M van Schalkwyk: Draft Norms and Standards for Elephant
Management

28 February 2007

Our approach to Elephant Management

On 20 September 2005, I outlined the Government's approach to addressing
what was considered the increasingly pressing challenge of managing elephants
in South Africa.

I committed our department to finding practical and sustainable solutions
that were fair to people, elephants, and our broader environment.

In parallel, we committed ourselves to an extensive consultative process to
enlighten us on the environmental, social, economic and ethical dimensions of
the so-called elephant debate.

My office has received literally hundreds of submissions from interested and
affected parties. These included a great many heartfelt pleas not to harm the
elephants, to protect our parks from excessive damage by elephants and also to
protect communities and their crops from elephants. Many institutions submitted
position papers and recommended guidelines. Numerous scientists drew our
attention to their research findings. Every submission helped our team to gain
a better understanding of the issue.

Before addressing the main thrust of our approach to elephant management, it
is perhaps useful to observe that elephants play a significant role in both
creating and destroying opportunities for other elements of biological
diversity to thrive.

South Africa is faced with a particular challenge as most of our protected
areas are fenced and surrounded by land that has been transformed, to a greater
or lesser extent, by human development.

Elephants are potentially difficult to confine within protected areas, and
if they leave the area, they pose a threat to the lives and property of
neighbours.

Ladies and gentlemen, in an ideal world, humans would co-exist peacefully
with other life-forms in a natural state, but this is no longer possible.
Humankind has interfered mightily with nature over the millennia. Nature has,
in turn, taken its toll on human life.

Regardless, we are now faced with the prospect of having to make difficult
decisions in a complex setting. Our challenge is to develop an equitable
balance between the needs of humankind and the needs of nature, and a
biodiversity balance within eco-systems.

Policy guidelines are needed to provide a framework within which government
can make decisions, and within which management plans can be formulated by
agencies responsible for protecting elephants and the ecological systems in
which they exist.

Though our conservation decision making, is always guided by the best
available science, it is common cause that we continue to be confronted by a
degree of scientific uncertainty in respect of the long term relationship
between elephants and their environment.

Decisions on elephant management are ultimately based on societal value
systems, since they involve trade-offs between different things that are
legitimately valued by society. The divergence of views on elephant management
arises primarily from different values held by different stakeholders.

Scientific information, alone, cannot resolve these value differences. It is
up to decision makers to set the value systems and make the laws that underpin
them.

We have taken care in the Draft Norms and Standards for Elephant Management
to set out Guiding Principles that will inform decision making. These
principles are based on respect for elephants, reverence for humans and
recognition that we are faced with a degree of scientific uncertainty in our
decision making.

An emphasis on values, and the rights of elephants as opposed to that of
humans, should increasingly be balanced by a better understanding of what might
be called "elephant science."

I am therefore pleased to announce in this context that my Department will
contribute an initial R5 million this year to the research project proposed by
the Science Round Table, which consists of 21 scientists who have participated
with me in a series of discussions on elephant management.

They have proposed a comprehensive research plan that will hopefully reduce
the scientific uncertainty concerning elephants whilst we continue to deal with
our immediate challenges.

Ladies and gentlemen, I am satisfied that within the African context,
sustainable use of natural resources is necessary and appropriate. I also
insist, however, that the management of our natural resources should be
conducted ethically, humanely and rationally. Wilful cruelty to animals must be
condemned and avoided at all costs.

The Draft Norms and Standards is, I believe, a well balanced document that
addresses the interests and welfare of elephants in equal measure to the
options for controlling elephant populations.

As most observers will know, there are a wide range of options available for
reducing the negative impacts of elephants on biodiversity or human
livelihoods. These include:

* do nothing at all (or "leave it to nature")
* range expansion
* translocation of elephants to establish new populations or enhance existing
populations in other conservation areas
* modulating and moderating densities across space within and outside Protected
Areas (using fencing combined with water and food supply management)
* protecting ecologically sensitive areas by excluding elephants from
them
* creating exclosure and/or enclosure fencing within protected areas, with or
without manipulating water supplies, to protect highly sensitive species or
areas of particular biodiversity importance
* reducing birth rate by contraception to effect, in the long term, a reduction
in population growth rate or size
* improving and extending fencing to reduce human-elephant conflict
* increasing mortality by culling to reduce population numbers or cropping to
hold numbers stable
* combining these options based on local circumstances.

We have listened to numerous discussions about the merits and demerits of
the various management options. Some, such as culling and contraception I would
personally have preferred not to consider, but I am persuaded that all these
options have a potential role to play under different circumstances.

The DN&S therefore provide for population control of elephants using one
or more of the following options:

* range manipulation (meaning water supply management, enclosure or
exclosure, the creation of corridors of movement between different areas; or
the expansion of the range by acquisition of additional land)
* removal by translocation
* introduction of elephants
* contraception
* culling.

In regard to the more controversial options of culling and contraception,
decision making authorities will be guided by the DN&S principles which
state that:

* whilst contraception appears to be a promising measure to control the rate
of reproduction of elephants in certain limited circumstances, the long-term
social, physiological and emotional impacts on elephants are not yet fully
understood and current contraception methods are highly invasive and should
therefore be used with caution
* where lethal measures are necessary to manage an elephant or group of
elephants or to manage the size of elephant populations, these should be
undertaken with circumspection.

And the standard itself is that: Culling may be used to reduce the size of
an elephant population subject to *.due consideration of all other population
management options.

I want to emphasise that each proposed intervention will have to be part of
a site-specific integrated management plan that is subject to stakeholder
consultation and approval by the Minister or relevant MEC as the case may
be.

Ladies and gentlemen, the Draft Norms and Standards we are laying before you
today for comment are based on the best available information and on the
apparent consensus between those with extensive scientific knowledge of
elephants and those whose opinions are informed by a simple awareness of what
is right and wrong.

I am deeply grateful to the many stakeholders in civil society and
government, who have invested their time and intellect to guide the compilation
of these Draft Norms and Standards. I look forward to their continued
engagement on the matter.

The Draft Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in South
Africa will be published in the Government Gazette on Friday, 2 March 2007. I
encourage all stakeholders to study them carefully and to submit their comments
to the Department by 4 May 2007. As in the consultative process leading to the
publication of this draft, all inputs will be carefully considered before the
Norms and Standards are finalised and promulgated.

Finally, I want to emphasise that the Draft Norms and Standards merely
represent a new chapter in the ongoing debate about elephant management. Our
department does not pretend that this will be the final word. Their adoption
will not be a 'victory' for any given position; nor will it immediately lead to
the wholesale slaughter of elephants anywhere.

They are, in our view, a timely measure to ensure that we start on the
journey towards an improved understanding of the complex dynamic between
elephants and humans, and within eco-systems.

Note: The Draft Norms and Standards for the Management of Elephants in South
Africa will be published in the Government Gazette on Friday, 2 March 2007 for
60 days. Stakeholders should submit written comments by 4 May 2007 to: The
Director-General, Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Private Bag
X447, Pretoria, 0001. For attention: Mrs Thea Carroll. Enquiries should be
directed to Mrs Thea Carroll Tel: (012) 310 3799; e-mail: tcarroll@deat.gov.za, or fax number (012) 320
7026.

For further information, please contact:
Blessing Manale
Cell: 083 677 1630
Riaan Aucamp
Cell: 083 778 9923

Issued by: Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism
28 February 2007