Africa - From Cradle to Grave?
50km to the north of Johannesburg is the World Heritage site known as The Cradle of Humanity.
The name reflects the fact that the site has produced one of the largest numbers of hominid
fossils ever found, as well as some of the oldest, some dating back as far as 3.5 million years.
Is this really where we all came from, or just another tourist spot? In paleoanthropology,
the Recent African Origin of Modern Humans theory, frequently dubbed the ‘Out of Africa’ theory,
is the most widely accepted model describing the geographic origin and early
migration of anatomically modern humans. Genetic and fossil evidence shows that archaic Homo
sapiens evolved to anatomically modern humans solely in Africa, between 200,000 and 150,000
years ago, that members of one branch of Homo sapiens left Africa by between 125,000 and
60,000 years ago, and that over time these humans replaced earlier human populations such
as Neanderthals and Homo erectus. The date of the earliest successful Out of Africa migration
(successful in terms of having living descendants) has generally been placed at 60,000 years ago
as suggested by genetics, although migrations may have taken place as early as 125,000 years
ago according to archaeological finds of tools in the region.
From these earliest ancestors our numbers have grown to over 7 billion across the world and
over 1 billion in Africa alone, now the second most populated continent after Asia. We are not
Africa's only claim to fame however. As Sir David Attenborough's recent (2013) series ‘Africa’
has shown it is home to the most iconic collection of wildlife and diverse collection of special
landscapes and habitats on the planet. The series also showed how the rapid growth in human
population threatens to destroy forever many of Africa's special habitats and with them the wildlife
that live there.
The price that future generations will pay for our inability to control our own growth in numbers,
especially in terms of loss of species diversity is often misunderstood and the fact that the
process of species decline is already well underway, some would say the greatest mass
extinction since the demise of the dinosaurs, is not taken seriously enough by wider mankind.
What should be one of the most debated issues of all is hardly ever mentioned. This discussion
paper looks at Africa in particular, at some of its large mammals and the battle they are losing
with one of the fastest growing human populations on Earth.
Causes of Extinction
Species come and go for many reasons, including changes in climate that cause habitat changes,
competition from other species for resources, and single one off events. Extinction is a key
feature of natural selection, and will happen to us one day. An interplanetary 'traffic accident'
when an asteroid struck Earth is often credited with having reduced the dinosaurs to the status of
road kill, a single event that not only may have wiped out the dinosaurs, but also allowed the rise
of the mammals, including eventually humans.
Without the asteroid would we be here at all? If we had developed anyway, without the asteroid's
help, what would our wildlife have been like today if the dinosaurs other than just the crocodiles,
alligators and other few survivors had continued to evolve.
A favourite maxim is "Everything in life is connected - the point is to know it and to understand it".
Just like a very clever domino construction, if you knock over one species a chain reaction starts
which may affect other species. In understanding this, it is very important not to separate
humans from the natural world and to see us as somehow 'apart'. Many people think of Man as
special and above nature but we are inextricably linked as just another mammalian species, just
another domino. We are however a particularly large domino and getting bigger all the time.
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The biggest problem for African wildlife is competition for resources from another species –
humans – resulting in habitat loss on a scale not seen before the last half of the twentieth century.
Humans need land to grow food and keep and graze livestock, but increasingly Africa is being
seen as one of the largest world suppliers of a range of minerals, many very specialized and
required for use in new technologies, as well as all the traditionally mined materials such as coal,
iron, copper, lead, tin etc. Logging of hardwood, much of it illegal, also destroys habitat that is
difficult to replace.
