Baraza

Category: Africa, Lions, Podcasts, conservation | Date: Nov 03 2009 | By: paula

I am amazed! Someone took our blog post and podcast about lion vs warthog in the Masai Mara and mashed it up to produce this great Youtube video!

Thank you Tigersandme!

And all of you out there please feel free to do the same - send us links to your mashups!

Tags: conservation, Kenya, Lion, Lions, Maasai, Masai Mara, warthog, wildlife, wildlifedirect

One response so far

Category: Africa, South Africa, furadan, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 01 2009 | By: paula

Someone asked me if we go ‘trick or treating’ in Africa to celebrate Halloween. Apart from expatriates, we generally do not. In fact many Africans may be surprised at the idea of celebrating scary superstitions.

Sadly superstitions abound in Africa and often to the detriment of wildlife. In South Africa it is believed that consuming the eyes of vultures will give you good eyesight.

According to Kobus du Toit

“The vulture is used because of its good eye sight and local people believe if they use certain parts of the bird (head) that it will help them to see in the future”

He recommends the banning of carbofuran because “Companies develop toxic products to be used in first world countries in a responsible way. When third world countries used these products it is not usually for the primary cause what the product was developed. When a product is misused as in the case of Furadan a company can be responsible to the extinction of a species (e.g. Cape vulture in South Africa). The monetary value that a company can earn in a third world country will never match the negative publicity when a species is exterminated from the earth”

Owls are feared around the world and in Africa are  viewed as the dreaded bearers of bad fortune and are killed indiscriminately in many parts of Africa, nests are often raided and eggs smashed or chicks killed.

Fortunately its not all bad news as some brave people are trying to change cultural traditions to save owls. Darcy Ogada and Paul Murithi have been monitoring the rare and beautiful Mackinders owls in an agricultural area of Kenya where such cultural taboos abound .

From a study of 16 pairs of owls, Darcy and Paul noted that some farming practices threaten this population, particularly the poisoning of owl prey with pesticides. They found that 28% of farmers said they controlled vertebrate pests using pesticides, but they believe the figure to be much higher and note  “we also noticed that carbofuran (tradename Furadan) was often misused to kill vertebrate pests”.

To change perceptions about owls and therefore save them, Paul and Darcy are promoting owl tourism, these beautiful owls are a draw for bird tourists and the income generated from this supports individual farmers and community projects. Farmers who benefit from owl tourism are likely to know about owl diet and habits.  Paul is hoping that this will be key to saving them.

This work has not gone unnoticed as  Tony Warburton of the World Owl Trust has noted

“In his village of Kiawara near Mount Kenya, Paul has defied his community’s traditional fears by using owls as a tourist attraction. For the past five years he has been feeding and protecting owls in their natural habitat in the forest near his home. This has resulted in some 26 birds becoming habituated to human presence, some of which perch calmly in the branches of nearby trees, while others roost by day in caves scattered across the forest. He has erected roadside signs to attract foreign tourists who pay Paul to guide them to view these elusive birds. Thus, he has demonstrated to his fellow villagers that wildlife – even owls – can provide them with a source of income if only they and their habitat are protected. To reinforce this message, Paul encourages them to appreciate the enormous value of the birds by providing the same services to local people, free of charge. Truly a ‘Champion of Owls’ if ever I heard of one”.

Tony has nominated Paul for an award for his brave dedication to changing taboos about owls, and to encourage him to continue. We congratulate Paul and wish everyone a very happy Halloween.

Tags: Africa, conservation, halloween, Kenya, Owls, wildlife, witches

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Oct 26 2009 | By: Maina

Today I woke up to the most disturbing news. “Private companies and individuals are gradually encroaching on the Nairobi National Park, threatening the only wildlife habitat close to the city,” says the opening sentence of an article in the Kenyan newspaper, Daily Nation’s website.

