Baraza

Category: wildlife | Date: Jul 24 2008 | By: Maina

I read about the re-introduction of five cheetahs into the wild at the Cheetah Conservation Fund blog and it reminded me of an article I had read in the Conservation magazine of the Society for Conservation Biology (Vol 9 No.1, Jan-Mar 2008). This particular article took me on a journey of the Lago (Lake) Guri archipelago in east-central Venezuela. For the record, the Lago Guri is the result of the construction of a mammoth hydroelectric dam at the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroní rivers in 1986 and the resultant flooding upstream. The Lago Guri has an expansive matrix of hilltop islands some as little as half-an-acre to 700-ha tracts of land.

So how does this tie in with predators? Simple, in the article, written by William Stolzenburd, one ecologist, John Terborgh, had come up with the theory that top predators were “the irreplaceable forces holding everything together”. Terborgh was not convinced that the modern extinction crisis was as a result of habitats shrinking or their fragmentation. He had observed that in the absence of top predators, the prey would “run amok, with cascades of local extinctions and ecological convulsions in their wake”. Terborgh had boldly declared this theory to his peers in his 1988 essay titled “The Big Things That Run the World” but he so badly needed to prove it.

When he learned of the Lago Guri in 1990, he found what he wanted: a place with islands small enough not to support any large predators. He started his experiment in 1993, by which time, the surviving species at Guri had ballooned to scary proportions. The resident howler monkeys for example, finding themselves without their natural predators, had multiplied and browsed their favorite trees bare. Now they were starving. The trees were fighting back by producing leaves with high concentrations of toxins but the monkeys were too hungry to notice. They would eat only to vomit a few minutes later.

Terborgh was advancing towards proving his theory, and, in a disturbing light, disapproving the island biogeography theory which calculates a ratio to the effect that the smaller and more isolated the island (or forest patch, etc.) the smaller the number of species it can support. According to this theory - proposed by Robert H MacArthur and Edward O Wilson way back in 1963 - fragmentation is the main culprit of extinction and biodiversity loss.

Now, my friend Dino introduced me to the writings of Edward O Wilson and, needless to say, I find Wilson very convincing. But if Terbogh is right, then we, the conservation conscious (and students of Wilson), must then start rethinking how we treat predators. As a matter of fact, we might have to rethink conservation all together.

While am not saying that Terborgh is right and Wilson is wrong (after almost half-a-century), all i am saying is that every species has its place in the whole scheme. Ecosystems are complex. For instance, the reason why there are no predators in the monkeys territory that i spoke of above is because the island is too small to harbor a large predator that can control the population of the monkeys. Therefore, fragmentation led to the absence of predators and the entire system is now collapsing.

Still, the role of the predator is important, and the recent introduction of these five cats into the wild by CCF could help the NamibRand Nature Reserve where they were re-introduced. It would be interesting to find out how these cheetahs fare and how the ecosystem health is affected.

Finally, I need to commend all our bloggers who are working with predators and to encourage them to take good care of our predators. If Terborgh is right, you will have saved the wild as we know it.

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Tags: cheetahs, conservation, ecology, howler monkeys, predators

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 23 2008 | By: baraza

I was recently confronted by a really unimaginable concept, that green is actually brown!

If “green” means protecting the environment and conserving natural resources, then economic growth is fundamentally “brown.” 

So, when we buy organic products, recycled paper and plastics and when we think we are being green, we’re actually being brown which sounds pretty dirty to me!

The Center for the Advancement of Steady State Economy has been aggressively trying to win endorsement from conservationists around the USA. Part of their argument against continuous economic growth and for a steady state economy - although they concede that they don’t know what this would actually look like.

Does anyone actually know how we can save the planet? Is is as fragile as we think? How should we individually behave? It’s a challenge isn’t it? Should we stop in our tracks today? Can we? Is it in our nature to do so? Is this the solution for the future of our blue planet?