It is tempting to suggest that modern man has a greater impact on his environment than our
ancestors, who we like to think were much more in harmony with nature, but that view of our
ancestors is not necessarily entirely accurate. The Quaternary period saw the extinction of
numerous predominantly larger species such as mammoth, many of the extinctions occurring
roughly 11700 years ago. Among the main causes hypothesised by paleontologists for this
significant event are natural climate change and overkill by humans, who migrated to many
regions of the world during the late Pleistocene and Holocene (from about 125000-60000 years
ago). The Overkill Hypothesis, also known as the Blitzkrieg Hypothesis suggests that the rapid
spread and development of humans as skilled hunters, especially once they had acquired fire and
a range of weapons led to the killing of in particular herbivore species many of which were
already in natural decline, mainly because of climate change. This in turn led to the
disappearance of other species that relied on these large herbivores as prey species. This
hypothesis is controversial but is not alone as an example of the power of Man plus weapons to
dramatically impact on the balance of nature. This extinction happened over the course of
thousands of years, but in contrast the extinctions discussed here are happening over just a few
decades.
Another contrast is in the nature of hunting historically and now. Hunting has been undertaken
first for food, then for food and sport, then for just sport alone. And throughout there have been
poachers, living off what belonged to others. Modern day poachers however, no longer the
loveable rogues of fiction, are causing very real harm and are contributing to extinctions on an
unprecedented scale. Widespread poaching of African Elephants led to the animal appearing in
the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as Vulnerable, moving to
Endangered status in 1996. Since then action under the Convention on the International Trade in
Endangered Species (CITES) has led to a reduction in poaching and a respite for the elephant
but recently the poachers have returned. But it is the rhino that now grabs all the headlines for
the wrong reasons. Poaching for rhino horn has driven the Northern White Rhino into extinction,
has taken the Black Rhino to the very brink of extinction and Southern White Rhino are now
literally under siege, with around 660 slaughtered needlessly in 2012.
And finally there is farming. Modern man in the main no longer hunts to provide food other than
through fishing (although hunting for 'bush food' does continue throughout poor areas in Africa),
but we farm instead. Farming has more impact on the natural world than any other human
activity. For thousands of years forests have been cleared to release land for growing crops and
grazing animals and to provide material for building. That process continues today as more and
more forest is destroyed for timber on bases that are not sustainable and to release land for other
crops such as palm oil, apparently essential to modern human's fastidious nature. The ability to
hunt with only primitive weapons kept population under control for a long time but farming has
provided the means to support a population that has grown more & more rapidly as farming has
become increasingly mechanised.
The Impact of Human Fertility Rate
Human fertility depends on factors of such as nutrition including the availability of food, sexual
behavior, culture, instinct, endocrinology, timing, economics, way of life, and emotions. As a
measure, "fertility rate" is the number of children born per couple, person or population.
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According to data produced by the UN Children's Fund, average World fertility per woman has
gradually fallen from 4.7 in 1970 to 2.5 in 2010, and in Europe for example in 2009 was 1.59.
In 1970 the average rate in Africa was 6.7 and by 2010 this had fallen to 4.5. Africa has many of
the most fertile countries in human terms, including one of the most fertile of all, Niger, which in
1970 had a fertility rate of 7.4 rising to 7.8 by 1990 before falling back to 7.1 in 2010.
This map is taken from the CIA
World Factbook 2012 and shows
different fertility rates across the
world, with the concentration of
the highest (orange through red
to purple) being with one
exception exclusively in sub
Saharan Africa.
The UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs/Population Division paper World Population
to 2300 notes:
"Average rates of annual population change show that Africa has experienced considerably faster
growth than any other major area, for most of the 1950-2000 period. Growth rates reached a
higher peak in Africa (2.86 per cent) than anywhere else—in the early 1980s, at least 15 years
after growth had begun to decline in every other major area. The projection for Africa,
consequently, shows growth declining belatedly, though nevertheless following a downward path
similar to that in other major areas."
The report also shows the pattern for fertility rates from 1950 to now and projections to 2050, and
in Africa the decline noted above continues. Nevertheless the UN prediction for Africa's
population by 2100 is 2.55 billion people more than now, with a fertility rate that is still
substantially above those of other continents.
