Baraza

On the BBC today I heard about a 19 year old genius who went to university at age 10 and is now a professor at age 19. But I’m delighted to report that genius is not restricted to humans. In the Telegraph yesterday I was discovered that genius also occurs amongst our ape cousins.

“They use their colossal strength to thrust their spears into holes in trees where they suspect nocturnal bushbabies are sleeping.

Anthropologist Jill Pruetz believes she has made a landmark discovery - a species other than humans learning - and passing on - the skills to make a lethal weapon”

Is anyone out there SERIOUSLY surprised? I could have told you that practically all animals are smart and learn (especially when hungry) - ok, I take that back slightly, I sometimes wonder about slugs …..but certainly monkeys and apes are supersmart. I’ve been out competed by a baboon in a race for the kitchen before! However clever our research, we the smartest of all apes, seem to be considerably challenged when it comes to saving the subjects of our studies, and as a result, we are losing our closest relatives and many other exciting species.

According to this article on Mongabey, the people of Cameroon also consider apes smart, so smart in fact that they are virtually humans and they wont eat them! (ok that never stopped cannibals in the past). The Cameroonian government has just created the first sanctuary for the world’s rarest type of ape: the Cross River gorilla. The Kagwene Gorilla Sanctuary — created by Prime Minister Ephraim Inoni’s decree — covers 19.5 sq km in a mountainous region of Cameroon. According to WCS the area is home to only 20 of the world’s remaining 300 Cross River gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli). You can read about it this new refuge on National Geographic

Of equal concern is that even the most common gorillas are at risk now. There are between 50,000 and 100,000 western lowland gorillas left in the wild, all of them in the forests of the Congo basin in central Africa. According to the IUCN, over the past 20 to 25 years, hunting and disease have reduced the numbers of western lowland gorilla by 60 percent! The other types of gorilla, which include the cross river gorilla, the mountain gorilla, and the eastern lowland gorilla, number only a few thousand, and are also found only in Africa. According to Fox News, An ebola vaccine is being developed for the lowland gorillas – I’m curious to see how it would be given to 100,000 gorillas that live deep in the rainforest.

How could you doubt the intelligence of this mountain gorilla?

Meanwhile the Brits are worried about a new Bill that could allow for the creation of Humanzees – YES, the breeding of humans and Chimps – it sounds unlikely and disgusting, but would we actually be able to tell a hairy big headed strong armed human from a humanzee? Pro lifers are up in arms, but I wonder if banning it would hardly stop people from experimenting now that the stupid idea is out there. In fact, could it explain some bizarre behaviours out there? I’m not even going to begin suggesting who is more chimp like but I have a few world leaders in mind.

Having said all that, I just wish we humans would focus our incredible intelligence on doing really clever things, like dealing with global poverty and sustainable protection of the planet.

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During the last few months we have been astounded by the number of cases of wildlife poisoing that is going on in East and southern Africa. It looks like there is an increasing use of the Carbamate-based pesticide Furadan which is sold for agricultural purposes. This class of pesticides is deadly for mammals and is used to directly poison predators, and this has been decimating our lion, hyena, vulture and other wetland bird populations. The manner in which these animals die is horrific.

The toxin is easily available and is fairly cheap to purchase requiring no special permits despite it’s toxicity. A few weeks ago the first documented case of murder was recorded in Kenya where a young man poisoned his own father. He has escaped arrest by fleeing! These toxins are not only threatening wildlife but people too. Controlling or stopping it’s use is compounded by a lack of public awareness about risks associated with use of this pesticide, impacts on useful to wildlife or alternatives to predator conflicts.

We are faciliatating several of our bloggers in looking for a solution - these include lion guardians, Simon Thomsett, the Endagered Wildlife Trust of South Africa, Asuka and The Northern Rangelands Trust .This video was made by Simon Thomsett You need to watch it, but I should warn you, it has some disturbing images.

This film shows a typical scene when an animal is baited with poison and then eaten by hyenas and vultures. Hundreds of vultures died in this incident, it’s the sad brutal reality of what his happening in Africa.

Friends, I hope you agree with me, we just can’t sit back any longer and watch our wildlife being poisoned. We insist that all a signatory to the Convention of Biological Diversity (CBD), like the Government of Kenya have a responsibility to put an end to this wanton poisoning of wildlife. WildlifeDirect is calling together a number of organizations, institutions and individuals in Kenya that are involved in conservation, control, investigations and/or research to discuss how we can stop the poisoning of wildlife.

