The Addo Elephant National Park was established 94 years ago to protect the last 11 elephants in the Eastern Cape region. Since then, the reserve has expanded to 155,000 hectares and today it’s home to lions, leopards, rhino, buffalo and more than 600 elephants. It also has 16 rivers and 437 wetlands.

Freshwater scientists Nancy Job and Dirk Roux were part of a team that co-authored the South African National Parks and South African National Biodiversity Institute’s first-ever inventory of the park’s rivers and wetlands. With an inventory in place, the park is better placed to conserve wetlands for South Africa and plan for the future.

A wetland is a piece of land that is flooded with salt or fresh water most of the time. Addo’s wetlands include wetlands in low-lying hollows which collect water between coastal dunes, springs hidden within forested kloofs and depression wetlands (shallow, bowl-like ponds that hold water for only a few months in the year) inside areas of thick, bushy vegetation.

Read more about Addo’s wetlands, why they are important and the plans to conserve them.