Previous cattle invasion in the Park during drought

According to the journalist,  Fred Mukindia, an 11,700 hectares area had been surveyed and some 60 acres (24.75 hectares) would be subdivided into plots to be sold to developers and land title deeds will be issued. This is clearly a fraudulent deal since the land in question is under the title deed held by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) who are the custodians of all national parks including Nairobi. Already the law has been broken since it is illegal to survey any land without the full knowledge and approval of the owner. KWS officers say they did not sanction this survey.

Nairobi National Park is the only wildlife national park within a capital city in the world. The park has however been under pressure from private developers who want to convert it into residential and commercial area. Most of the wildlife migration corridor between the park and the southern maasailand wildlife areas - including Amboseli National Park - has already been lost to these greedy developers.

There was no legal way to stop these developers from converting the corridors since they were communal lands under the masai group ranch systems and the groups are allowed to sell the land. The park, however, is protected under the Wildlife Management and Conservation Act cap 386, Laws of Kenya. How then can the same government that is supposed to uphold this law allow it to be flouted? The same custodian of this law is preparing to issue titles of ownership to the new ‘grabbers’ in what the Daily Nation journalist refers to as a ‘fast tracked’ process!

Its even more complicated since there are already squatters in the 60 acre land. The journalist postulates that these are not genuine landless people but decoys planted on the piece of wild real estate to create public empathy until the gluttonous developers get the title deeds. This is not unusual in Kenya as we have seen in the Mau Forest, where phony squatters were used by rich land speculators resulting in the speculators being allocated colossal tracts of land in this most important water catchment.

The journalist also blames the KWS who, while they fenced that side of the park, someone forgot to fence the 60 acre parcel of land thus exposing it to land-hungry grabbers. It gets quite messy given that the squatters have started agitating for this land. Recently, the article reports, they have heightened the fight for the land and some KWS officials report to have received death threats. The KWS is said to have responded by deploying armed rangers to the area. The squatters retaliated by uprooting boundary beacons erected around the land. And so the vicious circle continues.

What am asking is, should we allow the government to break the law just because they made and are responsible for upholding these laws? The resounding answer should be NO!

Since this illegal land allocation appears to be a ‘clandestine’  operation, the first line of attack should be to create public outcry from all levels. Kenyan conservation organizations should lead the public in rejecting this dangerous move that threatens to set precedence for the future grabbing of wildlife habitats. If this is allowed to go on, nothing can stop other land thieves from stealing the entire Nairobi National Park - the Wildlife Capital of The World.

The time to act is now, before the process of issuing land ownership titles is complete. It would be helpful if conservation organizations (including KWS) would file a case in the Kenyan High Court to stop the title processing as a first step, then make a BIG noise about this illegal activity that threatens to take away Nairobi’s primary green gem.

6 responses so far

Category: Africa, WildlifeDirect news, wildlife, wildlifedirect | Date: Oct 22 2009 | By: paula

Yesterday I had the pleasure of speaking in a panel at PopTech about Conservation 2.0 - the New edge of Conservation.

I spoke about WildlifeDirect and I showed our video on Youtube which we produced in partnership with National Geographic and told Antony Kasanga’s story about the Lion Guardians. Antony’s story has really captured the attention and imagination of Americans  Here’s a story that reveals the value the interconnectedness of everyone through the internet .

After my talk someone asked me what it was like being a woman working with people in the remote and dangerous parts of Africa.

The beauty of WildlifeDirect is that all our projects are local. Anthony is a Masai and the reason why his work is so effective is because he is working with his own community. WildlifeDirect not only identifies good, ..or should I say Great projects, that are having important impacts on the ground. But we are also enlisting and nurturing a community of future African leaders.

The people who support the Lion guardians  must be hugely proud about what they have enabled to happen. Everyone is talking about the lions that the Lion Guardians have saved.

It was one person who commented on Antony’s blog and left told him about the scholarship in Oxford. Today that person must have a huge smile on his face. He has completely changed Anthony’s life and given him a tiny peace of information that I believe will enable Antony to reach his potential.

So Chris Santon this blog post is a Shout Out to you -you may not realize the significance of the gift you gave to Antony. It may be some years before you realize just how important that simple act was. Asante Sana Chris! From all of us.

