As The FencesCome DownEmerging Concerns in Transfrontier

Conservation Areas

The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area and a Proposed Conceptual Framework for Progress

by the Animal Health for the Environment And Development–Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (AHEAD-GLTFCA) Working Group

Introduction

Why should governments, the private sector, and civil society organiza-

tions involved in agriculture, livestock production, land-use planning,

poverty alleviation, public health, and other vital sectors care about the emer-

gence of Transfrontier Conservation Areas, also known as TFCAs?

Because across Africa, wildlife, domestic animals, and people are coming into

contact as never before.

While TFCAs represent a major and welcome concept for augmenting economic

development and biodiversity conservation, the absence of formal policies on

animal disease control in TFCAs could negatively impact public health, agricul-

ture, commerce—even conservation itself. That is why the issue of transmissible

diseases must be addressed sooner

rather than later.

One need only look at global travails

with SARS or avian influenza, foot

and mouth disease or “mad cow,” to

see the tremendous social and eco-

nomic importance of these issues.

This document is intended as an executivesummary for decision-makers working onissues related to transfrontier conserva-tion areas (TFCAs), including transmissiblediseases, and the interplay of effectsamong wildlife, livestock agriculture, public health and related sectors. It alsosummarizes a new conceptual frameworkemphasizing a proactive approach to helpTFCA stakeholders better understand andmitigate these effects, and assess the sustainability of different land-use options over the long term.

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Cover photo: © Nancy Wright

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Emerging Concerns

WITH THE RECENT RAPID GROWTH IN GLOBAL

tourism, the transboundary management of naturalresources, particularly of water and wildlife, andthe associated development of transfrontier parksand conservation areas has become a major focusof attention in southern Africa.

A key economic driver linking these conservationand development initiatives is nature-basedtourism that seeks to maximize returns from mar-ginal lands in a sector where southern Africaenjoys a global comparative advantage. Nature-based tourism now contributes about as much tothe gross domestic product of southern Africa asagriculture, forestry, and fisheries combined.

However, the management of wildlife and livestockdiseases (including zoonoses—diseases like bovinetuberculosis and rabies that are transmissiblebetween animals and people) within larger trans-boundary landscapes remains unresolved and anemerging issue of major concern for livestock production, associated export markets and othersectors in the region, including public health.

Whatever the potential of wildlife-based tourism togenerate wealth in such areas, the current reality isthat small-scale agro-pastoralists living in the adja-cent communal lands depend greatly on livestockfor their livelihoods. The need to balance theirlivelihoods and environmental security with thedevelopment of alternative land uses gives rise to acomplex set of development issues.

■ A key economic driver linking these conservation and development initiatives is nature-based tourism.

■ The management of wildlife and livestock diseases within larger transboundary landscapes remainsunresolved and an emerging issue of major concern.

Transfrontier Conservation Areas, or TFCAs

At least 13 potential and existing terrestri-al transfrontier parks and transfrontierconservation areas—also known as trans-boundary conservation areas—have beenidentified in the Southern AfricanDevelopment Community (SADC) region.These areas include many national parks,neighbouring game reserves, huntingareas and conservancies, mostly occurringwithin a matrix of land under traditionalcommunal tenure.

Altogether, the existing and proposedtransfrontier parks and TFCAs cover morethan 1,200,000 square kilometers (460,000square miles). A dominant component ofthe TFCA vision is the reestablishment oftransboundary movement and migrationsof wildlife within and between largerlandscapes.

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Getting Off the Fence

AN INTEGRATED, INTERDISCIPLINARY APPROACH

offers the most promising way to address theseissues —one in which the well-being of wildlifeand ecosystems, domestic animals, and Africa’speople are assessed holistically, with a “OneHealth” perspective. This is the basis of the innova-tive approach to disease and natural resource man-agement we propose in the Conceptual Frameworkthat follows.

One could argue that the extensive fencing that hasseparated wildlife and livestock going back to thelate 1950s, early 1960s and since, has in manyways been the “simplest” approach to minimizingdisease problems at this interface.

But extensive cordon fencing, essentially a subsidyfrom governments historically favoring livestockagriculture as a primary land use, is far from eco-logically benign. With fencing cutting off keymigratory pathways that wildlife had used for eonsin times of thirst and hunger, real costs have beenimposed upon the natural resources sector in manyparts of the Southern African DevelopmentCommunity (SADC) region.

