The winter food not quite so good?

Bushveld is home to both browsers and grazers. If appropriate numbers of both types of animals are present, together with all the other kinds including birds and insects, mowing and pruning, pollinating and dispersing, digging and fertilising will keep the veld in good shape, continually preparing for the next stage of the annual seasonal cycle.

The footprint of every animal and the incidence of every plant continually change in the chance games that nature plays, as well as the doings of people, nature’s most incorrigible children.

As the fortunes of commercial ventures in tourism, hunting and citizen income levels change over time, the land allocated to wildlife shrinks or expands. The forces involved in this are always full of risk and volatility. Government policies and powers, tourist tastes in discretionary spending, population numbers, climate change, costs of and courage for conservation, crime such as the current upswing in rhino and elephant massacre for money, all form part of the scenarios that will face successive generations in the future.