The gift goes the other way to - I’m sure that Chris’s life will never be the same. He has achieved something that most of us only dream of. The gift of being able to really help someone.

Here’s Antony at Oxford giving a presentation in front of the University Vice Chancellor. Antony we are so proud of you!

I think I saw a few teary eyes in the audience when I showed the photo of Antony in Oxford against the original photo of him at work in Mbirikani.

Mine certainly were!

I’m so proud that we can tell Antony’s story because I know it inspires many Africans and will continue to inspire generations to come.At the social event later several people came up to me asking how they could help. That’s what I love about PopTech, it’s the first time I’ve been at  a meeting where everyone is here for one reason only, to find out how they can help.

I want to thank all the Lion Guardians for everything they have done and for letting WildlifeDirect be a part of their amazing story. I have always had a passion for wildlife. I believe that everyone cares about nature and wants to do something.

WildlifeDirect is the only conservation organization that makes it possible for individuals everywhere to participate directly in conservation - by linking donors directly to people on the ground and making it personal.

As Sheryl says

“I enjoy donating my time and money to WLD wildlife protectors because
they’re doing important field work that I can’t do.”

By selecting genuine high impact projects on the ground we know that we can save wild animals. With very little cash the Lion guardians have saved tens of lions - that’ s HUGE - there are only 2000 lions left in Kenya and each is valued at between 500,ooo and 1 million dollars. That return on investment should excite any business person.

I already met some great people here at PopTech and I’m so excited about developing new relationships. It has been a tough year for us but we have passion and belief, and a model that works.

Participate PopTech visit the website Poptech.org and read their blog here  and join us live on webstreaming from 9 am today when the mystery box will be opened. Tell all your friends.

Tags: Antony Kasanga, conservation, Kenya, Lion, lion guardians, Lions, Maasai, Masai Mara, PopTech, wildlife, wildlifedirect

One response so far

Category: Africa, conservation | Date: Oct 21 2009 | By: paula

The PopTech Fellows  program is sadly over - it was amazing! Now we are in for a rollercoaster with  the Pop!Tech Conference. It brings together World changing people, projects and ideas. The conference officially starts today and I’m on the line up today! I’m so thrilled to have been invited to be part of our special Wednesday session “Conservation 2.0.”  I’ll be talking about using social networking to bring out the inner conservationist in all of us save wild animals. I’ll do it by telling some stories about extraordinary bloggers on WildlifeDirect like Antony Kasanga of Lion guardians’

If you are at PopTech please consider coming to this super session

The New Edge of Conservation with Katy Payne, Healy Hamilton, and Paula Kahumbu
New tools are improving ecological conservation efforts like never before. Hear from three leading practitioners as they describe how advanced technologies are helping us amplify, protect, and support efforts to preserve biodiversity around the world. Guest presenters toiling on the front-line of conservation work will share insights, stories about elephants and whales and seahorses, and lessons learned on everything from incorporating emerging technologies to communicating the principles of conservation to children.

Here’s a sneak peak about the speakers

Cheryl Heller

Cheryl is a writer, designer and communication strategist who helps clients integrate socially responsible behavior into sustainable brand communication and promotional programs. Her firm, Heller Communication Design, has developed a process through which corporations can play a leading role in alleviating the social and environmental issues facing the world, through programs that are both easy and profitable for them.

Cheryl has written articles for Communication Arts, ID Magazine, Graphis Magazine and The Design Management Journal. She wrote a book for the AIGA on the best process for preserving innovation within corporations. Recently she wrote the lead story on creative strategy for Adobe’s online magazine, Proxy.

She has been profiled in articles in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Graphis magazine, Communication Arts, ID magazine, How magazine, Print and PDN.

Dr. Healy Hamilton

Dr. Healy Hamilton is a biodiversity scientist at the California Academy of Sciences, and adjunct professor in the Department of Geography at San Francisco State University. She is the founding director of the Center for Biodiversity Research (CBR), a program that integrates biological and geospatial data for biodiversity research, conservation and education. Dr. Hamilton and the staff at CBR conduct research into species response to climate change and make it available for large landscape conservation planning.