Actions We are Taking at WildlifeDirect

We have organized a meeting on 25th April of stakeholders from Kenya and south Africa to discuss the problem and develop a strategic action plan to tackle the Furadan poisoning problem.

The meeting will take place at 9.30 am at our offices in Nairobi - Timau Plaza, 7th Floor, on Argwings Kodhek Road (opp. Yaya Centre). If you can’t come but would like to participate please send us your concerns, views and any information on the following

1. Evidence of poisoning

2. Types of poisons used, species affected, locations

3. Information on other ongoing efforts to stop poisoning (public education, legislation, enforcement, conservation)

4. Advice on how we can finance this.

Any donations made on this blog will be used to enable this meeting to take place to enable participation of attendees from remote corners of Africa. We are trying to raise $2,000 to pay for one South African expert, and for transport for those coming from out of town Kenya, refreshments, and for distribution of information.

My dream is that we can address the education and cultural issues, the legislation and enforcement, monitoring and investigatins, as well as the rehabilitation and conservation of poisoned animals. We need practical approaches to stem this. For example in England one can call a free number to report poisoning

0800 321 600

Woudn’t it be nice to have one in every African country with a mechanism to respond to all the reports?

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For those who have been visiting WildlifeDirect.org in recent months you will have noticed a tremendous growth in blogs - from 17 in August last year to 63 today, and from 2 countries to 17 countries in Africa and beyond. We have seen a massive rise in visitation from less than 20,000 per month last June to 70,000 per month today. We have raised $25,000 in February for 30 blogs. We are feeling mighty proud of this achievement and the truth is that this is all thanks to you, our supporters.

Many of our visitors ask how they can help. I hope that this post will be attractive to some of you.

1. We need experienced bloggers to help us in networking more effectively. We need to spread the word and promote the work of our bloggers to get more attention and interest. This can be done from anywhere in the world with good internet access.

2. We are appealing to anyone who is interested in training to help with the production of training materials in a variety of languages including English, Spanish, Portuguese, and Kiswahili for our bloggers. We are thinking of producing a blogging manual for WildlifeDirect bloggers. This can e done anywhere in the world.

3. As you know, all funds raised on blogs are earmarked entirely for those blogs. WildlifeDirect costs are raised separately. We need help in raising funds for the core team to support the bloggers in the field. Ideas for foundations, organizations, companies or other sources of funds would be much appreciated.

4. We are interested in expanding further through Africa, Asia and South America. If you know of any potential projects, connect us.. put us in touch.

5. We have heard that university students may be interested in participating in WildlifeDirect through conservation groups. We would be very interested in coordinating with anyone who is willing to raise awareness about WildlifeDirect and our blogs through universities or other institutions. Later this year (September) we will be holding some events in New York, Atlanta, and Washington DC and I could potentially meet with organized groups at these times.

I am in the United states until mid April and would be very interested in following up directly with those interested. Please write to paula@wildlifedirect.org or leave a comment on this blog.

I look forward to hearing from you! Paula Kahumbu, Consevation Partnerships Director

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You are not going to believe this but I swear, it’s a true story. Richard Leakey used to drive an old Land Rover that was powered by charcoal. There I’ve said it. I saw it, I swear, it had a massive black barrel attached at the back. On the side of the vehicle was the information that this vehicle ran on charcoal. I think it was steam powered…..if that’s at all possible. It didn’t go very fast and the idea didn’t’ catch on, but I suspect he was the first person in Kenya to begin thinking of alternative source of fuel for vehicles.

Today biofuels are the rage. Indeed, when Robert Williams offered to help WildlifeDirect with fund raising for an energy solution in the Congo he catalyzed a discussion about energy needs for internally displaced people, slums and urban people in Congo through ending charcoal.

Considering the cost and space/climate restrictions of producing biofuels in Europe and America, many firms are turning to Africa for production of their biofuels. Indeed the massive demand has sparked a green revolution in Africa and a frenzy of markets and producers of Jatropha, oil palm and other oilseed planting everywhere.

But today’s headlines are so completely confusing. African Non Government organizations are calling for a moratorium on biofuels in Africa.

Just last year we were calling Jatropha and other species miracle crops because they weren’t competing with food crops for production of biofuel . …well except one person, this writer in Zimbabwe called jatropha a red herring
and preempted the controversy about growing biofuel crops that is now raging everywhere. Even Ban Ki Moon has weighed in with a statement about food crises brought on by food shortages that are a result in part, to the land conversion for biofuels. Now that the UN Secretary General has said it, everyone is listening.

