ERP: Protecting elephants, rhinos and people

EPI-USE Labs is part of Group Elephant, which owns and funds a non-profit entity, called Elephants, Rhinos & People ('ERP'). We recently spoke to Jan van Rensburg of EPI-USE Global Services about ERP and its projects.

Hi Jan, tell us about ERP. What is it, and how is it funded?

"In 2014, there was a big poaching crisis around rhinos and elephants specifically, and as a company we want to do something about that. We created a non-profit; and the reason why we created our own non-profit instead of just giving money away to an existing non-profit is we wanted to know where our money goes.

ERP stands for Elephants, Rhinos & People. We're working on elephant and rhino conservation through a poverty alleviation strategy because the two are closely linked. We found that local communities living close to the animals are the best protectors that we've got, and the first line of defense. So we're working with them and giving them economic alternatives so that they've got a stake in helping to protect these animals.

One percent of all the revenue that we make within the commercial business group gets funneled towards ERP, and that's one percent of revenue, not profit; so it's a big number for us. Doing that we cover all ERP overheads and we can give external donors the assurance that their money flows through one hundred percent to projects on the ground."

We've heard about the ERP conservation area in South Africa. How do you keep it safe?

"So we've partnered with a community in South Africa called the Barokologadi community and they had a piece of land that they got back as part of a land redistribution program in South Africa. They decided to partner with ERP to make this a conservation land.

The security budget is a huge part, probably the biggest part of ERP. We've got a fence around the property and got rangers working around the clock patrolling the area.

And we've created what we call ERP Air Force, which are fixed wing drones that we manufacture on the property, that patrol the area. And if there's a problem, it dispatches the rangers to the problem area if it sees a potential intrusion."

Tell us more about beehive fencing - it sounds intriguing!

"The honey bee projects are an interesting one. So an interesting fact is there are a few things that elephants are really frightened of or scared of, but honeybees are one of them. And the reason is if the elephant gets stung in their trunk, they can actually get a serious injury or even die from the bee sting. So they're very afraid of bees.

Now typically what happens in Africa, there's a lot of elephant human conflict. People want to do agriculture and they plant crops and then elephants who are free roaming come through that and destroy the crops and then the elephants and the humans pump heads. What we do is we create what we call bee hive fencing projects where we put a bee hive and a bee hive and in between you've got a wire all around the agricultural land and when an elephant comes and wants to get to the crops, that triggers a wire and the bees don't like it so they start to buzz out, and as soon as the elephant hears the bees they run away because they don't want to get near the bees.

So we protect the crops; and not only that, the community can harvest the honey that they get and they can sell it and make money from that."

Any other interesting projects?

"Another project that I can tell you about is BIKES4ERP.  We've distributed over 700 bicycles to kids in rural areas so that they can get to school and back easier. Does giving kid a bike make a difference to their school attendance and their grades? And the answer is a resounding yes."