Baraza

Category: WildlifeDirect news | Date: Feb 18 2008 | By: admin

I have had an interesting time monitoring all the new blogs and the variety of comments that are coming in. The amount of interest and the suggestions we’re getting on comments are enormously encouraging. I realise that there’s so much more we can do with the power of so many minds. Thank you all for your your contributions it’s so invigorating to hear from you.

Today is a sad but happy day for several reasons.

First, I had the pleasure of meeting Gwili from the Colobus Trust. It was a happy meeting - I discovered he’s Welsh and not from some as yet to be identified African tribe! Such a strange name! He updated me on the situation at the Colobus Trust where the tourism collapse has had a devastating impact on the income of this small charity - which I actually started in 1997! Yes, it was! And it was my brother who designed those crazy arboreal colobus bridges to enable these spectacular black and white monkeys to cross the highway safely. The good news is that the number of monkeys killed by vehicles is now negligible.

The sad news is that more than twenty colobus and fifty other primates are electrocuted every year on high voltage cables serving this touristic area. The Power company has promised to insulate the cables, but are demanding that the Colobus Trust pay for the materials. In my mind, that’s retarded and I think we should write to those guys and demand that they act a bit more responsibly.

The second bit of sad news was from a new blogger, the Maasai Wildlands - While training Douglas I was shown photos of children covered in flies. The flies were in the children’s noses, eyes and mouths. I cant imagine how they breathe without swallowing those dirty creatures! I could see the diseased eyes in at least one of the children. It made me realise just how lucky I am that I have a good clean supply of water at my home. I showed them the playpump system which is so brilliant! I hope that the funds raised through the Maasai Wildlands blog will help to bring clean water to the Maasai children.

And another piece of sad news, William Deed, our in house blogger who helped create the Gorilla Protection Blog, trained Atamato, Diddy and Innocent, has now left us. We will forever be indebted to Will for his amazing insight, expert online networking skills and his dry humour. Below is Will and Diddy checking out photos for the gorilla blog in December last year.

The good news is that he hasn’t gone far - he will be working from the Mara Triangle to help with the emergency fund raising campaign. As you all may know, we are trying to raise 150,000 dollars for the Mara Triangle to help them through this extraordinarily difficult period. Brian Heath, the CEO of the Mara Conservancy came in to pick up Will and to update Richard Leakey on the situation on the ground. They ended up recalling stories about an earlier discussion on the future of the Mara and about Brians Serval cat kitten!

It feels like a long day but we’re only just getting started. I am energized because more than 20 bloggers received donations last week (thank you everyone) and that means that things are looking up which is a great change for us living in Kenya where things have been so depressing lately. But for those who follow Kenyan politics the Koffi Annan mediated talks are progressing and despite some hiccups, there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. “Harambee” as Kenyans say, “Lets pull together”.

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