There is probably no region on earth where animalhealth policies have had as tangible an effect uponthe natural landscape as in Africa. Thus conserva-tionists are understandably excited about the pos-sibility of more land under wildlife, and of expand-ed benefits and economic opportunity sustainablylinked to sound stewardship of biodiversity.

This excitement, however, might best be temperedby the recognition that much remains unknown.Proponents of TFCAs should proceed with caution,and perhaps humility, in the face of ecosystemsand processes that are not fully understood.

Wildlife corridors, for instance, designed to con-nect protected areas, can serve not only as biologi-cal bridges for wildlife, but also for vectors and thepathogens they carry. Thus, thorough assessmentsof disease risks should be made before fences comedown in areas that may have developed differentpathogen or parasite loads over time.

When it comes to animal health programmes andpolicies in transboundary landscapes—wheredomestic as well as wild animals have opportuni-ties to cross international borders—making theright decisions becomes even more critical.

With rapidly expanding trade through theSouthern African Development Community, theCommon Market for Eastern and Southern Africa(COMESA), and ongoing globalization trends,these issues will increasingly affect the develop-ment trajectories of many African countries.

■ Wildlife corridors designed to connect protected areas can also serve as biological bridges for vectors and the pathogens they carry.

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Yet there does not appear to be an existing formalpolicy on animal health and disease control for thetransfrontier conservation areas being developed.

By focusing on the Great Limpopo TFCA as a potential model, the following ConceptualFramework is proposed as a tool for facilitatingintegration of animal health, human health andlivelihoods, and land-use policies moving forward.

The need for such an approach could not be moreurgent. Across southern Africa fences are alreadycoming down, allowing wildlife and livestockaccess to areas and to each other that has beenunprecedented for decades.

While this represents a potential milestone for con-servation and the tourism revenues it supports, italso demands a closer look. What effects mightthese transfrontier areas have on the health andsustainability of wildlife, domestic animals, andhuman communities?

■ In transboundary landscapes—where domestic as well as wild animals have opportunities to crossinternational borders—making the right decisions becomes evenmore critical.

Livestock Remains Critical

Some 65% of southern Africa is semi-aridto arid where extensive livestock andwildlife production systems are the mostsuitable and potentially sustainable formsof land use. The need to enhance thecapacity of these marginal areas to gener-ate wealth and sustain improved humanlivelihoods is of paramount importance.Livestock will remain critically importantculturally and economically—and of courseas a vital source of sustenance—in much of the region.

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AHEAD (ANIMAL HEALTH FOR THE ENVIRONMENT

AND DEVELOPMENT) was launched at the WorldParks Congress in Durban, South Africa, inSeptember 2003, when the Wildlife ConservationSociety, the World Conservation Union SpeciesSurvival Commission (IUCN SSC), and other partners tapped into some of the most innovativeconservation and development thinking on theAfrican continent.

Veterinarians, ecologists, biologists, economists,agriculturalists, and wildlife managers from acrossEast and southern Africa came together to shareideas on how wildlife conservation and develop-ment efforts can be mutually reinforcing.

The AHEAD-GLTFCA Working Group, a diverseconsortium of regional expertise, also emergedfrom the Durban launch; its goal is to:

Facilitate development and conservation success in the Great Limpopo TFCA through interdisciplinary applied research, monitoring, and surveillance at the interface between wild and domestic animal health, ecosystem goods and services, and human livelihoods and well-being.

The Working Group went on to develop a concep-tual framework to help regional stakeholdersaddress whether (and if so, how) a large transfron-tier conservation area such as the Great LimpopoTFCA is a viable and sustainable form of land usefor the approximately 100,000 square kilometersand more than 500,000 people living within itstentative boundaries in Mozambique andZimbabwe alone.

Getting the Information Decision-Makers Need:The Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area and a Proposed Framework for Progress

■ Answers to these questions will provide critical information for betterunderstanding the linkages between animal, human and ecosystem health.

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After careful deliberation, the Working Groupdetermined that the most promising framework fortackling the overall question of system sustainabili-ty would be to examine a key group of linked con-ceptual models for the Great Limpopo TFCA, thecore three being:

■ Animal health and disease• What are the levels and patterns of diseases in

wildlife, livestock (and people)?• How are these patterns related to land use or

land tenure or both, and to human livelihoods?