Katy Payne

If anyone can artfully explain how a herd of elephants is like a Quaker meeting, it is animal communication researcher Katy Payne. Payne has been studying the sounds and languages of African elephants and humpback whales—two of the world’s largest animals—for decades, but she’s also been listening to their silences. Her discoveries have led her to fascinating meditations on stillness, cognition, and how acoustic phenomena shape relationships and communities. In 1999 she founded the Elephant Listening Project to help ensure her subjects’ future. Through sound and video clips, her research team aims to monitor elephants’ welfare and movements, as well as track the effectiveness of conservation efforts. Payne is currently affiliated with the Bioacoustics Research Program at Cornell University’s Laboratory of Ornithology.

Paula Kahumbu (Yes, that’s me!)

Paula is an ecologist and a passionate tree hugger. She spent many years studying monkeys and elephants in Kenya and worked for the Kenya Wildlife Service on wildlife policy, trade and park management issues and later managed a quarry restoration company. She is passionate about Africa and conservation, saving wild species and wild places – all for a purely selfish reason, so that she can enjoy them. Her life goal is to revert the people of the world to loving nature, starting with Joshua her son.

Peter Durant will be drawing the entire conference as it happens to capture the stories in pictures. He’s amazing!

Tags: Cheryl Heller, ideas, Katy Payne, Paula Kahumbu, PopTech, technology

2 responses so far

Category: Africa, South Africa, Uganda, big cats, hunting, tourism | Date: Oct 19 2009 | By: Maina

Recently, as is usually the case, a passionate discussion erupted here at Baraza following a post about Uganda’s sport hunting plan. While I believe that Uganda’s plan to get into sport hunting is unwise, not all agreed with me. Although the ‘to hunt or not to hunt’ debate is not anywhere near the end, when a new voice comes in, a new view emerges. Most of the time, this new view continues to discredit this barbaric and unnecessary so called ’sport’.

A lion in Kenya (photo courtesy of Ewaso Lions)

Some time ago, an article appeared on Bloomberg.com showing the dilemma that South Africa has found itself in after a court ruling more or less banned canned the so called hunting. Now they are grappling with some 3,000 odd lions that have been bred in captivity for the sole purpose of being shot by foreign tourists at the price of  $22,000 per lion. As Mike Cohen writes on Blomberg:

“Lions bred for hunting are often shot after just a few days in the wild. In captivity they are mostly fed on donkey meat bought from rural communities. After their release from breeding cages they catch and eat game that the farmers have acquired for their estates.”

This case exposes one of the hidden vices of sport hunting - canned hunting - a cruel and mindless practice that should never have seen the light of day.

When the sport hunting becomes popular in Uganda for instance, the chances are that many ranchers will want to convert their land into wildlife producing factories where, say, lions can be bred for shooting or antelopes can be bred for feeding the lions. Eventually, someone will challenge canned hunting in Uganda and they will find themselves in the same situation that South Africa is in presently.

Kenyans are currently bothered by there being only 2,100 lions in the country and that if they continue losing the lions at the current rate of 100 lions a year, they will have no lions in 20 years. South Africa on the other hand has more lions than Kenya but they are hunting them at a higher rate, and Tanzania is even worse. Cohen says

More than 300 lions are hunted in South Africa every year, with trophy hunters coming from countries including the U.S., Russia and Spain. That makes South Africa the second-biggest destination for lion hunting after Tanzania, where wild lions are shot. About 1,000 lions are hunted each year in Africa. 

You should note that South Africa has not stopped hunting of lions. Only canned hunting - which more or leas means the captive breeding of lions for the sole purpose of being shot - has been made illegal by the court of law. Of course, the greedy business people who make millions from this ugly business have appealed to have the court ruling overturned. What did you expect?

They are even using the prospects of losing some 5,000 jobs as a reason why canned hunting should be reinstated. They even have an association for that. Cohen writes:

The South African Predator Breeders Association has warned that the judgment may shut an industry that employs 5,000 people because farmers can’t afford to keep lions on their estates for long periods of time due to the cost of the antelopes they would eat. It also argued that the lions may need to be euthanized as the legislation reduced their commercial value.  

