Baraza

Category: Amazing facts | Date: Nov 26 2008 | By: baraza

When E.O. Wilson said it was  the little things that made the world go round I didn’t really take any notice. But I’ve just discovered that on in every 3 bites of food was pollinated by an insect. That is a fantastic statistic, it means that our very survival depends on them.

As an ecologist I’ve always found insects interesting but it’s so hard to study them, first there are just too many of the darned things, some are anti social and sting and bite, many are too small to see, and some give us nasty diseases. But most of all it’s damn hard to get any books or educational materials on them - compared say to elephants, birds or plants.

Then I met Dino Martins and I suddenly got answers to everything I’d always been curious about, and instantly fell in love with insects.

If you don’t know him already, Dino writes the amazing

Dudu diaries blog about insects, and if his effect on me was profound, it was nothing compared to how he’s changing peoples perceptions all around Kenya. He’s back from Harvard University (where he’s doing his PhD) for a couple of weeks. We had lunch yesterday and he  told me about how he stopped a group of farmers from killing carpenter bees that were visiting a passion fruit farm in western Kenya. Thinking that these large bees were damaging the flowers the farmers went about crushing them and their nests, believing that they were saving their precious crop. After demonstrating that these bees were essential for pollination and production of the passion fruit crop, Dino was able to convince the farmers that they were actually damaging their crop by killing the bees and persuaded them not only to stop killing the bees, but to implement practices that would enhance the bee population and therefore secure a good fruit set of this important cash crop.

At another location he responded to farmers whose eggplant crop had failed for several years. Looking at the fields he noticed that no pollinators were present during the flowering season, and was able to advise the farmers to stop using pesticides which was killing the pollinators. The next year no pesticides were used, pollinators returned and a bumper crop was harvested. In both examples the solutions might sound obvious to anyone who knows about pollination services, but for rural communities education and information are rare. Misinformation and decisions based on ignorance abound which can at best fail to take advantage of natures free service, and at worse destroy these services.

Dino is now working on a new project to use insects as a way of protecting forests. By working with, and involving farming communities and school children, Dino and Nature Kenya (one of Kenya’s most active conservation organizations) aim to save a myriad of endemic and endangered species of plants and animals in rare and vulnerable tropical forest patches located in a sea of humanity. The survival of these forests will depend on their value in the eyes of communities that surround them. He plans to demonstrate the link between agricultural production and healthy pollinator populations that are forest dependent.

For example, he’ has found a native stingless bee that pollinates vanilla, an extremely valuable cash crop that, believe it or not, is pollinated by hand everywhere in the world because of lack of pollinators! Imagine the cost savings just because of the presence of one little stingless bee…

What I really love about his proposed project is that it is simple, is community owned and will be led and monitored by a leading conservation organization that is a key training ground for young conservationists in Kenya. The project will do visual activities and involve local communities and children, they will plant pollinator gardens on school grounds and monitor the pollinators that visit. In this way  communities will gather data about the presence, diversity and abundance of pollinators as well as crop production - they be able to demonstrate the link between the species and abundance and fruit production. For example did you know that strawberries will not form properly if there are too few pollinators? Neither will papayas. I didn’t know any of this before yesterday!

Having this information should enable communities to make management decisions locally and to gather information, document the local knowledge and share it. And Guess what? They will be able to share that information on the internet through the WildlifeDirect blogs as well as a new site that is a wiki resource on all the species of the world. Anyone anywhere can now contribute to and learn about all the creatures on earth through an amazing project that E. O. Wilson is involved with called the Encyclopaedia of Life at this website here

http://www.eol.org/

“The Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) is an ambitious project to organize and make available via the Internet virtually all information about life present on Earth.” The plan is to have a page for every single species!

Tags: Dino Martins, dudu diaries, E.O. Wilson, Insects

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 26 2008 | By: baraza

Today I received an email from Robert Williams about ‘Looking for Miza” that made me realise just how much this little book matters.

Here’s an excerpt.

“I had some good friends over for dinner the other night and when one of their kids saw my copy of “Looking for Miza”, her eyes lit up. Turns out that Tessa, who is nine years old, learned of the book through her school and got her parents to purchase it. She was clearly touched by the book and went on and on about the gorillas and Innocent. It was really quite something. She even wrote a paper on the mountain gorillas. Great job on creating a book that really speaks to kids and moves them to act”.

Thank you Tessa and Robert - You’ve made my day!!

