Supported by Rolex through the Perpetual Planet Initiative, the Orange River-Karoo Conservation Area is working to reverse a century of wildlife decline across one of Africa’s most degraded landscapes.
The far south of Namibia, along the Orange River, was once home to the largest land migration on the planet. Vast herds of springbok – known as the trekbokken – numbering up to 10 million would move through the Karoo from the Kalahari with the rains, eclipsing even East Africa’s great wildebeest migration.
Over the past century, wildlife population numbers in the region fell by 90 per cent. Elephants, lions, hippos and hyenas disappeared entirely. Commercial farmland replaced open range, and fencing severed the migratory corridors that had sustained the herds for generations. Where millions once roamed, only a few hundred springbok remained.
In 2020, a team of conservationists founded the Orange River-Karoo Conservation Area (ORKCA) with a different approach: purchase publicly available land and stitch it together into a single protected corridor large enough for megafauna to return. Backed by Rolex through its Perpetual Planet Initiative since 2023, ORKCA now extends across more than 160,000 hectares, with a target of one million hectares within the next 15 to 20 years.
In late 2025, after two years of preparation, the ORKCA team – with support from Rolex – carried out its first wildlife translocation, releasing 10 oryx, 10 springbok and 10 ostrich onto the land. What follows is the story of that release.
Below, we follow the ORKCA team through a photo diary of the translocation – from preparation to release – captured by James Kydd for Rolex.
After two years of preparation, the ORKCA team released their first wildlife onto the land. What follows is the story of that day.
When co-founders Andreia Pawel and Red Barthorp first arrived in 2016, the land was covered in human infrastructure – fences, scrap metal, the remnants of war and hardship. After four years running expedition tourism, the Covid-19 pandemic shut down travel. The pair redirected toward large-scale conservation.
ORKCA was born in 2020 – a new model of conservation in Namibia, acquiring farmland and partnering with local landowners to form a continuous protected corridor where wildlife can move freely and megafauna can return.
The goal is to protect more than one million hectares over the next 15 to 20 years.
“Rolex has really supported us from the beginning, when we were still a dream – they saw something. They’ve supported us in securing land in perpetuity for conservation, in rolling out our scientific research and with wildlife reintroduction. They give us advice and lessons learned from the other conservation projects they support; they have a lot of knowledge.”
It took two years of preparatory work before the first animals could be released. Old fences were stripped from the interior and repurposed as boundary fencing. GPS collars were tested. Migratory corridors were mapped.
“Animals don’t recognise boundaries at all. They’ve been traversing these landscapes for many years. These boundaries are anthropogenic.”
“You could see that excitement and joy as the first springbok jumped off the truck. That was an iconic moment for ORKCA – a big milestone. Even the next day when we tracked the collared animals, you could see the excitement in the team.”
Two animals of each species were fitted with GPS collars. The data from those first days is already shaping the next phase of releases.
The team is working to secure the northern boundary so predators, including cheetahs, can one day be reintroduced to keep herds moving along natural routes.
“ORKCA can be the largest rewilding story in southern Africa. This landscape has so much potential on a large scale that we must keep going. It’s a lifelong work, but it’s very much possible to revive the Orange River corridor.”
This article is part of Forbes Australia’s editorial partnership with Rolex through the Perpetual Planet Initiative, which supports scientists and explorers working on long term .
