Anti-Poaching & Conservation In South Africa

Thank you to our Donors, Fundraisers and Supporters! 

Striving for wildlife monitoring excellence and anti-poaching campaigns

Written by Zoe Biggs - Program Manager, GVI Limpopo

There’s been some exciting updates from the GVI Limpopo team since our last report.

Thanks to our generous donors and supporters, we’ve been able to purchase more equipment to add to our wildlife monitoring arsenal! Since our last update, we’ve managed to secure funds to purchase a new battery charging station (that can hold and charge a whopping 40 batteries at a time), plus 150 new AA rechargeable batteries that will be used to power our reserve-wide camera trapping study, as well as a VHF collar to be fitted to one of our elusive spotted hyena clan members! 

With the additional batteries and charging station, we will be able to monitor the focus species more effectively and consistently on the reserve, providing reserve partners (landowners and reserve management) more in-depth information and analysis on wildlife movement, abundance, richness, and diversity, allowing for more effective management and conservation of the reserve’s wildlife.

With the ability to set up all our camera traps in the field with the additional sponsored batteries, this will not only significantly increase the amount of area on the reserve being monitored, but also increase the frequency of us recording spatial utilization, as well as potentially behavioural and interactive data on our focus species and monitoring of the local rhino population. These funds allow us to support the anti-rhino poaching units with equipment and gear that they need to be effective - this includes camera traps to monitor locations and movements of the rhinos, rechargeable battery packs for communication devices to maintain contact with the anti-poaching units and general supplies and medicines.

None of this could be possible without the support of both our participants and partners in the field, as well as our alumni, friends, family, and partners all around the world. Since we reopened our hub in January 2021 after the COVID pandemic closed our doors, our work and impact in the area has continued to increase, and we can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for our program!

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for your support and engagement in our projects. 

Love, 

The GVI Limpopo Team

Thank you to our Donors, Fundraisers and Supporters!

Celebrating World Earth Day and Quarter 2 Successes!

The negative consequences of the pandemic were far reaching in every corner of the world, the province of Limpopo in South Africa included. The dramatic and sudden lockdown saw the closure of many local wildlife tourism businesses, putting a huge strain on the landowners and shareholders of Private Game Reserves that relied on this revenue to continue protecting its wildlife and supporting its people. The good news though, is the beginning of 2021 brought back some hope - in the form of our international visitors returning!

Here on Karongwe Private Game Reserve, GVI Limpopo operate in partnership with the reserve owners and management teams to assist with the monitoring of the wildlife here, benefiting the Anti-Poaching Unit (extra eyes and ears out and about) as well as the reserve manager (updating them with all wildlife movement and events). Our collaboration with GVI Charitable Programs enables us to obtain crucial funds which help our project stay alive!

Since our last report, and in honor of World Earth Day on the 22nd of April, the staff and participants of GVI Limpopo organised a week’s worth of challenges to raise funds for our project between the 19th - 23rd of April. We hit our goals of replanting three Marula tree saplings from our tree nursery back onto the reserve, as well as picking up litter from the entire R36 fenceline! This 18km tar highway runs parallel to a main highway, so unfortunately a lot of unwanted rubbish finds its way onto the reserve through the fence. Thanks to the amazing efforts of our staff and volunteers we managed to do our part in cleaning up our small but treasured section of the earth, with over 15 large garbage bags to show for it!
The engagement we received from our alumni and partners during this week was incredible, and we managed to fundraise almost US$300! Watch this space, as with these amazing donations we hope to purchase higher quality batteries to power all 52 of our sponsored Cuddeback flash camera traps, as right now we can only afford to place 20 out on the reserve with our current available batteries. With more camera traps out on the reserve we will be able to better monitor animal (and potentially people) movements across the reserve, directly benefiting both our wildlife database as well as the reserve management team in their attempt to keep track of vulnerable wildlife movements, such as the near threatened White Rhino.

None of this could be possible without your generous support. Since we’ve reopened our hub in January 2021, our work and impact in the area has continued to increase, and we can’t wait to see what the rest of the year has in store for our program!

From the bottom of our hearts, thank you so much for your support and engagement in our projects.