Скачать или смотреть Protecting the marula fruit from elephants

(29 Feb 2016) LEAD IN:
A charity in South Africa is using bees to deter elephants from feasting on one of the country's protected species - the marula fruit.
As well as being a popular elephant snack, the fruit is used to make beer and is the core ingredient of Amarula liquor, a successful South African export.
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From January to March, at the height of South Africa's summer, elephants feast on one of their favourite foods, the marula fruit.
Some believe that elephants enjoy getting drunk on the fruit as it ferments on the ground, but scientists debunk this idea, claiming the volumes they eat are not high enough to have an effect.
The elephants' fondness for the fruit is leading to vast quantities of it being eaten or trampled on, according to scientist Michelle Henley.
Henley is the co-founder of the NGO Elephants Alive, which works to protect the creatures and improve elephant-human interactions.
They are running a project to try to deter elephants from damaging the marula trees, with the aim of protecting the local ecosystem and helping elephants and humans live together peacefully.
"The elephants really, really enjoy the fruit of marulas. I've seen a bull guarding a tree and chasing anything that happened to come past that tree away from the tree. Marulas are one of the preferred species that they browse on. So, they enjoy eating the bark, new leaves and obviously the fruit. The fruit's got a very high carbohydrate content, which they really enjoy. And although they impact on the marula trees when they feed on them they also have a positive effect on the trees in that they help with seed dispersal," says Henley.
In order to deter the elephants from going near the trees, Henley's team are experimenting with hanging beehives from trees in the Jijane Nature Reserve.
Elephants don't like the buzzing noise or being stung by the bees, and Henley's team hopes this might keep them away.
In addition, the charity says, the bees will produce honey that can help support the rangers and staff in the nature reserve.
Protecting the marula fruit is also welcomed by locals, who have many commercial and recreational uses for it.
Selina Raseyale from the village of Makhushane in Limpopo province collects marula fruit during the three-month summer season in order to make her own marula beer.
Raseyale removes the fruit, which is high in vitamin C, from the kernel. She adds water and the beer ferments for three days.
As well as selling the beer, the community enjoys drinking it themselves.
"We collect marula in order to make beer. We don't add sugar. It's a natural product – we only add water. Then we drink and get happy. During marula season we don't buy commercially made beer, we just make our own beer", says Raseyale.
But while the alcoholic properties of fermented marula are welcomed and enjoyed, it also has many more practical uses.
"Marula is what we would refer to as a cultural keystone species," says Wayne Twine, Associate Professor at the School of Animal, Plant and Environmental Sciences at the University of the Witwatersrand.
"In the local culture it has high value because of the wide range of uses that people get from the tree. Obviously the fruit are eaten, they're used to brew traditional beer, people also use it to make jam, and the edible kernel is also highly valued. And then there are a whole range of medicinal uses of the plant, it's also valuable for shade," he says.
Alongside these local uses for marula, the fruit is also the key ingredient in a South African liqueur called Amarula.
The marula tree is found in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

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