FENCING
We’ve all seen them as we drive through the bushveld, as we enter a reserve or as our guide takes us searching for an illusive ‘sighting’. Fences; the fortresses walls around our conservation strongholds. They are found across southern Africa but are particularly common in South Africa where they are used to separate humans and wildlife. But do fences actually hold any value? In a similar way to trophy hunting, fences are an extremely controversial conservation management technique.
The arguments for fencing pertain to their ability to stop the spread of disease and invasive species, to demarcate land and to prevent human wildlife conflict. Humans and wildlife do not get on and whenever they come into contact conflict is the most common result. Wild species raid crops, kill livestock and threaten humans. Humans retaliate by killing wildlife, sometimes even with no evidence of a direct threat. This is where fences come in. By separating humans and wildlife we can prevent conflict. And it is no surprise that support for fencing is strongly correlated with human and cattle population density. Through erecting fences we are able to demarcate land to identify that which is for wildlife and that which is for humans. This is extremely valuable as it provides a visual marker of who owns which piece of land and what it is to be used for. However this is where the controversy starts. Land ownership rules in southern Africa have historically been very flexible. People used land sustainably for necessary resources such as water. So by erecting a fence trespassers are immediately created out of anyone who crosses this barrier. The result of which is, naturally, conflict.
So it seems that from a socio-economic standpoint, fences can either prevent conflict or can cause conflict. And by transferring this conflict from human-wildlife to human-human we may have just made the problem so much worse as unfortunately fencing wire just happens to be the perfect material for setting traps and making snares.
Ecologically speaking, the demarcation of land using fences offers a way to create reserves to protect wildlife from negative outside influences. This is very valuable and has been proven over and over again through the establishment of protected areas. We actually have fences to thank for the extant nature of some species such as the African wild dogs and cheetah which are so endangered that they require intense management in fenced reserves.
“ALTHOUGH FENCING CAN HAVE CONSERVATION BENEFITS, IT ALSO HAS COSTS. WHEN CONTIGUOUS HABITATS ARE CONVERTED INTO ISLANDS, THE RESULTING SMALL AND ISOLATED POPULATIONS ARE PRONE TO EXTINCTION.”
Woodroffe, Hedges & Durant, 2014.
It is all well and good having wildlife in protected areas, but what happens when that wildlife wants to move? Fences significantly affect wildlife movement and migrations and essentially create ‘islands’ between which animals cannot move. The effect of constraining the movement of wildlife was detailed in the 1960s by MacArthur and Wilson in their ‘Island Biogeography Theory’. Inbreeding, over population, over grazing and resultant trophic cascades generally occur when animals are prevented from moving between populations. But it is not just the animals which fences are established to contain which are affected. Species such as pangolins and tortoises are frequently found electrocuted at the base of fences and they try to pass under them. There have even been cases of poorly maintained fences electrocuting any animal which comes into contact with it. So fences are considered seriously negative in limiting the capacity of wildlife to move to breed, to feed and to adapt to new conditions.
This is all the more poignant in the 21st century when almost every conservation debate must consider climate change which has the potential to entirely alter environments within fences. Such alterations would normally be migrated away from by animals, but fences sit right in the way of migratory pathways. We have seen snapshots of this with the death of large ungulate populations in northern Botswana. This particular population was migrating towards water bodies during a drought when their pathway was blocked by a fence. Essentially, fences may stop animals from being able to adapt sufficiently to cope with climate change. And so we could be conserving a species for a future that it will not be suited to.
And yet the plot thickens as the chances of removing all fences and this solving all the problems of animal movement is very slim. Yes, there would be some movement, but unfortunately the areas inside fences today are relics that we are desperately trying to hold on to in a now very human dominated landscape. This means that even if there weren’t fences stopping animals from moving, the intensity of human development might limit animals from moving anyway due to a lack of suitable habitat, suitable prey and the pressing concern of conflict. So perhaps a better solution is one where fenced corridors are established between protected areas to allow wildlife to migrate in response to changing seasons and climates. Such a solution is viable but would require intense management and maintenance.
And this does not come cheap. Which is a serious problem in southern Africa where money is notably scarce. A lack of management and maintenance renders a fence completely useless. Despite this, southern Africa continues its love affair with fences. In 2015, Liwonde National Park in Malawi began to be fenced and in 2017 it was announced that Pendjari National Park in Benin would be fenced.
“FENCES CAN MEANINGFULLY LIMIT THE NEGATIVE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF WILDLIFE ON PEOPLE. BY DOING SO, FENCING CAN ALSO GENERATE OTHER, LESS OBVIOUS BENEFITS, SUCH AS IMPROVED RELATIONS BETWEEN [PROTECTED AREA]S AND LOCAL COMMUNITIES, AS COMMUNITIES MAY RECOGNIZE AND APPRECIATE FENCING AS AN EFFORT BY AUTHORITIES TO HELP PROTECT PEOPLE AND THEIR PROPERTY.”
Pekor et al. 2019
We can break it down quite simply. Fences are costly, they have serious ecological impacts, they require intense management and can cause conflict with local communities. But they stop human-wildlife conflict, they allow for the easy management of disease and they make land ownership and demarcation easier too. So it is unusual in that this conservation aid could actually be detrimental in the long run. Some say that fences demonstrate how we are failing in our mission for biodiversity conservation. But really, at the moment, what other option do we have?
Aside from the obvious metal wire, fence and pole idea of fences there are some other, less tangible fencing options such as scent fences to separate territorial animals or bee fences to limit elephant movement. These are innovative and effective, however they are very costly and labour intensive. Or maybe we’re better off back to how it used to be. Centuries ago humans would fence themselves in to stop wildlife from raiding their resources, maybe we can return to a similar system where sites of conflict, rather than wildlife, are fenced in. Its a novel idea, but would require humans to live harmoniously with their fellow species…perish the thought!
In the current state of conflict between humans and wildlife removing all the fences around protected areas would be disastrous. So fencing is very similar to trophy hunting. Its not ideal, frankly if we had our utopian world of communities living in harmony with the wildlife and wild spaces around them then fencing would never have to play a role in conservation. But unfortunately conflict exists and until such a point that this conflict is removed, fences will have to be part of our solutions.