Addo Elephant Park’s balanced model of conservation holds lessons for wildlife reserves

If ever an elephant reserve could serve as a template for effective conservation, it is Addo. What makes it remarkable is not only its thriving elephant population, but the way it has grown, adapted and coexisted with neighbouring farms and communities over nearly a century. 

Addo Elephant National Park is not just a sanctuary; it is a living, breathing organism that has expanded its borders, healed degraded lands and fostered a model of conservation that many others could learn from.

Addo has recently introduced 72 elephants into their Kabouga section to relieve pressure from the Main Camp and Colchester sections. In 2018, at least 27 elephants were translocated to the Nama Karoo section around Darlington Dam. The park has also purchased several old farms around Kirkwood to incorporate into its expanding footprint. 

Since the 1980s, the Greater Addo Elephant National Park has actively expanded to increase habitat for elephants as well as other wildlife and endangered plant communities. This expansion has included forest reserves, provincial conservation areas and private lands – transforming old and degraded agricultural areas into protected spaces given time to rest, regenerate and become an elephant habitat.

Addo has also reintroduced elephants to adjoining private reserves in the Eastern and Western Cape that meet the necessary criteria for safely containing elephants. Beyond elephants, Addo has saved the last of the Eastern Cape’s buffalo herds from extinction. The offspring of these disease-free buffalo have been successfully reintroduced to other reserves, national parks and private lands.

The park’s growth has been extraordinary: from just 4,500 hectares in 1931 to 180,000 hectares on land today, with an additional 120,000 hectares in the Indian Ocean protecting bird islands and whale-breeding grounds. Its elephant population has grown from 12 individuals in 1931 to about 700 today. Addo now functions as a biosphere reserve, home to many indigenous and endemic species that evolve here naturally.

Paradoxically, this flourishing wilderness lies next to one of South Africa’s most intensive fruit-producing regions, the Sundays River Valley. This year brought a bumper crop of oranges, with convoys of citrus-laden trucks running along Addo’s boundary on their way to the Nelson Mandela Bay loading docks. Yet there is little or no human-wildlife conflict – a striking testament that food production and elephant conservation can thrive side by side.

Addo is not without challenges, but something is working here. The park faces the same pressures as any other reserve: proximity to farmland, being only 40 kilometres from a major city and operating in an impoverished region. Its success is rooted in visionary beginnings – established in 1931 by farsighted individuals after a great slaughter – and sustained by dedicated, hardworking personnel through every decade since. Addo is exceptionally well managed, with strong legal protection and effective governance.

Today, Addo has become a sanctuary for a population of black rhinos as well. Elephant translocation elsewhere has often proved problematic – as seen recently in Kasungu National Park in Malawi, where translocated elephants raided crops, damaged infrastructure and killed people.

In a country where natural migration routes have been severed, the better strategy is to nurture existing, depleted populations back to health through sound management and legislation – a process requiring patience. Addo’s founders and current custodians have excelled at exactly this.

The park’s gradual evolution has helped neighbouring communities accept life alongside an elephant reserve. This could not have been achieved without a dedicated team of rangers and conservationists working to keep elephants securely within park boundaries. In a world where habitat is shrinking, human-wildlife conflict has become a priority for conservationists, often a rallying cry for competing agendas. 

But experience on communal lands outside national parks has shown that no amount of money can buy goodwill for wildlife that destroys crops, water installations, livestock, or even takes human lives – such situations almost inevitably lead to more slaughter.

The guardians of parks and reserves have a responsibility to protect wildlife and keep it away from human interests. If they fail, goodwill from neighbouring communities will be lost and opportunists will exploit free-roaming wildlife for their own benefit. The solution lies in clearly defined boundaries, carefully monitored, patrolled and protected by legislation.

Somehow, Addo Elephant National Park has achieved a fine balance between conservation, expansion, and maintaining goodwill among its neighbours. It stands as a rare and successful example of how elephants, people and productive farmland can coexist. Conservationists and reserve managers elsewhere would do well to learn from Addo’s success. DM