Month: October 2009

Ban The Ivory Ban?

Ban The Ivory Ban?

by Arusha ♥ 1 Comment

The next meeting of CITES in March will be a crucial one. So far only 21 of the treaty’s 175 country signers have joined Kenya to support a ban on further sales of ivory.

Not even Tanzania has yet joined the Kenyan coalition. This is extremely bad news for elephant conservation.

Kenya, the United States and the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) were the original three creators of CITES, drafting the 1973 world treaty. But it took 16 years of subsequent diplomacy to get the constituent countries to agree to an ivory ban.

During that 16 years, according to the KWS, Kenya’s elephant population fell from 167,000 to less than 16,000: more than a 90% decline. And it was entirely from poaching.

In October, 1989, CITES officially placed elephant in “Appendix I” of the treaty, banning any sale of any elephant product, including of course ivory. That and the aggressive moves by such countries as Kenya saved the world’s dwindling elephant population.

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) made American network news on Saturday, July 18, 1989, when it set to fire a pyre of $1 million worth of confiscated ivory, at the time more than 12 tons.

On July 14 of this year, 2009, KWS officials confiscated an equivalent $1 million worth of banned wildlife products that were connecting through Jomo Kenyatta Airport from Mozambique, addressed to the Xaysavang Trading Export Import Company Limited, Vientiane, Laos.

But this $1 million wasn’t 12 tons as in 1989, but only 600 pounds of ivory and 45 pounds of rhino horn. An expected but unfortunate result of the success of CITES has been to increase the value of such banned products.

“Since Mozambique has no rhinos and few elephants we suspect the trophies were illegally poached from neighboring countries and transported to Maputo by road,” said KWS Director Julius Kipng’etich.

“We will be doing a DNA to determine where the elephants were illegally poached from but it is highly possible it was in Tanzania, Namibia, Zimbabwe or South Africa,” Mr. Kipngetich continued.

None of these countries has yet joined Kenya in support of a continued CITES ban.

Still less than two-thirds the size of the continent-wide population in the 1950s (the Kenyan population stands at 32,000), elephant numbers have increase robustly since the CITES ban. Countries where poaching was little of a problem, like South Africa, want now to be able to sell their huge warehouses of harvested ivory, most of which has come from normal deaths or scientific culls.

In 1997 as poaching seemed to be on the wane, CITES downgraded elephant from “Appendix I” to “Appendix II”. This allows a “limited trade” in ivory. Kenya and other conservationist-oriented countries successfully stalled this implementation with endless proposals to define exactly what “limited trade” would be.

Kenya felt successful under the circumstances, and only five date certain sales subsequently occurred of warehoused ivory, mostly from southern African countries. All were auctions to Asian traders.

But following each of these auctions, conservationists insisted that poaching became resurgent, threatening populations where poaching is still a threat, such as in Kenya.

Then in 2002 came one of the greatest political blows to elephant conservation, and out of the blue, and from one of the original three creators of CITES: the United States.

At the 12th conference of CITES in Santiago, the Bush administration proposed an amendment to the treaty that would further erode its enforcement.

The conference was stunned. In fact even the U.S. delegation to the conference was stunned.

The day before, on November 4, the head of the U.S. delegation, Assistant Secretary of the Interior, Judge Craig Manson, supported the ban strongly in his opening remarks, saying that the United States “remains concerned regarding any resumption in this trade because of potential effects on elephant populations and ongoing monitoring efforts.”

Somebody in Washington was listening. Manson got a call late at night. The next morning he not only reversed his position, but he actually offered an amendment to the treaty which would forbid elephants from ever being placed on Appendix I again!

The outctry was palatable. The European Union was infuriated. Kenya felt snubbed. Manson received 12,000 emails in the course of an hour and left the conference early.

The amendment was not adopted, but without U.S. support to relist elephant into Appendix I (which Manson had personally originally supported), the conference kept elephant in Appendix II.

Controlled sales of warehoused ivory, although very limited, have continued.

The three-year drought that just ended in East Africa has exacerbated the problem even further. KWS documents a “quadrupling” of elephant poaching before the drought ended this month, over the course of 2009.

In part this is because elephant began to wander far and wide from the protected reserves searching for food and water. In part it’s because so many desperate Kenyans had little to eat or drink. (Read my blog, “ANIMALS OR PEOPLE” of October 4). And in no small part it’s because of a new and larger presence of Chinese in Kenya, as that country drills for newly discovered Kenyan oil and builds new roads with a multitude of new workers.

