SOUTH AFRICA -
Kruger Headaches at 100
A documentary by Marion Mayer-Hohdahl
Dur: 38 mins
All music © Journeyman Pictures
10:00.00.00 Animals/singing |
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00.17 In an ever changing world, man and beast struggle to live in harmony. Conservation in Africa, where wild animals compete with humans for land, is a tricky business. And nowhere is it more tricky than in South Africa's massive Kruger National Park, home to the ‘Big Five': elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion and leopard, along with hundreds of other species of animals and birds. |
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00.50 Leopard kill |
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00.55 Kruger Park sprang up around the time of the ‘gold rush' in the last century, when the number of game fell dramatically due to hunting and the trading of animal skins and horns. |
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01.07 Aerials |
President Paul Kruger proposed that boundaries in the region be defined as game reserves, and the area between the Crocodile and Sabie Rivers became the first reserve exactly 100 years ago. The park now stretches 350km along the boundary with Mozambique. It was originally going to be a communally owned winter hunting ground. Today it is it for conservation only, and seventy thousand people visit the park every year. |
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01.36 Idyllic camp |
Kruger has traditionally been a playground exclusively for rich whites. It now describes itself as an eco-tourist's dream. Europeans make up most of today's visitors. For the local population an overnight stay would be well beyond their means. |
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01.56 Baboons on road |
Animals can be viewed from nearly 2 ½ thousand km of roads. But camps and roads cover only a fraction of the total park, which is bigger than Israel. |
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02.07 Tourists |
Tourists come back again and again to discover a different part of the park, to soak up the mountains, savannah and forest. |
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02.15 Interviews |
Gerhard Albien: It's different every time we come, and just as interesting. It's beautiful. |
Baerbel Hechler: You can drive around and see new things in each part. It's so varied. It's fascinating. |
Peter Hechler: It's overwhelming. Far out! Great. |
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02.32 A few lucky blacks come to visit the park, to see many animals for the first time in their lives. |
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02.37 Interview Jeffrey Masenyani Mchavi |
We're excited. It's our first time in the Park. We've seen a lot of things for the first time. I'm sorry they didn't see any lions, but they did see elephants, zebras, giraffes, impalas it was so exciting. We prepared everything for lunch, a brai. And the long joy ride in the car is very nice for the kids. |
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03.17 During Apartheid, many blacks were hunted off their land - like the Mhinga tribe. Chief Cydrick Mhinga is a lawyer, and wants to reclaim some of the park for his tribe. |
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03.28 Interview Chief Cydrick Mhinga |
Once we win the claim we will sit down and look at the different uses for the land. You can see how beautiful this valley is. It's an ideal place for a lodge where people can come and walk, enjoy themselves and the tranquility which is here. This place is definitely the most beautiful place in the Park. |
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03.54 Interview Magdalene Mhinga |
It's really exciting to be here, to think that people lived here a long time ago it's amazing. |
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04.07 Chief Mhinga shows his family around the park. Land in the New South Africa is a disputed commodity. This is the Chief's ancestral home, but Black South African visitors in Kruger park are still an unusual sight. |
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04.26 The Chief's oldest daughter sums up the family's mood today. |
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04.31 Singing ‘Oh happy day'. |
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05.02 Here in the north of the Kruger National Park lies Tulamela. You can only pass through this area with a game warden. Seven years ago archaeological excavations begun and they've reconstructed the foundation walls of a village. Two graves were found: one for a king and another for a queen - their burials two hundred years apart. Many tribe members are claiming the graves are their ancestors'. |
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05.33 Interview Chief Cydrick Mhinga |
The issue is not whose bones or whose skeletons are there. One thing is clear and that's that black people lived here. For me, the discovery of these artefacts shows that black people have something to show to the world. |
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05.52 For the time being visitors have to be content with a poster display. People lived and traded here from the 12th to 16th century. For the blacks the findings are proof of the injustice they later suffered. |
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06.05 Interview Chief Cydrick Mhinga |
