Q&A: Namibia's rhino saviour

Chris Bakkes began his career in conservation while undergoing compulsory military service in the South African Defense Force. Combating ivory poaching in this role led him to work as a trails ranger for the Kruger National Park, but after losing an arm in a crocodile attack he hit the road and began an epic hitchhike across Africa, through Namibia, Zambia, Malawi and Tanzania. An assignment for the World Wildlife Fund in the greater Kunene region of Namibia led to his current role, as a naturalist guide for Wilderness Safaris. We met up with Chris on a visit to London to hear about his adventures in conservation…

How would you describe what you do for a living?

My wife and I work as community liaison officers for Wilderness Safaris. We work over a huge area where we have four safari camps. We also liaise with different conservation organisations and research projects. It is a magnificent area of this planet. I would say the whole area I work in, from south to north, is about 5,000,000 hectares, a beautiful but arid area. Within that we have the a half a million-hectare rhino reservation where we do our rhino tracking in close cooperation with Save the Rhino Trust. The job is extremely diverse. It involves anything from building schools to taking people out on safari, all of which I enjoy.

Could you paint a picture of what it looks like?

It is an extension of the Great Namib desert, which is shaped by a cold current from the Atlantic Ocean and its western shores. So the further west you move, the more arid it becomes. As you go gradually east, which is inland, you go up terraces towards the plateau and it becomes gradually less arid. In the south we have the Damara people who are the first inhabitants of Namibia: their origins are unknown.

How did you become a rhino conservationist?

I first qualified as a game rancher. I went to study that after school, as I wanted to make a life in wild wide open places and I thought conservation would probably be the best way to go about it. When I did my compulsory military service I got seconded to nature conservation, where I trained and led anti-poaching units on the Kwanda River. I am very thankful that I experienced that side of conservation: the anti-poaching war. I learned a lot. In those days from the '70s to the '80s, ivory and rhino poaching in Africa was an epidemic. And in those days in Zimbabwe they had a shoot-to-kill policy for poachers. Our largest breakthrough happened in June 1989: I will never forget that day.

There was a particularly dangerous gang of poachers that we tracked for many months, tightening the noose gradually around them. We eventually ambushed them, captured them and successfully convicted them. Even so, they left 15 dead elephants in their wake. So, we felt particularly good about ourselves for breaking this up: this gang was led by an old poacher that everyone was looking for, and it was a privilege to track him down, catch him and his whole gang and successfully convict them. That was probably the greatest achievement of my life.

How long did you stay in the anti-poaching game?

I learned a lot in the Kruger Park and I enjoyed it very much and I would have probably stayed there for a long time if I hadn't lost my arm to a crocodile. That happened in 1994 and was a life-changing experience. It was completely my own fault and I bear full responsibility. I took one chance too many. I was young and felt I was immortal [Bakkes was attacked by a crocodile while swimming in a water-hole]. It sent my life in a different direction. After I was well again, I realised that things had changed for me in the Kruger Park and I was never going to be the same. I started hitchhiking through Africa looking for work as I went along. It took me more than six months and when I reached the shores of Lake Victoria in Tanzania I got a message that there is a man in Namibia who wanted to give me a job. At that stage I had already suffered from malaria, plus I had diarrhea shortly after I broke my remaining hand. Just imagine the complications that brings about! I hitchhiked straight back to the north west of Namibia and joined a community-based conservation programme funded by the World Wildlife Fund.

What did you do there?

My job was the training and mobilising of community game guides. Most of them, ironically, were ex-poachers turned conservationists and their job was to win over their communities to the cause of conservation. I could see that already my job was half done, because the communities themselves had evolved a traditional conservation effort within their culture. They were not alienated by wildlife, which is often the case with colonialism.

So how did you join Wilderness Safaris?

Eventually my contract expired with World Wildlife Fund, but I didn’t want to leave the area. Wilderness Safaris opened up the Skeleton Coast Camp Park and I knew that job was mine. It had my name on it. And it was all a sort of homecoming to me because all of these things came together: conservation, community work and safari work. Now I am meeting people from all over the world and taking them into the wilderness. What better job can there be?

We now have a partnership with the Rhino Trust where we, through tourism, they take our guests to see black rhinos. The rhino trekkers are local boys, and their fathers and grandfathers were poachers. They use their local skills to conserve the rhinos. So it's community based. It’s conservation for a community as well as the animals really, and that’s the beauty of it. Every day provides new challenges and the only way you are going to achieve something is to stay at it constantly. So you cannot go away – you are part of it.

In terms of the animals in the reserve, what are the ones that you are most concerned about? 

The rhinos, without a doubt. The black rhino. We have the largest population of free-roaming black rhino in southern Africa, if not Africa. They are one of the few regional populations of rhinos left in Africa and they haven't been bred in captivity so it is very important that they are our main priority. Rhino poaching has reared its head in South Africa again. It can happen in Namibia, but it has not happened yet. The trade and the traffic in rhino horns is extremely well organised so we have all the reason to be on alert.

The poachers are desperate people who do desperate things. The less rhino there is, the higher the price will be. The animals themselves mean nothing to them: they don’t want it to be sustainable. But the good news is it has not hit Namibia yet. We still have time. Our rhinos are doing very well in the communal areas I just described, there is no reason for doom and gloom. We’ve just got to be aware that there is a problem, and we must be ready to mobilise. But at the moment it’s going well with the black rhino in Namibia. And we are at the forefront of rhino conservation.

For more information, see www.wilderness-safaris.com