{"id":2190678,"date":"2026-04-12T18:00:34","date_gmt":"2026-04-12T16:00:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/?p=2190678"},"modified":"2026-04-02T15:41:15","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T13:41:15","slug":"a-south-african-reserve-shows-how-carbon-can-catalyze-rewilding-conservation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/focusingonwildlife.com\/news\/a-south-african-reserve-shows-how-carbon-can-catalyze-rewilding-conservation\/","title":{"rendered":"A South African reserve shows how carbon can catalyze rewilding conservation"},"content":{"rendered":"

TSWALU KALAHARI RESERVE, South Africa \u2014 From high on a promontory in the Korannaberg Mountains, a mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae<\/em>) peers down to the west across the green-dappled plain below, the sun rising behind. In the distance, wild dogs (Lycaon pictus<\/em>) hunt in the veld, verdant after early rains. And nearby, white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum<\/em>) graze among thorny thickets.<\/p>\n

These species, and dozens more, persist here thanks to a decades-long effort to rewild a sliver of Southern Africa\u2019s great desert and dry savanna. The Tswalu Kalahari Reserve has become a sanctuary for rare and threatened animals, drawing in a steady stream of well-heeled tourists from around the globe. More recently, the reserve\u2019s managers have embarked on a quest to increase the carbon stored in its soils \u2014 a quest that relies heavily on the reserve\u2019s animals.<\/p>\n

At first glance, places like Tswalu might not seem suited for stockpiling carbon. The Tswana people call this part of the world\u00a0Kgalagadi<\/em>\u00a0\u2014 \u201cthe waterless place.\u201d Fickle precipitation in the Kalahari averages a scant 10-50 centimeters (4-20 inches) annually, and much less in some years. That means the comparative lushness here in late 2025 could evaporate if the rains don\u2019t carry on throughout the austral summer of the Southern Hemisphere.<\/p>\n

To date, most nature-based carbon storage efforts have focused on fast-growing tropical forests, expanding native or plantation tree cover that draws carbon out of the atmosphere. Soil carbon, by contrast, is slower to accumulate, and it\u2019s more laborious and expensive to monitor.<\/p>\n

But globally, soils hold roughly three times as much terrestrial carbon as forests and other aboveground vegetation.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s value in leveraging carbon \u201cthe hard way, with the help of science,\u201d says Matthew Child, CEO and co-founder of the carbon and biodiversity project developer Rewild Capital. Rewild Capital is partnering with Tswalu for its carbon project. Child and like-minded scientists contend that carbon stored in forests is more susceptible to being lost as a result of clearance or fires. Soil, meanwhile, has the potential to be a more durable climate solution.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a>
A bat-eared fox (Octocyon megalotis). Image courtesy of Tswalu Kalahari Reserve.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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\u2018The disturbance regime\u2019<\/h2>\n

The Tswana and other peoples of the Kalahari have long adapted to the whims of the harsh landscape. But climate change, driven overwhelmingly by the use of fossil fuels in industrialized, wealthy countries, has exacerbated the severity of its temperatures and droughts. As a result, the Kalahari is more vulnerable to degradation \u2014 for example, from livestock overgrazing \u2014 and its soils hold less carbon.<\/p>\n

The Oppenheimer family, which built its fortune on South Africa\u2019s gold and diamond mines, acquired Tswalu in 1999 and continued the previous owner\u2019s model of buying up adjoining land from farmers and restoring it for conservation. The reserve is now about the size of Hong Kong, at 118,000 hectares (292,000 acres). Child and others suggest that allowing places like Tswalu to recover and managing the presence of wildlife that have co-evolved with the Kalahari\u2019s sparse vegetation could reawaken long-dormant dynamics in worn-out landscapes.<\/p>\n

\u201cRewilding is not just about putting the original species back into place,\u201d Child says. \u201cIt\u2019s about restoring the disturbance regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

As paradoxical as it might seem, the movement of hoofed herbivores over the land can elevate densities of carbon in the soil, instigated by a complex waltz of chemical reactions driven by soil-dwelling microbes. With the right balance, proponents say, the great herds carry the potential to restore not only biodiversity, but also the resilience of delicate landscapes in an uncertain future of a warmer world.<\/p>\n