Kenyan authorities earlier this year impounded three tusks and deported three Chinese workers apprehended on the Isiolo/Marsabit road works. Kenya’s commitment to conservation couldn’t have been more forcefully demonstrated. Kenya needs the Chinese oil exploration; it will be a very needed boon to the country.

On hearing of the deportation of the workers, the Chinese government halted development activity in Kenya, including road works and oil drilling, for three months. It has since resumed.

But it is clear how China will vote at the March meeting of CITES in Doha, Qatar in March. And it is clear how Kenya will vote. The Obama administration has yet to announce its position.

DELUGE ARRIVES

DELUGE ARRIVES

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The predicted El-Nino rains are beating East Africa and reversing the drought completely, causing mayhem anew.

Nairobi’s Standard newspaper reports now that five people swept away by running waters have been confirmed killed throughout Kenya. Two major bridges, one linking the mainland with Lamu, has been swept away, and major roads into the north are completely gone.

The seriously damaged parts of the country seem to be just outside of the tourist circuit, which is nonetheless getting significant rainfall.

But the flash floods, destroyed bridges and swept away (dirt) roads are in Kenya’s west, coast, north and far north-east. The essential center of the country, the Rift Province, is receiving heavy rainfall, but not a deluge.

In Tanzania the areas around Lake Victoria are getting drenched and heavy rains are falling elsewhere in the north, but not with the vengeance over much of Kenya.

In Uganda, areas around the capital of Kampala and the main airport at Entebbe are soaked, as is the mountainous west.

In any other year, this would be considered a blessing. But what is happening over much of the area is massive erosion and mud slides following three years of little or no rain.

The rains began as I reported two weeks ago, about two weeks early. Normally they would slowly be ending in December in Kenya and Uganda, then moderating but not ending in northern Tanzania.

BA STRIKE?

BA STRIKE?

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“Fears are mounting of chaos over the busy Christmas holiday period if BA staff choose to go on strike.” – Sky News, October 28, 2009

British Airways just announced doubling the service from London to Entebbe, adding already to its impressive schedule of 14 flights weekly between Heathrow and East Africa.

All for nuts?

The heaviest season in East Africa is the Christmas season, and today started the official cooling off period after the union of flight attendants and assorted other airline workers announced it was going “to a ballot” recommending a Christmas strike.

The issue is a continuing reduction in flight staff. BA’s 747s into East Africa, for example, now carry 14 flight attendants. The legal limit is 12 by British law, and BA announced this week it would reduce to 13.

This would allow a staff reduction of about 3700 staff across all their routes, or about a 10% reduction.

BA like all the world’s airlines is in a financial crisis. The CEO calls it a “fight for survival” and has employed draconian American techniques like eliminating food on short-haul flights, giving BA the questionable distinction of being the first non-American airline to do so.

TOURISTS KILLED

TOURISTS KILLED

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With sadness I must report that two tourists were killed on a Mombasa beach on October 15, but it’s extremely important to keep this in perspective.

The event has attracted enormous worldwide coverage, yet little is known. It’s very important to not jump to too many conclusions.

That isn’t because tourist deaths are not important for all of us to know, but because it represents two of the 120,000 British tourists who have visited Kenya in the last year.

If we consider the British visiting Kenya a virtual city, the percentage who have been murdered is one-tenth the murder rate of my city, Chicago.

It is also much less than the tourist murder rate in such common places as Antigua, Mexico City and even St. Petersburg. In fact two British tourists were murdered in Antigua this summer.

So while the news is very sad, these are the first two tourists reported killed this year in violent crime in Kenya.

The British Foreign Office kept the news quiet for nearly two weeks, as the couple was killed on October 15 in what British officials call a “bungled burglary.”

The statement also repeated a long warning to British beach holiday makers not to walk on the beaches after dark, but no further details were released. The Kenyan police are saying nothing.

So while the details are not yet known, and the reason for withholding the story not yet know, I’d bet that the couple tried to resist, and that led to their murder.

Reports of attempted burglaries that do not end so tragically are rarely reported, because crime in general is so high in Kenya. We learn of them rarely through the news, most often through the grapevine. There are admittedly many thefts and holdups of tourists throughout East Africa each year. But discipline to not resist usually results in little if any violence or injury.

MOB & SNOB

MOB & SNOB

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

What a day for Kenyan justice! Balance liberty by justifying the release of a murderer with a killer!