This graph displays the population change by major region
between 2010 and 2100. According to the medium variant of
the 2010 World Population Prospects, Africa's population is
projected to increase by almost 2.6 billion people between
2010 and 2100. This assumes that the continent will
experience an average fertility decline from 4.64 children per
woman in the 2005-2010 period to 2.13 children in the 20952100 period. If fertility would decline only half a child less
(from 4.64 to 2.62 children per woman), Africa's population
would increase by 4.2 billion between 2010 and 2100.
Source: United Nations, Department of Economic and Social Affairs, Population
Division (2011): World Population Prospects: The 2010 Revision. New York
(Updated 15 April 2011)
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The Question of Scale
Although Africa is the continent with the second highest population, it is not the most densely
populated. In fact it ranks a long way behind Asia and Europe and only just ahead of North and
South America. Some countries have relatively low population density, such as Botswana for
example, which is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world with a population of
around 2 million in a country about the size of France.
So if there is plenty of room what is the problem? Much of the land is at best very poor
agriculturally, too difficult to cultivate (some West African jungle and mountain areas) or
uninhabitable by Man (the Sahara, the Kalahari that covers about 70% of Botswana and the
Namib Deserts are just three examples).
The conflict arises because the animals need a lot of space too. A savannah elephant herd has a
range of hundreds of square miles. Wild Dog also will travel over huge distances to find food and
have no fixed territory. Most big cats and the rhinos also have a range of several square miles,
although within more defined territories. Grazing animals follow the grass, the most obvious
example being the great migration each year across the Mara River. All these animals were once
found throughout Africa from north to south, but are now restricted to sub-Saharan Africa, and in
the case of lion and increasingly the other big cats as well, to the reserves. To stray from the
safety of the fenced reserve is to invite a farmer’s or trophy hunter’s bullet.
An increasing problem is what Wayne Hanssen of The Africat Foundation refers to as Human
Wildlife Conflict (HWC) that takes place all along the boundaries between the shrinking wild
places and the cultivated and settled areas inhabited by Africans. From the animal perspective
the boundaries are shrinking rapidly, and in the last 50 years there have been some radical
declines in large mammal populations as a result.
Cause for Concern
Africa is well known for it's wildlife reserves and the names are famous. Masai Mara, Serengeti,
Okavango, Ngorongoro, Etosha, Chobe, Savuti, Moremi, Kruger, Selous, Central Kalahari,
Kgalagadi, to name just a few. With the exception of Botswana, where it is largely possible to go
from reserve to reserve along corridors that can be used by wildlife, and the Serengeti/ Masai
Mara on the border of Tanzania and Kenya, in most countries these reserves exist as islands
surrounded by human settlement, cut off from each other with no safe corridor for animals to pass
through. Despite the existence of the reserves the impact of the dramatic rise in population
throughout Africa on large mammal species is every bit as severe as previous similar events.
The deadly combination of climate change, habitat loss through the spread of agriculture, logging
and mining and the continued hunting of certain species for trophies, ivory and horn for the Asian
markets all contribute towards a decline in the majority of large mammal species.
Etosha Park in Namibia is a good example of how good intentions can be undermined by political
expediency. In 1907, at that time in German West Africa, the Governor proclaimed Etosha a
Game Reserve, covering 80000 sq km making it the largest reserve in the world. In 1967 and
now part of South West Africa under the rule of the South African Parliament, it gained National
Park status, but was reduced to 55000 sq km. Finally it was reduced to its present 22270 sq km
in order to create 'homelands' for indigenous peoples. Sadly, most of the 22270 sq km is the arid
and inhospitable Etosha Pan, which doesn't support very much at all, so the large herbivore
mammals and their predators are restricted to a strip of savannah that surrounds the Pan.
Taking a look at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List, which is
the best record of species decline, almost all of Africa's large mammals are shown with
populations 'In decline', except the elephant, and with status varying from 'Vulnerable' to 'Extinct',
the most recent suspected extinction probably sometime in the last 5 years being the Northern
White Rhino. If an animals main natural range is in a war zone like the Democratic Republic of
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Congo, it has a horn much prized in Asian medicine and worth more per ounce than gold, and the
warring parties need cash for ammunition and arms, then the odds are not in the animal’s favour,
and so it proved to be for the Northern White.