\u201cArid lands are the place where we\u2019re going to be feeling it the most, but where we can get the greatest returns,\u201d says Duncan MacFadyen, the head of research and conservation at a consortium of businesses and nonprofits called Oppenheimer Generations that represents the interests of its namesake family. \u201cI think Tswalu shows how rewilding can mitigate climate change through soil carbon storage and improve land productivity.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Evening<\/a>
Evening storms on the horizon at Tswalu. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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\"Accommodations<\/a>
Accommodations at Tswalu befit the reserve\u2019s reputation as a provider of high-end safaris. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Restoring \u2014 and managing \u2014 an Eden<\/h2>\n

Through the late 19th century, vast herds of springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis<\/em>) moved across the greater Kalahari, following the grasses and vegetation coaxed from the red earth by sporadic rains. The San people likened their numbers to the stars of the Milky Way. European settlers reported herds in the tens of thousands that stretched 160 kilometers long by 24 km across (100 by 15 miles).<\/p>\n

But by the early 1900s, hunting, fencing and roads had largely brought these sweeping migrations to an end, and with them, potential underpinnings of the soil\u2019s health that scientists are just beginning to understand.<\/p>\n

Springbok aren\u2019t huge compared to other antelope \u2014 about the weight of a Labrador retriever, though standing taller at the shoulder. But their sheer numbers back then made up for their svelteness, impacting the landscape in seen and unseen ways.<\/p>\n

Of course, the springbok, a ruminant in the same family as cows, goats and sheep, wasn\u2019t alone in shaping the landscape, and Tswalu\u2019s managers work to ensure that many native species, including springbok, again populate the veld in appropriate numbers.<\/p>\n

The goal of having these animals here, from the giraffes (Giraffa camelopardalis<\/em>) that browse\u00a0Acacia<\/em>\u00a0trees, to larger antelope like kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros<\/em>) and eland (Taurotragus oryx<\/em>), is to approximate the once-prevalent, if sporadic, trampling of the landscape by thousands of hooves.<\/p>\n

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\"Springbok<\/a>
Springbok (Antidorcas marsupialis) on an early Tswalu morning. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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\u201cThat\u2019s what the animals naturally do, right?\u201d says Oswald Schmitz, the Oastler Professor of population and community ecology at Yale University in the U.S., who studies biodiversity and ecosystem services. \u201cThey graze, they release urine and dung, and then they move. And then you\u2019ve got the fertilizer sitting there on the soil from the animals. It gets absorbed into the soil, and then it gets absorbed by the plants and enhances productivity of the vegetation.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s all part of the \u201cdisturbance regime\u201d that Child sees as vital to recreate.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe trick there is to say, OK, let\u2019s simulate the sporadic grazing events that used to take place in the system that enabled grass recovery in certain landscapes at certain times that ultimately drove up productivity of that entire landscape,\u201d Child says.<\/p>\n

But it\u2019s a careful balance.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a>
The Orange River cuts through the dry plains of the southern Kalahari. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Predators and a \u2018landscape of fear\u2019<\/h2>\n

Research points to \u201ca sweet spot of [herbivore] density where you do get good carbon benefits,\u201d Schmitz says. \u201cBut if these animals become too abundant, then they also destroy the environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s where the management of the reserve led by Tswalu ecologist Wendy Panaino comes in. The goal, Panaino says, is improving resilience in the face of climate change-driven changes in elements like rainfall patterns \u201chappening right in front of our eyes.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you can ensure that your system is as intact as possible, you almost provide a buffer for those more extreme changes,\u201d Panaino says. \u201cWe would love to not tinker with the system, but again, you have to at some point.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a place like Tswalu, predators play a crucial role in maintaining overall heterogeneity and resilience. Scientists call it \u201ca landscape of fear,\u201d driven by predators like Tswalu\u2019s wild dogs, as well as lions (Panthera leo<\/em>) and leopards (Panthera pardus<\/em>); both large cats also live in parts of Tswalu.<\/p>\n