Fridays are fun at Kenyan prisons. The weekend is too poorly staffed by prison workers, so Fridays all sorts of fun last-minute stuff must happen.

So today two of Kenya’s most notorious inmates were released.

The last of the blue blood colonials to live in Kenya, Tom Cholmondeley (pronounced, “Chumley”), was released early after serving a manslaughter charge for killing an African who had shot an antelope on his game ranch. He was released early for “good conduct.”

This was the second African that Cholmondeley had shot for killing wild animals on his ranch. He managed to avoid conviction for the first.

And another murderer, Maina Njenga, the feared Mungiki “Chairman” (Kenyan mob), was released from bail after prosecutors were unable to proceed with charges that he had masterminded the murder of 29 people.

Mungiki Spokesman Njuguna Gitau said: “We are very happy because the chairman has been released; he is finally free after suffering for a long time.”

Twenty-one others were released with Njenga. They all skipped trial because of procedural difficulties. You see, they were all being tried in another court for other murders, so the judge decided it was double jeopardy.

Holy Moses.

DROUGHT TALLY

DROUGHT TALLY

by Arusha ♥ 1 Comment

Everyone wants a tally of the drought’s wildlife destruction now that it seems to be over. Here’s a start, temptingly premature.

Keep in mind that in a normal year we wouldn’t even be having rains yet over much of East Africa, and certainly not as heavy. And also keep in mind that the heavy initial rains of March, 2009, over northern Tanzania flipped off way too early.

Nairobi water works officials yesterday cautioned everyone not to start celebrating. The three dams that supply Nairobi’s public water were all below 35% capacity, and the heavy rains of the last 3 weeks have done little more than stop the continuing decline.

Water rationing in Nairobi continues.

We really won’t know until towards the end of November whether these “short rains” were sufficient to break the drought completely.

Nevertheless, yesterday the Kenyan Wildlife Service (KWS) issued a preliminary report; this simultaneously with National Geographic’s story about lost animals due to the drought.

According to the KWS about 2% of the wildlife north of the equator was lost, and 1% south of the equator.

The 1% figure is a bit misleading, though, because it’s bolstered by the wildebeest migration in the Mara, which originates in Tanzania where the drought was mild or nonexistent. Animals in Kenya’s Tsavo and Amboseli National Parks may have suffered up to a 5% decline. This isn’t because the drought was worse here than in the north, but because the north is a desert habitat to begin with, and the animals living there know how to deal with it better.

These are pretty significant numbers and might actually exceed the droughts of 1983 and 1998.

Most seriously, 40 of Kenya’s very rare 2,000 Grevy’s Zebra succumbed to the drought. “Losing these 40 is a significant loss,” said Mr Patrick Omondi, a KWS Senior Assistant Director.

500-600 hippos were lost. This is about 20% of that population. Their problem was that even in the Mara, which had rains throughout the entire drought, the hippos’ home in the Mara river (which arises in a drought area) fell below the minimum sustainable levels multiple times.

The hippos had to migrate, and there was nowhere to migrate to that was better. They had to fiercely compete for the 200 pounds of grass they needed nightly. Most died of starvation during failed attempts to migrate.

KWS says probably 300 elephants died, the majority of which were juveniles. Normally elephants abort their 22-month long pregnancy when a drought begins, but the explanation is two-fold. First, many of the juveniles were older than 3 years, but of those that weren’t, the three-year drought sort of snuck up on everyone this time. Rather than an all out whammy from the start (the normal pattern in the past), there were two years of declining rains before the door slammed shut this year.

The normal deaths by thirst and starvation were augmented by an increase in active poaching that always occurs during a drought. People need food.

Poaching for bush meat was so prevalent that butchers in large towns like Musoma (near the Serengeti) and Narok (near the Mara) openly hung the carcases of antelopes just as they would have cows.

And I think it was a wise political decision not to prosecute these merchants, as would have been the case had there not been a drought.

Elephant are not normally poached for food, but elephant poaching increased substantially. This is explained by a relaxation of CITIES rules that would probably have resulted in additional poaching even in good times, plus the drought which motivates individuals even further as their economic situation is more threatened.

KWS says that there were 189 confirmed elephant poaching incidents in the north in 2009, alone. NGOs in Amboseli and Tsavo have confirmed an additional 38 in the south.

“That’s the highest number of elephants poached since the international ban on ivory sales in 1999,” Mr Omondi said.