The call for a moratorium on production of biofuels in Africa may get people thinking but it just can’t work. Africa has failed to meet it’s millennium development goals, has not benefited in any significant ways from the Clean Development Mechanism and has never raised much furore over the fact that agricultural land is already being lost to erosion, pollution, the production of horticultural products and conversion of land to non edible crops like flowers for international markets.

Have any of you seen Hubert Sauper’s new documentary, Darwins Nightmare? My brother cried when he saw it. I hope he’s reading this - he’s not a wimp, I promise. The documentary reveals how the harvesting of fish in Lake Victoria is done by people who do not get to eat the fish, it’s all exported despite the fact that the local communities are suffering from malnutrition. The fish of interest are Nile perch, a species introduced by the British which has subsequently led to the extinction of over 300 native fish that the local communities depended on. You can watch a preview here and read reviews here. The film is about how people are dependent on this fish, and how the trade in the fish is responsible for so much suffering. This tragic story could just as easily be told about Jatropha.

Have we learned nothing from our mistakes? Of course not! The way I see it production of biofuel crops like Jatropha and other species will continue to expand because legislation in Africa is so behind the times that it’s not funny. To a poor traditional farmer scraping a living out in some remote region, the idea of producing crops for a big company seems lucrative, the contracts are long term, and that means cash in an otherwise subsistence existence. You can’t fault the farmers. Who doesn’t need cash nowadays?

As long as these communities are negotiating with big companies without complete information (which the brokers make sure happens) they will be cheated and I’ve seen this with my own eyes. One company came to Mombasa and offered communities what seemed like a lot of money but when calculated out it translated into a rate of about 30$ per acre per year for production of Jatropha.

These brokers are listed on NYSE and the London Stock Exchange and they have Corporate Social Responsibility credentials as long as my arm, because their only goal is to attract green investors. But it still has to be an attractive stock…so they push down the buying price of raw Jatropha, and install refineries for the oil and sell the refined products at a ludicrous profit. The farmers, who enter deals with someone who seems genuine, caring and credible. But once things are in place it all changes, it becomes a cut throat business and these farmers have converted land to Jatropha, tended it for years, and once the fruit are ripe, have no choice but to sell at very low prices - there is usually only one buyer in a particular area. Farmers have little option, they can’t eat Jatropha (it’s deadly poisonous), cant store it, or transport it - and they can’t complain because there are no real or enforceable laws protecting these farmers!

I suspect that as long as the international prices for biofuel remains at or above the price of fossil fuels, this will create a demand for production and business people will look to Africa where, lets face the truth WE ARE SO GULLIBLE it’s embarrassing. Fast talking, jargon juggling, smart suited powerpoint projecting expatriate brokers can boggle your mind and exploit local communities and befriend corrupt governments to win outrageous deals. I know of one guy who claims he has the state sanctioned monopoly on refining of Jatropha in Kenya! What a CAKE!

The fact that the land conversion to biofuels leads to hunger, diseases, land degradation or biodiversity loss is not a concern to alternative energy companies, they have PR people to talk their way out of it, they only care about maximum profits. After all, it drives up the price of shares and company value. It’s ironic then, that the same green investors who study the stocks and purchase shares in an effort to invest in clean air, are actually unwittingly contributing to the impoverishment and degradation of Africa.

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I have just heard that my good friend Saba Douglas-Hamilton, another crazy Kenyan, a presenter for Big Cat Diary is in a new BBC feature called Unknown Africa that may be of interest.

In search of unusual wildlife, Saba sets out to explore the least known parts of her home continent in a new series, “Unknown Africa“, that premiers tonight on BBC 2 at 8 p.m. Starting with a jurassic haven of pterodactyl-like bats and prehistoric fossil fish in the coup-stricken Comoros archipelago, her next stop is amongst the bubble-blowing forest elephants and lowland gorillas of the humid Central African Republic.

In the final episode, whilst en route back from a remote island she and her crew find themselves cast adrift off the desert coast of war-shattered Angola.

Showing on BBC 2 this week and next. Sadly for  most us in Africa we may only get to see the YouTube previews!

Monday 10th March at 8 p.m. - Comoros Monday 17th March at 8 p.m. - Central African Republic

Friday 21st March at 8 p.m. - Angola

For a sneak previews see:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cArfKBEBRVE

http://youtube.com/watch?v=0RyQDWcvLSs

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bHKLZkkwn1c

http://youtube.com/watch?v=spHTPSjthxo

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Although the political crisis in Kenya may be over or at least reduced, tourist and tourism revenues have not and will not snap back. The cancellation of flight routes, closure of hotels and tour companies, and booking cancellations all took place over a few weeks. Restoring confidence in Kenya as a tourism destination however, will take years and massive investments in marketing Kenya.