For those who haven’t got ‘Miza’ yet you can order it online at Amazon here It would make a great xmas present for someone special. Sadly, copies in Nairobi have already sold out

Tags: Amazon, Congo, gorilla, Looking for Miza, Paula Kahumbu, Virunga National Park

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Category: Emergencies, Zimbabwe, bushmeat, poaching | Date: Nov 25 2008 | By: Maina

I read Iregi Mwenja’s first installation in his two-part series called Painful Death and I was quite disturbed. Looking at the pictures of animals trapped and helpless, or dead and rotting, or - perhaps even worse - maimed, was very upsetting.

As if on cue, Rosemary Groom of Zimbabwe Wild Dogs finally gets a picture of a wild dog puppy that she has been told that it was moving around with a wire snare still tightly digging into the flesh of its neck and she posts a blog entry. I very well know that wire snares are the “weapons” of choice for many subsistence and small scale commercial poachers. But these nasty, stomach heaving photos jolt me to a stark reality that may have gone sublime in my mind. It just looks painful how these animals die.

I try to be rational and unemotional when discussing wildlife crime. I try to remain level headed but this method of harvesting bushmeat is simply barbaric. And it peels off my gentlemanly, unemotional, rational skin to expose the painful bare flesh that is my emotions. It is hard not to get emotional when you see this kind of death.

Iregi Mwenja says that statistics indicate 90% of the dead animals will go to waste as the poacher will either forget where he put his snares or he’ll never go back to check on them. The meat will just rot away. Granted, wild carnivores will eat some of the meat, but that also may well be contained in the 10% that is eventually utilized.

Then Iregi follows this with another installation in the second part of his series. This one is loaded with statistics. Suddenly, I am aware that a single David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust (DSWT) de-snaring team can remove an average of 450 wire snares in a month - working only two weeks a month. That there are several DSWT teams. That there are other organizations apart from the DSWT - such as Born Free Foundation - that are also carrying out some heavy de-snaring work. I suddenly am confronted with colossal numbers, and my heart threatens to stop. Iregi explains:

Just one de-snaring DSWT team lifts approximately 450 snares [per] month operating for a maximum of two weeks per month. One poacher can set at least 100 snares per day with a success rate of about 20% and about 15-20 poachers enter the park per day. With a success rate of about 20%, and assuming that one poacher sets about 100 snares a day, then 15 poachers have a probability of killing at least 300 animals per day. This figure may seems to be unrealistic. But the number of snares lifted per day and the number of animals found dead and those rescued by the de-snaring teams is a true testimony of the magnitude of the bushmeat crisis.

It is shocking, but it is the result of scientific research in one corner of Tsavo East National Park (where DSWT conducts most of its de-snaring operations). I am left wondering what the national, regional and global statistics are like. I wince.

Rosemary gives us a clue as to how much it would cost to get a wire snare out of a single wild dog pup’s neck in her blog post. Suddenly, there is money involved, and I shudder like someone forgotten inside the butcher’s cold room. She explains:

Unfortunately, until I have my wildlife immobilization license…we need to rely on someone else to come and do the darting, and he is not always available at short notice. There is also a considerable cost associated with calling him out and getting the pup immobilized (US$100 per day fee plus the cost of drugs and fuel and scout time), and the current prevalence of snaring is really eating into our budget. (Likewise, for me to do [an immobilization] course so I can immobilize the dogs myself, costs US$1500).

That is only part of the story. Organizations such as DWST, Born Free and the African Wildlife Conservation Fund (Zimbabwe Wild Dogs) invest thousands of dollars in de-snaring operations. The Zimbabwe Wild Dogs project is already groaning under the weight of snaring happening in Zimbabwe. And that is just one part of the once wildlife rich nation (hopefully there are still wildlife surviving the madness that is governance in Zimbabwe).

These are deadly statistics - and painful pictures - of how dire the state of wildlife in Africa is. The Zimbabwe Wild Dog project has an appeal. They need your help on saving this little puppy, the rare species of which it belongs and other wildlife in Zimbabwe. Right now I ask you to urgently help them save this particular dog by donating through their blog. And continue to help them whenever you can in the future.

I read a book once, titled “Who Will Feed China?” and in the same fashion I will ask, who will save Africa’s wildlife?

Tags: African wildlife, Born Free Foundation, Bushmeat in Kenya, david sheldrick wildlife trust, Kenya, poaching, wire snare, Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe Wild Dogs

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Category: Uncategorized, poaching | Date: Nov 21 2008 | By: baraza

This poem written by Therese Hart and published on Bonobo in Congo blog is dedicated to Laurent Nkunda and the many warlords who protect him

This little monkey went to market,
This little boy went to war,
This little boy has an A.K.,
This little elephant lives no more,
And this whole forest is silent, forever more.

