Lessons from Londolozi
Blue-eyed and with golden-brown hair, Donovan Joseph Heyneke, should more aptly be ‘sighted’ on the pages of a Hollywood magazine. But attired in his khakis, this 25-year-old’s territory is the wilds of South Africa where he is ‘spotted’ in open vehicles engaging in a job for which he has an obsession.
‘Tamboti’ captured by Don
A game ranger and photographic guide, Don who turned 25 on May 26, has made a home for himself in the past three and a half years at Londolozi, famed for its leopards, set in the very heart of the privately-owned 65,000-hectare Sabi Sands Game Reserve, adjacent to the renowned Kruger National Park (KNP).
Londolozi with its conviction that man and wild animal can interact on a sustainable basis is said to provide a “holistic experience” for those who wish to have an exclusive wildlife viewing experience. Covering 15,000 hectares, Londolozi is very close to the size of Block 1 of the Yala National Park in southern Sri Lanka.
In Sri Lanka, on a two-week visit as part of an exchange programme between Londolozi and Leopard Trails — a private bespoke tented-guided safari operation bordering the Yala and Wilpattu National Parks — it is on the rainy and gloomy Thursday of May 19 that the Sunday Times meets Don to be ‘transported’ to Londolozi through a passionate description, video and photographs.
This is before he delivers a presentation to the Wildlife and Nature Protection Society and leaves the next day to Yala with Leopard Trails officials to get a glimpse of Sri Lanka’s very own magnificent Big Cat, the leopard, along with other charismatic animals such as the elephant and the sloth bear.
Later we hear that Don has had 14 sightings of leopard at Yala but has not been able to access the Wilpattu National Park due to the heavy floods and landslides that have wracked the country. Empathising with the thousands of men, women and children hit by these disasters, his face clouds over at their plight.
Gently describing the “huge potential” of this country in which he has seen so much diversity not only in its wildlife, beaches, culture and history but also its food, Don turns the spotlight on his home which is Londolozi, now a model in far-sighted and progressive management of land and rehabilitation as well as community involvement.
Intense pride is what we see in his eyes as he talks of the leopards of Londolozi, with a particular leopardess having a soft spot in his heart, sometimes even making his girlfriend “a little bit jealous”. Identifying her as ‘Tamboti’ (Poison Tree), for an area in Londolozi known for such trees is her family’s territory, he says that his favourite leopardess is from a famous lineage, the coats of which resemble the golden-hue of sunset. He has ‘pursued’ this beauty and ‘captured’ her alone and with her two cubs on film.
Describing how they carry out ‘lineage identification’ of leopards at Londolozi, he initiates us to the spot-pattern technique they introduced back in 1979 (which now Leopard Trails is using at Yala with advice from Londolozi), where they count the number of spots above the whisker-line of the leopard, which is unique to each animal. They have thus identified 70 from five different lineages at Londolozi and he is quick to show us many a sleek creature on his laptop.
How Londolozi habituated (got wild animals including leopards accustomed to human presence) is a tale of toil and perseverance. It had been in 1979, after a hard day of bush clearing when Londolozi Founders John and Dave Varty were driving back to camp that they saw a leopardess about 40 metres before them, appearing out of nowhere, snarling at them and vanishing in not more than 30 seconds. It was the first they had spotted in over a decade. Thereafter, had begun a quest for John and master tracker Elmon Mhlongo to track this leopardess, viewing her from 200m, 150m and after a year of persistence at 20m. This is the habituating process adopted at Londolozi, so that there is minimal impact on the wild animal.
“In the next 12 years, John and Elmon turned ‘nocturnal creatures’ closely following and documenting the movements of this ‘Mother Leopard’, in time capturing incredible footage including leopard mating that had not been seen before,” says Don, adding that it required sensitivity, patience and trial-and-error, for leopards are shy, solitary creatures. John and Elmon opened a ‘window’ into their lives, with a balance of trust and understanding. This is the special relationship and kinship that have developed with all creatures that roam Londolozi. It is also how the ‘Leopards of Londolozi’ were born, allowing the viewing of the 8th generation descendants of the Mother Leopard and many more as well as the other six of the ‘Magnificent Seven’ that Africa is famous for – the lion, the buffalo, the elephant, the rhinoceros, the cheetah and the wild dog.
For Don, his love affair with nature had begun as a toddler, when his family was living on “a small bit of farmland” in Johannesburg. Sometimes when his mother Bernice came into his room, the little boy would be missing, having climbed out of the window in his nappy and gum-boots to gambol around the cattle. Most probably, nature is ingrained in his genes, he concedes, for his father Jacques and his grandfather had also been naturalists.
Having come across Londolozi through an educational video when he was at “a career junction”, wondering whether to take to veterinary science or be with wild animals, the lure of this game reserve was that it is “a large family”.
“Gruelling” had been the six-month all-round training he endured here which included use of firearms, four-wheel driving, guiding techniques, tracking animals for days on foot, how to approach a dangerous animal and the ethics when one comes across a dangerous animal such as never-ever feeding it. The trainees would also garner an in-depth knowledge on trees, reptiles, amphibians, mammals et al, while learning the ancient art of tracking animals by seeing and hearing all the little tell-tale signs.