Below is a summary taken largely from the Red List of a few of the large mammals whose
situation is of concern, and why. The Red List covers thousands of species and as a result is not
necessarily fully up to date on the current status of all species, so the following include comment
taken from other sources and our own experiences where appropriate.
Elephant
Red List status – Vulnerable.
Red List Assessment (2008):
Although elephant populations may at present be declining in parts of their range, major
populations in Eastern and Southern Africa, accounting for over two thirds of all known elephants
on the continent, have been surveyed, and are currently increasing at an average annual rate of
4.0% per annum (Blanc et al. 2005, 2007). As a result, more than 15,000 elephants are estimated
to have been recruited into the population in 2006 and, if current rates of increase continue, the
number of elephants born in these populations between 2005 and 2010 will be larger than the
currently estimated total number of elephants in Central and West Africa combined. In other
words, the magnitude of ongoing increases in Southern and Eastern Africa are likely to outweigh
the magnitude of any likely declines in the other two regions.
This assessment was made in 2008 and does not break down the status of the two sub species.
Savanna Elephant in Southern and Eastern Africa were seen as increasing in population in the
last surveys referred to in the List (2005) and in Southern Africa in particular that is still true. In
Eastern Africa and Kenya in particular there has recently been a big increase in poaching for
ivory and the population is only just about stable. The Savanna Elephant is not immune from
habitat loss however. Gradually wild areas are being cultivated or mined more and more and
there is increasing risk of HWC as the boundaries shrink for the elephants.
The second species, the Forest Elephant, faces an almost impossible challenge however. It
inhabits the forests of Central and West Africa, themselves under threat from logging and mining,
causing a loss of habitat. It is smaller than its Savannah cousin, with smaller tusks that have a
slight pinkish tinge making them more attractive in Asian markets. A January 2013 BBC report on
research carried out in Gabon by the Wildlife Conservation Society quoted:
“Between 44-70% of the elephants have been killed. In other words 11100 elephants have been
lost since 2004.”
This has occurred mainly in the Minkebe reserve that covers 30000 sq km with no roads, making
the reserve very difficult to police effectively, and with much of the ivory being carried it is
suspected by porters into neighbouring Cameroon from where it is shipped illegally to China,
India and other Asian markets.
There is recent scientific evidence that suggests that elephants know when they are leaving the
safety of a reserve, and become more stressed, and it is hypothesised that this is because they
feel less secure. This is based on measuring the amount in the dung of an enzyme that is
released when stress occurs. Such an intelligent animal will not knowingly put itself in danger
and so will stray less and less from the reserves, unless it is forced to do so. Smaller reserves
will not support large numbers of elephant therefore HWC will become an increasing problem.
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Lion
Red List status – Vulnerable
Red List Assessment (2012):
A species population reduction of approximately 30% is suspected over the past two decades (=
approximately three Lion generations). The causes of this reduction (primarily indiscriminate
killing in defence of life and livestock, coupled with prey base depletion: Bauer 2008), are unlikely
to have ceased. This suspected reduction is based on direct observation; appropriate indices of
abundance; a decline in area of occupation, extent of occupation and habitat quality; and actual
and potential levels of exploitation.
Africa’s trademark symbol is the animal that everyone wants to see. But in order to do so you will
need to visit a reserve, as this unique big cat no longer is common throughout the continent as it
was not long ago. As the assessment says it is largely based on observation. On a recent trip to
the largest reserve in KwaZulu-Natal we saw only one adolescent male lion. On two trips totalling
6 weeks covering almost all of Botswana we saw a total of 5 adults. Of course we may have
been just unlucky, as we have seen plenty of lion in the Serengeti and in areas around Kruger
Park. Lions do exist in captivity especially in South Africa where breeding takes place but this is
mainly for the purpose of ‘canned hunting’ where trophy hunters pay to shoot an animal ‘canned’
within a fenced stockade. Any animals that survive and are rescued cannot be released as they
have usually been reared in such a way that they have no fear of humans and have never been
trained to hunt.