She reminds us that bushmeat hunting is escalating as a result of the war because of the loss of domestic livestock due to raids, loss of income due to the economic impacts and though she didn’t say it, no doubt the access to guns and general state of lawlessness makes it possible and easy to hunt bushmeat.

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 21 2008 | By: baraza

Dear everyone

With the economic down turn we are experiencing a decline in donations. Yet we know from emails received, that many people would still like to help some how.

Well, we have a rare opportunity to receive in kind donations over the next few weeks (before 30th Jan).

Here’s what we need
1. Small digital cameras for all bloggers.
2. Web cams - numerous blogs
3. Art supplies for Art for Gorillas! Watercolor sets various colors, drawing pencils, watercolor paper, tracing paper

Send to
Joy Kahumbu
CHPCT,
Louis Freedman Centre,
St Leonads, Nuttall St.
N1 5LZ,
UK

Thanks in advance!

Tags: art for gorillas, art supplies, donations, inkind, wildlifedirect

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Category: Ivory, elephants, enforcement, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 18 2008 | By: Maina

A coordinated swoop on illegal ivory traders and poachers across 5 African countries yielded one ton of poached ivory and 57 illegal dealers this weekend. The swoop, coordinated by INTERPOL and involving more than 300 personnel from the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) local police, wildlife authorities and intelligence agencies in the 5 countries, is being described as the biggest crackdown on illegal wildlife trade in the world.

The operation - a result of 4 months of intensive intelligence work which started in June 2008 - was conducted in Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Uganda and Zambia. In Kenya alone, forces consisting of INTERPOL, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), LATF, the National Security Intelligence Services and local police bagged 36 suspects and seized 113 pieces of ivory items weighing 358-kilograms. The Kenya Police and KWS are still tracking four suspects who slipped through the highly coordinated dragnet.

The huge Kenyan operation is summarized thus by the KWS:

A total of 10 KWS field units in areas most prone to illegal ivory trade and trafficking in Kenya participated in the operation. The Kenya Police, Lusaka Agreement Task force, National Security Intelligence Service, Customs Department, the Judiciary and the INTERPOL supported KWS. The operation was conducted in Nairobi, Amboseli, Tsavo East, Mombasa, Isiolo, Marsabit, Narok, Maralal, Nakuru and Aberdares.

The law enforcement agencies in all 5 countries had decided to synchronize the operation in each country so that any suspect who tried to cross borders would be sniffed out and stung at the airports or other crossing points. The approach seems to have worked.

According to the INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble, Operation Baba is the first in a series of operations of this nature being planned worldwide.

“International co-operation is key to law enforcement today. With the ‘globalisation’ of criminal syndicates, people who abide by the law have no alternative than to confront those syndicates in the international arena,” said Mr. Noble. “This is where INTERPOL’s core function of operational police support services, which can facilitate co-operation between law enforcement agencies in multiple countries, proves its worth.”

I commend all the law enforcement agencies that were involved in this operation and all those who supported the operations either financially, tactically or otherwise. I think with more of these kind of operations in the future, we are finally headed somewhere in the fight against elephant poaching.

Quick Facts:
Operation Baba was so named in honor of Ranger Gilbert Baba, a Ghanaian ranger who was shot and killed by poachers in the line of duty some 10 years ago

The Lusaka Agreement Task Force was created in 1994 by governments in this region as a mechanism for regional co-operation to fight illegal trade in wild animals and plants.

Tags: elephant, INTERPOL, Ivory, KWS, Lusaka Agreement Task Force, poaching, wildlife trade

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Nov 18 2008 | By: baraza

On the 12th November the International Rescue Committee presented our 2008 Freedom Award to Kofi A. Annan, president of the Global Humanitarian Forum and former Secretary-General of the United Nations, to honor his contributions to the cause of refugees and human freedom. 

Koffi is recognized in Kenya for leading negotiations that ended the post election crisis and conducted two investigations, one that revealed what went wrong during the election process (Kreigeler Report), the other (Waki report) identified the perpetrators of violence who will now be prosecuted.

Lets hope and pray that he has what it takes to find and negotiate a solution to the DR Congo and Zimbabwe.

