Wildlife conservation in Namibia is probably the best-managed in Africa, with a very strong NGO movement, community programmes and unwavering support from the government for a policy than includes sustainable use and hunting. One of the latest initiatives sees the establishment of the GOSCARS, which will reward those who have performed beyond their line of duty in community conservation activities.

The first annual Grassroots Owen-Smith Community Rangers awards (GOSCARs) will be presented on the morning of Thursday, 7 April this year at Wererldsend Environmental Center where Garth Owen-Smith and Dr Margie Jacobsohn lived and where Garth was buried two years ago on 9 April. Conservancy leaders, MEFT and NGO staff are invited to attend to celebrate Garth’s life and work through the recognition of the award winners – all of whom work on the front-line of community conservation for conservancies – and who have excelled at their jobs. This inaugural ceremony will be attended by Garth’s family, none of whom were able to attend his funeral due to Covid travel restrictions. 

The awards recognise the men and women who work and walk in the field. These are the people the late Garth Owen-Smith would want to be honoured in his name. They represent the original concept with which Namibia’s internationally recognised community-based natural resource management programme started.

The annual GOSCAR awards will serve to remind us all that this is the front line of community-based conservation. Without community fieldworkers there would be no community-based conservation in Namibia; no communal conservancies; no communal forests; no communal fish reserves; and a lot less wildlife. The winners’ conservancies, and if appropriate their traditional authorities, will also get a small award, recognising that it is the people that live with wildlife and other valuable natural resources who hold the future of conservation in their hands.

Namibian community-based conservation started with the appointment of community game guards by a few traditional leaders in Kunene, and then later in what was the Caprivi, now Zambezi. This early work, pioneered by Garth Owen-Smith, was enabled by a small grant from the Endangered Wildlife Trust that covered community game guard rations and small salaries. These men were the foot-soldiers who stopped rampant illegal hunting in the early 1980s and who, with their far-sighted leaders and supportive community members, laid the foundation for hat is today a vigorous national programme, supported by government and various NGOs. 

Those nearly-forgotten days were difficult on two fronts; community-based conservation went against the apartheid policies in place at the time, as well as against conventional conservation thinking. Communities were seen as conservation’s problem, not the solution. Those promoting community-empowerment were seen as subversive and a threat to the government of the day. With community support, pioneers such as Garth Owen-Smith, Chris Eyre, Lukas Mbomboro and others prevailed. After Namibia’s independence in 1990, the new government’s early realism resonated with the community-based approach that recognised valuable wildlife- and other natural resources as community-owned, and that linked rights to responsibilities. 

The GOSCAR awards thus aim to promote community-based natural resource management by going back to its roots – recognising the men and women at the front line as well as acknowledging responsible conservancies and related community-based organisation which are accountable to their members and fulfil their purpose. Nominations for the GOSCARs have been called for and the process is being co-ordinated by the Namibia Chamber of Environment. A small committee chaired by Dr Margaret Jacobsohn will select finalists from nominations. Beavan Munali, former assistant director of the IRDNC, and former chair of the Zambezi Regional Council, is also a judge, along with two others. The information provided about the finalists will be checked in the field. 

The winning men and women will receive a cash prize and framed certificate. The inaugural ceremony will also commemorate Garth’s life. These awards have been made possible by the generosity of hundreds of people  in Namibia and internationally, who contributed to the Garth Owen-Smith Memorial Fund. The funds are lodged with the Namibian Chamber of Environment, which is doing the administration at no cost and will assist the judging panel with rising funds for the annual ceremony and other costs.

Website: https://n-c-e.org/

By Leslie van der Merwe

 The ugliest pig you will ever see is a warthog.  Bushpigs are not glamorous, and giant forest hogs must have myopic lovers. But a long forehead, wide mouth and jaw, facial warts and a grey leathery skin with spiky hair is not exactly Miss Piggy’s greatest dream. Thick callouses on their front legs, where their wrists would be, and a hard snout caked with dirt from all the rooting.  And then those triangular-shaped bottom tusks, rapier sharp, that have been the death of so many dogs. And leopards. And cheetah.