■ Land-use, ecosystem goods and services, andanimal health• What is the distribution of primary (i.e. plant)

production?• How does primary production vary seasonally

and annually in relation to soils, topography,land use and land tenure?

■ Human livelihoods, animal health, and ecosys-tem health• What are the plausible alternative livelihood

scenarios and the various components withinthem?

• What are the associated social, economic, andenvironmental costs and benefits of currentand alternative scenarios?

While this represents a very abbreviated descrip-tion of the complexities involved, answers to thesequestions will provide critical information for bet-ter understanding the linkages between animal,human and ecosystem health. They will also feeddirectly into important issues of social and culturalvalues and resource management policy.

The Conceptual Framework’s other focal themes—policy support, capacity building, communicationsand outreach—will link and assist the wide rangeof stakeholders involved at local, national, andregional levels.

Many people regard transfrontier conservationareas largely as extensions of protected areas thatentail the development of vast landscapes in whichwildlife-based tourism is the dominant, if not only,form of land use.

The reality, however, is that the Great LimpopoTFCA includes within its tentative boundaries landuses that range from protected national parks tointensive agro-industry based on irrigation, to sub-sistence agro-pastoralism that may require off-farmincome subsidies, or food aid, or both.

The importance of conserving biodiversity as thecornerstone to sustaining ecosystem goods andservices, animal health, and ultimately humanhealth and livelihoods in these lands should beclear. Failing to do so would only lead to a futuredependent on high, external subsidies.

Thus, our central research question became one ofsystem sustainability: how do health and diseaseimpact the overall Great Limpopo social-ecologicalsystem (that is, livelihoods and the social, biologi-cal, and geophysical processes that sustain them),and vice versa?

■ Changes in land-use are being facilitated by the removal of kilometersof fence. The subsequent reunion oflong-separated wildlife populations,together with new opportunities forwildlife to come into contact with livestock, make addressing diseaseissues within the TFCA context anurgent priority.

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The Great Limpopo TransfrontierConservation Area is among the largestlandscapes devoted to conservation on the planet. In all, it supports more than125 mammal, 400 bird, 104 reptile, 30amphibian, and 60 fish species.

At approximately 100,000 square kilometers(40,000 square miles), the Great LimpopoTFCA encompasses five national parksspanning three countries: Kruger in SouthAfrica; Gonarezhou in Zimbabwe; andLimpopo, Banhine and Zinave inMozambique.

Kruger and Limpopo national parks sharea common boundary along a fence that isalready coming down, and a route toallow wildlife free movement betweenKruger and Gonarezhou is being evaluat-ed. Effective habitat corridors for connecting the rest of this vast conservation landscape are still being evaluated.

These changes in land use are being facilitated by the removal of kilometers offence. The subsequent reunion of long-sep-arated wildlife populations, together withnew opportunities for wildlife to come intocontact with livestock, makes addressing disease issueswithin the TFCA context an urgent priority.

How this is done will affect the region’swildlife, domestic animals, and human communities for generations to come.

Three Countries, Five ParksThe Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area

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The StakesAreEnormous.TheTime to Act is Now.AS IN PREVIOUS PERIODS, HUMAN AND ANIMAL

diseases such as malaria, anthrax, trypanosomiasis,theileriasis, bovine tuberculosis, rabies, and footand mouth disease continue to play a significantrole in the overall development of the regionencompassed by the Great Limpopo TFCA.

By the 1960s, for instance, tsetse flies and try-panosomiasis had advanced well south and west ofthe Save River, and joint international control operations during the late1960s and early 1970s wererequired to halt their advance.Foot and mouth disease con-tinues to impact the livestockindustry, with control measureshaving major secondary impactson the wildlife industry in south eastern Zimbabweand more recently in north eastern South Africaadjacent to Kruger National Park.

The advent of HIV-AIDS and the spread of bovinetuberculosis pose more recent threats to humanwell-being, and development, across the region.

Meanwhile, the increasing contact between populations of wildlife, domestic animals, and people only increases the risks of the emergence or resurgence of diseases. The possible developmentof drug resistant organisms further compounds the problem.

This is why the “One Health” paradigm in whichthe AHEAD Great Limpopo TFCA ConceptualFramework is grounded is so critical—for sustain-able resource management policies and land-usedecisions not just in the Great Limpopo TFCA,but in other conservation landscapes across Africa.

