The Elephant Dilemma: A Long-term Perspective on the Management of African Savannas - Biodiversity Conservation and Environmental Change - page 29

variability in both animals and vegetation, and an indication of when the resilience of both
habitats and populations might be in danger of being exceeded.
The elephant story presented in this chapter illustrates just how drastically conservation
strategies can be influenced by human perceptions and values; if savannas are perceived as
fragile equilibrium systems, then increasing elephant abundances can be viewed as destruc-
tive, and a rationale for culling can be constructed based on an ideal of preventing change
through management intervention. If savannas are perceived as variable, however, then
changes in elephant numbers might be perceived as normal, and only a historical perspective
can help in determining whether changes taking place today are within the normal range of
variability, whether they are simply a recovery from past decades or even centuries of human
intervention, or whether they are an unprecedented state with no past analogue. Present-day
concern over losses of large trees due to increasing elephant populations could be completely
re-framed if viewed in terms of a recovery of more open, grassy vegetation and a return of
elephant numbers to their pre-colonial levels. The perspective may change again if future sce-
narios of increasing CO 2 and tree density are taken into account. Furthermore, local context
and stakeholder needs and preference also need to be considered. Finally, if poaching con-
tinues at current rates, we may no longer have the luxury of pondering the question of whether
there are too many elephants, or too many trees (Bennett 2014, Wittemyer et al. 2014).
The concept of TPCs, developed as part of the adaptive management strategy in the Kruger
National Park, provides a means of integrating knowledge of long-term change, resilience,
and social preference into useable management targets. A TPC for the structure and compos-
ition of vegetation has replaced the failed policy of elephant culling, and potentially allows
scope for accommodating the preferences of tourists and other user groups while maintain-
ing the integrity of elephant habitat for the benefit of biodiversity of the Park. The widespread
applicability of the TPC concept, and the synergies with long-term data from palaeoecology,
are as yet poorly explored, but provide exciting potential for developing conservation targets
that are embedded in the ecology of dynamism and flux.

Box 2.1 Embedding a long-term perspective into savanna management
and elephant conservation

Conservation challenge : Adaptive flexible man-
agement thresholds are needed to conserve ecosys-
tems effectively in a dynamic and changing world.
TPC (or limits of acceptable change) provide a basis
for flexible, adaptive management approaches that
accommodate variability, but there is a need for
long-term data in order to understand the historical
or natural range of variability.

field, and there is a need to convert fossil pol-
len and other proxy data into metrics that are
understandable and useful to conservation plan-
ners and managers. In savannas, tree density or
woody cover, for example, are much more useful
to ecologists and managers than the percentage
of arboreal pollen. Furthermore, palaeoecologists
need to join the conversation about what consti-
tutes TPC that are ecologically realistic—and be
prepared to change their minds as new informa-
tion emerges.

Palaeoecological challenge : Palaeoecological
data is often inaccessible to those outside of the