Pointing out that rangers and trackers spend eight hours a day with each other, he quips that “it is more time than what I spend with my girlfriend”. The bond between ranger and tracker is so strong that the ranger can read and understand the body language of the tracker thoroughly. “We speak the same language and there is huge body chemistry.”
Londolozi with 20 rangers and 20 trackers places a limitation of 15 vehicles in the reserve, with only three vehicles allowed per sighting of animals at a given time. The rangers who are in radio contact with each other ward off any other vehicles. (Incidentally, the exact opposite has been happening in Sri Lankan National Parks over the years.) “With such limitations, the impact on animals is reduced, while maintaining the exclusivity factor for visitors,” says Don. This luxury 32-room, 64-bed wildlife resort has a staff strength of 260, mainly from around the reserve, thus providing sustenance to about 2,000 people.
The state-owned KNP was proclaimed in 1926, while privately-owned Londolozi was also established the same year.
It is, however, the rise of an old cattle farm with four crumbling mud huts in 1972 to a leading private luxury safari resort in Africa in just 18 years and having the privilege of winning fellowship status from Relais & Chateaux that is described vividly by Don.
Londolozi is part of the 3.8 million-hectare Greater Limpopo Transfrontier Park, the largest of its kind in the world, linking the KNP in South Africa, the Limpopo National Park in Mozambique and the Gonarezhou National Park in Zimbabwe.
The seeds for the growth of Londolozi had taken root over a couple of gin and tonics at a tennis party, when Charles Boyd Varty and Frank Unger heard about cattle farms sinking into bankruptcy due to lions and harsh conditions. Why not have their very own hunting ground, they thought. It was, however, only in July 1926 that they made their way to the abandoned cattle farm they had bought.
Don: Obsessed with Londolozi. Pic by Amila Gamage
The land though was changing slowly but surely and the owners whose visits were seasonal had been oblivious to it. Cattle ranching had caused soil compaction and downgraded the ecosystem. Over-grazing and soil-hardening were making the wetlands disappear and the savannah grasslands were being overrun by encroaching chin-high shrub. The rapid spread of hoof-and-mouth disease among the cattle, meanwhile, put the final nails on the coffin of cattle-farming in 1938.
In 1969, tragedy struck the Varty family, with the sudden death of their father. Sons John and Dave were 18 and 15 years old. Their father though left an important legacy – the fundamental notion that would define ecotourism in Africa in the future………that the wildlife of Africa would not survive if it did not become an economically-viable entity.
Londolozi’s “defining moment” came then, with the beginnings of an ambitious journey into safaris and hospitality. Flipping through a Zulu dictionary in 1972, John had stumbled upon the name Londolozi which means “protector of all living things” and this is what Londolozi’s mission statement, relevant even today, states: “We aim to create a model in wise land management by using the many qualities of the natural systems and by integrating our visitors with the environment and the local people to the benefit of all. Our primary objective is to demonstrate that man and wildlife can interact on a sustainable basis.”
“If I can eat it, if I can shoot it, if I can photograph it, then that is what I’ll do. I will make money out of it,” the Varty brothers thought, with hunting giving way to the idea of photographic safaris and interpretation of wildlife, beginning with just one Land Rover. As aspiring conservationists, they tried out everything — walking safaris when the Land Rover was broken which was often and canoe safaris which ended when a hippopotamus bit their only canoe in half.
While they also pondered how to rehabilitate the land and why the animals were disappearing, the turning point for Londolozi came in 1979, when John and Dave met out-of-the-box thinker Ken Tinley who told them “to partner with the land” and restore the water table, on the basis that if the land was protected, the animals would take care of themselves. By doing this, they would be able to reconnect with animals and invite local people to participate in the preservation of the area.
That’s what the brothers did, closing up eroded ravines; re-routing roads that had been built on seep-lines (a layer of sand sitting directly above clay which would hold moisture); re-routing or re-directing firebreaks; creating grassed waterways; and clearing bush encroachers. As the water-table rose, the grasslands re-emerged and the game re-appeared.
Based on the principles of ‘care of land, care of wildlife and care of people’, Londolozi has now become a development model in eco-tourism. Londolozi has also set up the Good Work Foundation through which world-class education has been made accessible to rural communities living on the border of the Sabi Sands Game Reserve, while the Tracker Academy provides opportunities to them to learn this art and seek jobs in the eco-tourism industry.
Now Boyd Varty of the fourth generation is looking towards the future with the vision of making Londolozi more sustainable, off the grid, litter-free and strengthening the community, with the norm being ‘I am because you are’, says Don, adding that it’s all to do with ‘a family affair’.
What better testament is needed on Londolozi than what anti-apartheid crusader and former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela who visited it in 1992 had said: “During my long walk to freedom, I had the rare privilege to visit Londolozi. There I saw people of all races living in harmony amongst the beauty that Mother Nature offers. There I saw a living lion in the wild. Londolozi represents a model of the dream I cherish for the future of nature preservation in our country.”