■ The increasing contact between populations ofwildlife, domestic animals, and people only increasesthe risks of the emergence or resurgence of diseases.

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The “One Health” paradigm takes a broad ecological definitionof health that brings together many disciplines that too oftenhave remained isolated from each other.

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■ These issues simply merit moreattention than either the conservationor development communities havegiven them to date.

For a copy of the complete 14-page “The AHEAD-GLTFCA Programme: Key Questions and ConceptualFramework Revisited,” please see http://wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_limpopo.html

Next Steps: What’sNeeded Now?If those whose mandate is biodiversity conserva-tion do not address the threats that the livestocksector associates, rightly or wrongly, with wildlifeand disease, a vision for protected areas andTFCAs in many parts of the world will likely fail.And if wildlife conservation is to be a sociocultur-ally acceptable and economically rational land-usechoice, then leveling the playing field by identify-ing incentives that work against environmentallysustainable land-use practices is equally important.

Disease and pest control schemes, for instance,that are not preceded by robust environmental and social impact assessments are likely to fail in the long run.

Southern African TFCAs may provide excellentmodels within which to study and mitigate thepolitical and socioeconomic tensions between bio-diversity conservation and livestock agriculture inthe broader region. Doing so effectively will becritical to successful, sustained biodiversity conser-vation, public health, and agri-biosecurity.

We must also continue to learn from disciplineswith which we may not have communicated wellin the the past, and we must consciously work tobreak down sectoral barriers that technical lan-guage and vocabulary have historically helped toreinforce.

Whether we are looking at a large, complex inter-national land-use matrix such as a TFCA or at asmall, isolated protected area surrounded byhuman activities, these issues simply merit moreattention than either the conservation or develop-ment communities have given them to date.

With a healthy respect for the complex challengesfacing the places and people we care about, andadequate resources to fill the knowledge gaps high-lighted by this Conceptual Framework, a success-ful “One Health” approach in southern Africa andbeyond is certainly within our grasp. ©

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Notes:

This executive summary was largely derived from the following sources:

Cumming, D., Biggs, H., Kock, M., Shongwe, N., Osofsky, S. and Members of the AHEAD-Great LimpopoTFCA Working Group. January 2007. “The AHEAD (Animal Health for Environment And Development)-Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA) Programme: Key Questions and ConceptualFramework Revisited.” 14 pp.http://wcs-ahead.org/workinggrps_limpopo.html

Osofsky, S. A., Cleaveland, S., Karesh, W. B., Kock, M. D., Nyhus, P. J., Starr, L., and A. Yang, (eds.).2005. Conservation and Development Interventions at the Wildlife/Livestock Interface: Implicationsfor Wildlife, Livestock and Human Health. IUCN, Gland, Switzerland and Cambridge, UnitedKingdom. xxxiii and 220 pp. http://www.wcs-ahead.org/wpc_launch.html

Osofsky, S. A., Kock, R. A., Kock, M. D., Kalema- Zikusoka, G., Grahn, R., Leyland, T., and W. B. Karesh.2005. “Building Support for Protected Areas Using a ‘One Health’ Perspective,” pp. 65-79, inMcNeely, J. A. (ed.) Friends for Life: New Partners in Support of Protected Areas. IUCN, Gland,Switzerland and Cambridge, United Kingdom. http://www.wcs-ahead.org/print.html

Osofsky, S. A., Cumming, D. H. M., and M. D. Kock. 2008.“Transboundary Management of NaturalResources and the Importance of a ‘One Health’ Approach: Perspectives on Southern Africa,” pp. 89-98,in Fearn, E. and K. H. Redford (eds.) State of the Wild 2008-2009: A Global Portrait of Wildlife,Wildlands, and Oceans. Island Press, Washington, D. C. http://www.wcs-ahead.org/print.html

Animal Health for the Environment And Development–Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area(AHEAD-GLTFCA) Working Group

AHEAD-Animal Health for the Environment And Development

www.wcs-ahead.org

The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and a wide range of partners helped to start AHEAD in recognition of the importance of animal health

to both conservation and development interests.

Points of contact:Nicky Shongwe, NickySh@sanparks.org

Steve Osofsky, sosofsky@wcs.org

© 2008 The Wildlife Conservation Society / AHEAD Program

Printed on recycled paper with vegetable based ink