Let’s see how the court handles this.

Tags: Africa, Bloomberg.com, canned hunting, captive breeding, hunting, Kenya, Lion, South Africa, sport hunting, Uganda

One response so far

Category: WildlifeDirect news, wildlifedirect | Date: Oct 17 2009 | By: paula

Dear Friends

I just wanted to let you know that I am at PopTech  and it is amazing. I wish my entire team from Nairobi and all our WildlifeDirect bloggers could be here with me!

In the PopTech Fellows program I will be talking about WildlifeDirect and working with a team of professional marketers, strategists, communicators and planners to learn more about what we can do to take WildlifeDirect to the next level.

We are all at Point Lookout Resort and Recreation Center  near Camden and they days are filled with exercises and meetings. It is going to be very intense and I am really looking forward to the results!

Andrew Zolli is an expert in global foresight and innovation, studying the complex trends at the intersection of technology, sustainability and global society that are shaping our future

Andrew Zolli runs PopTech and he told us that we had each one of us 16 fellows had been selected from hundreds of applicants and that his team had investigated each and every one of us to determine if we would be the perfect team. I wasn’t alone in feeling deeply honored that they had selected me. The other poptech fellows are doing earth shattering social innovations in energy and ecological solutions, education, medicine and design. It’s overwhelming. The PopTech team are fantastic - we already have a few nicknames like “Mushroom man” and I’m being called “Kenya”. You can meet all the other PopTech Fellows here

We were blessed with a spectacular sunset after our first day at the PopTech fellows. Wow!

I will continue blogging and tweeting about Poptech here and on Twitter at @paulakahumbu. You can follow other Poptech tweeters by searching #poptech and following @poptech

You can also read Erik Hershmans blog here

Before I sign off I want to thank Ollie Wilder (great name) and his parents and family who have taken me under their wing in Camden over the last week. I especially want to say “Thank you” to Trink and Kent for adopting me into your amazing family.

Tags: Kenya, Maine, Paula Kahumbu, Point Look out, PopTech, USA, wildlifedirect

5 responses so far

Category: Africa, Blog Action Day, Climate change, wildlife | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: Maina

This is my view of how climate change will affect wildlife - Maina

When world leaders discuss climate change, the picture that is in their minds is of people caught in drought and floods, melting snow and icecaps in the mountain ranges and polar regions, and the polar bear. Well, that is not the worst case scenario. Less obvious wildlife (as compared to the polar bear) will suffer too – and perhaps more than humans.

You see human kind – as a species – will survive this rapid change in climate better than wildlife. Humans, in short, will survive. But some non-human inhabitants of mother Earth will not. It’s a given that wild species of animals and plants survived the beginning and end of the Ice Age, but they did so naturally. The climate change then was not as rapid as the climate change we are witnessing today. We all know the reason why – humans had not invented the steam engine, hadn’t discovered coal and petroleum and industrialisation was not even a seed in the little mind our ancient ancestors.

Now greenhouse gas emissions and an opulent consumerism has renderd the natural systems weak and the pace at which global warming and other climate change factors are progressing is mind boggling – and wildlife cannot keep abreast.

Take the example of trees. In mountain ranges, there is a nice tiered arrangement of different dominant species of plants. From lowland forest trees to upland, bamboo, alpine glades, tundra etc. Two problems arise here. 1) Assuming the vegetation belts can quickly stay at pace with temperature rise, they will push each other up the mountain until they all have nowhere else to go then they go extinct. 2) In reality, they cannot keep up the pace so they will die on the way up.

The great Savannahs of Africa may look indestructible – but they are not. We are increasingly seeing irregular rain patterns which is disrupting vegetation growth resulting in mass deaths of the massive herds of charismatic and much loved large herbivores, and their attending predators iconically represented by lions, cheetah, leopard and the like.

