Glimpsing the southern tip of Africa in Bontebok National Park, part 1

The world's conservation areas can be roughly divided into 'glimpse-parks' and 'gaze-parks'. Bontebok National Park (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bontebok_National_Park) is a small window to an unique combination of megafauna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megafauna) and 'hyperflora' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Floristic_Region#/media/File:Biodiversity_Hotspots.svg).

Please scroll through https://www.inaturalist.org/observations?place_id=any&project_id=98764 to sample the fauna, flora and landscape of Bontebok National Park, located near Swellendam in Western Cape province of South Africa. The remote-visitation of glimpse-parks can be as rewarding as visiting them in the flesh.

Gaze-parks, such as Yellowstone and Kruger, are extensive enough that the original ecosystem is more or less conserved with minimum management. Such parks tend to be self-explanatory to any naturalist spending enough time in them.

By contrast, glimpse-parks provide only a peep-hole into an ecosystem long lost, usually to farming. These tiny remnants have to be intensely managed to exclude weeds and pollution, maintain genetic integrity, and reintroduce at least a few of the exterminated species.

Gaze-parks exhilarate the naturalist by immersion in the wilds. By contrast, in glimpse-parks the visitor risks anticlimax/melancholy/demoralisation without an education about the nearly-lost ecosystem.

In the case of Bontebok National Park, reconstructing the gaze should be worthwhile because of an unexpected overlap of interest between big animals and small plants.

Here we have the habitat, only a few centuries ago, of elephant, rhino, hippo, buffalo, lion, leopard, cheetah, two species of hyenas, and African hunting dog. At the same time hereabouts we still see one of the greatest concentrations of plant species on Earth (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cape_Floristic_Region).

Although only a few of the large animals have been reintroduced to this area of only 28 square kilometres, these happen to be particularly photogenic, e.g. https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/39916310 and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/75340804 and https://www.tripadvisor.com/LocationPhotoDirectLink-g469397-d469470-i381557535-Bontebok_National_Park-Swellendam_Overberg_District_Western_Cape.html and https://www.zoochat.com/community/media/cape-mountain-zebra.95823/ and https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/80231251. And although the surrounds have long been converted to wheat and domestic pasture, there remains a bewildering diversity of delicate flowering shrubs and herbaceous plants, both within the Park and on the picturesque range of low mountains in the immediate background (https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-langeberg-mountains-near-swellendam-south-cape-brede-river-seen-from-13100634.html).

To be continued...

Publicado el agosto 21, 2021 10:56 TARDE por milewski