Saving Planet Earth
Jack Osbourne: Saving Elephants
In Africa, the "elephant wars" of the Seventies and Eighties saw elephant populations decimated by poaching and the trade in ivory.
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Now, control of the ivory trade has changed the picture with the decline in elephant numbers being reversed.
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Yet this has created a new conflict – elephants and humans live side-by-side in the deserts of Namibia, competing for vital food and water.
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Jack Osbourne takes up the desert challenge to see what is being done to stop a second elephant war from breaking out.
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Travelling through the desert, Jack sees the elephants in their natural habitat and cannot help but fall in love with them. He comments: "Like in a zoo, they seem tame. You want to run and give them a big hug."
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However, as he later witnesses, these wild animals can be far from gentle – especially when looking for something to drink. Jack sees the destruction they have wrought on a local water supply, crushing a water storage tank built to withstand vast amounts of water pressure but defenceless against the strength of an elephant.
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"It just goes to show how powerful these creatures are – it's insane. And it's all because these animals are thirsty. These elephants, when they come to these watering holes, mean business. They ain't screwing around," says Jack.
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For the local Himba and Herrero people, incidents such as this mean that their relationship with the elephants is far from loving.
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As one local man explains: "There's a phrase in Herrero that goes 'bulls that fight one another don't lick each other's wounds' – which means elephants have done a lot of damage to me. They have destroyed every crop that I've produced. So, I don't think I'll ever tolerate elephants in my life because I don't expect any benefits. To me, they must just go."
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For Jack, this view is difficult to reconcile with his own feelings: "It's a strange position to be in right now because we come from the West, and we're told these elephants are amazing, great, fantastic creatures, and we protect them. But when you come to a place where they roam free, for the most part what we've been told is they're basically giant rats – just destructive machines."
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One man working to unite the locals and the elephants is Garth Owen-Smith. He has helped to develop community-based conservation through his work for the charity Integrated Rural Development & Nature Conservation (IRDNC).
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The project tracks the movement of the elephants while also working with the local Himba and Herrero people to build a fresh and effective ecology. Where locals once used to hunt elephants, they now protect them.
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Speaking about the success of the programme, Piet Hiteraki, a local poacher turned gamekeeper says: "It wasn't my aim to kill these animals – it was because of hunger. My life has improved greatly and so have the lives of people in my community because there's now wildlife in the area."
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A £10 donation to the 91Èȱ¬ Wildlife Fund (charity number 1119286) could help Integrated Rural Development and Nature Conservation pay the salary of a community game guard for one week.
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