What a difference a year makes. Wildlife that had not roamed the northern side of the land for over 200 years has made a strong return.
Eastern Cape (14 October 2025) – It’s been a year since the Bushman’s River Corridor opened at Amakhala Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape, and it’s reshaping the landscape in ways conservationists hope for.
The idea of returning land to wildlife here started 26 years ago, when local farmers took down their fences and gave the ground back to nature. That decision created Amakhala Game Reserve, where elephants, rhinos, lions and other animals that had vanished were slowly brought back.
“Local farmers made a remarkably brave choice. They pulled down their fences, laid down their farming tools, and gave this land back to nature. This was the beginning of Amakhala Game Reserve. A promise that wildlife would once again thrive where had long been lost,” shares Lula in Africa, who has documented the incredible strides made in the last year.
Up until last year, one challenge still remained on the reserve. The national N2 highway split the land in two, cutting off natural movement between north and south. Herds were more confined, grazing pressure mounted and predators had limited space to establish territories. It was a hard barrier.
That changed in 2024 with the opening of the Bushman’s River Corridor, a natural underpass of riverbed beneath the highway. Within just five days of the corridor’s opening, elephants had crossed to the northern side, land they hadn’t touched in more than two hundred years. Lions and cheetahs followed as their territories finally expanded.
The corridor has also allowed populations that were once isolated, like brown hyenas, to reconnect. That kind of movement helps with genetic diversity, keeps prey and vegetation in balance, and makes the whole system stronger.
“Since then, we’ve seen animals not only move to previously unoccupied areas, but move freely back and forth, including lions and cheetahs. That movement spreads their ecological impact, balancing both grazing and browsing pressure, and allowing long term sustainability of the vegetation and prey species,” shares Lula in Africa.
Wildlife corridors are critical because they undo one of the biggest threats facing animals today. Fragmentation.
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When land is divided by fences or roads, populations get stuck, resources run out, and inbreeding creeps in. Corridors give animals freedom to move about for food, water, mates and safety and in turn, they keep ecosystems healthier.
Dr William Fowlds, wildlife vet and founding member of Amakhala says: “The vision is to expand a similar model into the greater landscapes, joining with other reserves into a mega-reserve stretching from Addo to the Fish River.”
One year in and this passage has made a big difference. Amazing things can happen when we find common ground to drop fences and boundaries for wildlife to properly thrive.
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