But warthogs have beautiful ivory.  Those massive tusks curling up have every hunter’s heart skip a beat. And the bigger, the better. They did not get big by chance. These old boars are a challenge to hunt, because they are not stupid. At the first whiff of danger they are off, tails straight up in the air.

 

I have hunted and shot the old boars, including those with one tusk half the size of the other.

Many years ago I bought a Ruger Super Blackhawk revolver in 44 Magnum, and carried it as a backup on buffalo and countless bushveld hunts.

I shot a warthog, at 15 paces, in a maize field. He was happily chomping on a corn cob when the 240-grain lead bullet ended his life.  The farmer was happy. So was I. No one asked the warthog.

Spuddy, my son’s Maltese-cross Jack-Russell (plus who knows what) always helps on a rifle hunt, his nose close to the ground, following a blood trail, absolutely fearless.

I have shot many warthog, and have my share of trophies.  They say you can’t eat a trophy.  I say you can eat a young, corn-fed warthog.  Juicy, tender and delicious.

A signed copy of the book is available from www.gamechef.co.za

Warthog Fillet with Onions and Red Peppers

 This is a simple, one-pan recipe that brings out the sweetness of the onion, tomatoes and the peppers. Adding the garlic towards the end of the cooking process gives the dish a kick.

 Ingredients

2 warthog fillets (backstrap can be substituted)

1 large onion sliced

1 red pepper sliced

 1 yellow pepper sliced

 4 cherry tomatoes sliced in half

 2 cloves garlic chopped fine

 2 knobs butter

 olive oil

 1 pinch oregano

 salt and black pepper

Method

Slice the warthog fillets into medallions, and season with salt and pepper.  Using a skillet or heavy frying pan, add the butter and when hot fry the medallions, until they colour.  Remove from the skillet and set aside.  Add a slug of olive oil, and when hot add the onion and peppers, and sauté.  Return the meat to the pan, add the oregano and garlic, and reduce the heat.  Cook through, adjusting the seasoning.

Serving Suggestion

Serve with a starch of your choice.

From the Cape to Kasserine – Craig Boddington (Safari Press, 2018, 324 pages.)

Review by Ken Bailey

This is the fourth book in Craig Boddington’s series describing his African hunting adventures; he writes one every decade, but for my money this is the best yet. Boddington is without doubt the preeminent contemporary writer of African hunting tales, and reading From the Cape to Kasserine it’s easy to understand why.

To begin, his writing style is never pretentious; it’s simple, down to earth and easy-reading. You never have to work, you just sit back and enjoy. Boddington also avoids the self-worshipping so many others fall prey to. He’s typically very self-effacing, not shy about relating his blown stalks, missed shots, or his fear of snakes. In essence, he’s just like the rest of us, and that relatability is in large measure why so many enjoy his books. Boddington is also enjoying a hunting life many of us aspire to, and living vicariously through his exploits helps get us through those long winter nights.

In From the Cape to Kasserine you’ll find the usual suspects you’ve come to expect from Boddington’s books. He describes his varied hunts in South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Mozambique and Tanzania, of course, but lesser destinations such as Cameroon, Ghana, Uganda, Tunisia, Liberia and Burkina Faso, among others, are also included. Given the breadth of the destinations, it’s little wonder that the hunts described run the gamut from aardvarks to zebra. Literally. Whether your dream animal is a huge elephant or a tiny royal antelope, there’s a story here that will pique your interest.

Boddington doesn’t focus solely on the hunt, as too many do. One of the great features of his books is that his natural interest in the history, geography and ecology of the places he visits shines through; the reader will come away from each tale a little more informed for their effort. From the Cape to Kasserine is also liberally sprinkled with wonderful photos that both support the stories while concurrently providing a little hunter’s eye candy.

Chapter 2

My First Double Rifle – A Proud Moment and Then…

Having purchased and used my SAKO .375 H&H on a number of hunts, the gleam soon wore off. It was a bitch of a gun to shoot. It was far too light and kicked like a mule. The stock developed a crack behind the top of the action, and I think this was the underlying cause of my dislike of the .375 as a calibre. I have owned several .375s since, but have never taken to the calibre.