While in the Mara I had long discussions with the CEO of the Mara Conservancy, Brian Heath.

His dream was and is to make the Mara economically sustainable from tourism revenues. I thought you’d like to read some of the extracts of his February report to get a good understanding of the scale of the problem. Notice how long the security section of the report is!

Tourism

February has been another disastrous month for tourist visitations. There was a short period in the middle of the month when people began to return and it looked as if the situation might be salvaged to some extent. However, the stand-off between the two main political parties and renewed threats of mass action throughout most of February meant that tourists are still very reluctant to visit. We may be lucky and maintain the expected 30% of our original estimates for the coming months but can not foresee any significant improvement in tourist visitations before July.

Security

Ten poachers were arrested during February, 9 of them were Tanzanians and the tenth a Luo poacher who had been arrested before. This brings the total to 1,013 poachers arrested since June 2001.

The Ngiro-are team arrested one poacher on the evening of the 9^th. He was one of three people entering the Lemai Wedge to hunt along the escarpment near Kinyangaga.

Some meat was found stashed in a tree near Ol Kurruk by a routine patrol between the community scouts and our rangers on the 15^th. The following day we mounted a patrol in the Sankuria forest and arrested one Luo poacher, he had been in the forest for six days and had killed a zebra and a waterbuck. Three wire snares were recovered.

The Ngiro-are team arrested two wa Kuria poachers on the 19^th as they were traversing the Lemai Wedge, on their way to hunt hippo along the Mara River. They informed us that they had met with another group of poachers, also on their way to hunt hippo on the Narok side of the river. The following day we mounted a joint patrol along the Narok side of the river but found no poacher activity.

The Ngiro-are team arrested one poacher as he and his companion came down the escarpment to hunt in the Lemai Wedge late in the evening of the 22^nd. They recovered four wire snares.

The Ngiro-are team were asked to assist the rangers from Kinyangaga on the 24^th. The rangers had confiscated some wa Kuria cattle for illegal grazing in the Lemai Wedge and were taking them to Kinyangaga when they were accosted by an irate mob of wa Kuria, trying to recover their cattle. The situation became tense, with arrows and bullets fired at the rangers. Our rangers assisted in getting the cattle into the Kinyangaga compound and then withdrew. The wa Kuria continued firing into the compound. The Tanzanian rangers managed to apprehend one person with a firearm, only to discover that he was a policeman from the local village.

The Ngiro-are rangers found a temporary poacher’s camp at 9.00 am on the 25^th in a water-course between Ol Dono Nasipa and Konyoike – about half a kilometre into Tanzania. The five poachers were the group we had been looking for on the 19^th on the Narok side of the river. They had camped upstream from the search area, had killed one hippo and were on their way home after drying the meat. All five were arrested, four by the Ngiro-are team and the fifth after they were joined by the Serena rangers. Three wire snares and three heavy pears were recovered.

Revenue and Accounts

In January we had to re-calculate our budget, based on possibly receiving only 30% of our anticipated revenue. Although we implemented most of our cost-cutting measures in January our January Profit and Loss account indicated that we have a shortfall of Ksh 1.576 million (US$ 22,500 at the current rate of exchange.

We have been very fortunate in receiving support to meet our projected shortfall and would like to thank the following for their support. I would particularly like to single out Asuka for her support; she has raised US$ 29,000 in three weeks through her articles and blog for the Mara Conservancy. This shows the power of the Internet in raising funds if the message is right.

CMC Motors - 2,500,000 (approx US $ 40,000) for vehicle service and spares for one year

Asuka - 2,030,000 (approx US $ 23,000) Donations through her blog

Anne Kent-Taylor Fund 1,050,000 (approx US $ 12,000) donation for community scouts and security allowances

WildlifeDirect 700,000 (US $ 10,000) Donations through the blog

Care for the Wild 70,000(US $ 1,000) Donation for anti-harassment

Mc Phelps and family 70,000 (US $ 1,000) for Cheetah 1 (patrol team)

Total Raised to date 6,420,000

The exchange rate is about 1$=Ksh70Brian also noted that the Masai who had been laid off by hotels had returned to their villages where they were now herding livestock. These include diploma holders who just can’t make a living anymore in tourism.

We interviewed Dixon qualified in hospitality, who had returned to the village to herd cattle, a job normally reserved for boys. He was not alone, there were hundreds of cases like his. He was very bitter not about the hotel that fired him, but with the Kenyan leaders who are ignoring the suffering of so many as a result of the violence that followed the election dispute.

