Save Hwange National Park

Friends of Hwange Trust

by Patrick Madden

Ever since it was founded by Ted Davidson in 1928, Hwange National Park has been an icon of southern African conservation. The Zimbabwean game reserve carried 105 mammal species, including eight large carnivores, and was particularly famous for its populations of elephant and wild dog.

These facts are related in the past tense because, along with the future of the largest and most densely populated game reserve in Zimbabwe, they are no longer certain.

Water Crisis

Although millions of litres of water lie beneath Hwange's soil, the surface of the reserve is naturally dry. The park's animals drink from man-made waterholes, which are filled by groundwater sucked up by diesel-fuelled pumps.

But in 2005, during Zimbabwe's continuing economic crisis and one of the worst droughts in many years, Hwange's pumps ran out of fuel. Because the park was getting very few visitors, there was not enough money to maintain them. In the dry season of 2005 the waterholes became patches of baked mud, and animals died in their scores.

The Save Hwange Trust

Faced with increasingly devastating reports from Hwange during the drought, a group of Zimbabweans formed the Save Hwange Trust to address the long-term challenge of water problems in the park.

Aiming to re-establish ten working waterholes by the start of the 2006 dry season, the trust contacted Maha Doppelfeld of the Friends of Hwange group to raise funds and administer the trust, and Mario Gomes to repair and service the pumps so that the waterholes could be filled again.

Generous private and corporate donations of money, pump parts, and fuel at cost price allowed the friends of Hwange to resurrect ten waterholes by the time the 2006 dry season began in earnest. This saved Hwange's wildlife from the looming prospect of another fatal drought.

Dependency

Brett MacDonald, a founder of the Save Hwange Trust, relates a story of how he fixed a broken pump in the park. Having repaired the pump's machinery, he struggled to engage the engine with the reticent pull-start. After at least an hour of increasingly desperate pulling, the engine finally caught and the pump rattled into life.

Brett stepped back with relief, and suddenly became aware that he was surrounded by a huge herd of elephants. They had been attracted by the noise of the stuttering engine, and when the water finally spluttered out of the pipe they took turns drinking with their trunks over the outlet.

Initially uneasy about the proximity of the elephants, Brett realised that they weren't at all interested in him - only in the water that his efforts had produced. As he walked slowly back to his land rover, the elephants parted to let him through the herd.

Sustaining the Flow

The situation in 2005 was not so dire in the private concessions around Hwange proper, which had funds available to keep their own pumps running and their waterholes full. This situation led some blinkered media to report that all was well at Hwange. However, it is sobering to note that 57 animals died even in a water-rich private concession comprising just four percent of the park's total area.

If all is well at Hwange for the moment, that is due solely to the ongoing efforts of the friends of Hwange. The park requires 5,000 litres of fuel every month to maintain the ten waterholes, and - at a special rate of US$1 per litre - this requires a monthly donation of US$5000 worth of diesel. And diesel isn't getting any cheaper.

The Save Hwange Trust would like to install solar power to replace the diesel-fuelled pumps as the means of pulling the groundwater to the surface. This would be more ecologically sensitive and more cost-effective in the long term, but the initial costs are daunting.

Please Help

There are many ways you can contribute to the continued existence of Hwange National Park. The easiest is by making a monetary contribution. If you live in the USA or Europe, the exchange rate will turn your donations into a significant amount of diesel for Hwange's water pumps, while US$1000 can be used to replace a broken pump engine.

The friends of Hwange would like to install eight windmills to reduce the amount of diesel needed each year and to provide a more environmentally friendly option for water retrieval. Each windmill costs about US$14,000 so any dent you could put in that amount would be greatly appreciated.

Alternatively, if you have expertise in solar power or other renewable energy sources, Maha would be thrilled to hear from you.

How to Help

To make a donation to help save Hwange National Park, you can use your credit card or transfer money directly into the Save Hwange Trust account. The details are:

Account name: Save Hwange

Account Number: 6209 3759 086

Branch Number: 201809

First National Bank, Sea Point Branch

Cape Town, South Africa

It is only through the contributions of generous individuals that Hwange National Park and its animals can be saved.

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