Lifetime Achievement Award
Winner (and sole nominee)
Clive Glenn Stockil, Zimbabwe
Holding his keys still on the belt of his shorts, Clive Stockil was tracking a black rhino and her three-week-old calf in the Lowveld of south-eastern Zimbabwe. When he sensed we were getting near, he paused to whisper advice.
“If we flush her out in the thick bush she may charge. In which case, find a tree. Ideally to climb, but if not, move around the back of it so the rhino can’t see you properly, and she’ll run past…” He made a downward sweep of his arm to indicate a close shave.
Two minutes later we spotted the rhino, 20 yards away, squinting from undergrowth, mindful of her calf. There was no charge and after a few seconds we withdrew. “Fantastic. Brilliant,” Stockil whispered, patting me on the shoulder – a rare show of emotion from a private man.
For the winner of Tusk’s first Lifetime Achievement Award – a man lauded as “one of the early visionaries of community conservation” – this sighting was a moment of perfect happiness in a life characterised by “highs and lows like you’d never believe”. Stockil wears as many metaphorical hats as the straw ones stacked in his Lowveld house, among the paintings, books and animal skins.
But his achievements on two fronts stand out: his creation of a stronghold for rhino, elephant and the African wild dog in the Save Valley Conservancy where we tracked the black rhino; and his pioneering work on behalf of rural communities and for community conservation initiatives, here and near the border with Mozambique.
Of English and Scottish descent, he was born in this hot, dry, remote region in 1951 (“It was like a little bit of the Garden of Eden that had been left behind”) and grew up with the Shangaan and Shona people, speaking the two languages as naturally and fluently as English – one of the keys to his later successes. In 1967 he “rebelled against formal education” by going on a five-month “walkabout” in the bush with three Shangaan friends. “That wilderness experience with a few quality individuals stands out as a highlight in one’s life,” he told me.
In 1982 he started acting as “an interpreter and facilitator” for the Shangaan community at Mahenye, on the edge of Gonarezhou National Park. Before independence in 1980, villagers had been turfed out of their homes within the park boundaries, and when Rhodesia became Zimbabwe they expected to be allowed back. “But they weren’t, and poaching then went through the roof,” he recalled.
Over several years, and “literally hundreds of meetings” between villagers and the parks management, he gained the trust of Mahenye and helped the community develop ways of working with, rather than against, wildlife – a notably successful example of the Campfire (Communal Areas Management Programme For Indigenous Resources) initiative. “To achieve sustainable conservation, especially on the continent of Africa, you have to build in human needs and pressures,” he said.
The fruits of that work include Mahenye school, which opened in 1986, and Chilo Gorge Lodge, a 10-room tourist lodge overlooking the Save River. The latter opened in 1996, was refurbished late last year and employs 30 staff from Mahenye. The latest plan is to establish a “wilderness reserve” on community land so that tourists don’t have to go to the national park to see wildlife.
In addition to his work here and in the Save Valley Conservancy, Clive Stockil has found time to be nearly killed twice (by a buffalo and a rhino respectively), to have his livelihood – the family sugarcane farm – taken away in Zimbabwe’s land reforms, and to win the French National Order of Merit (in 2011, for his conservation work).
Giving generously of his time and expertise, he serves on many boards and committees dedicated to conservation and tourism. But he is happiest with his straw hat on, downwind of a rhino. As his partner, Lin Barrie, said, “He’s like a baobab. If you took him out of this environment he wouldn’t survive.”