The presence of these hunters influences herbivore movements, Schmitz says.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe ambush predators create this fear factor, and it changes where these animals roam on the landscape and where they eat,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

From Panaino\u2019s perspective, the result is something like \u201ca predator-prey arms race.\u201d Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus<\/em>) at Tswalu sometimes have broods of four to five kittens \u2014 a rewilding success for a struggling species. \u201cThat\u2019s huge as far as cheetah conservation goes,\u201d she adds. But too many can knock the equilibrium off balance \u2014 for instance, with the \u201cenormous impact\u201d they have on springbok numbers, Panaino says.<\/p>\n

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\"Map<\/a>
A sample of the historical migrations of springbok in Southern Africa. Image by Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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That\u2019s part of the reason the Tswalu team monitors populations with annual game counts. They also track the ratios of grazers, like zebras, which feed almost exclusively on grass, to browsers, such as giraffes, that eat woody leaves and branches. Others, like springbok, nibble on both grass and trees. Child points to the importance of browsers in holding back \u201cwoody encroachment,\u201d which he notes helps improve the productivity of grasslands and can make a landscape like Tswalu\u2019s less susceptible to severe fire that damages ecosystems and carbon stores.<\/p>\n

If managers find that numbers or ratios are out of balance, they can move animals to other reserves. (The Oppenheimers stopped all hunting when they acquired Tswalu in the late \u201890s.)<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a>
The African wild dog (Lycaon pictus), one of Tswalu\u2019s top predators. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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What\u2019s happening in the soil<\/h2>\n

Today, research at the intersection of rewilding and carbon storage seeks to tease apart the shifts these large-bodied animals prod in the microscopic environments beneath their feet.<\/p>\n

At a study site in Botswana, not far from Tswalu, Schmitz and his team\u00a0are finding\u00a0that the dead and decaying plant matter that lands on top of the soil is a fleeting repository for organic carbon, as it\u2019s susceptible to fire or erosion that returns the carbon to the atmosphere.<\/p>\n

But when herd animals trample that detritus, they \u201csomehow cause the chemistry of the soil to speed up,\u201d Schmitz says, spurring the conversion to inorganic carbon, a sturdier storehouse. \u201cThese large herbivores may actually be really, really important players in enhancing the long-term storage and stabilization,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n

Half a world away, in the Indian Himalayas, ecologist Sumanta Bagchi\u2019s work over the past two decades has led him to an important and similar conclusion: \u201cNot all carbon is the same.\u201d Bagchi, an associate professor at the Indian Institute of Science\u2019s Centre for Ecological Sciences in Bengaluru, has been comparing areas with livestock and with wild animals to pastures that aren\u2019t grazed at all in a natural laboratory of sorts. (In a chapter of\u00a0a forthcoming book, Schmitz describes this type of experimental setup as \u201cthe gold standard scientific approach\u201d for understanding the impacts of animals on carbon dynamics.)<\/p>\n

Bagchi\u2019s early results turned up curious peaks and troughs in the soil\u2019s carbon contents over time, particularly of the ungrazed sections \u2014 a bizarre pattern he says it took his team a while to sort out. Bagchi remembers thinking, \u201cHoly cow, what\u2019s happening here? Why is it jumping so much?\u201d<\/p>\n

He and his colleagues found that the unusual spikes and drops stemmed from differences in the stability of the carbon across the unique treatments. The ungrazed sections had more carbon to start with \u2014 in the undigested leaves of grass and other vegetation. In the grazed sections, livestock and wildlife ate those plants and exhaled some of the carbon as CO2<\/sub>. In other words, it was leaving the system.\u00a0But somehow, over time, the overall carbon in the ungrazed sections dipped to levels similar to the grazed sections.<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a>
A female greater kudu (Tragelaphus strepsiceros). Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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It turns out that the microbial biodiversity in the soil plays an unseen but critical role, connected to the carbon that herbivores don\u2019t expel into the air (from one end of their bodies or the other). Grazing animals digest grass with the help of a cadre of gut-bound microbes. The dung they leave behind then gets eaten up by different microbes in the soil. Because the dung\u2019s already been partly broken down, these soil-bound microbes can readily digest it, breaking the chemical bonds in the organic matter to release the energy the microbes need to function. That process also leaves behind a fraction of carbon that\u2019s not decomposed and which, over time, forms the basis of the long-term storage in the soil.<\/p>\n

