crane

We monitor crane populations

The African Crane Conservation Programme uses measurable conservation approaches that align with scientific information and best practice. Before taking action, we strive to understand the population statuses of our crane species in an area to measure the impacts of our project activities on populations. Methods that we use to count and monitor cranes and crane populations include ringing with colour-coded leg rings, satellite tracking, ground surveys of nests, and aerial surveys to count individuals and nests from the air.

These methods are supplemented by reports of crane sightings by supportive landowners, farmers, birders, other researchers, and partners. When ringed cranes are reobserved, we record their GPS points, habitat use, social grouping, and behaviour. This information is collected over several years and interpreted, helping us to understand the populations we conserve on a deeper level: how many of the cranes survive, how the population changes over time, their seasonal movements, and what the major threats are to populations. This knowledge supports adapting our strategies and implementing further conservation action where needed.

We work with people

We work closely with local communities and key national and global stakeholders. With staff across southern and East Africa, and projects supported in Sahelian and West Africa, too, we empower individuals, community groups, and organisations to manage water catchments to benefit people and cranes. To this end, we facilitate training and job creation for people struggling to find work. The training builds capacity for sustainable activities that don’t harm cranes or their habitats.

Examples of livelihoods we’ve helped create are employment through alien plant clearing projects and wildlife protection jobs. In all of our project areas, we help farmers farm more sustainably using practices like permaculture. And we encourage the use of Sustainable Land Management principles. Many of the people we work with have since become crane custodians or are conserving wildlife through stewardship.

We also implement integrated Population, Health, and Environment (PHE) projects to improve the health of people and the environment.

CLEARING THE FLATS IN ZAMBIA

Our work in Zambia focuses on the Kafue Flats, a critical breeding and foraging area for cranes, particularly the Wattled Crane and the endemic Kafue Lechwe antelope. This wetland is under increasing pressure from cattle grazing, mining and prospecting, growing human settlements, and unsustainable fishing. Another grave concern is the spread of the alien invasive plant Mimosa pigra that compromises the flats’ ecology. To address this, the ACCP team employs local people to clear the plant. And Wattled and Grey Crowned cranes, native vegetation, and large herbivores like Oribi, Hippopotamus, and Kafue Lechwe, have started returning to cleared areas. We also formed 20 Conservation Clubs, including 800 pupils and 82 teachers from 13 schools near the flats, and we are deploying newly trained community scouts to protect its wildlife and create jobs.

Climate-smart agriculture in Kenya

To reduce and remove pressure on converting wetlands into farmland in western Kenya, we are helping small-scale farmers to adopt climate-smart agricultural practices such as crop diversification, conservation tillage (where the soil is not turned over, which causes water loss), natural fertilisers, biological pest control, and food forests (where trees planted for shade and water retention are interspersed with food crops). As a result, these farmers will achieve increased ecological resilience, improved health and nutrition, conserved biodiversity (including the Grey Crowned Cranes), improved economic stability, and reduced impacts of climate change.