It’s not about the cow – Compensation for livestock losses adjacent to the Kruger National Park
Of course, it’s about the cow, but it’s not JUST about the cow. The Kruger National Park (KNP) livestock compensation programme aims to offset the direct damages incurred to livestock owners as a result of large predators escaping from the Kruger National Park. However, the programme also hopes to serve as one of many tools to continue building and in some cases rebuilding connections and meaningful relationships between neighbouring communities and the KNP.
As we enter into our 8th year since starting the Kruger National Park (KNP) Livestock Compensation Programme, we can most certainly confirm that it’s been a rollercoaster of a journey. Over R3 million has been paid in claims for livestock losses to more than 350 individual families. Various incidents have been compensated for, involving predation by mainly lions and spotted hyena of mostly between 1 and 4 heads of livestock. There have been significant, profoundly emotional, positive and inspiring moments. There have also been sad, disappointing and in some cases, incredibly stressful times on both sides of the fence! And many lessons have been learnt along the way.
This, in a nutshell, is compensation. It can be complicated, it can be amazing, it can be difficult, it can be very effective but it’s almost always messy and globally it’s been demonstrated not to be the ultimate silver bullet for all human-wildlife conflict (HWC) challenges. Compensation has been shown to work when combined with a range of tools that address broader drivers for HWC such as responsible animal husbandry. In KNP, compensation is a very important component of relationship building with people who have been impacted by HWC. The programme entails a co-designed process that is monitored, carefully managed, and requires constant engagement, reflection and adaption among community representatives and the park.
Human-wildlife interactions are inevitable when people and wildlife live near one another, especially in a continually transforming landscape. These interactions are varied and can be positive and beneficial. However, sometimes interactions can be negative, impacting people’s wellbeing as well as impacting negatively on conservation through reduced tolerance, retaliatory killings, violent protests and additional financial costs to manage, ultimately threatening the sustainability of parks. Conservation agencies generally try to first reduce the opportunities for conflict (to stop it from occurring by maintaining fences, doing fence patrols and effective DCA control), but when contact is inevitable, the next step is to manage the negative impacts. Remember that in the context of predators, negative impacts on people are not just physical (loss or damage to property or self) but can include psychological impacts resulting in trauma, for example reducing the freedom of choice that people have regarding where and how they or their children can safely move within and around their homes.
The KNP has travelled a long journey with its neighbours and managing the impact of damage-causing animals (DCAs), particularly predators, in the KNP landscape is not just about the direct effects on people. For much of its earlier history, the KNP was only easy to access for certain, privileged sectors of society, with very limited access to its mostly black neighbours. As a result, many people became disconnected from the natural and cultural heritage within the park. While these disconnections were eroding relationships, so were the more direct negative impacts of KNP such as DCAs. On the other hand, just a stone’s throw away, millions of people were visiting the park each year, enjoying the benefits of wildlife from the safety of their vehicles. Something had to change, and after several years of discussions, numerous meetings, some lobbying and more discussions, a decision was reached in 2011 to compensate livestock owners for their wildlife induced losses.
Two subsequent years of negotiations between livestock farmers, community representatives, traditional authorities, Mpumalanga and Limpopo provincial authorities (MTPA and LEDET) and SANParks resulted in a co-designed set of criterion for the compensation of livestock loss, in the form of a livestock compensation protocol, and this has been applied since 2014. In the interests of relationship building and social justice, a second set of criterion allowed for where possible, the retrospective payments of verified claims for incidents that occurred between 2008 and 2013.
SANParks pays for livestock loss only, not crop damage. Although we acknowledge the huge livelihood cost that households impacted by crop damage face, we did not want difficulties of verification and valuing the damages to crops to prevent us from starting somewhere. The KNP compensation programme considers claims as a result of lions, spotted hyena, cheetah and wild dog (depredation species not free-roaming in the area outside of KNP). However, in the interests of risk management, “free-ranging” species such as leopard are excluded as they are not restricted to reserve boundaries. A specific compensation rate was negotiated for each of the livestock species (cows, horses, mules, donkeys, sheep, goats and pigs) and for logistical reasons these species rates are not influenced by gender, breed and size, with the rates required to be reviewed over time. KNP is currently in a process of reviewing the compensation rates. Determining rates can be a source of contention, and normally requires ongoing engagement to reach acceptable outcomes. Of course, compensation rates can be confused with replacement rates, but these are not one and the same, with compensation being a contribution or an offset for damage. As such, they are normally less than the market or the replacement value. The intention here is also not to create a perverse incentive for HWC.
