johannesburg and arrived in Nairobi at ten in the morning, from where we took off to the Côte d’Ivoire and then to the capital of Ghana, Accra. We spent the first night at the Paloma hotel without our luggage which the Kenyan airways managed to lose somewhere.

Luckily I had hand luggage with one extra set of clothing with me,” said Richard. “The country is about 650 km from north to south, which is about a 15 hour drive that we split into two days.” He says the country has roughly two types of vegetation and climate with the southern half being a typical rain forest and the northern part Savannah, that looked similar to the area around Punda Maria, “except that it has higher rainfall,” he added. Dalton said they arrived in “summer, and it was green and very hot and humid,” Enroute to Widnaba they visited Mole Game Reserve. “The idea was for us to interact with each other and the local communities, an exercise Earthwatch referred to as capacity building,” says Richard.

“We stayed at an eco-tourism project that could compare roughly to Balule camp in the Park,” he added. In addition, the group discussed elephant movement in and around the Forest Reserves of the Red Volta area. For the last three years there have not been any elephants seen in the area although there used to be an elephant movement corridor along the Red Volta River into Burkina Faso. The elephant population has dwindled because of government intervention due to human-elephant conflict.“All wildlife belongs to the state,” says Richard. “Anyone can hunt at anytime, as long as you have a licence. If a person sees an animal he kills it, before someone else does. Game has no economic value, except in the form of “Bushmeat”.”

According to Richard, these are some of the issues that were discussed, together with the status of the forest reserve, habitat improvement, elephant research and community benefits from eco-tourism. “We also met really interesting people,” says Dalton, “especially Drs Henley and Ogweno, who gave regular presentations on the elephant research that had been done in the area.” According to Dalton, it was also interesting to see how other African people live. “Children do not go to school until they are about 11 or 12 years old because it is not a priority. They have to tend to cattle, because people live off the land,” he says. He says many people suffer from malnutritio general, differs substantially from South Africans’ diets.

“They eat fish, red goat (which is a dog – only in the north of Ghana), mashed rice, fried green banana and a mixture of fermented potato and maize.” Fortunately, it was not all work and no play. Dalton and his KwaZulu Natal Wildlife counterpart
turned out to be local soccer heroes as they led the visiting team’s attack during the local tournaments, while Richard and
one of the Kenyan rangers ensured the team’s defence remained solid. Exploring local rituals and sacred beliefs did not happen without some hesitation.

Both Richard and Dalton literally took the crocodile by the tail and managed a quick photo or two before the sacred animal was fed its daily portion of locally primed poultry. “I could not help shake the uncomfortable images of “Oom” Louis [Olivier] and his crocodile the entire time I had this enormous animal by the tail,” says Richard. Both rangers agree it was a great experience with much given and much gained. “We are fortunate to live in South Africa, and perhaps do not appreciate what we have in terms of how developed our country is, and how advanced the Park is in its conservation philosophies, methods and
application.”