Belinda Low, Executive Director of the Nairobi-based Grevy's Zebra Trust, says her group's programs, which employ members of local communities as scouts and conservation workers, are helping maintain dialog between communities while providing new opportunities for education and employment. Grevy's Zebra Trust is working with communities to plan livestock grazing so that it can be used as a tool to replenish the land, rather than degrade it, "by ensuring that plants have adequate recovery time, and to break up bare, capped soil using livestock hooves so that rainfall capture improves and the right conditions are created for seeds to establish," Low explained. "This approach actually strengthens the pastoral way of life and in the long-term will strengthen the resource base that livestock (and thus community wealth) depends on."
Thought to number less than 3,000 individuals, Grevy's Zebra is primarily endangered due to degradation of its arid and semi-arid grass and shrubland habitat, increased hunting due to an influx of automatic weapons, and disease, which is exacerbated by loss of quality habitat. Its range includes an active conflict zone in southern Ethiopia and some parts of northern Kenya, a factor that has historically complicated conservation efforts.
In a September interview with mongabay.com, Low spoke about the Trust's efforts to protect Grevy's Zebra and its habitat while simultaneously helping local communities. Low will be presenting at the upcoming Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in San Francisco on October 3rd.
INTERVIEW WITH BELINDA LOW
GZT Grevy's zebra scout collecting data
Mongabay: What is your background and why did you choose Grevy's Zebra?
Belinda Low: I was born and raised in Kenya. My parents always took my brother and I on safari as babies and regularly as we were growing up, so my childhood was instrumental in shaping my love of wildlife and wild places and in particular my connection with Kenya. I did a four-year undergraduate degree in Hispanic Studies during which time I lived in Ecuador for a year studying language and literature at a university in Quito. A chance meeting with an American biologist in South America who told me the world was my oyster opened up the possibility of getting into conservation. I enrolled in a master's degree program in Conservation Biology at the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, UK in 1999. After graduating, I returned straight home to Kenya and received a call from Lewa Wildlife Conservancy shortly afterwards asking me if I would be interested in studying zebras and I thought why not? The study was looking at competition between plains and Grevy's zebra and sounded really interesting, particularly as Grevy's zebra is endangered. At the time I was not aware of the serious decline that Grevy's zebra had undergone in my own lifetime as I had seen them regularly in Samburu when I was growing up and none of my family or friends in Kenya or abroad were aware either.
Mongabay: What distinguishes Grevy's Zebra from other zebra species?
Grevy's Zebra. Courtesy of Grevy's Zebra Trust
Plains Zebra. Photo by Rhett A. Butler
Belinda Low: Well, I probably sound biased, but Grevy's zebra are much more impressive to look at! They are the largest of the three zebra species found in Africa (the other two being the plains zebra found in grasslands throughout sub-Saharan Africa and the mountain zebra found in the mountain grasslands of South-West Africa). The main differences are that Grevy's zebra stripes are much narrower, they have white bellies, very large, rounded ears and brown muzzles.
Socially they are also quite different. Because they live in semi-arid and arid environments, resources within their range are patchily distributed. Breeding males therefore defend territories containing water and grazing resources that are required by females, while surplus males move around in bachelor herds. Females are separated by the needs of their reproductive status, for example, lactating females need to be near water so that they can produce enough milk for their foals, while non-lactating females can afford to seek pastures further away. Grevy's zebra are therefore socially fluid unlike the other two zebra species which are water-dependent and organized in tight-knit harems.
Mongabay: The population of Grevy's Zebra has declined significantly in recent decades, what are presently the biggest threats to the species? Do you see risks to Grevy's Zebra from climate change?
The historic and present distribution of Grevy's zebra in the Horn of Africa (data assimilated from Kingdon, 1979, 1997; Yalden et al., 1986). Map and caption courtesy of the Grevy's Zebra Trust
Belinda Low: Threats vary in type and severity across the range of Grevy's zebra. For example, the more northern populations where there are ethnic groups that eat zebra are most threatened by illegal killing because firearms have increased and hunting is no longer fair game. In Samburu, where it is taboo to eat single-hoofed animals, Grevy's zebra are not hunted. However, they are most under threat there from loss of habitat due to land degradation and more recently from disease, which is actually brought on by the decline in resources in three ways: Grevy's zebra lose body condition which increases their susceptibility to disease; when they are forced to graze very close to the soil, the risk of ingesting anthrax spores increases; and with animals concentrated in smaller areas with the remaining resources, their exposure to parasites increases. Finally, access to water is a major issue threatening the survival of foals [young zebra]. Females tend to time births with the wet seasons when resources are available, however, in years when rains fail, the grazing areas are located far from water and the journey that females and foals have to make is a long one, placing an energetic strain on the foals which can lead to high foal mortality.
I think your question about climate change is a really good one and I'd like to answer it in two parts. First, in a global context, the impact that the whole world has on this planet is extremely significant for an endangered species like Grevy's zebra because it lives in such a fragile ecosystem. So in a sense, yes, there is a risk to Grevy's zebra from climate change because already the rangelands which they depend on are rapidly deteriorating. If rainfall becomes more erratic and decreases, our work to rehabilitate rangelands becomes even more challenging.
Poached Grevy's zebra being discussed by herders and the GZT team
Second, I think there is a tendency to blame climate change for the increase in severity and frequency of the droughts we experience when actually they are largely human-induced: with denuded rangeland, any rainfall received either runs off or evaporates. So the key is to recover plants in order to cover bare soil so that what rain does fall it is captured. If the rangeland was covered in grass and we had a bad rainfall year, people would just refer to it as a dry year rather than a drought. The other benefit of covered soil is that it harnesses carbon and thus can help to mitigate climate change but unfortunately the importance of the role of grasslands in carbon capture is often ignored. So as far as Grevy's zebra are concerned, focusing on recovering the rangeland through planned grazing is critical to their future. While we cannot control the amount and timing of rainfall, we can control the effectiveness of that rain when it hits the ground, and that is going to be key in recovering plants.
Mongabay: Has conflict in Ethiopia had an impact on Grevy's Zebra?
Digging wells for Grevy's zebra during the drought
Belinda Low: Yes, but there are two sides to this coin. On the one side, conflict between rival ethnic groups has had a negative impact. For example, some pastoral groups will camp at water to protect themselves better from being raided. This prohibits access to water for Grevy's zebra and in the dry season is a serious cause of mortality. Some groups also eat Grevy's zebra as subsistence food and because they are well-armed for fighting, a zebra has no chance against an automatic rifle.
On the other side of the coin, water and grazing resources in conflict-torn areas tend to be in good supply because pastoralists are unable to stay for long due to the insecurity. So Grevy's zebra and other wildlife get the chance to flourish in these circumstances, but they live in constant fear of man.
Mongabay: Given that human populations in the region are desperately poor and often dependent on livestock, what are your strategies to compel local people to care about wildlife? Are there community benefits from conservation?
Mongabay.com is an environmental science and conservation news website.
