Five years ago, the river valleys and high plains that are now safeguarded by the Babanango Game Reserve in the KwaZulu Natal region of South Africa were virtually devoid of wildlife after decades of cattle grazing and unrestrained hunting.
“All the big animals had been killed and most of the smaller ones had run away,” says Musa Mbatha, the reserve’s conservation and wildlife manager.
But in 2018, a partnership between local Zulu communities, the provincial government and a private conservation group hatched an ambitious plan to transform Babanango back into a wildlife wonderland by creating the largest game reserve established in South Africa since the end of apartheid.
Nowadays, on a typical morning or afternoon game drive through the sprawling private reserve, it’s possible to spot cheetah, zebra, giraffe, buffalo, hippo, black and white rhino, as well as more than half a dozen antelope species including impala, hartebeest, waterbuck, wildebeest and eland. All of them were relocated from other reserves around southern Africa.
