Assessment of Carrying Capacity

The number of herbivores that a natural savanna landscape can support is calculated based on average annual rainfall and the nutrient status of the soil. The higher the rainfall and more fertile the soil, the greater the carrying capacity of a given area.

In 1995, carrying capacity at Malilangwe was estimated at 40 kg per hectare. In 2009, we acquired the Hippo Valley Game Section (HVGS), which boosted our estimated carrying capacity to more than 50 kg per hectare. The HVGS has the benefit of being partially artificially irrigated by excess water from the sugar cane fields of Hippo Valley Estates. This excess water has created a 340-hectare swamp in the north of the section, which produces large amounts of green forage, supporting large herds of buffalo and other animals during the late dry season.

Our carrying capacity is still estimated at 50kg per hectare today, as we have not acquired any additional contingent game sections, rainfall patterns have not changed meaningfully, and soil nutrient status is assumed to be unchanged given that any changes are expected to be gradual relative to the assessment period.

It’s worth noting that a simple biomass-per-hectare figure captures the total forage a landscape produces, but for browsers and mixed feeders the picture is more complex: an animal’s intake is also limited by how easily forage can be found and physically harvested, not just by how much of it exists. Our own studies of elephant feeding on Malilangwe in 2016 and 2025 demonstrated that the density of food patches and the mass an animal can gather in a single mouthful place real constraints on consumption. For this reason, carrying capacity is best understood as a guide that is continually refined as habitat condition, rainfall and species composition change.