Predators don’t do badly in droughts, and only ten lions have been confirmed dead as a result of the drought. No predator isn’t a scavenger. And the likelihood is that their population actually increased.

If these numbers hold, it’s not so bad. Wild animals are resilient, and many scientists argue that natural culling is actually a necessary process. BUT… let’s just hope the numbers hold, and the drought is really over.

BORDER CLOSED

BORDER CLOSED

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The border between Tanzania’s Serengeti and Kenya’s Maasai Mara has been closed since 1977. Despite hopeful signs earlier this year, it won’t be opening, soon.

Yesterday, the Tanzania Tourist Board (TBT) announced forcefully in Dar-es-Salaam that the rumors of a Balanganjwe border crossing reopening after more than 30 years were incorrect.

As I reported in June, I spoke with newly redeployed Kenyan border officials at Balanganjwe who had just arrived from Nakuru. The old post and buildings were being refurbished.

The much publicized East African free-trade agreement was signed, sealed and delivered to all the East African countries involved several weeks ago. Tourism was an important part of this agreement, and KATO, the influential association of Kenyan Tour Operators, hosted a news conference with Kenyan Government Tourism Minister Najib Balala, Monday, who “confirmed” that the border would open, soon.

No, says Tanzania. Worried that Balala went way too far the TBT broadcast emails all over the world — to embassies and consulates, to every operator they could find in Africa and elsewhere — saying this just wasn’t true.

“Esteemed clients,” the circular begins, the border will remain closed for “environmental reasons.” The TBT went on to explain that the “fragile ecosystem of the area… cannot be sacrificed for the purpose of shortening the route between Maasai Mara and Serengeti National Park.”

What a joke.

Read my blog of September 17. The Tanzanians, and the TBT in particular, are doing everything possible to avoid environmental concerns in new development plans for the Serengeti.

The business plan of the multimillion dollar new airport and new roads and many new lodges would be seriously undermined if access to the Mara was made easy.

The border originally closed in 1977 during an historic dispute over the ownership of the then East African Airways, which later became Kenya Airways. In the seventies, Kenya was the only prosperous country of the three Britain had hoped would become a single confederated East Africa: Uganda, Tanzania and Kenya.

Uganda was in the bowels of Idi Amin. Tanzania’s socialist experiment while doing wonders for education was not producing a very good bottom line. The seven aircraft of East African Airlines that flew between Nairobi and Europe were jointly owned by the three countries, but only Kenya had the resources to maintain them.

In a lightning quick move the Kenyan government in cahoots with then British Petroleum confiscated the planes when (remarkably) they were all together on the tarmac in Nairobi (not a very wise way to use aircraft). In less than an hour, the Kenyan Supreme Court bankrupt the airline, then let the Kenyan government buy it for what amounted to the debit on the books owed by Tanzania and Uganda (which, of course, Kenya had already covered to keep the airline going).

In retaliation Tanzania closed all borders with Kenya and confiscated all the Kenyan tourists equipment in the country: Landrovers, minibuses, charter aircraft… and tourists. More than 130 tourists were held hostage for several days until Pan Am flew a mercy flight into the country to evacuate them.

Tanzania and Kenya are the best of friends, now. But the move in 1977 provoked a development of a real Tanzania tourist industry, which until that point had been completely dominated by Kenya.

As time passed there just was no reason for Tanzania to give up growing advantages. Tanzania’s wilderness is generally considered better and more exciting than Kenya’s wildernesses, and certainly less crowded.

Kenya gets the heads up for better service and facilities, but Tanzania so far has managed to have the upper hand with lions and wildebeest.

What is so ironic about this is that by invoking “environmental concern” Tanzanian officials are actually paving the way to over development in the Serengeti as I explained in the September 17 blog.

Opening the border would all but kill many of the new expansion plans set for the Serengeti, truly a move consistent with greater “environmental concern.” This sort of sounds like the health insurance industry claiming concern for the health of the U.S.

Big Game Hunting

Big Game Hunting

by Arusha ♥ 3 Comments

Uncontrolled, big game hunting is resurgent in Uganda. I believe big game hunting contributes to conservation if carefully controlled. Problem is, it’s not being controlled at all.

The only reason tourists first came to Africa was to hunt. One of the world’s greatest conservationist, Teddy Roosevelt, was a big game hunter.