Tags: Congo Crisis, Koffi Annan, Kreiger report, Waki report, Zimbawe

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Category: Forests, bushmeat, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 17 2008 | By: Maina

A US geneticist from the University of Arizona is planning to use DNA testing to study the roaring bushmeat trade in west Africa with a view of identifying “species that can be harvested sustainably”.

According to a report on KTar.com, the geneticist, Hans-Werner Herrmann, will analyze the bushmeat at village markets, track how it got there and study how the information could be used to better manage affected wildlife populations. He hopes that finding species that can be hunted sustainably will curtail poaching and halt wildlife decimation particularly in African forests.

According to Herrmann, rural Africans are driven into bushmeat hunting and trade by extreme poverty and he cannot just say it is bad to hunt without answering the poverty question.

Roughly 1 million tonnes of bushmeat are harvested in the badly ravaged African forests. a CIFOR report that Dr Richard Leakey felt had erred in its recommendations says that 80% of proteins and fats in rural Africans’ diets come from bushmeat. This is a big problem and solutions to bushmeat hunting need to be found before all wildlife becomes extinct.

The study will involve African researchers in Cameroon taking DNA samples from bushmeat in the markets, and sending it to Arizona for analysis and identification. They will then track how the meat got to the market and study how the information can be used to help in management of the affected wildlife populations.

How useful this study will be is subject to debate. Particularly, when they find wildlife species that they perceive to be “bushmeat viable”, does it mean that they will recommend legalization of bushmeat hunting? Perhaps we need this research to prove that there is no way bushmeat can be harvested sustainably.

There are three things that make sustainable hunting virtualy impossible: one, there is not enough wildlife, two, there are too many humans on the planet, and three, our African governments have problems implementing anti-poaching legislation. To me, these are the fundamental questions: not whether wildlife can be harvested sustainably.

Perhaps the researchers - who by the way have applied for a $1-million from the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP) for the study - should use these funds to find out how we can prevent the malignant human population growth from overrunning the planet and all wild things that live in it. Better still, these funds could be used to find alternatives sources of protein and income (poverty reduction) for the rural poor in Africa. Alternatives that are not bushmeat.

For wildlife populations to recover, and to avoid imminent mass extinctions, all manner of wildlife trade needs to be stopped - at the very least, as a precaution. We don’t really understand wildlife population dynamics that well to sustainably use it. We haven’t yet fathomed the complex interaction between humans and wildlife to say that we are in control of hunting and trade.

We know a few things though. One, bushmeat hunting has already resulted in the empty forest syndrome, where the forest vegetation is relatively intact but no wild animals live there. Two, governments have good legislation intended to control bushmeat poaching but implementation is weak. Three, losing our wildlife is not good for the planet.

With these truths in mind, perhaps what we need is to stop all human-centric arguments that perpetuate eating of wildlife and start focusing on finding ways to improve wildlife’s welfare.

Tags: Africa, bushmeat, CIFOR, DNA, extinction, forest, hunting, richard leakey, UNEP, University of Arizona, wildlife, wildlife trade

8 responses so far

Category: Somalia, poaching, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 11 2008 | By: Maina

Yes, it’s hard to believe, but two websites are reporting that military helicopters are leaving the battleships anchored off the Somalia coast to combat Somali pirates, and getting into the mainland to hunt wildlife illegally .

According to a report published today in one of the websites (Garoweonline.com), foreign choppers, which the the local Somali elders have not properly identified, arrived in three separate days and left with live specimens of ostrich and deer. The choppers were later seen landing in warships offshore. Although the elders have not been able to infallibly identify whose warships these are, one was seen to be flying the American flag.

In the other site (Mareeq.com), a reporter, Abdi Guled - despite writing in very bad English - almost certainly believes that the choppers bear the American banner. According to Guled’s report, the local authorities in the pirate infested central Somalia region are colluding with the purported hunters. Apparently, the local chiefs have signed contracts with foreign agencies to transact this illegal business.

The report on Garoweonline says that a local elder in the Maduq region of central Somalia, Mr Mohamed Hussein Warsame, has been interviewed by reporters from the BBC Somali Service about the trade. I have searched for the report on BBC website but I have not yet found it. AllAfrica.com, an aggregator of African news has also carried the report from Garoweonline.

While these might be outrageous allegations, we cannot rule out the possibility of this happening. We have seen foreign military and work forces getting involved in illegal activities in their outposts before. We have all heard the Chinese workforce in Africa being blamed for the escalation of ivory poaching in DRC, Zimbabwe and other states with dysfunctional governments.