In order for a claim to be deemed valid, incidents must be reported to the provincial or SANParks authorities within a certain time frame as stipulated in the protocol, and the relevant conservation official (provincial official unless delegated to a KNP official) must inspect the scene. Claim submissions include various bits of information such as the type and origin of the DCA and livestock involved, proof of livestock ownership, proof of residence and where possible photographic evidence of the scene. Unfortunately not all claims qualify for payment, and rejected claims may result in disappointment and tension. However, using open and regular communication through community forums, the knowledge of the required processes to lodge successful claims is growing, and so is the proportion of successful claims.
So is the process working, and for whom? This remains to be seen, but the majority of claims since 2008 have been paid. Noteworthy is that some recent collaborative work between SANParks, researchers and livestock farmers aimed at co-developing objectives and indicators for monitoring programme outcomes (Anthony & Swemmer 2015) has highlighted how significant it is to the farmers that SANParks acknowledges that there is a level of moral responsibility on the side of SANParks to manage this process. This is important since legally, DCAs outside of the KNP are deemed res nullius and fall to the responsibility of the provincial conservation agencies despite the fact that they most likely originated from the park. Also useful to note that compensation is not legally obligatory, and according to the National Norms and Standards for damage-causing animals, “conservation agencies may pay compensation if they wish”. It’s been over 7 years since the process began, and discussions have started with community representatives about reviewing the process based on lessons learnt to date. The discussions are not concluded, and further consultations will take place with relevant parties, with the ultimate goal of managing the process effectively, adaptively and sustainably into the future.
The reality of human-wildlife conflict is that the majority of people living on the KNP boundary perceive HWC to be a major disadvantage of living adjacent to the park (90% in some areas – Anthony 2010), yet only a much smaller fraction of these (10-12% of households in some studies) have directly incurred predator-related livestock loss. The point being that if we can sort out the damage, then we have huge potential to positively moderate or even turn-around negative perceptions of conservation. Human-wildlife conflict and subsequent compensation belongs to all of us: to SANParks staff, to local farmers and their families, to community representatives, traditional authorities, provincial conservation authorities (LEDET and MTPA), to the international and local tourism industry and to each and every person who visits the park and enjoys the wildlife while doing so. As our planet becomes “smaller and smaller”, the space for wildlife to roam freely is also shrinking, increasing the opportunities for conflict. We, as conservation-minded people have a responsibility to explore ways of managing these human-wildlife interactions where they cause conflict, both in the interests of people as well as wildlife if these areas are to persist for our and the nations’ children and children’s children to enjoy.
Based on the last few years, the financial cost of compensation for livestock loss next to Kruger (on the South African side, where the process is running) is in the region of R300 000 each year. This is not much when one considers that selling all of the tourist units in Skukuza for a single night equates to a turnover of just over R400 000. However, we have learnt that it’s not just about the cost of the cow… and we believe that the goodwill benefits gained through the process of rebuilding connections and relationships with a group of stakeholders who in many cases, have only ever suffered costs from the KNP in the past, is well worth the money if we want these magnificent places and extraordinary people to thrive in an uncertain future.
This blog post is dedicated to the livestock farmers, DCA community representatives and broader community members of Mpumalanga and Limpopo Provinces who have suffered and continue to incur damage either directly or indirectly as a result of human-wildlife conflict. Thank you for directing us towards starting this journey many, many years ago, and for navigating the bumpy road with us while continually reminding us why we are here.…towards sustaining livelihoods, relationships and wildlife so that our children and our children’s children can thrive in and benefit from the heritage that we are looking after. That simply has to be the right thing to do.
The public is reminded that although normally animals with the potential to cause harm stay within the boundaries of protected areas, they do sometimes escape. In such cases, SANParks kindly requests that the relevant conservation officials are notified as soon as possible, in order to reduce the risk to people, property and wildlife in the spirit of fostering mutually beneficial partnerships within the social-ecological system that is the Greater Kruger area.
Further Reading