The Kruger Park never involved my community. They never benefited. I'd expected the park to have built schools in our villages, to have built clinics in our villages to have done a number of things to uplift the standard of living of my community. But nothing ever happened. Even now, lions come out of the park and kill the community's cattle. But so far we've not been paid any compensation. It's a very sad story. We love the park, we want to keep it, but we have to have a say in the running of this park. Especially because we were driven out of this park unwillingly. It was forceful removal. |
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06.51 Disdain for local sensibilities seems to have been the story of the Kruger Park. |
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06.57 Interview Harold Braack, Kruger Park director |
We've appointed a person to look at the potential for developing businesses alongside the park. For example, instead of our making bricks inside the park we could buy them from the local community. The same goes for beef or vegetables. I don't think we've yet given it the impetus it deserves. I think we've got a long way to go. |
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07.22 A sharpshooter aims from a swaying helicopter. (Pause) This is not hunting or poaching, it's culling. Over the past 30 years Kruger has culled hundreds of elephants each year. It claims the park's ecosystem can only support seven and a half thousand elephants. But animal welfare groups see the practise as barbaric. |
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07.48 Interview David Barritt, International Fund for Animal Welfare |
Elephants really are the most amazing creatures. They have highly developed social structures, intense family lives. When we go in there with guns blazing, we're committing genocide. And when we talk about management techniques, harvesting, culling, we forget that these are living creatures who grieve. When their youngesters are mown down, when the youngesters see their mothers mown down. They grieve. They're traumatised for life. |
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08.17 Interview Fritz Rohr, Anaesthetic expert: |
It's difficult, particularly when people have never been here themselves and they certainly haven't got involved in the problems. It's not something they're used to in their own lives, I mean in their own lives they've never had to control overpopulation. |
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08.35 The Kruger culling policy has been at the centre of South Africa's most heated environmental debates in recent years. The dead elephants were immediately processed. The Park now has around 3'000 tusks in storage, worth millions of dollars. The elephant hide used to be sold, the flesh made into stew and shared amongst the park rangers. Then in 1989 came the embargo on international trade in ivory and hide. |
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09.04 The abattoirs in the Kruger National Park used to employ 120 people. Now they're seldom used. Kruger has bowed to its critics and has stopped culling. But the problems didn't stop there. |
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09.16 Interview Howard Knott, Kuduland Safaris |
We have a Spanish client who has a CITES permit, who's paid for an elephant hunt but he doesn't want to shoot the elephant he just wants the tusks. So we said we can buy the tusks from the Kruger Park. They blatantly said to us ‘No way'. We said this is ridiculous, it means I have to go out and shoot an elephant to send the tusks to Europe. You guys have got stockpiles of thousands of tusks in your storerooms. Just sell us two. They wouldn't do it. That really made me mad about the whole attitude in the Kruger Park. |
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09.47 But the director of the Kruger National Park feels frustrated that his hands are tied. |
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09.55 Interview Harold Braack, Kruger Park director |
Because of the international CITES agreement, we cannot make use of what we have. I believe that the West is trying to impose its will, its ethics on South Africa, on Africa, and I think that it's not justified. I feel that we have every right where we properly control populations, to make use of those populations, in such a way that we look after those populations in such a way that they remain here in perpetuity. And they benefit people as well. |
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10.34 Shooting Impala |
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10.47 But personal initiatives to control populations have fallen foul of the authorities. In an adjoining area of the Kruger Park, 1'000 impalas were due to be shot because they were breeding too rapidly. After 400 were killed word came from on high that the programme had to stop. Officials said the tourists could be upset by unsightly trails of blood. Now, the park continues to suffer from overpopulation. |
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11. 17 Interview Erroll Pietersen, game warden |
It's something that nobody likes doing. We've got to do it because the veld has a specific carrying capacity, it can only maintain a certain amount of animals. And, in order to maintain a natural balance, or as natural balance as we can, it is necessary to cull on occasions. But we do this it on a fairly scientific basis where we record all the data, so that we try and maintain the balance that exists. |
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11.44 The impala innards and head are cooked up into a tasty stew. |
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11.50 Groups in favour of culling argue that animal products are an important source of income for conservation programmes. They can also profit local people. And if the locals profit from the animals they will have more of an interest in conservation. |