If the Maasai cannot get jobs in the tourism and wildlife sector, they will do what they need to do to survive- increase their herds in the Greater Mara ecosystem. This is perhaps the greatest threat to wildlife which migrates through the entire ecosystem which includes the Serengetti in Tanzania. Cattle, sheep and goats all compete for the same grazing as the wildlife…if we lose the Greater Mara, it will only be a short time before we lose the Mara as a consequence. The harmony between the Maasai and wildlife is on the verge of shattering as a result of this crisis. You can learn more about the Maasai wildlife interface in Asukas blog (she deals with livestock diseases that could affect wildlife) and at this website called reto-o- reto which means ‘I help you, you help me’. It’s a research project all about finding better land use management for pastoralists.

For the Mara Triangle the lack of funds means that planned developments have been put on hold. Only essential road works are being done (anyone who has been to the Mara knows what why roads maintenance is so critical).

These workers were on a break - the machine had broken down! Most of the road working machines are lying idle now.

Roads can wait but patrols cannot.

Despite all the cost cutting, we are now facing a situation where patrols are threatened. If patrols are halted, poaching will escalate and could go out of control, this we must prevent.

Before I go, this one’s for Theresa, Sheryl, FJP and all the others who love donkeys. This foal was absolutely tiny and adorable. Enjoy

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Recent posts on WildlifeDirect are very disturbing for conservationists. I also want to draw attention to several burning issues that we really need to work on if we are to make a difference in conservation in Africa.

The bushmeat trade may be an important source of protein and cash for communities living in and around protected areas. It is threatening many species such as the bonobo as revealed in the Lola ya bonobo blog today and in Ashley Vospers blog on Lomami. Some of our bloggers have said ‘it’s not a good day’ …hopefully by bringing you the facts from the ground, you will be better informed and able to make a decision about how to make a personal difference.

The importance of wildlife and natural resources to humans often causes conflicts. The charcoal trade in many parts of Africa, supply much needed domestic energy for cooking and heating. Through the ending charcoal blog we hope to find and test solutions to the use of charcoal in Congo, that can be applied anywhere in Africa. We are especially excited that this blog is a collaboration between two people in different continents who are working together! That is the spirit of community building that we are proud to promote.

We keep hearing stories about poison as a means of killing wildlife ‘pests’ and predators. We’ve heard about it in Kenya where it affects vultures, lions, elephants and primates, as well as in Uganda, Congo and southern Africa. In fact, the more we look the more we see. We have decided to do something about it so look out for a new blog on wildlife poisoning by bringing news from different sources to one place as a forum for discussion, for planning and tackling this cruel and deadly. And it’s not all bad news. In India, scientists and conservationists working with political and legal people were able to ban some of the most lethal drugs that were causing die-offs of vultures. We believe we can achieve it in Africa too.

Several of our bloggers have also revealed to us the scale of illegal wildlife trade that is going on in Africa. Trade in wildlife is sometimes for consumption, but is often for supplying the pet and ornamental trade like parrots, frogs, snakes, orchids, monkeys and insects in the west and Near and Far Eastern countries, as well as for commercial products and ornaments, (eg. Timber, ivory, rhino horn, insects and hippo teeth), medicine and pharmaceuticals, and we have heard that many primates are illegally traded for the biomedical research.

How does this happen when there are wildlife authorities in these countries both Africa and Europe and USA? Well, the business is worth billions, so “corruption” is a key word here. In addition, some countries are not members of important treaties like CITES the convention on trade in endangered species of wild fauna and flora. Some countries don’t have trained customs officers, and identifying some part of an animal, or a small frog is often impossible with out the right tool or training.

Sometimes illegal trade is going on right under the authorities noses – the official forms are filled correctly but with garbage information that nobody checks. For example, in 2005 Uganda allegedly legally exported over 1 ton of hippo teeth from wild sources – I doubt that Uganda doesn’t have enough hippos to provide this – it probably came from Congo where hippo populations have collapsed due to illegal trade.

Someone has to do something.

We can help those interested in ‘revealing’ what’s happening in order to raise attention in source and market countries. We will receive information through our normal emails and info@wildlifedirect.org, and post it to keep you informed. We’d appreciate your interest and action whenever there’s need.

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The largest living animals in the world, it’s not surprising that elephants inspire all sorts of large things….Jumbo jets, jumbo meals, jumbo size….. I suspect that Jumbo is a corruption of the world Jambo which actually means Hello in Kiswahili.