If indeed this is happening, then it would be quite a shame. I hope the alleged BBC reporters who have the story can publish it so we can quote from a source perceived to be less biased. A source with a global voice. I hope other independent or big media house journalist can do an independent investigation into that matter. As long as they don’t get kidnapped by Somalia gunmen.

Tags: battleships, DRC, hunting, Madug, pirates, poaching, Somalia, US troops, wildlife, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

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Category: China, Ivory, Zimbabwe, elephants, wildlife trade | Date: Nov 10 2008 | By: Maina

Our fears that the one-off ivory auction by four southern Africa states to China and Japan was not going to end well may come true. Not that that is any cause for us to wear a smirk and say “we told you so”, but a time for us to ask CITES to open their eyes.

There are reports in a Zimbabwean newspaper saying that Robert Mugabe’s government - cash strapped and hungry for foreign exchange to pay for imports - is planning to have the Chinese government pay for the ivory with guns Mugabe’s people ordered just before this year’s Zimbabwean presidential run-off. Apparently, Mugabe was facing an imminent end to his three-decade grip on power and decided to buy guns to wage war against the opposition should he loose the elections. The best place to buy these guns was from China since they are not participating in the arms embargo by western nations on Zimbabwe.

The report, published in the Zim Daily, indicate that part of the $480,000 Zimbabwe raised when they auctioned 3.5 tons of ivory last week is earmarked as payment for a cache of military hardware set to be flown into the capital Harare soon. The reports also indicate that in the run up to the ivory auction, “substantial quantities of high caliber weapons” had disappeared from the armory of Zimbabwe’s department of parks and wildlife near State House, Harare. During the same period, 200 elephants are reported to have been killed in the Zambezi Valley bordering Zambia. The Zimbabwe government blames this carnage on foreign animal rights groups which “want to thwart Mugabe’s bid to have CITES relax its trade rules”.

These reports have put the “fear of Mugabe” in conservationists who are now worried that Zimbabwe’s claim of being protector of the elephant is just a sham. Official Zimbabwe reports indicate that the country has 70,000 elephants in the wild, but experts think this is just window dressing by the government to get CITES to approve their proposal to sell all their alleged 20 tons of ivory stockpiles. The head of the wildlife department, Brigadier Albert Kanunga, a retired army officer, had lobbied CITES to allow them to sell 10 tons of ivory but only 3.5 tons were approved.

It is alleged that the ivory auctioned by Zimbabwe was flown out of Harare Airport on Thursday 6 November. If, then, the ivory for guns scam is true, the Chinese will bring Mugabe the guns sooner than latter. Apparently, an earlier shipping of Chinese military equipment bound for Harare had been turned away in the South African port of Durban. That could be the reason why China will fly in the new cache of arms.

Eight years ago in July 2000, a Nairobi based German wildlife conservation organization, ECOTERRA had revealed that Mugabe had sold 8 tons of ivory to China in exchange for firearms. According to the report on BNet website, the ivory had been flown out of Zimbabwe through Libya.

With such a record, it would be feasible to believe that last weeks CITES-backed auction will indeed be used to pay for more guns and ammo some of which - given the mysterious disappearance of arms from the wildlife department’s armory and consequent upsurge of elephant poaching- could be used in “harvesting” more ivory for Mugabe’s government. Which then negates the CITES claim that one-off sales will help elephant protection by reducing the attractiveness of poaching and investing the funds into conservation.

Moreover, Zambian and Senegalese middlemen operating in Zimbabwe organize underground deals through the “close-knit Chinese community” in South Africa to service the high demand for illegal ivory in China. This would imply that even South Africa, the allegorical “Big Brother” of Africa, is not fully in control of the ivory situation. In as much as Big Brother may have a tab of it’s own ivory stockpiles, they cannot rule out being used as a conduit for illegal ivory from tattered Zimbabwe. In short, the entire African continent is not ready for these - in Dr Richard Leakey’s words - ill advised one-off auctions.

In the end, what will save the elephant, in my view, is not how cheap ivory becomes - a la CITES - but how well we convince ordinary Chinese, Japanese and other Asian communities that they can practice their cultural beliefs without Ivory. Remove the demand for ivory and let the elephant roam the sunny grasslands of Africa without fear - like they did for millennia gone by. Legally selling government-held stockpiles will not kill demand.

Tags: China, CITES, elephant, guns, Ivory, ivory auctions, Japan, Mugabe, poaching, richard leakey, wildlife trade, Zimbabwe

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