That changed radically in the 1960s and 1970s, and as elephant poaching approached catastrophic levels, Uganda and Kenya banned hunting altogether.

That’s changing. The economic climate is so bad in East Africa, and growing elephant populations are so menacing, that both Kenya and Uganda are reconsidering their positions.

Reports surfaced today in Kampala that the Uganda Wildlife Authority was suppressing a completed report on a hunting experiment near Lake Mburo National Park in the southwest. The UWA commissioned the experiment eight years ago, and the presumption is the only reason the report is being suppressed is because it’s unfavorable to hunting.

And so hunting continues in that area, beyond the experiment’s end date, and with no report on how it went.

Worse, Uganda’s most prolific blogger, Wolfgang Thome, reported today that sitatunga, an endangered animal on CITES appendixes, is among the animals being advertised for hunting. Zambia, Cameroun and the Central African Republic also allow sitatunga hunting.

Click Here to read a report by South African businessman, Gavin Godfrey, who returned from a Ugandan sitatunga hunt in August operated by Lake Albert Safaris, a hunting company owned by South African hunter, Bruce Martin.

What’s interesting about this report is that it occurs outside the experimental zone presumably controlled by Ugandan authorities, on sequestered and little known islands in Lake Victoria. Moreover, the cost of the hunt is extraordinary, further underlining the stealth currently involved in Ugandan hunting.

Martin’s company normally concentrates in a gazetted experimental area at the north end of Lake Albert, and normally advertises for abundant game like kob.

Sitatunga is another matter. Sitatunga shouldn’t be hunted, and clearly the high cost will now attract the wealthy hunter around the world. It’s a lot easier to hunt in Uganda than in the jungles of Cameroun or CAR. The absence of the UWA report on hunting complicates the matter and further suggests graft at fairly high levels.

This is not how big game hunting should be managed by a responsible government.

SAD ZIM

SAD ZIM

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Some of my fondest memories are of safaris in Zimbabwe, and since March the power sharing agreement seemed to be working. It’s all coming apart, now.

Who would have thought that the opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, would today be Zimbabwe’s prime minister? Or even more unlikely, sharing government with the same man who had beat him to a pulp?

But that’s what happened last March, following the UN-managed elections which Tsvangirai won beating the aged dictator, Robert Mugabe. Problem was Mugabe wouldn’t concede power, so as seems trendy today, the two adversaries formed a coalition government.

No one thought it would work. For the first few months, the only country in the world that recognized the new government was South Africa, which had mediated the agreement.

A few months later, more governments recognized the coalition as it seemed to be holding. Each side divvied up the ministries pretty fairly, although Mugabe kept all those with hard weapons. All ministers got Mercedes.

By July some of us felt Tsvangirai was capitulating to the dizziness of power. Nothing was really happening in Zimbabwe to move the country out of its xenophobic, racist ways. Near random land distribution was still uncontrolled. The country printed its first one trillion dollar bill. Mining was still dead. All the country’s great resources were still not being used, and all that was keeping it alive was South African aid.

And most telling of all, refugees kept flowing out of the country.

But then, remarkably to this person anyway, by September there seemed to be some hope. For the first time ever it looked like tobacco was actually being replanted (the country’s dominant crop). A few new pieces of equipment arrived at the Hwange Coal Mine. And EWT started to get promising little notes from safari operators throughout the country.

So – we thought maybe – Africa has worked magic, again. David and Goliath are playing cribbage.

Yesterday, it came apart.

Tsvangirai confirmed to a South African radio station (where he is on a lecture tour) that Mugabe has issued an order forbidding any of Tsvangirai’s party members – including ministers in the current government – from leaving the country.

Presumably if Tsvangirai returns, he’ll be under house (country) arrest. Mugabe’s move follows a cabinet meeting Tuesday that Tsvangirai’s party boycotted. And to make matters worse, it looks like some of Tsavangirai’s coalition, including Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, may be shifting over to Mugabe, who after all holds all the keys to all their Mercedes.

In my opinion, this is the beginning of the end. No protestor alive has paid his dues more than Tsavangirai, who has been beaten unconscious several times by Mugabe supporters, jailed innumerable times, and who even lost his wife this year in a car accident that remains incredibly suspicious.

Maybe the wounds are just too deep. Maybe Tsavangirai believes the time is ripe to fracture the coalition. Maybe someone knows that finally Mugabe really is dying.

There’s no bread on the shelves in Harare. But there are lots of new Mercedes.

