It was a quiet morning on game drive, and we had just watched a large elephant bull lazily feeding on a marula tree, he had just pushed over, when a guest turned to me and asked,

“What happens to all of this? The leaves, the dung, the bones… doesn’t it just build up over time?”

This elephant had pushed over this marula tree with absolute ease before feeding on the top branches that he would not have been able to reach before.

It’s a question that sparks one of my favourite conversations out here, because the answer reveals the true genius of the ecosystem: nothing is wasted. Everything is part of a cycle. And once you start seeing it, you realise that life out here is just a grand, elegant system of recycling.

At the heart of it all is nutrient cycling, the invisible engine that keeps the bush alive.

Termite Architects of the Soil

We’ll begin with the termites. The Macrotermes termites, which build the towering clay mounds scattered across Londolozi, are among the most important recyclers in the system. Deep within these mounds, they cultivate a special fungus that helps them break down the dead grass and leaves they harvest. What starts as brittle, dried plant material is converted into rich, fertile soil.

Termites are one of the most influential ecological engineers at Londolozi, yet are one of the rarest to see unless peering into one of the chimneys in their mounds.

Then there are the subterranean termites, often referred to locally as “Bellacosis” termites. These do not build prominent mounds but instead operate underground, especially during the wet season. They specialise in breaking down woody material and leaf litter, turning debris into humus. Though largely unseen, they are constantly at work beneath our feet, quietly feeding the ecosystem from below.

Dung Distributors and Bone Breakers

Above the ground, a whole suite of species continues the recycling process. Few do this better than the spotted hyena. With jaws strong enough to crush bone, hyenas ingest calcium, phosphorus, and other nutrients from carcasses. These minerals eventually return to the earth through their droppings, forming a nutrient feedback loop that starts at the top of the food chain and ends in the soil.

The white colour of hyena scat is due to the large amounts of calcium consumed, and ultimately, this can be reabsorbed into the soil.

Enter the dung beetle. I’ve often stopped the vehicle so guests can watch in awe as a beetle rolls a dung ball twice its size across the road. But their role is more than just comical entertainment. Dung beetles bury faeces underground, fertilising the soil, controlling parasites, and even helping with seed dispersal.

A male dung beetle rolling a ball of dung with the female holding on tightly.

The Giants That Leave a Legacy

Elephants are the heavy lifters in this cycle. With a digestion efficiency of around 40 per cent, they return a substantial amount of organic matter to the system in the form of dung. Their feeding habits of breaking branches, felling trees, and digging up roots create space for light to reach the ground, allowing new plants to grow. They’re not just eating the landscape; they’re engineering it.

Elephants will often pull down branches off of trees or even push the whole tree over, which in turn creates a whole micro-ecosystem of nutrient cycling.

From Sky to Soil

High above, vultures keep the system clean. By rapidly consuming carrion, they prevent the spread of disease and accelerate the return of nutrients from dead animals back into the food web. A buffalo carcass, for example, can be stripped to the bone in under an hour by a wake of vultures, nature’s fastest recyclers.

The clean-up crew of vultures and spotted hyenas finish off the last remains of a giraffe carcass long after any other predators will feed.

Meanwhile, red-billed oxpeckers, although more famous for their role in removing parasites, also indirectly assist in the cycle. By reducing parasite loads on large herbivores like buffalo and giraffe, they improve overall animal health, which in turn affects how these herbivores graze and move nutrients across the land.

The Quiet Contributors

Not to be overlooked are the chacma baboons and vervet monkeys, who feed on a variety of fruits and inadvertently disperse seeds through their droppings. This encourages plant growth in new areas and increases biodiversity.

A vervet monkey sits atop a tree as a sentinel, looking out for danger while the rest of the troop feeds on fallen fruit at the base.

Down on the ground, after summer rains, you’ll see large millipedes crawling across the forest floor. These detritivores consume dead plant material, breaking it into smaller particles that fungi and microbes can further decompose. Without these unassuming recyclers, dead leaves and wood would pile up and lock away nutrients.

Millipedes are one of the detritivores of the ecosystem here at Londolozi.

Speaking of which, fungi, the hidden network beneath the soil, play one of the most crucial roles of all. These organisms, especially mycorrhizal fungi, form symbiotic relationships with plant roots, delivering nutrients in exchange for sugars. They are the final step in the cycle, ensuring that everything broken down by beetles, termites, and millipedes is transformed into nourishment for the next generation of plants.

Psilocybe cubensis fungi growing out of elephant dung.

A System Without Waste

The more time you spend in the bush, the more you realise that there is no such thing as waste out here. Everything is used. Everything has a place. From the hyena crunching a bone to the tiny termite carrying a piece of grass, every action feeds into this great loop.

So next time you’re on a game drive and notice a mound, or a beetle rolling dung, or even a monkey eating fruit in a fig tree, take a moment to appreciate what’s really going on. It’s not just survival. It’s regeneration.

It’s nature’s recycling system in perfect harmony. And it’s happening every day, right here at Londolozi.