- Our contribution towards Responsible Tourism -

Conservation projects and eco management:

Our reserves are ones of diverse topography and vegetation ranging from wide-open plains to beautiful mountainous areas, enabling us to naturally sustain the widest variety of game possible. They boast over 40 species of game including Sable Antelope, Nyala, Oryx, Eland, Giraffe, (disease free) Buffalo, White Rhino and well over 300 species of resident and migrant birds.

We are members of the Waterberg Nature Conservancy which is made up of numerous private game reserves covering an area of 150 000ha. This all falls within the Waterberg Biosphere Reserve. The Biosphere Reserve promotes conservation and the sustainable use of natural resources within it’s boundaries.

Our properties are managed by utilizing the following management tools where necessary:

Controlled burning
Alien plant control
Game population control
Bush encroachment
Road maintenance
Erosion control

Some of our projects are as follows:

Sable Breeding project:
South Africa is the southern most limit of the Common/Southern African Sable Antelope, with marginal prime habitat available. They are presently described as a conservation dependant species. Their numbers have noticeably dropped from an estimated 36 000 in the 60’s to 3 500 in the 90’s.
Our objectives of breeding Sable Antelope are:
- Breeding of a conservation dependant species
- Increase the numbers of a conservation dependant species for the
general well being and future of the species
- Prevent inbreeding of a conservation dependant species
- To run the project in an ecological sound manner taking into
consideration the natural behavior and habitat of the species and to
promote an understanding to visitors of the importance of such a
project
- To gather information on their behavior to gain a better understanding
of these animals
We started this project in the 2001 with a core breeding herd of 5 animals. We now have a viable breeding herd of 19 (8 calves expected in 2008) and a bachelor herd of 7.

Leopard conservation:
We support the conservation of Leopard in the Waterberg area. Lourens Swanepoel, through the Centre for Wildlife Management, University of Pretoria, has been doing research in this area for the past 2½ years. His main objectives have been to determine home ranges, diet and the attitudes of farmers towards leopard conservation. His work continues in this area and we collect information for him on leopard sightings, leopard spoor, leopard kills as well as any other predator or local information we may attain.

Birds in Reserves Project (BIRP):
Our properties are both registered with the Avian Demographic Unit (University of Cape Town) for BIRP. This is a project which aims to gather information to improve conservation efforts and knowledge of birdlife. Bird species and behavior are recorded and submitted on a monthly basis.

Disease free Buffalo:
Tuberculosis, as well as other diseases, have had an impact on buffalo numbers in South Africa. Due to this there has been a drive to breed “disease free” buffalo. Often called “project buffalo” these animals tend to be habituated and become unreasonably dangerous. The breeding often takes place in unnatural conditions or in superficial settings. To avoid this we have put tracking devices on our disease free buffalo bulls so that we can monitor herd and solitary bull daily movements and behavior. Because of this technology available to us from Agricultural and Wildlife Electronics (AWE), this small herd, once in a camp, are now able to roam free in their natural habitat and breed under natural circumstances where we can monitor them from a distance.

Waste disposal:
We are very aware of the amount of waste that we produce. As a lodge we recycle all our waste products. All rubbish is divided into plastics, paper, bottles, cans and compost.

Natural Fuel:
There is an on going pressure on all natural resources.
We have a single briquette maker which we have experimented with by making briquettes out of horse manure. A large percentage of our horse manure is added to our compost heaps but we are pursuing our experiment and hope to obtain a quicker, better and more viable briquette maker to utilize this constant supply of manure as a source of fuel for the cold winter months. These briquettes burn slowly and provide warmth.

Biological Fly control:
Our horses are constantly bothered by flies, particularly in the moist warm summers. We will be controlling our fly populations by using an environmentally friendly control (BioFly) which breaks the life-cycle of the flies. One fly produces 900 eggs per life cycle. The cycle is broken by introducing 2 wasp species (Muscifurax spp. and Nasonia spp.) These wasps are natural predators of the flies and naturally occur in South Africa. On hatching, the wasps mutilate fly eggs, larvae and pupae. As the fly numbers drop the wasps, host specific to these flies, die off too. We will be introducing these wasps into our stable yard and around our compost heaps.

Wetlands:
We are in the process of creating wetlands for the recycling of all our grey water. Water is a problem during our dry winter months. By recycling our grey water (bath and shower water) we will be able to continue growing vegetables as well as keeping the lodge gardens in tact during these dry months. The grey water will be treated by running it through a system of small stones and wetland plants. The water will then run into a storage tank from where we will pump it to our irrigation systems in the gardens.


Community support, training and upliftment:
The objective of the Ant Collection is to create sustainable tourism by means of conserving the environment around us, enriching the lives of our guests and staff alike as well as uplifting the community and providing as much skills development to the locals as possible.

Ant’s Nest and Ant’s Hill have chosen ACO as our local charity, we have over the last couple of years donated cash and meat directly for the soup kitchen as well as over 100 blankets for impoverished families. We were recently informed that there is a growing demand to contribute more towards the education of many of these under privileged children and have taken it upon ourselves to donate monthly towards the funding of education
The lodges also sponsor 3 local children by paying for their education at the Waterberg Academy which is the local private school.