Google ‘elephant’ and you’ll find out about the election race in the United States, the trampling of Guinea in the gripping Africa cup of Nations (soccer) in which the Nigerian team, Elephants, have made it into the semi finals, and about the sad story of three elephants that were hit by a train in India yesterday. We all know and love Dumbo – the story was inspired by a real African elephant called Jumbo. When I was studying elephants I spent often talked with my counterparts in other parts of Africa and Asia. My main concern was the devastating effect of the ivory trade on elephants I worked hard to have the ban on ivory trade maintained.

We saved elephants from being killed for their teeth but it always amazed me that one of the most serious threats to elephants in India was the train. You’ll learn from Joyce Poole and Petter Granli on elephantvoices blog that elephants have incredible perceptions of sounds – not only do they communicate with vocalizations through their trunks but they also communicate through the ground and hear through their feet. One of the most exciting findings I thought was that elephants will stand on three legs to triangulate and determine which directions vibrations come from – and so determine where the rain is falling …. And where to move next. Or where their friends or enemies are … to avoid them. So what I don’t understand is why they can’t hear the train. One can’t help but love elephants –we know so much about them, they are intelligent, feeling, emotional, family oriented, caring and loving…. Most of the time.

But imagine this scenario – you live in a traditional African village. After a hard day of work in the fields, ploughing and weeding, you have your evening meal and retire after the sun has set. The first sound of rumblings would probably melt into your dreams but then you are suddenly awakened into a real life nightmare when you hear the sound of your granary being smashed – looking out side you might just see the dark shapes of elephants lumbering around, you scream, shout, throw things and the elephants trumpet, stampede, smash things. They leave ….your venture out cautiously with your only light, a paraffin lamp that casts a dull glow over the demolition of your destroyed granary, your crop in the field is gone, smashed as the herd fled through it. Some irate villagers chase after the fleeing herd sending smouldering lumps of elephant dung and lighted branches in their direction. This sometimes only angers them more and results in often fatal attacks. This is the conflict that we call ‘human-elephant conflict’ in Africa and Asia. It may not happen as often a cockroaches, weevils or even baboons get into our crops, and elephant losses may not cause as great in total compared to other commone pests, but when elephants do strike – well, one is absolutely helpless against these massive creatures. It’s a big problem – and one that’s hard to get used to or to tolerate. Some people say that elephants and humans can’t live together. I think we can – if we’re clever about it. Three things we can do

1. Fence ourselves in to keep elephants out - an electric fence in Africa is expensive, works well if its maintained, but if not monitored, can be converted into deadly snares ….
2. Use chilli peppers to make your crops distasteful to them! Another cool, I mean hot solution to keeping ele’s away – they hate the smell and taste of chillis –smouldering piles of chilli infused elephant dung piles produces a smoke that debilitates elephants super sniffing power.. read about it here and here. You can even buy chilli sauce to promote this .

3. Use bees – Ian Douglas-Hamilton and Fritz Volrath have shown how the sound of bees can keep elephants at bay – African bee stings on a sensitive elephant trunk – ouch! Elephants avoid swarming bees so bee hives can be used to keep elephants away from farms - everyone is raving about this innovation… having experienced the wrath of African bees, I wouldn’t have African bees near my house in case they went for me instead of the elephants, instead I’d use a simulated bee sound. I wonder if someone could invent a wind chime or musical instrument that produces the buzz of bees so that it’s cheap and completely sustainable?

The post election crisis in Kenya has directly affected efforts to protect elephants – there just isn’t any money being generated by tourism for the payment of antipoaching and enforcement activities, as well as community support for managing human elephant conflict. I’m scared that we will soon see reports that elephants are being killed, snared, hunted with guns, poison arrows and other barbaric killing tools. If communities are facing greater threats from elephants due to the absence of wildlife conflict activities, they will have no incentive to protect these animals.

Having met many hundreds of elephants during my work, I took my son Josh to meet Shimba, one of they newest orphans at the sanctuary. Shimba comes from the Shimba Hills in south east Kenya – where I did my Phd research on this population of forest living (though sometimes crop raiding!) elephants – she’s available for adoption at the orphanage run by the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust.

We are concerned that the Illegal trade in ivory is still a problem and hunters are always on the ready to attack herds whenever antipoaching efforts are compromised. Our focus is on the Mara Triangle right now - any donations you give them will support elephant protection - both anti-poaching and community support for protection.

