Looking at those shots it's really hard to believe
that this currently thriving area in South Africa
was once dedicated to cattle and pineapple farms,
with almost no biodiversity and wildlife.
Phinda was established in collaboration with the local Zulu tribal community
to rehabilitate the ecosystem,
allowing for the return of the wildlife
that had once flourished in this area.
Phinda is local Zulu word for 'return'.
Animals were brought in from other regions of southern Africa
to establish new populations in the conservancy.
There is a lot of doom-and-gloom stories about biodiversity.
However, this story is a hopeful one.
Phinda is a modern success conservation story
so stick around around to learn how they managed to do it.
I think the key to the success for Phinda
is the fact that they've used this ecotourism model
to benefit not only the reserve itself
but also the local communities surrounding them.
A lot of work goes into managing 30,000 hectares:
making sure that animals are healthy,
that they are reproducing, but not inbreeding,
that herbivores do not overgraze the land,
that territorial animals have enough space
and do not compete between each other,
that invasive species of plants are under control,
that the areas will be protected by anti-poaching units,
and that is all while still running lodges and operating tourism
and voluntourism in the area
that brings much needed funding towards conservation.
With the data collected here by our volunteers
that go out every day with one of our Ecological Monitors
that data feeds live into our data systems,
which we can then analyse.
This helps us to make our management decisions.
Animal populations in Phinda are thriving
from an initial population of just 30 white rhinos,
Phinda now has one of the largest white rhino populations in Africa
and have been relocating and repopulating rhinos
to other reserves and countries, due to their success at protecting them.
This is also facilitated what we call Rhinos Without Borders,
so where our white rhinos have been translocated to Botswana
to start at the founding population there.
Phinda is the first private game reserve ever to be a part
of the Black Rhino Range Expansion Project,
so this is a project together with WWF.
The cheetah population here has grown so successfully
that some individuals were relocated to other parts of southern Africa
to establish healthy cheetah populations there.
Cheetah alone, Phinda and the MunYaWana
is currently seen as one of the most important
cheetah meta populations throughout southern Africa.
Phinda has been chosen as a release site
for pangolins that have been confiscated from poachers
and saved from the illegal wildlife trade.
The pangolin is arguably
the most trafficked animal
on earth leading to their disappearance in the world.
So pangolins were reintroduced here in June 2019,
before that pangolins have been completely extinct from the reserve.
Over time, these animals have now
established home ranges, territories,
and thankfully have even had pups.
It is also an educational ground -
numerous researches occur here
every year.
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A lot of data has been collected and
that has resulted
in numerous PhDs, Master's projects, also
suitable protocols being
out there on what's
the right way for soft-releasing lions
into new areas.
I have been here a few weeks volunteering
with African Conservation Experience,
participating on all the daily tasks
needed for animal management
and conservation like:
monitoring, data collection, updating ID
profiles of animals, tracking using
some of the most modern technologies,
trying to understand.
So what is the reason
of this overwhelming conservation success?
Is it the modern technology and their
ability to use
camera traps, telemetry, satellites,
drones, acoustic sensors, a variety of
apps for data collection and analysis?
This project is neat because our cameras
are actually tools
and what we're doing is collecting data
that's going to help us identify these
individuals in the wild at a later date.
Is it their ability to utilize
conservation tourism and
volunteerism to fund these projects?
Around the world, many protected areas are
underfunded. Allowing visitors to
observe exciting and important
conservation tasks provides additional
source of funding for necessary
management activities,
such as ecosystem monitoring,
anti-poaching patrols, invasive species
eradication, and environmental
educational programs.
Tourism potentially has a big role to play
in education
when it comes to conservation.
One of the best things is there's
so many people that care
and that's just really lovely to see.
Just spreading the word of, like,
the sort of work that's done here, trying
to get more funding and letting people
know how important this is to preserve,
is really important.
When people connect with nature
during their travels,
when they see first-hand how hard it is to
protect our nature and what goes into it,
it can lead them into being
more appreciative
and become more invested in protecting it.
I think the fact we don't know what
we're gonna see or discover
each day... it's very exciting.
Like every day I've done so far has been
really different.
And I've had a really unique experience
seeing loads of animals that are
endangered.
So I'd say I'm pretty lucky.
Of course, it is all of the above and more
This project truly exists
due to the exceptional management and
the work of numerous passionate people
that spend
hours and days in the bush,
making sure that the
area is thriving while educating tourists
and visitors, and conducting research
that helps other organizations
and reserves to obtain
this success as well.
We mainly focus on movement data and being
able to correlate all of that
and expand it over a few
years, and see the movement of
different species, how they react to
different weather conditions and habitats
and different influences like that
Seeing their movement data,
how long it's taken them
to settle in this reserve,
will be useful for other reserves
who want to do the same thing.
Your time and your effort
really help with things like,
hands-on things, if we
need help lifting something
or moving things,
photos for ID kits, like lots of
different small contributions
that add up to larger contributions.
I hope that this success story got you
inspired and serves as a hopeful reminder.
When people start seeing
the benefit of having tourism in the area,
they are more inclined
to wanting to keep the area wild
and they also
support these new ventures that are
being undertaken.
We want to use tourism to expand,
you know, conservation areas and, not just
expand but to ensure that it
sustains itself.