In Kenya recently, prolonged drought – and we can not rule out the effects of climate change as the cause – first killed livestock, then pushed the livestock into wildlife habitats, then killed the wildlife. Now Kenya is – ironically – waiting for El Nino rains to settle in so that it can save people, their livestock and wildlife. But the El Nino could be made more severe by the effects of climate change. So more people, livestock and wildlife will die. Iregi Mwenja, a Kenyan bushmeat researcher posted pictures of the onset of the El Nino rains in Voi today. One of the casualties of the big water was a masai goat that died in the floods.

That is a look on the extreme weather conditions that climate change is making worse. The silent increase in temperature will have the most devastating impact on wildlife as habitats change. According to the BBC:

It is estimated 20-30% of plant and animal species will be at increased extinction if the temperature rises by more than 1.5 – 2.5C. Less snow in winter, warmer temperatures in summer and more winter rain will affect wildlife across the board. Sea level rises will reduce land area in some countries, which will instantly affect vegetation which is currently used for homes and foods by animals.

In Africa, most of traditional dispersal area for wildlife is now occupied by humans as population increases exponentially. When climate change takes full effect, wildlife will attempt to move to these areas and human-wildlife conflict will escallate. The result is that wildlife will be killed. From another perspective, humans, with the effects of climate change on their heels, will invade wildlife protection areas, killing wildlife to create room for themselves, and their ravenous progeny.

Lest you tell me that the earth is man’s home, and we don’t need the wildlife, let me remind you the intricate balance between biological  systems, including bacteria! and the physical (rock) earth. The scientific author, Edward O Wilson, in his book “The Future of Life” talks of the earths biological system as a layer of living matter so thin you cannot see it sideways from space but absolutely neccessary for overall integrity of the planet as a whole (including energy flows). So there you have it: Without the biological system, there is no earth. Or in a language that you will understand, without the biological matter of old that became fossilized millenia ago, we would not have oil or coal = no fuel = no cars = no industrialization.

It is time to act. Our first wave of action is no doubt massive adjustment to our consumption patterns in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This, if dully practiced, could slow down climate change. Talk, write, chant, wave placards at or do what you do best, but make your leader act on climate change. Tell them that when they get to Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009, they have to come up with a climate deal that saves us and wildlife. And go over to TckTckTck and join the more than 2 million ‘planet earthians’ tell the world leaders that you are ready for a climate deal that works.

It is said that climate change is inevitable, but the pace will have to slow down. Climate change has occurred before, but not at this pace. Let us all change the way we live, slow climate change and give the other inhabitants of this planet a chance to take on climate change at their own pace. We cannot make them adapt at our pace…they were not made that way.

Let’s slow climate change. Lets save our wildlife.

Tags: Africa, Blog Action Day, Climate change, emission, environment, extinction, global warming, greenhouse gas, wildlife

5 responses so far

Category: Climate change | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: paula

Dear all, I invited readers and friends to contribute their thoughts on Climate change in the run up to Copenhagen from 6th - 8th December - only 52 days away. It may not surprise many of you that our first guest blogger is Sheryl who writes  her own fantastic blog Not Honey: Please don’t tap on the glass.

Climate change decision must include commitment to slow and stop population growth

No one likes to talk about human overpopulation as the number one
crisis facing our planet. Most environmentalists and wildlife
protectors don’t like to talk about it. There’s the idea that having
as many kids as you want is a God-given right and mentioning that
“right” as a cause for climate change and planetary destruction irks
many people.

That silence is deadly. Here the world waits for the U.S. to take the
lead on climate change and the best we can do is a useless
cap-and-trade bill that has no chance of actually limiting greenhouse
gas emissions. There are too many loopholes, including the
“offsets” that industry insists they must have, and no clear plan for just how
many credits for emissions the big polluters can buy. Not included at
all in this bill are greenhouse gases from farms, which emit
35-40 percent of all methane emissions, “(which have 23 times the
global warming potential of carbon dioxide), 65 percent of nitrous
oxide (which is 320 times as warming as carbon dioxide) and 64 percent
of ammonia, which contributes to acid rain” according to the 2006 UN
report “Livestock’s Long Shadow.”