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Besides the politicians and hoodlums, I can’t help but think there are actually a lot of good and caring people in the world. Perhaps not enough, or maybe because we are all so scattered across the globe that, it is sometimes not easy to feel a common bond of humanity. However, when I started working with WildlifeDirect and began to really understand the power of online communities, I realised that we are now sitting on the most powerful and positive tool of all times.

Then, when my wife, Elodie and I created an emergency appeal blog, Sukuma Kenya (which literally means “push” Kenya but is also the name given to the staple vegetable eaten by all Kenyans as it literally helps to push you through the week), I trully felt that no matter how few people out there really do care, we can actually make a difference. All it took was one mass email to all our friends, and through the simple science of 7 degrees of seperation, Sukuma spread and within one month we had raised over $10,000/-! I can’t even begin to tell you how many people have been helped with this funding.

What was just as inspiring is that I realised just how many Kenyans and friends of Kenya there are out there. The blogs dealing with the crises just kept springing up and everyone has been linking to eachother to increase our networks and increase the outreach. People from all sectors are dealing with the crises at hand ranging from poets like Shailja Patel to Kenyan Harvard student Joseph Karoki to and of course the whole literary movement came together under a common banner of Concerned Writers and within weeks, literally a couple of books worth of material was public for everyone to read. A lot of this amazing writing can be found on the Kwani blog

Kenyans do care and we are in shock about what is going on. What I realise is now more than ever we see our country in it’s whole - the people, the environment, the wildlife, the economy. So much is at stake. As a conservation organisation we recognise that everything is intedependant and sometimes certain issues must take precedence over others for the sake of long term sustainability just as the Gorilla Protection blog has done with raising funds to buy fuelwood for all the displaced people in DR Congo.

And now in Kenya, WildlifeDirect must focus its energy of saving one of the greatest ecosystems in the world - the Trans Mara- which is coming under serious threat due to a lack of financial resources to continue security as there are no tourists paying entrance fees which the Mara Conservancy is entirely dependant upon.

My good friend Stephen Partington and a muse to many of us writers in Kenya lives a humble life teaching at a school in Machakos, recently wrote the following poem which says it all for me:

WONDER OF THE WORLD: A STUDY OF EXODUS
Kenya, February 2008

(NOTE: in 2007, Kenya’s wildebeest migration was declared The Seventh
Natural Wonder of the World)

Forget the wildebeest.
Forget the birds that flock abroad.
Forget safari ants,
those harsh, acidic hordes
that strip each leaf from the acacia tree.

Forget the spawning salmon
or the moulting northern caribou,
the nightly rise and bloom
of tiny plankton from the deep.
Forget the flock and mindless plodding-on
of fold-returning sheep.

Let’s venture lower, to inanimates:
forget the iron filings,
how they journey to the pole.
Forget specks of dust that quiver
with a Brownian lack of control.
Forget how photons in their millions
pulse rhythmically from lamps.
Forget the molecules of water
forced to tumble-stream from taps.
Forget the swarming of the sand from dunes,
the orbits of our planets’ moons…

Yet smaller, less substantial
than a mote, the lowest low:
evicted children
on the margins of the roadway,
who have nowhere left to go.

(Stephen Derwent Partington)

Technorati : Kenya, Masai Mara, Sukuma, WildlifeDirect fundraising crises, blogs, post-election crises

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Things aren’t quite back to normal, we’re all affected differently by the continued violence rocking Kenya after the disputed elections on December 27th. I’m Kenyan and for the first time in my life, I’m suddenly aware that my surname reveals my tribe and that this simple fact could put me in danger if I go to certain places! It’s Crazy!

Like many I’ve been safe only because of where I live and work. Those in the lowest income levels were affected as riots were restricted to the slums …. until last week. Two days ago, my brother fled our dairy farm in one of the violence hit areas after his neighbors and friends of 30 years tried to burn it down! My other brother, his wife and children have refused to leave, they believe they can defend the farm. We are all feeling quite helpless and a rescue mission has been mounted to ‘get them out’. To find out more Dipesh has started a blog to raise awareness and funds for those affected in the worst hit town, Kisumu. I hope you’ll visit to read more about how this affects him and those around him.

Some time ago I posted a cartoon of part of out ream by Kevin, an intern artist, and nobody knew who we were! I thought it only fair that I introduce us and tell you what it’s like in the day in the life of the staff at WildlifeDirect in Nairobi.

Its a daily adventure starting with getting to work – we all come from different directions – but the traffic is the same, bumper to bumper, and the public transport ‘matatu’s’ behave badly wherever you are in the city. I’m going to apologise for a stupid gap that appears randomly in this post - I think it’s a poltergeist, because every time I move it, it just appears somewhere else.

