SINDISA FOUNDATION
The Sindisa Foundation is a registered United Kingdom Charitable Trust with the objective of supporting wildlife and ecosystem conservation, sustainable rural development and environmental education in Southern Africa.
Through the generous support from everyone who donated to our Tracks 2 Africa expedition the Sindisa foundation have been able to initiate the long awaited study of the movements of elephants within the Gonarezhou National Park and the wider Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA). See below for futher information.
The funds donated played an important role in getting the project off the ground and allowing Sindisa to get additional backing from the Frankfurt Zoological Society.
For three days from the 12th July a team, headed by Hugo van der Westhuizen from Frankfurt Zoological Society, captured and collared eight elephant in three areas of the Park. The operation was successful - no casualties and all collars are functioning.
The latter stages of the collaring exercise was joined by Kingsley Holgate and his Boundless Southern Africa Expedition. Boundless is an initiative of all the countries involved in the TFCA Programme to promote the concept and develop the tourism that will sustain it. www.imagineering.co.za/boundlesssa/
ELEPHANT TRACKING SURVEY: Gonarezhou National Park, Zimbabwe Gonarezhou National Park (GNP) forms part of a Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) which stradles the borders between South Africa, Zimbabwe and Mozambique, creating the Greater Limpopo TFCA. As its name implies, Gonarezhou (Shangaan for 'the place of elephants') has a large population of elephants which it is believed will re-populate the adjacent Mozambique area. This anticpated movement of animals will be a significant guage of the success of the TFCA concept, which creates large tracts of land for wildlife to occupy. In the case of elephants it is hoped that it will provide an alternative to culling. The GNP has proposed a project to study the spatial distribution of elephants in and around the park in order to answer a host of ecological management questions and assess the potential for human-elephant conflict. The project will be 'headed' by Frankfurt Zoological Society and the National Park's ecologist with close monitoring and assistance from the Sindisa Foundation. The methodology is simple, albeit technologically advanced and relativeley expensive to initiate. Elephants are fitted with satellite tracking collars which allow high quality data to be collected quickly and easily. The project calls for up to 6 collars to be fitted to 3 bull and cow elephant in different areas of the GNP. We have personally financed the purchase of one satellite collar and will donate any additional funds raised from our expedition towards securing the other 6 collars required for the project. |
