By Parisa Burton
Nation & World Editor
Good News Lions is the Nation & World section’s bi-weekly news segment, highlighting positive news in the country and around the world. The theme of this article is human and animal collaborations.
Beehives deter elephants from Kenyan farmland
In Kenya, critical farmland has been destroyed by elephant roaming, creating dangerous interactions between humans and the seven-ton mammals, according to the BBC. After decades of research, beehive fences have proven to be an effective elephant deterrent.
There has been a long history of understanding of elephants’ hatred of bees, as even just the buzzing sound causes large groups to retreat from an area. The beehive fence barrier provides a non-violent solution for swaying them out of critical farmland. This tactic is spreading in other parts of the world, such as Mozambique and Thailand.
Elephants are a problem in Kenya, where there is a growing demand for resources amid population growth, and human-inhabited regions are overlapping with elephant browsing.
In Southern Africa, the elephant population has grown 0.16% annually in the past quarter century, according to Science Advances. This presents a problem for growing areas in Kenya, leading to a “greater chance of conflict between humans and these giants,” the BBC reported.
“Wherever there are elephants, there are instances and information coming through of human-elephant conflict," said Francesca Iori, an Ethiopia-based elephant conservation advisor. She added that the limited large spaces available, which these vast creatures require, leads them to human settlements.
Most farmers in these areas are of poor backgrounds, and farming is crucial to their livelihoods. Lush, highly nutritional crops are appealing to elephants and draw their attention to these areas.
“People take a lot of time caring for their land, then the elephants come…everything is gone,” said Emmanuel Mwamba, a farmer from Mwakoma, Kenya, a village at the frontline of human-elephant conflict.
Farmers can even die from trying to stop elephants from destroying their crops and elephants can risk getting killed by humans as well. Women are disproportionately impacted by this conflict, as they often work the farms and risk their lives trying to scare the elephants away.
A nine year study, published in 2024 by Lucy King, coexistence director at Save the Elephants and her colleagues, analyzed the effectiveness of beehive fences in two villages in South Kenya that are heavily dependent on crops like cabbage and maize, which are both highly attractive to elephants.
The study found that of the 4,000 elephants that approached the beehive fences, 75% were deterred. Farmers also benefited from the honey produced, making $2,250.
“I think it's ingenious,” said Graeme Shannon, a wildlife ecologist at Bangor University in Wales, U.K. “You've got this natural mechanism by which you can deter these animals from approaching farms. I just think it's brilliant.”
A commercial fishing ban could save endangered South African penguin species
A recent court order in South Africa banning commercial sardine and anchovy harvesting in six penguin breeding colonies could be the key to saving the endangered species, according to Good News Network.
On March 18, the Southern African Foundation for the Conservation of Coastal Birds and BirdLife South Africa achieved a victory when the Pretoria High Court issued an order following a settlement between the two NGOs and state-endorsed commercial sardine and anchovy purse-seine fishers.
According to the SANCCOB, “The six closures work together to secure biologically meaningful foraging areas for African Penguins in each of the west coast, southern Cape and Algoa Bay regions to help bring the species back from the brink of extinction.”
Protected areas include Robben Island, Dassen Island and the Stony Point Nature Reserve. The court’s decision has been a result of hard work and negotiations between the conservation NGOs and the commercial sardine and anchovy fishing industry.
Today, there are fewer than 10,000 breeding pairs of the critically endangered African penguin, which is why conservation groups are ecstatic at the court’s decision to protect the species’ feeding areas.
According to Alistair McInnes, Seabird Conservation programme manager, this order will not only help conserve Africa’s sole penguin species, but will also benefit other marine species like cape gannets, cape cormorants and other fish that prey on sardine and anchovy.
