At least 30 of those years are spanned by these two photos. The one on the left - good old Canon FTb and Ektachrome again - was taken at Mana Pools in the very early 1980s and still appears as the header pic on UNESCO's description of the Mid-Zambezi World Heritage Site. The one on the right was taken in 2014 and - apart from the color cast! - it's encouraging to see how little has changed.
This photo, of nyala at Chine Pool, was also taken in the late 1970's or very early 1980's, while waiting for the black rhinos to come and drink. I think that's Salvinia on the water; otherwise - once again - little has changed. Although I haven't seen nyala at Chine itself recently, we frequently come across them in the jesse south of the pool, and in good numbers as well.
Sapi Pan and its beautiful ebonies is another Mana Pools feature that, to my eye, has remained virtually unchanged since I first visited it in 1979 (with, it has to be said, several well-armed rangers and Army personnel). For as comparative photo, however, I have to point you to the Parks office at Nyamepi where you will see several of my framed black and white photos dating from that era, including one of these self-same ebonies.
The detail of the river and its channels, on the other hand, is subject to a riot of change, especially in the past few years, when heavy rain, floods, and increased Kariba power generation have combined to cause rapid erosion of the Zimbabwean bank. Nowhere is this more evident than at places like BBC Camp, where a former two-metre channel has dried out altogether, while the Nyamepi frontage is littered with fallen mahoganies, Kigelias and albidas.
A couple of slightly anomalous pics from the archive, but they are favourites of mine and I wanted to get them in somehow. I took the photo above at the Mcheni Gorge in Chizarira, in 2010, when a huge and devastating fire raged through the Park woodlands. We watched it approach from the east until it engulfed the gorge and hillsides, and there were a few moments, before we were enveloped in smoke and dust, when a mix of diminishing sunlight and approaching flame created this eerie, almost alien light on the hillside east of us.
Back in the early 1980s I was privileged to accompany the Batoka Gorge trip, on home-made rafts, organised by St George's College. I think the pic speaks for itself, and you'll also note that I, as photographer, was stationed squarely on terra firma and very happy to be so!
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Now up-to-date again and across to the Matusadona which, like Mana Pools, I have known and loved since 1979. I'm sure the skeletal trees must have thinned out significantly since then, but to my eye the view is reassuringly changeless - an amazing paradox, of course, since the lake itself is not only a massive ecological upheaval, but has only existed for a little over 50 years.
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The giant kingfisher at left was photographed in the Bonde River from our sailboat, Giselle. The little bee-eater on the right, however, was snapped from a comfortable chair at the Spurwing Island lodge, where they - and several other species - have virtually become domesticated.
And the flock of openbills above was a happy convergence of birds, sky and sunset in the Kemurara River a few kilometres west of Fothergill Island.
And from Chewore we gravitate - time after time - to Mana Pools. This photo was also taken quite soon after sunrise.
Imagine if impala were endangered. We'd rave about their beauty, instead of merely taking them for granted, as one so often does. They are certainly among my very favourite photographic subjects - and a very much-loved species in general, as well. This is a lucky shot of a nursery group in thicket near the Nyamepi lodges, with some diffused sunlight picking out the foreground individual.
Quintessential Mana: an ele in one's campsite.
It's not often these little guys stick around for very long, but this one was so preoccupied that he gave us several minutes of his time before finishing up his lunch and moving off.
A bit of homespun philosophy: the true Zen of wilderness photography lies in not seeing everything, all the time, through the eye of the lens, real or metaphorically. It is to be at one with your surroundings; to absorb the all-round ambience, the sounds, the scents, without mentally confining them within a 3:2 or 16:9 box. Then - and only then - will you be truly conditioned to recognise the real moments when they come.
You do have to be quick, though, when necessary, and I find that single-point, back-button AF helps hugely with this. Here's Vee/Big Vic being subjected to indignities by one of his cohort of females. He is, of course, one of Mana's iconic elephant bulls.
Oliver, or Slot, was another of those iconic bulls. Here he is, playing in the Zambezi not long before he died.
Enough. A couple of favourite sunsets, firstly at Mcheni -
- and then at Mana Mouth. Let's leave it there for now...except for The Message.....
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Here we are again. These magnificent Mana woodlands that we return to, time after time. Isn't that just too beautiful?
Well, yes, OK, But really, it's just a woodland, isn't it. Now let's look at it again -
The difference is - of course! - the elephant. To me, the elephant is the animal which, above all others, symbolises the Zimbabwean wilderness. It brings the woodland suddenly and vibrantly alive. Mana Pools without rhinos is bad enough. Mana Pools without elephants would be - well, there's no word for it, really.*
Very distressingly, since 2001 elephant numbers in the Zambezi Valley (in which Mana pools lies) have plunged from 20 000 to 12 000; a 40% loss. During the same period, elephant numbers in the Sebungwe region (in which Matusadona is situated) have plummeted by a staggering 70%, from 11 000 to 3 000.
It is safe to say that the vast majority of these animals will have been killed for their ivory; and if this is allowed to go on, we may not have a single elephant left in these areas within a decade or so. When the black rhino faced a similar fate, we said it couldn't happen. Let's not make the same mistake twice.
Sport hunters aren't the problem. Nor are "live sales". These are mostly "animal rights" issues and whether you like these activities or not, they don't make any significant impact on elephant numbers. It is illegal hunting, aka "poaching" for ivory, that's killing Africa's elephants wholesale.
Sometimes it's difficult to see how an individual can make a difference. The one thing we can all do, though, is to lend our moral and financial support to the various anti-poaching initiatives that have arisen in response to these threats. They are far from being a perfect answer; they can be accused of tackling symptoms and not causes; but they are essential to "hold the fort" in order to save what we have, pending more all-embracing solutions.
Take your pick from the Victoria Falls Anti-Poaching Unit (VFAPU); Bumi Hills Anti-Poaching Unit (BHAPU); Matusadona Anti-Poaching Project (MAPP); Gache Gache Wildlife Environment Protection Unit (WEPU); Kariba Animal Welfare Fund Trust (KAWFT); and support/advocacy organisations such as The Zambezi Society, which devotes all its efforts to the conservation of these areas. All are deserving of your support.
For the past 37 years elephants have been an essential and inseparable part of my life. I cannot imagine an existence - or a Zambezi wilderness - without them. As I said at the beginning, I'd like to think that in another 37 years, someone may stumble across this digital archive and think: well, it still is like that.
* Yes, there is some Photoshop manipulation for effect, but very little; the removal of half an impala to emphasise the emptiness. Otherwise, these are two separate images, one taken at 08.03am; the other at 08.14am, when the ele obligingly wandered into the composition. And talking of composition: rules - like the 1/3rd rule - are indeed made to be broken!
