Compare the game reserves: how S. African melon farm became haven for the Big Five

We can all, in our modest way, contribute to restoring the planet, making donations to wildlife charities, volunteering on nature reserves, that sort of thing. It all adds up.

People who run private businesses, those who generate profits that they can afford to direct to outside causes, can make significant, and sometimes conspicuous improvements to the natural world. There are not enough of them who think this way, but those who do so should be applauded, and promoted as an example to others.

South African Douw Steyn, whose insurance empire include Compare the Market.com, is one. 30 years ago he bought a water melon farm and cattle ranch 120 miles north of Johannesburg, a piece of degraded, wildlife-empty land which was then the very opposite of the great unspoilt, timeless enclaves of authentic wild Africa, the Serengeti, the Ngorogoro, the Kruger and others.

Steyn simply let the land grow wild. Then he brought elephants in to take care of the pruning. They tear up whole thorn trees with their trunks. He also imported the rest of the Big Five – water buffalo, rhino, lion and leopard. Other incomers include wildebeest, giraffe, zebra and cheetah. The birds, species such as the gorgeous bush-shrike and African broadbill, flew in by themselves, out of wider Africa.

In this now fully-functioning wildlife reserve (everything but meerkats - that would be an unnecessary gimmick) the size of 12,000 football pitches joined together, creatures roam where they like within a well-guarded perimeter fence. 

My article is an account of a visit I made in 2018, when I had the chance to walk near lions, without an intervening fence.