OIL COUNTDOWN

OIL COUNTDOWN

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Chinese engineers today began drilling one of the deepest exploratory oil holes ever tapped into Mother Earth, near Isiolo in Kenya.

Isiolo is the last major town north of Mt. Kenya before continuing into the Great Northern Frontier. It’s about 25 miles from Samburu National Park.

The China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) has been all over this place for the last year. It paved a 30-mile long road through the desert in six weeks (I’ve been waiting for 20 miles of this for 20 years), two of its workers were deported for trying to smuggle ivory, and at least in Isiolo the Yuan has replaced the Dollar as the main form of bribery.

The 2½ mile deep well will probably strike oil. CNOOC’s geological studies concluded last year that there were enough measurable hydrocarbons at that depth to warrant the $20 million investment in this first deep hole. The company has spent $15 million over the last two years on roads and research.

If it’s successful, another $100 million will be required to begin harvesting the black gold.

Kenya’s Energy Minister, Kiraitu Murungi, is already bubbling.

“In a matter of days, “ he told Kenya’s East African newspaper on Thursday, “we could be celebrating. God willing, I shall be announcing a historical discovery at the end of the month.”

There’s no question it would be a boon to Kenya, greatly needed right now. The country’s extended drought and turbulent politics needs some stabilization, and oil could bring it relatively quickly.

Much of the troubles as a result of the drought have been in this area, including armed conflicts between different tribes. It would be a long time before the black gold found its residue in Kenyan banks, but certainly there would be a fairly quick job creation in the area.

Murungi must be pretty confident. He has just agreed to deliver the keynote address at the 16th Africa Annual Oil Week conference in Cape Town on November 4!

Best Camps in the Mara?

Best Camps in the Mara?

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From MotherGoose335@

Q.    We’re planning our safari right now for next summer and we’re going to be ending in the Masai Mara in Kenya.  When I went online to see available places to stay, I was absolutely overwhelmed, there are so many.  Do you have any recommendations?

A.    I know exactly how you feel!  There are around 6400 bed nights in the Maasai Mara and surrounding private reserves, more than 100 different properties and camps.  Before I tell you my favorites, here are some guide lines for deciding.

First, about half of these are actually inside the reserve, with the other half outside in private reserves.  This is very much a southern African model.  Consider the great Kruger National Park in South Africa.  Most of the lodging is actually outside the park in private reserves like Sabi Sands.

But this model doesn’t work as well in Kenya as it does in South Africa.  The game viewing in the Mara is absolutely better inside the reserve than outside.  But it is also much more crowded inside the reserve than outside.  So for better game viewing: inside the reserve.  For a more exclusive or boutique experience: outside the reserve.

The time of year matters.  If you are traveling to the Mara when the wildebeest herds have normally arrived from the Serengeti (late June – October), then your best bet is to stay as far north in the reserve, or as far south outside the reserve, as possible.  (Except for when they just arrive and just leave.)   For the rest of the year (November – May) it really doesn’t matter, as the game viewing throughout the areas is about the same.

Budget is very important.  Right now there are three main budget levels: $200-300 per day per person; $300-400 per day per person; and more than $400 per day per person.  (These are gross averages.  During the lowest seasons, these could be reduced by 50%; during the highest seasons, like the December holidays, they are doubled.  There are discounts available in all sorts of ways at all times of the year, and your final costs will also have to at least include transport and park fees.)

The lowest budget level really restricts you to the larger lodges, and there is often nothing wrong with these other than that they’re larger.  There are a few camps at this level, but none that I would recommend.  So at this first level, I like Mara Sarova Lodge.  Also at this level, I like the Mara Serena Lodge but its location is good only seasonally, from July – October, and the company is very directed to large suppliers rather than individual bookings.

Most of the properties are in the mid range, and of these my recommendation is solidly Governor’s Camp.  Governor’s actually owns and operates a family of camps in the Mara, and it is Main Governor’s that falls in this range.

At the top end I like Sala’s Camp and Olonana Camp.

This is by no means an exhaustive list, but I hope it gives you a start.  And note one thing: they are all inside the reserve.  For me, game viewing is the most important thing!

CLIMATE NEWS

CLIMATE NEWS

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Heavy rains do seem to be arriving, dangerous wild fires close Arusha N.P., and African nations prepare for the Copenhagen Climate Change summit.

This evening at Larsen’s Camp in Samburu National Park, Jeremy told me that it had begun to rain over the park, and that the Ewaso Nyiro River had started flowing again five days ago.

