Water for Wildlife

Hwange is situated in an area that has minimal natural surface water available during the long dry winter (May – November). Without the provision of artificial water supplies during this time, the wildlife won’t survive.

Friends of Hwange maintains the boreholes and solar-powered pumps that draw from the bountiful underground water supply, ensuring that water is reliably delivered into the surface pans in the Main Camp area of the Park. During the dry season, competition for water at these artificially pumped pans intensifies as natural sources dry up, peaking in October–November. Just before the onset of the rains extreme heat can reduce waterholes to undrinkable mud. In severe droughts, demand exceeds supply, and elephants can be heard fiercely competing for water, while the surrounding vegetation is stripped away. Constant borehole maintenance is critical during this period.

When the rains arrive and natural water is replenished throughout the Park, elephants and buffalo herds disperse south and beyond the Park in search of better grazing. They return in April–May as the natural water dwindles, by which time the pans have refilled and vegetation has recovered. This migration cycle repeats annually.

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Fire Management & Road Maintenance

Every year Friends of Hwange assists in fire management: early-season controlled burns that promote healthy vegetation, and later annual firebreak maintenance.

Fire is well recognized as a valuable wildlife management tool rather than a threat to be suppressed. Controlled “cool block burns” are done while vegetation is still green to clear dead growth and inedible grass without damaging living plants, speeding nutrient return to soil, promoting regeneration, and reducing tick and mite populations. Some indigenous trees depend on fire to germinate and without periodic burning forests become stagnant and overgrown rather than healthy and open.

After the rains, thick bush and long grass become vital dry-season grazing that must be protected from late-season “hot burns,” which can severely damage forests and grassland. Firebreaks – cleared gaps in vegetation – are the primary line of defense. Preparing effective firebreaks requires tractors to harrow parallel tracks through the terrain, followed by carefully controlled burning between the tracks, to establish bare areas to prevent or slow the progress of wildfire. Poachers frequently set fires to clear bush for better visibility, herd animals and even to divert ranger attention, making fire mitigation an anti-poaching tool as well as an ecological one.

Decent roads provide access to the water holes, double as firebreaks, and are critical for safety and quick response in the event of runaway bushfires – so Friends of Hwange maintains a network of roads in the Park.

Maintaining an effective network of firebreaks and roads across difficult terrain is costly, requiring fuel for tractors, chainsaws and blowers; repairs and maintenance to vehicles and equipment, and fair wages for workers undertaking the demands of this work.

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Resource Protection

Friends of Hwange works to protect biodiversity by supporting ZimParks and other state institutions that have the mandate to protect the fauna and flora in and around Hwange National Park.

Anti-poaching: The land which neighbours the unfenced Park comprises national forests, communal areas and privately owned ranches which are home to a wide variety of wildlife species and habitats. State institutions are generally underfunded to fully protect their areas of concern, facing ongoing challenges like bushmeat snaring or hunting with dogs, rampant tree cutting, poisoning and ivory poaching. The Friends of Hwange ranger teams assist with anti-poaching and law enforcement activities along the northern and eastern boundaries of the National Park, patrolling 365 days each year.

Human-Wildlife Conflict Mitigation: Solutions to human-wildlife conflict benefit rural farmers as well as animal populations. Surrounding Hwange, this pertains mainly to human-elephant or human-predator conflict. Free-ranging elephants are attracted to water sources and crops in communal areas – this can lead to dangerous confrontations and loss of food for the villagers and their families. Cattle herders who graze their livestock in or close to the Park attract predators, like hyena and lion, into communities with the easy availability of prey. To address these unwanted incursions, work focuses on two main goals:

1. Helping rural communities mitigate human-wildlife conflict while building their capacity to handle such issues independently.
2. Engaging communities near Hwange National Park to build conservation awareness and a sense of ownership over natural resources to demonstrate tangible benefit-sharing and employment creation to encourage protection of wild animals and their habitat.

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