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12.08 Most of these people can rarely afford meat. Today they're charged a small sum. |
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12.14 Interview Maria Nonlhadlha |
First they gave us meat from elephants, now they give us this meat. So, we are so happy about it because it's the first time we're getting these things. |
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12.33 Because culling is still so contraversial, so is selling culled meat. Sometimes Kruger only allows the gamekeepers to eat it. But it's clear how much the locals appreciate it. |
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12.51 But there is another solution to Kruger's excess herds. These elephants have been captured for translocation to another another park. The anaesthetising darts must penetrate up to two inches of skin, and keeping elephants asleep is a tricky business. |
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13.05 Elephants snore |
13.12 Here ten elephants from the same family are being examined. Everything has to happen before the elephant wakes up, so everyone has to lend a hand. Their blood is taken and their data recorded. Then the elephants get on their way. |
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13.33 Enormous specially designed trucks take them to their new home. Lying on their side is dangerous for elephants, so now they have to be woken up. |
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13.47 This family is going to make a 15 hour trek to the Marakeli National Park near Botswana. They can't be taken just anywhere: neighbouring Mozambique already has too many elephants of its own. And Kruger refuses to give elephants to private reserves where they may be hunted. |
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14.14 Stumbling from the truck, the cow is irritable and nervous. She takes it out on an electric fence. She might be angry, but at least she's alive. |
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14.26 Creeping through the bush is a wealthy trophy hunter. Tourism at the Kruger Park has been increasing, particularly since the end of Apartheid. But the big money is earned in private game farms like this one. Trophy hunters pay up to 30'000 dollars for a week's hunting, depending on what they shoot. It could be anything from small antelope to elephants. |
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14.52 Mark Dedekind is a young South African who owns several hunting rights in southern Africa. Again most of his clients come from Europe. |
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15.03 Joachim Wendt has been coming to Africa to hunt every year since 1990. (PAUSE FOR GUNSHOT) He's a former computer systems analyst who has rediscovered a passion for hunting. Even some of Kruger's employees think hunting excess herds might not be such a bad idea. |
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15.20 Interview Fritz Rohr, anaesthetic dart manufacturer |
The bottom line is that there's no hunting allowed in a National Park. The Parks Board owns large tracts of land where there could be hunting. We've got how should I describe it a surplus of animals. Animals are breeding just like they are in Europe. And since their areas are diminishing, there can only be a certain number of them. Many have to be culled. I sometimes do it myself. But I think it would be easy to find many European and American hunters who would pay the Parks Board a very good price to hunt buffalo, lion or elephant. |
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16.05 They follow the trail of the wounded antelope. The hunter's shot has cost him about £400. In the end it's the dog who finds the antelope, tearing into the beast as though he has killed it. Distasteful maybe, but a trophy hunter brings in to South Africa about five times more money than a tourist on a mere photosafari. |
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16.27 Interview Joachim Wendt, trophy hunter |
You could say it's a lot of money, since it's costing me £300-£1,000 a day. But most hunters only come for 3 to 6 or 7 days. So a hunting holiday is comparable in cost to a four week holiday somewhere in the Caribbean. |
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16.48 There are so many animals in Africa you can easily hunt them during the day. In Europe you can only hunt at night which is frustrating for the hunter. |
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17.02 The trophy will be shipped back to Europe to hang on the hunter's wall. Mark Dedekind has a shooting quota of 200 heads from any one of 9 different kinds of animals in this area. This year his quota will double when the annual animal head-count happens. So his profits for the year look set to double as well. |
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17.27 Interview Mark Dedekind, Safari Operator |
The Kruger National park is losing a lot of money to keep other people happy. The World Wildlife Fund and other groups are putting an incredible amount of pressure on the Kruger Park. They haven't even been culling this year because many people are against it. But sometimes the National Parks as well as the private farms are full of elephants, which are caught alive and trans located to another place. But those areas are also overpopulated with elephants and what do they do then? |
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18.08 This sedated elephant is going to be injected with a hefty dose of the contraceptive pill. This was Kruger's next contraversial attempt at solving its elephant problem. (Pause) But many cows needed to be on the ‘pill' at once in order to have an adequate impact on overpopulation. |