Most drivers wait patiently in queues, but not matatu’s (which translates to three - it used to cost 30 cents a ride), they overtake causing traffic jams, cut in to lines, drive off road, and frequently cause accidents (I saw 2 on my way in yesterday). Why do they behave this way? Simple, because they can! Colorful, like so much in Kenya, matatu owners often adorn their vehicles with provoking statements or names and art work on the back. And because the customers don’t stop them, other drivers are scared of them, and sad but true, the police are often easily persuaded to overlook dangerous driving with a small cash incentive called ‘chai’ which means tea (it’s even said that some matatu’s are owned by influential policemen). They often push pedestrians and cyclists into gutters, spraying mud or dust on them, and often putting them in line of danger.

Here’s an overloaded cyclist trying to balance produce for shops –battling for road space with a matatu bearing down on him. Though bicycles are common, Bicycle lanes do not exist.

My first stop is to get the newspapers from a friendly corner to and read on the 45 minute drive in (20 minutes if I leave at 6 am). It’s hard to ignore the bizarre, bazaars along the highways - you can buy or rent practically anything from a lawnmower, water, house furniture, to garden flowers and flower pots, a pet rabbit or puppy.

or a life sized scrap metal giraffe, crocodile or elephant!

We call this road side craft ‘Jua Kali’ which literally means ‘Hot Sun’ as the crafts men and women work in the sun (not in factories or offices).

I digress here into a Kiswahili lesson because as I write this I realise that Swahili is an odd but fun eclectic language - Jua Kali literally translates to Sun hot not Hot sun, because jua =sun, kali=hot or aggressive. Kali can be used in other contexts too like hot food (chakula kali) or something expensive (bei ghali) and aggressive dog (mbwa mkali). When I’m upset with my my son I get really kali and he always retorts ’stop getting so whisky’! I have no idea what that means but it always diffuses the situation (which come to think of it, is what our politicians need right now). Some English words have no translation in Kiswahili for example bicycle is bisikeli and motorbike is piki piki which literally is the sound that motorbikes make. I could go on and on …..

We start the day officially at 9 am but the truth is that most of us start the day from as early as early as 5am and we work in teams on different things – apart from supporting all our bloggers and website visitors, we’re developing major themes to stop wildlife poisoning, saving the Maasai Mara, stopping illegal trade in wildlife in Africa, and stopping the charcoal trade in Congo. Everyone is busy with plans to make these campaigns work. We will soon be telling you how you can help us create a campaign around these important issues.

Here’s Dipesh and Amir who is based in Congo but visits Nairobi from time to time.

….and Jonathan, on his way into the office on a matatu!

Emmanuel, Will and David were skyping with Australian social networking guru’s as we develop new tools for Wildlifedirect supporters.

We visited the Lusaka Task Force, Africa’s interpol for wildlife trade, to talk about the alarming scale of trade in gorillas, parrots, and chimpanzees in Africa (we’ve been bringing you some news in the gorilla protection blog as well as Limbe). We met with Clement and Bonaventure (from right Clement, Emmanuel, Ephrem (our Country officer in Congo) and Bonaventure. We were told impressive stories about seizing ivory and tracking traders and dealers, we were very impressed with what they are doing and felt it needed to be brought to global attention. So watch this space, we’ll be bringing you their news regularly.

Back at the office, though it may not look like it from this shot, Joy really is the heart and soul of the office, she handles everything and looks after everyone – she’s working on logistics and administrative issues and though she has a beautiful smile, this photo captures her normal expression….serious!

Masumi, every cheerful, brings the party to the office and provides bloggers support and much much more.

And here’s the most critical person to work productivity – John – he brings laughter and piping hot coffee

After work we sometimes get together especially if we have visitors from our Congo team.

Here’s Diddy and Will during his an Innocents visit last month.

Here’s Kevin and Maya (office mascot and Dipesh’s daughter) – Kevin is back at art school now after completing designs for our shop (check out the incredible T-shirt designs), he spent a month on internship with us and became a very popular member of the team. Here’s one of my favourite sketches he did – it’s called ‘Urban Samurai Heroes’ and represents Kevin, Josh (my son) and a friend of theirs on a quest to save the world. Apart from the aggressive expressions and blood thirsty weapons, the idea of urban heroes reminds me of what we’re trying to do for wildlife.

At the end of the day we join the endless snake of traffic back to our homes.

So…. does anyone feel they can identify who’s who in this cartoon now?

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