Food production for an exploding human population is a major source of
global warming pollution. There is talk now among wildlife protectors
about designating more wildlife parks and reserves for agriculture and
animal farming. Dr. Richard Leakey, noted anthropologist, wildlife
protector, and head of WildlifeDirect, in an interview for
“Kenya Imagine” said the following:

“Population growth is, as far as I am concerned, is
probably the single most worrying factor for the planet. We can look
at a farm, we can look at a national park – we can say the carrying
capacity of that area is “x.” If we look at the planet, the carrying
capacity for our planet has been exceeded. This planet has too many
people on it. How we address this I don’t know. But I am certain if we
don’t address it, many of the good efforts being made to cut carbon
dioxide emissions and to find alternative sources of energy won’t have
the desired effect. It has got to be linked and conceptualised in a
way that stabilises the human population and ultimately brings the
numbers down.”

Iregi Mwenja, a researcher on WildlifeDirect, has posted more than once about
the threat to wildlife from a growing human population. Recently, he
posted:

“With the population of the world at 9 billion in
2050, we may have 370 million people facing famine
worldwide. FAO says more land is needed to increase food production by
70 percent in 2050. In a country like Kenya where land is scarce now
and famine is the order of the day, the situation will be grave
serious in 40 years time when human population will have grown to over
60 million people. We may be forced to sacrifice some land in our
protected areas to feed this overblown human population! If you don’t
want to contribute to this catastrophe, let us limit the number of
kids per couple to 2. Please read the BBC NEWS
article below for more details on the FAO report.”

Read that again: Food production must increase 70 percent over
the next 40 years to feed the growing human population. What
does that mean?

More factory farms and far more greenhouse gas emissions promoting
global climate change than can be regulated or capped-and-traded. The
BBC story states that “Climate change, involving floods and droughts,
will affect food production.” Climate change is already having a
devastating affect on food production and vice versa.
Thousands of farmers in India have committed suicide because of crop failures
due to drought. Deforestation in the Amazon to make room for
cattle farms and soybean farms to FEED THE CATTLE has caused the loss
of more than 150,000 square kilometers of rainforest in Brazil between 2000-2008.
Loss of forests in the Democratic Republic of Congo is putting
gorillas at risk of extinction, which will put humans at risk of
extinction, too.

How’s that? How can the loss of a fellow Great Ape species have
anything to do with human survival? Turns
out that gorilla dung is a major component in forest growth. We
need rainforests to turn carbon dioxide into clean air and to deter
the greenhouse effect. Gorillas, according to Ian Redmond, the UN
ambassador for the Year of the Gorilla, “are herbivores, feeding on
fruit and plants. The digested food, as it passes through their
systems, helps seeds to germinate. … The full extent of the
gorillas’ role in propagation is unclear. But Redmond said a number of
plant species could not flourish without them, or wild elephants, the
other large mammal crucial in germination.” The gorillas “caught up in
the region’s civil wars, preyed on by poachers, and crowded out of
their homes by mining and logging industries - are already endangered
across Africa. …But Redmond’s argument could help give the animals a
new level of protection.” Economists have suggested spending $15
billion on reforestation as a “cheap” way of cutting greenhouse gas
emissions.

“Redmond said gorillas were crucial in maintaining the lifecycle of
the rainforests in the Congo basin. The forests themselves suck up
more than 1bn tonnes of carbon every year.”

“This is what the species are for. They are not ornaments. They are
not just interesting things to study. They are part of an ecosystem,”
he said.”

We are the only species of Great Apes on this planet who seem not to
know their place in an ecosystem. If we continue to allow human
populations to grow and crowd out all the wildlife until they’re all
extinct, and use up all the forests until they’re gone … what will
we have left? A planet full of nothing but humans and a ruined
environment that can no longer support life.