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18.29 Jurie Moolman runs another game farm, and criticised the contraception programme from the start. |
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18.36 Interview Jurie Moolman, Djuma Lodge |
It once again comes back to the Kruger Park being a ship without a captain. It's being bobbed around on a sea of possibilities and they are not steering a clear course through it. They get caught up with many of the elephants activists. They give money for trans-location of elephants, but they tie the hands of Kruger Park management. They make worthy suugestions like we'll give you these resources but then you can't cull any more. We want you dart the animals, shoot them with hormones. We are crazy to think that it's a lesser evil to manipulate wild animals' hormones than to merely shoot a certain number per year. |
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19.31 Doubts which turned out to be well-founded. The beleaguered park management decided to halt the contraception programme, when the elephant cows that were given the pill were found to be in a constant state of oestrus, or sexual receptivity. They were driving the males wild with desire. So now the only option they have for dealing with excess herds is to dart them with sedatives and move them elsewhere. |
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20.01 Here surplus rhino are being sent to another park where they will be safer from poaching. This rhino and her young have been anaesthetised, but there's a large amount of trial and error involved in the dose. The animal is clearly under stress. And one of her young has stopped breathing. |
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20.25 They try everything. Injecting antidotes to the anaesthetic. |
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20.33 It's almost too late - the only thing left to try is a jolt to start the heart. |
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20.38 Singing |
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20.50 Finally, the animal is breathing again. |
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21.06 Once they are eating normally they'll be taken to their new home. Then they have to go through the whole anaesthetising procedure again. |
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21.24 Visibly wobbly on their feet, the animals emerge to find themselves in a cage. It's the first time they've been in such a confined space. |
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21.42 Claustrophobia affects some of the park's human species too. Game wardens families can live in isolation, far from schools and doctors. |
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21.54 Mum Michelle takes a gun along when her children come home from boarding school, and fancy a dip in the river. Both boys want to follow in their father's footsteps and become game wardens. |
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22.08 Living in the Kruger Park looks like paradise, but has its frustrations. |
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22.17 Interview Michelle Pietersen, game wardens' wife |
The children can't just run out the gate and go and play. They can't climb on their bicycles and ride up the road or come down to the river on their own. Because you have always got to be careful of the animals. There are lions and buffalo and even crocodiles in the rivers. So it is not as free as it looks - it's not like a farm. |
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22.41 Annatjie Rohr's daughters are allowed to cycle along the roads, but the animals have right of way. Nepotism in the Kruger park is said to be rife and there's a shortage of money. The park makes a profit but the money doesn't flow back into it, whilst other national parks are supported by Kruger's profits. Staff morale has plummeted and there's a widespread feeling of insecurity. Whites could once expect a job for life with the park. |
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23.21 Interview Annatjie Rohr |
The people in the park have a very negative attitude. A lot of whites have lost their jobs or are leaving voluntarily. We don't know much about the quality of the new people who are taking their jobs. The level at the school has also fallen since the blacks have come. |
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23.51 Her husband's job is safe because he is an expert in his field. |
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23.56 Interview Fritz Rohr, anaesthetic dart manufacturer |
I got the job here because I'm a specialist. There isn't anyone in South Africa with the same training that I've had. Most people get quieter desk jobs. But when it comes to those of us who really enjoy this type of work, who like doing the more exciting, dirtier, more dangerous work for the park's board, there's no chance that they're going to lose their jobs. it's rather a case of people being thrown out of those quieter office jobs which are in high demand. |
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24.34 Gerd Erasmus used to be the director of Kruger's translation department. When it was restructured he became superfluous. The park wanted him to go elsewhere voluntarily, but he's taking it to court. Every day he sits at his desk, until the court decides his claim. |
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24.53 Interview Gerd Erasmus, National Park authority |