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Tags: conservation, Green, steady state

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

While in Chattanooga things weren’t all boring, I met someone who’se name I’d only ever associated with the text books, William (Bill) Sutherland famed for his techniques books like Bird ecology and The Conservation Handbook. He’s pretty well respected in the field and is compiling a list of the 100 key questions about conservation. These questions will be compiled and used to guide British conservation policy in the next 5 years (this will affect where research will be focussed, what issues will be prioritised etc).

Lets help him! Just ASK the questions. Post your questions here and I’ll send them on to him over the next 2 days.

Here are my top questions

1. How effectively is conservation funding achieving it’s  goals -

2. Where is conservation funding going vs where  the endangered species are? And, how much money is spent on research vs conservation.

3. Why isn’t there a conservation movement in the tropics driven by locals if this is where the worlds biodiversity resides? (ie. why are the top conservationists in Africa, Asia and latin America not natives from these regions? what is holding back the locals?)

4. How does  global heritage site status (like the Virungas) help species in places like the Virungas? Does the world really care?

5. Do trans boundary and peace parks work - if so how can we replicate it and make conservation non - political

6. How is globalization affecting our war on the international illegal trade in species?

7. How can we measure the impact of he G8 policies on conservation - do the millenium goals conflict with each other

8. What is of greater value, species or species functions? Can species functions be replaced by introductions? Should we care about exotics if they are replacing  functions? (e.g primary producers and scavengers, etc)

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Tags: 100 key questions, conservation, William Sutherland

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Category: China, Ivory, elephants | Date: Jul 16 2008 | By: baraza

I’m still in Chattanooga in bed nursing a terrible cold. To make things worse, despite all our efforts the Standing Committee did the illogical thing and China will buy the ivory from southern Africa. Poor elephants.

I predict that the southern African countries will not get the prices they anticipate - last time this happened Japan bough the ivory in an auction that took place in Zimbabwe. The hope was to have bidding to drive up prices, but the bidders had another plan, they fixed prices through agreements and gave Africa very little. They hope that China will be ‘fairer’, it’s is a long shot.

I’m surprised at the statements I’m reading and hearing.

Sky News says

“The decision to approve China as an ivory buyer goes against recommendations from the African Elephant Coalition (AEC) meeting held in June in Mombasa, Kenya.”

While the Environment News Service says

The [ETIS] report finds that the five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit trade in ivory are Cameroon, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Nigeria and Thailand. “All of these countries featured in previous ETIS analyses as countries of concern, but only China demonstrates significant progress in addressing illicit ivory trade issues,” the report states.

And the BBC says

“China has acted rather successfully against its own illegal domestic ivory market,” said Tom Milliken, a director for Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

“Now China should help other countries to do the same, especially in central Africa where elephant poaching is rampant.”

But Robbie Marsland, UK director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), condemned the decision, saying it could prove disastrous for the world’s elephant populations.

I think Richard Leakey will make a comment on this, will keep you all updated.

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Tags: Africa, China, conservation, elephants, illegal trade, Ivory, wildlifedirect

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Category: Uncategorized | Date: Jul 04 2008 | By: admin

I get so mad when I hear countries, organizations and individuals saying that the solution for wildlife protection is to just make money from it. Ok the value of wildlife is immense - in fact the illegal trade in wildlife is apparently worth many billions and is second only to the illegal trade in arms. So if legalizing wildlife trade would lead to it’s protection …then should we legalize the trade in weapons? We are such hypocrites.

Top of my venting list today Namibia. According to a news article here  Namibia’s state-owned national game reserves plan to auction and export black rhinos and buffalo to South Africa and Botswana to raise funds for conservation and community development. The Ministry of Environment and Tourism has authorized the auction of eight black rhinos and 40 buffalos on July 25 in a biennial sale of rare animals, Mark Jago, an official at the ministry, said in an interview from the Namibian capital of Windhoek today. And it’s totally legal - the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species allows Namibia to export the animals.

What do you think, will selling rhino’s will lead to their preservation ?

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Tags: conservation, Namibia, Rhinoceros, wildlifedirect

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