Having hunted in Botswana, I had a hankering for a double rifle for my big game work. Searching around, I found a used Army & Navy in calibre .450 Nitro Express at Groeneveld & Hicks in Pretoria. The gun was in good condition and was priced at R300. This included 100 rounds of soft and solid Kynoch ammo. I went to look at the gun three or four times to convince myself to spend so much on a second-hand firearm. At that time, a new BRNO in .375 or .458 cost about R90. Eventually I bought the gun and became the owner of a genuine African hunting rifle, a heavy calibre double. I considered myself in the league of Selous, Selby, John Hunter, Hemingway and other greats.

The gun handled and grouped like a dream, the way any British thoroughbred should. It performed well on a few wildebeest and on one or two buffalo – and then came the fateful hunt when I had to face my first buffalo charge. (Details of that particular hunt can be found in the chapter titled ‘Facing Charges’.) Briefly, I was following a buffalo wounded by another hunter in the party when a second buffalo charged at close range. The first shot in the chest did not even stagger him; I thought I had missed. The second shot took him under the eye at about 8m and he dropped almost at my feet. This shook me and I decided then and there that I needed a heavy calibre. I decided to have the gun re-blued and cleaned up to sell at the best price I could get. When I collected the gun from the gunsmith, I was horrified to see the action polished to a shiny silver finish. Taking the gun to the range, I could not hit the target at 25m. The barrels had come loose in the blueing process. These had to be resoldered and regulated. That was the end. The gun was sold and I was on the look-out for a ‘heavy’ double.

A few of us like-minded souls used to gather at lunch time for a chat and coffee at a shop called Safrics in central Johannesburg, where we could ‘chew the fat’ and discuss topics of interest, normally about guns and hunting.  One afternoon a farmer dropped in and joined our group. He mentioned that he had an old ‘elephant gun’ which had belonged to his grandfather, who hunted in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). Stories like these often floated around. I asked about the gun, but he could not give much information. He said he thought one could no longer get ammunition for it. When I asked about the make, he said it was not a good one – something about it being ‘made in Holland’. But it was, he said, a ‘groot geweer’. My ears pricked up! He said if I was interested, it was at his farm.

We jumped into our cars and I followed him to his farm in Ventersdorp. After introductions, his wife went to make coffee. He disappeared into a storeroom and eventually came out with a rather bedraggled and well-worn leg-o’-mutton case. I sat on tenterhooks as he pulled out a rifle wrapped in swathes of cheesecloth. Imagine my surprise when, finally unwrapped, out came a Holland and Holland .577 NE which was well used, but still in excellent condition. We discussed the price, but he had no idea what it was worth. He felt that his grandfather’s 7,9mm Mauser was a far better rifle. After a bit of bargaining, he said he needed about R500 to fix his tractor and asked if that would be acceptable. I knew the gun was worth a lot more and, being ‘Honest Abe’, I offered him R800. He thought this Jo’burg ‘laaitie’ was nuts! However, a deal was struck. He went into the bedroom and came out with a brown paper bag containing about 150 rounds of ammo to go with the gun. We parted ways, each of us a happy man. I now had my genuine heavy double rifle.

As with most love affairs, the bloom soon faded. I used it over three seasons and everything I shot dropped as well as it should and the recoil was manageable, as the balance and weight were well distributed, but that was where the problem lay: the weight. At about 12 pounds (5,4kg), it was simply too heavy for me to carry on daily hunts. I had to have a gun-bearer to lug it along, and I dearly like to have my gun in hand when hunting. I received a good offer for the gun from a collector from Pretoria and decided to part company with the Holland. This left me with a pending safari and no heavy rifle. A friend offered me his .404 Jeffery to use. Reluctantly, I accepted, though I felt the calibre was too light – but the gun handled like a dream and did everything I asked of it. I wanted to buy it, but my friend would not part with it. I then realised that bullet placement was everything and the .404, together with the .450/.400 as a double, became my favourite calibres and served me well over all the years. I have had guns in calibres .458, .458 Lott and .460 Weatherby, among others, but have kept returning to the .400 as my preferred calibre. I shot this calibre well without having to worry about the mind-blowing, shoulder-thumping recoil. This also allowed me to place my shots with accuracy and confidence.