I am annoyed, I'm sad. I feel that despite successes and despite things which I've done which were good, suddenly there's no place for you. I must add that in the discussions which have now ended in a legal suit, I've had it was mentioned that I should look for new work in the park authority. Failing to do so we should commence with talks on possible retrenchment. |
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25.25 But however hard done by whites working for the Kruger National Park may feel, they're still part of the priviledged few. They always lived well in the park during apartheid. The salaries weren't anything special but there were, and still are, low rents and good sports facilities. Playing tennis here costs nothing. And their mother is a coach. Inside Kruger, as across South Africa, the gulf between black and white appears as wide as ever. |
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25.57 During apartheid, black workers could not live in Kruger with their families. Only short visits were allowed. So the black accomodation is cramped. Under the new government blacks and whites have to be treated equally - which is creating yet more headaches for the Kruger Park. It was on this site that the very first ranger in the reserve built a rustic rondavel 100 years ago. Today Skukuza is the biggest camp and a staggering 1'200 black workers stay here - most with big families. |
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26.36 Black game wardens still patrol on bikes, whilst whites have cars. For blacks living in the outlying regions of the park, family visits are particularly difficult. |
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26.48 Derek Nyathi has been a game warden since 1990. He and his wife Juliette have four children. She visits him as often as possible. Many black African men live separated from their families. The women stay in the village while their men look for work. Would she like to live here ? |
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27.06 Interview Juliette Nyathi |
No, I only like to visit here and then go back to home. |
27.12 Question: Why? |
27.14 Juliette Nyathi: Because I live with my parents - Derek's parents - at home. |
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27.22 But many can't afford to see their families as much as they'd like. |
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27.26 Question: Would you like to have your family here? |
27.29 Interview Calvin Mabasa, park worker |
Yes, it's a problem to go home without money for transport. If I'm alone for a long time I get sad about everything. But I'd like to stay and work here because it's safe her. Outside there are too many criminals. Here there are no criminals, so it's better than outside here. |
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27.57 Interview Harold Braack Kruger Park director |
It would be naive to think that we could allow every person living in the Kruger National Park to have a large family living here. We would possibly destroy the Kruger National Park if we did that. Obviously we must look at a fair way to enable all the staff to be treated justly - fairly - and enable those members of staff to have a home as well. But space will not allow us to provide homes for everybody. |
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28.32 But for years white employees have had that privilege, and there are no plans to take their homes away. |
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28.42 And Kruger's game wardens have to be happy in order to be effective in the war against poaching. South Africa's strong anti-poaching units, like those in Zimbabwe, are responsible for stable elephant populations. (Pause) Game wardens often stalk through the bush for days to catch the poachers. Here just nine trackers comb 100'000 hectares, finding about 60 poacher's traps a month. |
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29.20 These wire nooses can take days to kill an animal - agonisingly. The traps are everywhere, and so well hidden in the bush that they're difficult to spot. One poacher was caught carrying a staggering 250 of these lethal nooses. |
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29.48 Interview Erroll Pietersen, game warden |
The snares are indiscriminate. They catch anything that walks into them. They've caught lions, they've caught buffalo, they've caught rhinos. They even removed half the trunk of an elephant. |
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30.01 A lot of poachers live in the areas that border the park. They never profit from the Park. And there's a lot of poverty. |
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30.08 In Welverdiend the village chief and the game wardens work together. Instead of sending under-age poachers to prison, they are handed over to the village chief. |
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30.23 Interview Lucas Mlambo - village chief |
When the game wardens bring me a youth from my village who's been poaching, then I ask the ranger if I can punish the youngster according to our community rules. Then he's whipped. |
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30.38 What everyone wants to avoid is a sight like this. A mutilated elephant carcass, killed for its tusks. Big time poachers are often caught by the army, and get up to 20 years in prison. |
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31.00 Johannesburg is the centre of the illegal trade in a variety of contraband. Drugs, weapons, ivory and rhino horns are sold here. This sting operation is recorded with hidden cameras. The middleman has lured the smuggler to this warehouse. They want to check the ivory. Tusks fetch an enormous price in Asia, and often game wardens work hand in hand with the elephant Mafia. The profits are just too tempting. |
