SafariLands.org: Wildlife: The Puku - The Future for wildlife outside protected areas

Puku stand about 80 centimetres at the shoulder and weigh from 70 to 80 kilograms. Puku are sandy brown in colour, the underbelly is a slightly lighter brown. Their coat is rougher than the similar-sized Southern Reedbuck, Lechwe or Impala, or the smaller Oribi. Males have around 50 centimetre long ridge structured horns which are very vaguely lyre-shaped.

Kilombero Valley, Tanzania, water pool, hippos

For the endangered Puku antelope {Kobus vardoni) the situation is different. Over 75 percent of the population of this species live in the Kilombero Valley, in the south of Tanzania, with smaller populations present along the plains of the Chobe river, Botswana, and the South-Luangwe river, Zambia. The latter two are National Parks and are therefore protected. In contrast, the Kilombero Valley has the status of Game Controlled Area (GCA), which only limits a few human activities. This article sets out the threats to wildlife in the Kilombero Valley by focusing on the largest viable population of the puku.

Location
Tanzania is famous for its large parks in the North, yet the South is a region under-valued for its biodiversity and undisturbed nature. At the end of the Eastern Arc Mountain range the Kilombero Valley forms a 6,650km2 lowland oasis. Situated between the Selous Game Reserve (one of Africa's largest Game Reserves) to the east, the Udzungwa Mountains National Park to the north and the Mahenge Mountains to the south, the valley comprises 14,400 km2 of seasonally flooded grassland and Miombo woodland.

Wildlife
The Kilombero Valley is home to a wide variety of large mammals, most importantly the endangered puku antelope. The puku is an antelope of medium size that has a scattered distribution across Southern and Central Africa. In the past pukus were widely distributed across savanna grasslands and flooclplains, while at present they are only found as isolated populations in wetland ecosystems in eight African countries, with the Kilombero Valley, Tanzania, having the largest viable population, estimated at approximately 42,000 animals.

Other large mammals in the Kilombero Valley include the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), African buffalo (Syncerus caffer), lion (Panthera leo), zebra (Equus burchelli) and a variety of antelope species such as sable (Hipotragus niger) and waterbuck (Kobus ellipsiprymnus). Together with the puku, buffalo, elephant, zebra, and sable antelope migrate between the floodplain in the dry season and the miombo fringes when the rains start. Some animals travel as far as the Selous Game Reserve to search for their dry season habitat, but the majority of the animals stay in the vicinity of the floodplain. Within the protected Selous Game Reserve boundaries very few puku are found.

The valley is also home to a wide variety of water birds. These range from some common birds like the Cattle egret (Bubulcus ibis) and the Egyptian goose (Alopochen aegyptiacus), to birds endemic to the region such as the Kilombero Weaver (Ploceus burnieri). the Melodious cisticola and the Kilombero cisticola. For this reason, the valley is designated as Important Bird Area (IBA) by Birdlife International.

The Kilombero Valley has a large stock of fish, being the fourth most important inland supply of fish in Tanzania after the Lakes Tangayika, Nyasa and Victoria. Fish is an important food source for local communities, serving as their major source of protein. Fishing is a traditional practice of the Wandamba tribe, and the local government is now promoting it to enable other tribes to also profit from this source. The number of fishermen is therefore increasing, though for many it remains a seasonal activity due to the in-accessibility of the floodplain in the wet season.

Protection Status
Together with the surrounding reserves the Kilombero Valley is an integral part of the Greater Selous Ecosystem, with the Selous Game Reserve designated as a World Heritage site by the United Nations in 1982. The Kilombero Valley forms part of Africa's largest river basin joining the Great Ruaha, Rufiji and Luwegu rivers and it is the largest low-lying wetland in East Africa. In April 2002 it was designated as Tanzania's third Ramsar site.

The valley is a Game Controlled Area (GCA) allowing only those with official licenses and permits to utilize the resources of large game within the area. Two sport hunting blocks are situated on the north and south of the river. The hunting companies operating on these blocks have set quota for the amount of wildlife that can be hunted. Local people with permits are allowed to hunt on grounds outside the sport hunting blocks, while permits are not provided to local people for hunting within these blocks.

Threats
Apart from the great variety of wildlife, a large number of people live on the fringes of the valley and are dependent on its natural resources for their livelihood. The valley is home to a vast and growing number of Masaai and Wasukuma farmers who recently moved down from the north to find new grazing lands for their numerous herds of cattle and goats. Both the Masaai and Wasukuma are traditional tribes of East Africa and their lives are totally dependent upon their livestock for survival.