In the ungrazed systems, leaves of grass and other plants wither and end up on the ground undigested, providing fewer nutrients and less energy to soil microbes than they\u2019d get from manure. As a result, \u201cThey end up burning through this carbon much faster,\u201d Bagchi says, leaving less behind in the soil. Over time, that leads, first, to the spikes in carbon as the grass grows, and, later, to those troughs when the microbes have to use more of the carbon in this plant matter.<\/p>\n

Bagchi\u2019s research has also revealed that wild animals tend to encourage more carbon storage in the soil than livestock. Interestingly, though, the more nuanced differences weren\u2019t due to the overgrazing that often leads to soil degradation. The team found that the antibiotics we humans often give to sick and healthy domestic animals alike, which end up in animal waste, find their way into the ground. And those antibiotics stay there.<\/p>\n

The net effect drives down the efficiency of soil microbes\u2019 metabolisms and, with that, the soil carbon deficit on land grazed by livestock compared to range dominated by wild herbivores.<\/p>\n

\u201cOnce [antibiotics] enter the ecosystem, they don\u2019t disappear, because nothing can break them [down],\u201d Bagchi says. \u201cThey\u2019re supposed to be anti-microbes, and they really are.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"A<\/a>
A critically endangered black rhino (Diceros bicornis). Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Don\u2019t count out cattle<\/h2>\n

Still, Schmitz says, livestock can play a role under the right conditions.<\/p>\n

\u201cCattle are a functional form of herbivore. They\u2019re a ruminant. They\u2019re a grazer,\u201d he says. \u201cAt modest densities, they can also have huge carbon benefits.\u201d But it\u2019s often economics that leads people to overload an area with too many animals, he adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way they are managed gets in the way of carbon storage, and not the animal themselves,\u201d Bagchi says.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re looking at ecological justice, we can\u2019t really use the same brush to paint what the industrial beef production economy does and what, say, Maasai and Tibetan pastoralists do,\u201d he adds. \u201cThey\u2019re very, very different.\u201d<\/p>\n

At a place like Tswalu that\u2019s focused on restoration and rewilding, the tendency may be to bifurcate its history into the then and now, laying blame for a once-degraded state at the feet of the herders and farmers who came before. But that characterization isn\u2019t fair, and nor is the history that simple, says Tswalu\u2019s Wendy Panaino.<\/p>\n

As the reserve\u2019s resident ecologist, Panaino knows the challenges of working in a landscape dependent on fitful rainfall. Some years, \u201c[You] might get nothing at all,\u201d she says. To roll with the Kalahari\u2019s capricious weather, farmers and herders had to be clever and understand the system they lived in, Panaino says. \u201cIt\u2019s so hard to farm in the first place. So, if you\u2019re not going to do it well, you\u2019re not going to make a living.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"Aerial<\/a>
Aerial view of the waters on a section of the southern Okavango Delta, Botswana. Image by youngrobv via\u00a0Flickr\u00a0(CC BY-NC 2.0).<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Carbon as \u2018a catalyst\u2019<\/h2>\n

Child calls the project at Tswalu \u201ca mini proof of concept\u201d for the way in which carbon credits can economically support restoration. And carbon markets could be \u201ca catalyst\u201d that funds conservation without relying on philanthropic sources, he adds. A key challenge now is to measure and enhance the carbon storage in this ecosystem.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to say we\u2019re rewilding here for tourism but also for these benefits, you better damn well start measuring,\u201d Schmitz says of this type of approach generally.<\/p>\n

To date, Tswalu has issued more than 34,000 carbon credits validated by South Africa-based verifier Credible Carbon with a U.N.-backed methodology, and it expects to generate more than 275,000 in total. It\u2019s the first private reserve in South Africa to earn carbon credits, each representing a metric ton of CO2<\/sub>, from wildlife conservation, says Oppenheimer Generations\u2019 Duncan MacFadyen.<\/p>\n