This confirms the broad satellite photos we can access, which are showing heavier than normal rains appearing earlier than normal and spreading out radially from Lake Victoria.

Fear that the rain may be too heavy, as was the case with the last El Nino in 1998, have led to some villages near normal bodies of water to evacuate. Basouto Island Village, a fishing village in the Manyara district of Tanzania, reported widespread evacuation.

The 1998-99 El Nino came after several years of less than normal rains, and the terrible flooding was made worse by horrible landslides. Although this year’s El Nino is not expected to be as strong, the drought it follows has been much worse. Erosion and landslides are likely to be more severe.

But it will take some time to recover the rainfall deficit, and last week Arusha National Park was closed because of a wildfire that was raging out of control. As of today, it is still not controlled. The fire is creeping up to the summit, actually away from the major tourist areas, but they have still been closed out of precaution the wind could change.

Meanwhile, African nations are continuing to pow-wow in Addis Ababa to agree on a single position at the world climate change talks on December 7 in Copenhagen.

At the last round in Kyoto, the African nations in particular felt snubbed, especially by the Bush Administration. Western lobbyists got them on board with the Kyoto Protocol, only to have the U.S. pull out at the last minute.

This year the African nations plan on insisting that “above current aid levels” the developing countries promise an additional $200 billion per year to assist with carbon reduction in emerging African economies.

East or South for our Family?

East or South for our Family?

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From LeeAnn1023@

Q.    We are planning a family safari vacation now that our kids are in college, and the great debate is whether to go to East Africa or South Africa.  What do you say?

A.    Both destinations are fabulous.  And they are very different.

Think of East Africa as more like “the Congo than California.”
Think of southern Africa as more like “California than the Congo.”

East Africa is more exotic, much less developed, has much better game viewing and not a whole lot else.  Southern Africa has good game viewing (not as good as East Africa), but that’s usually just a part of a good itinerary, there.  It has lots of safe adventure acitivities like hiking and rafting and surfing, a deep and fascinating history with lots of wonderful museums, and extremely modern and exciting cities like Cape Town.  Oh, and by the way, Victoria Falls.

More and more, people are beginning to treat southern Africa very much like they treat Europe or South America.  East Africa doesn’t have that diversity, yet.

Here’s a good gauge for game viewing.  On a 12-day trip to East Africa in the summer (when family vacations usually occur) you can expect to see 80-100 lion.  On a 12-day trip exclusively game viewing in southern Africa, you’ll likely see around 20 lion.

So if your question is for game viewing, it’s hands-down East Africa.  But if you want a wider experience than just game viewing, then southern Africa is the answer!

Dummying ARDI

Dummying ARDI

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Last night Discovery Channel ratings skyrocketed with a two-hr documentary on Ardi. Ardi is a big, very big paleontology story. But when newer (older) finds are discovered in the future, Ardi’s lasting story will be something quite different from paleontology.

To me the unchangeable story about Ardi is the remarkable way it was told. Enough of Ardi was found in 1994 to give it a name and place in the tree of early man. But jealous scientists held the bulk of the data secret for nearly 15 years, until – in their words – they could tell the whole story.

This should be criminal. Essentially a handful of scientists molded Ardi almost as successfully as 4 million years burial by mother Earth.

Last night’s Discovery Channel two-hour prime time show was Ardi’s coming out party. It was grand, but way overblown. The University of Minnesota biologist, P.Z. Myers, remarked during his real-time blogging while watching the show, “So far this program is taking longer to watch than it took me to read the original papers.”

The two-hour show had so many commercials, and so much repetition, that the real talking-head substance was less than 35 minutes.

Ardi is an amazing paleontological find for several reasons. First, it’s a complete-enough skeleton to render science on an entire individual. There are only three other such cases (Lucy, Turkana Boy and Small Foot).

Second, so much excavation has been completed over these 15 years at the Middle Awash site in Ethiopia where it was found that an entire environment surrounding the creature has also been reconstructed.

Third, Ardi is truly bipedal, but retains anatomical features – particularly in the foot – that are more chimp-like than man-like. Ardi may have been as comfortable living in the trees as on the ground.

But the grand conclusions that the project’s two lead scientists, Tim White and Owen Lovejoy, headlined in HD, were simply premature if not silly.