Unfortunately, the GCA-status is not sufficient enough to protect the vulnerable species within the Kilombero Valley. Although the Game Controlled Area status means that the tribes are not allowed to build settlements within the area, it does not stop them from grazing their large herds of domestic animals on the floodplain.

The fast expanding human settlements along the fringes of the floodplain result in a higher utilization of the available resources, with land increasingly being used for rice paddies and other cultivation. Due to the increasing number of settlements around the valley and the shift from pasture to agricultural land, the cattle farmers are forced to encroach further onto the valley. This encroachment results in heavy over-grazing and competition for grazing land between livestock and the wildlife populations of the valley thus reducing the habitat available to the puku and other wildlife of the floodplain.

As new settlements pop up along the fringes and in the wildlife corridors, large areas of woodland and grazing-land are converted, and habitat degradation continues inevitably. Miombo woodland has a very low resilience to ploughing, therefore ploughing the grasslands for agriculture is a slow and almost irreversible process.

With the growing human population, reported cases of poaching, illegal logging, charcoal burning, and unnecessary killing of lion and elephant are also more frequent. In addition, people from the various tribes occasionally supplement their diets with "bushmeat" such as puku and smaller game. This hunting further increases pressure on the wildlife of the Kilombero valley. Moreover, the official quotas set by the government to prevent the wildlife populations from declining are questionable, since they are based on observations by aerial surveys which might not be fully representative for the large mammal population in-situ.

Expanding human settlements, illegal hunting and habitat destruction combined have put the puku population of the Kilombero Valley under pressure. Although the Kilombero Valley puku population is the largest in the world, a variety of factors (e.g. isolation from other puku populations, illegal hunting and habitat loss) indicate that it is vulnerable and has an uncertain future.

Research
Frontier-Tanzania Savannah Research Programme (FT-SRP), a collaboration of the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM) and the Society for Environmental Exploration (SEE), is conducting ecological surveys in co-operation with the Ulanga District Council and Wildlife Division.

Every year, dry season transect surveys are performed to count and estimate the wildlife population in general and the puku population in particular. The Ulanga District Council and Wildlife Division utilises this data to cross-reference their aerial surveys and set hunting quota.
Current figures from the FT-SRP show that over the last few years the combined species population size on the floodplain has declined while there has been a rise in human settlements and number of livestock.

Along the floodplain, wildlife numbers are not consistent; this is especially seen in the puku. It is interesting to note higher numbers of animals around the hunting camps and a lower number around the settlements of Wasukuma and Masaai.

This could be due to high levels of disturbance from humans and livestock around the settlements.

Another important reason is the corresponding habitat degradation.

Is there a future?
The results from the FT-SRP show that the protection of this area by the GCA-status is not sufficient to cover its conservation needs. The law enforcement is not thorough enough to prevent further settlement onto the valley. Environmentalists are calling for a change in the status of this Ramsar site and IBA from a GCA to a Game Reserve. This would increase the protection of the valley's wildlife. However, this would close the nutritious grazing grounds to the local community, who will then lose interest in the valley's value as a heritage site and further destruction will be inevitable.

To ensure that the future of this rich diversity of wildlife is preserved and at the same time the right of local communities to the sustainable utilisation of land is respected, conservation responsibility needs to be transferred to the local community. A Community Based Conservation (CBC) programme, whereby local communities are entrusted with the responsibility, resources and skills that they need to set up a proper law enforcement and conservation organisation, could be a possible solution. External consultants should provide assistance and advice to local and regional environmental groups, based upon their needs, in order to ensure that there is adequate expertise and that a sustainable plan for the future is being implemented. Previous studies by FT-SRP have shown that there is much potential for a CBC in the Kilombero Valley. Unfortunately, the land use plan developed by FT-SRP several years ago has not been followed up and implementation is slow. A joint project involving a number of key stakeholders would be a challenge that would give the existing plans a second boost.

The idea of Wildlife Management Areas (WMA) is currently being evaluated in several areas in Tanzania including those that surround the Selous Game Reserve. This idea is based on the fact that only by allowing people to benefit from natural resources, and by empowering them with the skills and expertise necessary for sustainable wildlife management, we can ensure the survival of species outside official protection.

Action is needed to maintain this unique floodplain, where large numbers of lion, elephant and antelope coexist outside the boundaries of a National Park or Game Reserve.