Chapter 3

The Lioness

The lioness was hungry and tired and had travelled further from her two cubs than she should have, but game was scarce and she knew she had to find prey to keep herself and her young from starving. The scent of impala was faint, but unmistakable and seemed to be coming from her left as the breeze drifted towards her. Carefully she started stalking, ever vigilant for any change in the wind direction or movement ahead. In front of her was a small patch of thick, stunted combretum scrub and she cautiously moved through it along a narrow, winding game path.

Suddenly she felt a tightening sensation around her waist. As she moved forward, it became tighter and stopped her in her tracks. The more she tried to move forward, the tighter the feeling around her waist became. Pain was starting to cut into her. The cable snare – placed along the path by poachers for hippo or other animals coming up from the waterhole – had trapped her. She grunted and growled, pulling forward, then back, but it made no difference. Her growls became louder and her struggles more panicked, but she could find no relief. Exhausted, she lay still for a while, trying to see if the tightness and pain around her waist would go away, but it did not.

In desperation, she started rolling and twisting, increasingly tightening the wire around her body. The poachers who had placed the cable snare across the path about two months before had never returned to check their traps. They had collected enough meat off other snares and no longer cared about the other ones left in the veld, far from their camp. Any animal caught in those traps would suffer and die an excruciating death, becoming an easy meal for vultures and hyenas.

Already feeble from hunger, the lioness became weaker in her struggles to loosen herself from the cable. The pain was becoming unbearable. With a last desperate twist and roll, the rusted cable broke off where it was anchored to a tree stump and she found herself able to move. The wire was still cutting into her body, but she was no longer stuck in one place. During the noise of her struggle, the impala had moved away, alerted by her painful roars. She had to find some prey, but in the weak state she was now in, it would not be easy and the piece of wire cable dragging behind her hampered her movements.

The young ranger was patrolling along the riverbank, checking for signs of poachers and any illegal activity in his designated patrol area. He had been walking for hours and was hot, tired and thirsty, his concentration waning. He was not paying attention to his surroundings and his eyes were on the path ahead. It was already late afternoon and his thoughts were on the cold beer and comforting fire waiting for him at his camp. The sooner he could complete this section of his patrol, the sooner he could turn off on the path leading to his camp. He was completely unaware of the animal in the grass ahead of him.

The lioness lay panting from her exertions as the first faint scent of man came to her. Alarmed and frightened, she lay still with nostrils flared, listening and trying to pinpoint where the smell was coming from. Though the pain in her body was severe, there was nothing wrong with her nose and her hearing was acute. The scent became stronger and she picked out the sound of footsteps and leaves crackling underfoot. Carefully she moved away, trying to avoid the approaching human. However, with the wire cable dragging and catching on the undergrowth, she found it difficult to sneak away, so she moved onto the more open game path. As the sounds drew closer, she shifted into the grass on the side of the path. At that moment, the ranger decided to leave the path he was on and cut through the tall grass to his left, taking a shortcut to his camp on the riverbank.

Hearing the change in the man’s direction, the lioness realised that he was now coming directly towards her. Trying to get away, she moved a few metres, but the cable got stuck again, bringing her to a halt. She crouched down… waiting.

The ranger’s eye caught a movement. He stopped to look and listen for a few seconds, thinking it may have been a duiker or steenbok dashing away from him. Hearing nothing, he started walking again, still heading towards the lioness. Feeling threatened, her instincts took over and she launched her charge. The speed and force of her attack jerked the cable free of the bush where it had been hooked.

Hearing a grunt, the ranger instinctively raised his rifle, thinking it might be a warthog, but with growing alarm, he saw the grass parting and flattening. Something was coming directly at him. Whatever it was, it was bigger and more threatening than a warthog. Unable to see over the long grass, he made a snap decision and scurried up the side of a termite mound directly behind him to give him some height.

As the lioness’s head broke through the grass about 4m away from him, he fired instinctively from almost point-blank range without aiming properly. Fortunately, his bullet found its mark, dropping the luckless animal in her tracks.

When the ranger examined the lioness, he noticed that she was whelping, her teats swollen from suckling. His heart went out to the poor cubs which would now starve to death or become prey to some other carnivore or scavengers. With a heavy heart, he took a few photos for his report on the incident and continued back to his camp.

Walking along, his thoughts still with the poor lioness and her cubs, he again realised that Mother Nature is cruel enough without further help or interference from man.