Ardi has not completely rewoven the theories of early man, as Tim White repeatedly suggested. It is a single, albeit magnificent find, but it does not alter good foundations that hominids evolved 6-7 million years ago into a multiple branching line of creatures.

White’s hidden agenda is to return to a long ago discarded notion of a single line of hominid evolution. That’s what’s silly. Clearly, White has been focusing too much time on Ardi and not enough on his fellow scientists’ discoveries.

And Lovejoy’s outrageous claim that Ardi’s reduced canines suggests a more gentle, more “moral” human social organization is absurd.

The state of Ardi’s mouth is anomalous with other time-lined hominid mouths. In other words, other early hominids around that time and after that time, had bigger canines. Chimps have bigger canines, and Lovejoy’s presumption of theory by contrasting these two situations is a real stretch, and in fact, worrisome. It’s less science than religion.

Lovejoy is right to refresh the question, why bipedalism? And he provides at least one renewed and exciting thesis: to better carry food longer distances. But from that he leaps to the notion this allowed male Ardi’s to woo female Ardi’s with gifts, and allowed Ardi’s to carry food back to their children.

Soon, Lovejoy is going to discover a florist selling corsages 4.5 million years ago.

And there is nothing to suggest that baby Ardi’s didn’t travel on their mother’s back or held to their bosom like baboons and chimps and didn’t need to have food brought to them.

But the greatest disservice to science is the way the lead scientists, and the Discovery program suggests Ardi’s bipedalism revolutionizes prior theories.

The discovery that an early, bipedal hominid probably spent a good amount of time in the trees is extremely important and wondrous, too. But it does not in its single instance suggest that bipedalism was not somehow related to the developing savannah ecology, a view at least until now widely held. This will be the science to watch in the coming months.

University of Wisconsin anthropologist, John Hawks, summed it up beautifully in his blog today,
“I don’t think the anatomy supports the film’s representation of the locomotor behavior. The film shows Ardi walking just as if she were Lucy. She didn’t walk that way.”

I’m sure there’s much more intricate science I’ll never understand that will be of major dispute, and I presume this for the simple reason that science withheld is science uncertain.

Years from now there will be new finds and even older hominid discoveries. Ardi will remain important, but its persistent story will be how guarded its discoverers were, and how successful they were from keeping Ardi from the greater community for the better part of a human generation.

And analysis will shift from bipedalism to why, a long time ago when Ardi was discovered, scientists had to guard their finest discoveries to carefully construct outrageous claims about them.

TITUS the gorilla

TITUS the gorilla

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

This U.N. “Year of the Gorilla” couldn’t have come at a worse economic time, and as if to underscore the sadness, the great Silverback Titus has died.

Probably the most studied mountain gorilla on earth, Titus, died September 14 at the age of 35. He was survived by uncountable progeny and most importantly his son, Rano, who killed him.

Titus lived in Rwanda’s Volcano National Park, the master for so many years of the Susa Group. His birth was recorded on August 24, 1974, by American researcher, Kelly Stewart. He was observed every day thereafter until researchers at the Karisoke Research Station found him dead in his nest in the morning.

Rano had been hassling him for months. Titus avoided fights – he was still bigger but not as strong as his son – but the researchers who buried him in the gorilla cemetery on September 16 (at the site of the original Karisoke Research Camp) said he had just “given up” to Rano’s incessant bullying. Thirty-five is a ripe old age for a wild gorilla.

There was no autopsy. Researchers do not think he was sick. He was just old, and hassled by his son.

During his life he made films (click here) , was WikiPedia’s poster child (click here) , and even headlined the BBC World News (click here) . Simply put, he was the baseline not only for mountain gorilla research, but the rise of tourism that ultimately saved this endangered creature.

The heavy sort-of El Nino rains that were predicted had started two weeks earlier. New bamboo shoots were sprouting everywhere, and this meant that the gorilla families didn’t have to wander so much each day to feed. More time for bickering, I guess.

It is an oustandingly beautiful time in the park. Some of the orchids continue to bloom as the rains begin, the already lush jungle bursts out in fresh color and smells, and the whole mess of foliage is filled with rainbow colors of elegant Arum Lilys, wild versions of Geraniums, Hyacinths, Aster Daisys, Lupins, Dahlias and Nasturtiums.

The greatest of the turacos moves into its spectacular breeding plumage, looking like a giant blue soccer ball piercing the green, its monkey-like grunting echoing all over the place.

It was probably his favorite time. So make your bed, go to sleep and let pesky Rano take over.