“It is only if you bring numbers down that we will be able to find a
way for resource utilisation per capita to increase. It is the only
way you are going to deal with poverty and unless you deal with
poverty, the situation can only spiral downwards. This is a massive
problem and the solutions are not simply condoms versus draconian
measures such as one child per family. It has to be looked at in
different countries in different ways. I think there has to be a
commitment everywhere to slow and stop population growth. I do believe
that we have been set back a long way by the opposition to family
planning that is being shown by some of the religious groups and by
some of the more conservative governments such as the current US
administration.” - Richard Leakey, in an interview published during
the Bush Administration

–
NotHoney@gmail.com
http://nothoney.com
“… a vegan driving a Hummer contributes less to greenhouse gas
emissions than a meat-eater riding a bicycle.”–Capt. Watson

Thank you Sheryl!

Please leave Sheryl a comment here and if you would like to contribute your thoughts on a blog just write to me paula@wildlifedirect.org.

Tags: Blog Action Day, cattle, Climate change, Gorillas, Ian Redmond, not honey, richard leakey, vegan, wildlife, wildlifedirect

4 responses so far

Category: Africa, Gorillas, In the News, Uganda, hunting, wildlife, wildlifedirect | Date: Oct 15 2009 | By: Maina

Conservationists are taken aback over Uganda’s re-introduction of sport hunting in selected areas outside of designated protected areas. Conservationists from Nature Uganda and WildlifeDirect voiced their concerns over Uganda’s claim that they have enough wildlife to sustainably practice this consumptive use of wildlife. Ben Simon of AFP has the complete story.

Uganda under fire over legalized big game hunting

By Ben Simon (AFP)

KAMPALA — Outraged conservationists said on Wednesday that Uganda had neither enough game nor adequate control mechanisms to reintroduce sport hunting on animals such as elephant and buffalo.

Animal and environmental protection groups were angered by the Uganda Wildlife Authority’s (UWA) decision to sell shooting licences in a bid to boost tourism revenue.

“I do not believe that Uganda has enough game animals to sustain sport hunting,” Samuel Maina, of Nairobi-based WildlifeDirect, told AFP.

UWA spokeswoman Lillian Nsubuga said population levels had recovered from years of war in some areas and argued that ending the decades-old ban would contain crop-crunching elephants and buffalos while creating jobs.

Maina voiced doubts that the 90 percent loss of the large mammal population during the unstable 70s and 80s had been reversed.

“Sport hunting is thus likely to be unsustainable in the designated hunting areas and there is a likelihood that to sustain this lucrative sector, Uganda will have to extend hunting into protected areas,” he said.

Achilles Byaruhanga of Nature Uganda, a Kampala-based advocacy group, also judged the initiative to be dangerous because it is impossible to know the real strength of big game populations.

“I would want to ask UWA: Where is your data and your information coming from? Just because some animals have moved out of a wildlife reserve doesn’t mean their numbers are strong enough for sport hunting,” he told AFP.

UWA chief Moses Mapesa said that big game hunting was happening already and that the plan was simply for Uganda to benefit from it.

“In the absence of controlled hunting we have had a loss of animals and a loss of potential revenue,” he said.

But Byaruhanga argued that the reintroduction of legal hunting was unlikely to stop illegal hunting by needy local communities or create enough guide jobs to provide a viable alternative.

Maina also warned that Uganda had not proven it had the capacity to control the hunting effectively.

“Hunting-law enforcement is going to be difficult when new hunting blocks are opened. I doubt UWA has enough personnel and machinery to prevent abuse of the hunting licenses and concessions,” he said.

Maina also argued that sport hunting was incompatible with the east African country’s current attempts to enhance its international image as a destination for ecotourism, with gorillas the main attraction.

“Ecotourism and sport hunting are more or less mutually exclusive. Ecotourists do not want to go to places where wildlife is being killed,” he told AFP.

“The growth of sport hunting tourism will give Uganda a bad name as an ecotourism destination and is thus likely to reduce earnings from ecotourism including gorilla tracking,” he added.

Tags: conservation, ecotourism, illegal hunting, Nature Uganda, sport hunting, tourism, Uganda, Uganda Wildlife Authority, wildlife

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