Rhinoceros
There are two sub-species, the White and the Black, neither of which is either colour. In addition
the White Rhino is sub-divided between Northern White and Southern White.
White Rhino: Red List Status - Near Threatened.
Red List Assessment (2012):
The reason for rating this species as Near Threatened and not Least Concern is due to the
continued and increased poaching threat and increasing illegal demand for horn, increased
involvement of organised international criminal syndicates in rhino poaching (as determined from
increased poaching levels, intelligence gathering by wildlife investigators, increased black market
prices and apparently new non-traditional medicinal uses of rhino horn). Current successful
protection efforts have depended on significant range state expenditure and effort and if these
were to decline (especially in South Africa) rampant poaching could seriously threaten numbers
(well in excess of 30% over three generations). Declining state budgets for conservation in real
terms, declining capacity in some areas and increasing involvement of Southeast Asians in
African range states are all of concern. In recent years poaching levels have increased in major
range states South Africa, Zimbabwe, Kenya. Swaziland also recently lost its first rhino to
poaching since December 1992. In the absence of conservation measures, within five years the
species would quickly meet the threshold for C1 under Vulnerable, and potentially also criterion
A3 if poaching rates were to further increase.
But this takes no account of the two sub-divisions. As mentioned earlier it seems likely that the
Northern White is already extinct in the wild, although there are four in captivity in Kenya and it is
hoped to breed from them for a reintroduction programme. In the light of the fate of the Northern
Rhino in the wild and in the face of continued poaching such effort might seem futile.
The Southern White population is situated largely in South Africa and relatively safe but the
recent massive increase in poaching is a major cause for concern. There are around 16000 wild
white rhino in South Africa and 5 years ago poaching accounted for just a few individuals (less
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than 100). In 2012, 660 were killed to satisfy the demand for powdered horn, in Vietnam and
China mainly, when there is no scientific basis for the claims made about its use as medicine.
Now worth more per ounce than gold, it is prized by wealthy Arabs to make handles for
ceremonial daggers with blades often of solid gold, the handle being worth more than the blade.
In 2012 in one night alone 7 rhino including a pregnant female were killed in Hluluwe-Mfolozi
Reserve, the largest in KwaZulu-Natal, the carcasses stripped of their horns and left to rot, along
with an orphan suckling calf who, until rescued by rangers, desperately and hopelessly tried to
drink milk from his dead mother.
On a small private reserve also in KwaZulu-Natal two rhinos, a male and a female, have 24 hour
armed guards that follow them through the bush after an abortive poaching attempt left the male
with an AK47 bullet in his foreleg. Survival of the Rhinoceros increasingly depends on somehow
stopping this awful trade, as guarding against poaching is becoming both unaffordable and
unachievable.
Black Rhino: Red List Status – Critically Endangered
Red List Assessment:
Listed as Critically Endangered as the population of Black Rhino has declined by an estimated
97.6% since 1960 with numbers bottoming out at 2,410 in 1995, mainly as a result of poaching.
Since then, numbers have been steadily increasing at a continental level with numbers doubling
to 4,880 by the end of 2010. Current numbers are however still 90% lower than three generations
ago.
In fifteen years of taking annual photographic safari trips to Southern Africa we have only seen
one black rhino.
Gorilla
Eastern Gorilla: Red List Status – Endangered
Red List Assessment (2008):
Eastern Gorillas have been and are still severely affected by human activity. They are hunted,
more now than before in war-torn eastern DRC; and their habitat is being destroyed and
degraded by mining and agriculture. They are estimated to have experienced a significant
population reduction in the past 20-30 years (one generation is ~ 20 years: Werikhe et al. 1997;
Robbins and Robbins 2004) and it is suspected that this reduction will continue for the next 30-40
years. The maximum population reduction over a three-generation (i.e. 60 year) period from the
1970s to 2030 is suspected to exceed 50%, hence qualifying this species for Endangered under
criterion A4. The causes of the reduction, although largely understood, have certainly not ceased
and are not easily reversible. The suspected future continuation of the population reduction is
based on a precautionary approach taking into account the rapidly increasing human population
density in the region and the high degree of political instability in the range states.