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31.33 Interview Harold Braack, Kruger Park director |
I'm sure that the low salaries mean temptation. I bellieve that over the last few years we've had an extremely loyal group of rangers. We've been particularly lucky in this. But as living conditions become harder and more expensive, I think we will be open to more temptation - more corruption. |
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32.04 Being a game warden is painstaking work and requires a lot of patience. Sometimes it takes days for the poacher to return to check his traps. And it can be dangerous - poachers of rhino and elephant often come armed with AK 47's and even rocket propelled grenades. |
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32.28 Singing |
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32.48 Two crooks escape, but one is caught, ticked off and questioned. Ironically, they'd shot an Impala, which are so overpopulous in the park. |
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33.05 Interview Erroll Pietersen |
He says that they sell the meat so that they can buy food and cigarettes. |
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33.14 When poachers won't talk they can be threatened with a snake. This one is just made to drag his catch back through the bush for the park keepers. Because he was hunting for food he'll probably get off lightly. It's poverty which causes most to steal. |
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33.32 Interview Michelle Pietersen |
The park should do something more. Maybe a person shouldn't say that, but there's a lot more they could do to help the local community. |
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33.42 The initiative of the gamekeepers has helped 20 people from the village of Welverdiend to find work, clearing undergrowth from the bush. |
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33.53 The Kruger park manages some areas of private land. A self-help programme for the local villagers has been devised, supported by the WWF. It's a humble beginning, but in Africa a little encouragement goes a long way. |
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34.11 Interview Erroll Pietersen, game warden |
We would normally have had to buy a tractor which we would have to maintain. We decided that rather than the tractor being maintained by the Kruger Park, we offer the opportunity to a member of the community. We would sponsor the tractor. He would have to pay it back over a period of years, but in return he would get the tractor at the end of 4 years. He would have the opportunity to use it for private use and he would be paid on a daily bassis for the use of the tractor. |
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34.45 His wife is as pro-active. |
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34.48 Interview Michelle Pietersen, game wardens wife |
Children from the local community who've lived next to the park for years, even adults who've lived there for yeas, have never had the opportunity to go for a drive through the park, to see animals, or see what conservation's about. For me that was the motivation: to do something for the local community - to show them what conservation's about. It's also an income - a way of getting an income and doing a good deed at the same time. |
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35.15 Singing |
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35.24 Twice a week Michelle drives the children through the park. Most of them have never seen wild animals before despite the fact they live close by. |
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35.44 The children are happy - they get free breakfast and lunch. |
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35.49 Rangers in this game farm use radio contact with the other camps to know where they can find the animals. Whilst the debate over conservation rages, private game parks remain fully booked. This camp prides itself on getting its visitors closer to the animals than Kruger. It matches Kruger's yearly revenue. The thrill of seeing a wild animal from an open top vehicle is breathtaking. |
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36.20 Interview Carol Thompson, Texas USA |
It's overwhelming. I can't really even talk yet. I've never been quite that close to anything without something to shield me. It was just overwhelming. |
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36.32 Question: You're so near the Kruger Park, why don't you go and visit it? |
38.03 Interview Greg Thompson, Texas, USA |
I think that you can see so much more in a shorter period of time - that's what we had heard and that's certainly been true. We've been here less than 24 hours and we've seen so many animals: lion, elephant, giraffe, buffalo. It's been wonderful. |
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36.55 NATSOF You can see the difference between the hyena and the lion. |
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37.02 Drumming |
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37.06 Guests here are drummed to dinner. Every whim is met. Kruger could compromise some of its ideals and earn much more money from tourism. |
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37.18 But a playground for whites doesn't belong in the new South Africa. Kruger may never find a balance with nature if its lets emotions rule. The Park's problems are with people as well as animals. But it is still a paradise which shouldn't be destroyed. That would never be forgiven by future generations. |
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ENDS 38'04 |