From a funding perspective, \u201cThe revenue received from the carbon project has truly played a long-term role, I think, in increasing the sustainability of Tswalu,\u201d MacFadyen adds. More broadly, he says, this type of work has the potential to improve the health of the continent\u2019s most vulnerable ecosystems for both the wildlife and the people who rely on them.<\/p>\n

From the research perspective, Schmitz says the case for addressing biodiversity loss and climate change together is coming into sharper focus. \u201cThe science is just really starting to blow this open,\u201d he adds.\u00a0Still, some of his fellow scientists remain skeptical.<\/p>\n

\u201cMostly, they say it\u2019s too uncertain yet [and that] we don\u2019t have enough data to say for sure,\u201d Schmitz says. Indeed, existing data show that rewilding doesn\u2019t always boost carbon stocks.\u00a0Recent work, for example, has shown that the presence of tigers, known for their cosmopolitan historical distribution stretching from the high latitudes of Siberia to equatorial rainforests, enhances carbon storage in some ecosystems but not in others.<\/p>\n

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\"The<\/a>
The ground pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) is a sought-after animal sighting at Tswalu. Image courtesy of Tswalu Kalahari Reserve.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
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Ultimately, success will depend on continued monitoring and evaluation of the data across unique contexts, Schmitz says. \u201cBut I don\u2019t think it means we shouldn\u2019t go forward with an ambition to do this work. We just have to do the careful science as we\u2019re going,\u201d he adds, noting the urgency that addressing such globally significant problems dictates.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe can\u2019t do the science ahead of time. There isn\u2019t enough time.\u201d<\/p>\n

Citations:<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Veldman, J. W., Overbeck, G. E., Negreiros, D., Mahy, G., Le Stradic, S., Fernandes, G. W., . . . Bond, W. J. (2015). Where Tree Planting and Forest Expansion are Bad for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services.\u00a0BioScience<\/em>,\u00a065<\/em>(10), 1011-1018. doi:10.1093\/biosci\/biv118<\/a><\/p>\n

Laundr\u00e9, J. W., Hern\u00e1ndez, L., & Ripple, W. J. (2010). The landscape of fear: Ecological implications of being afraid.\u00a0The<\/em>\u00a0Open Ecology Journal<\/em>,\u00a03<\/em>(3), 1-7. doi:10.2174\/1874213001003030001<\/a><\/p>\n

Mallick, U., Orrick, K., Masunga, G., & Schmitz, O. (2025). Large herbivore functional guilds and soil carbon storage in a semi-arid southern African landscape. doi:10.21203\/rs.3.rs-5375091\/v1<\/a><\/p>\n

Schmitz, O. J., & Leroux, S. J. (2026). Trophic Rewilding to Animate the Carbon Cycle and Mitigate Climate Change. In I. Gordon & A. Manning (Eds.),\u00a0Trophic Rewilding: Research, Policy and Practice<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Roberts, N. J., Harihar, A., Zhou, X., She, W., & Jiang, G. (2025). Global Tiger Density Linked With Forest Carbon Stock, Top-Down and Bottom-Up.\u00a0Global Change Biology<\/em>,\u00a031<\/em>(5), e70191. doi:10.1111\/gcb.70191<\/a><\/p>\n

Skinner, J. D. & Louw, G. N. (1996). The Springbok:\u00a0Antidorcas marsupialis<\/em>\u00a0(Zimmermann, 1790) Prehistory and historical background, morphology.\u00a0Transvaal Museum Monographs<\/em>,\u00a010<\/em>(1). Retrieved from:\u00a0https:\/\/journals.co.za\/doi\/abs\/10.10520\/AJA090799001_49<\/a><\/p>\n

This article<\/a> by John Cannon was first published by Mongabay on 27 March 2026. Lead Image: A gemsbok (Oryx gazella), also known as the South African oryx, in a mixed herd of herbivores at Tswalu. Image by John Cannon\/Mongabay.<\/i><\/p>\n

What you can do<\/h2>\n

Protect wildlife by making a monthly donation as little as $5.<\/em><\/p>\n