Western Gorilla: Red List Status – Critically Endangered
Red List Assessment (2008):
This taxon* is classified as Critically Endangered under criterion A4, a population reduction of
more than 80% over three generations (where a generation is estimated as 22 years, D. Caillaud
unpubl.). The listing is based on exceptionally high levels of hunting and disease-induced
mortality (over 90% in some large remote areas, including the second largest protected
population at Minkébé), which combined are estimated to have caused its abundance to decline
by more than 60% alone over the last 20 to 25 years. Most protected areas have serious
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poaching problems and almost half of the habitat under protected status has been hard hit by
Ebola. Commercial hunting and Ebola induced mortality are both continuing (even accelerating),
threats that are not readily mitigated. If the current Ebola epizootic continues at the same rate and
trajectory, then the decline in Western Gorilla abundance in all protected areas is projected to be
on the order of 45% just for the 20-year period spanning 1992 to 2011 (not accounting for other
threat factors such as hunting). Furthermore, gorilla reproductive rates are extremely low
(maximum intrinsic rate of increase about 3%, Steklis and Gerald-Steklis 2001). Therefore, even
an immediate cessation of Ebola mortality and a drastic reduction in the rate of hunting (neither of
which seem likely) would not result in rapid population recovery. Rather, under the most optimistic
scenarios, population recovery would require on the order of 75 years (Walsh et al. 2003). Much
sooner, perhaps 20 to 30 years into the future, habitat loss and degradation from agriculture,
timber extraction, mining, and possibly climate change will become a major threat. Thus, a
population reduction of more than 80% over three generations (i.e., 66 years, 1980 to 2046) is
likely.
Ebola is a disease common to both gorilla and human, not surprising since our nearest relative
shares over 95% of our DNA. It’s effect on the gorilla is no less devastating than on us, but more
so as the gorilla has no access to our medical facilities. The effect of the disease may be
compounded by the reduction in range that has taken place because the animals inhabit smaller
and smaller territories, as the human population continues to encroach.
* Taxon - A taxon (plural: taxa) is a group of one (or more) populations of organism(s), which a
taxonomist adjudges to be a unit.
African Wild Dog (also known as Painted Dog or Cape Hunting Dog)
Red List Status – Critically Endangered
Red List Assessment (2012):
African Wild Dogs have disappeared from much of their former range. Their population is
currently estimated at approximately 6,600 adults in 39 subpopulations, of which only 1,400 are
mature individuals. Population size is continuing to decline as a result of ongoing habitat
fragmentation, conflict with human activities, and infectious disease. Given uncertainty
surrounding population estimates, and the species’ tendency to population fluctuations, the
largest subpopulations might well number <250 mature individuals, thereby warranting listing as
Endangered under criterion C2a(i).
The Future?
Africa is a big continent with a big and rapidly increasing population, big wildlife, big landscapes
and big problems. It presents us with an extreme scenario but one that is no less relevant to the
people of every other continent in considering the impact of a fast rising human population on the
natural world. Once a species is lost in the wild or reduced to a mere handful it becomes almost
impossible to reintroduce it or maintain it successfully. Most of the species considered above and
many others not considered, are already well on the way to extinction. Some like the cheetah for
example have become too specialised for their own good and may well disappear even without
our help. But for the rest, future generations may be left with just pictures or a few zoo
specimens, the beautiful, iconic wild animals of Africa having gone from the Cradle to a
premature grave thanks to us. Let us not blame just the Africans. It is western (and increasingly
eastern) industrial neo-colonialism as much as poverty, corruption and lack of education that is
driving a lot of what is happening in Africa today.
Alan Castle February 2013
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