Month: December 2009

Year-End Roundup & Predictions

Year-End Roundup & Predictions

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

2009 was a bad year for East Africa. 2010 will be a little bit better.

Socially, culturally and politically, I think it’s been a GOOD YEAR for Kenya and a BAD YEAR for its neighbors.

I’m positive on Kenya and critical of its neighbors even while supporting the western powers growing sanctions on Kenya for not moving quickly enough towards a new constitution.

This may seem like a contradiction, but in fact what it means is that the outside world’s attention to Kenya is working: it is absolutely encouraging all the right moves by Kenya’s still entrenched, corrupt leaders. Ultimately, of course, the people will have to oust these scoundrels, and right now that looks possible.

The Hague has begun the process of trying those who might have been responsible for the 2007 genocide. The U.S. and the U.K. in particular have banned the most corrupt individuals from traveling to their countries. A draft constitution is circulating among all factions of the society for comment, and Kenya’s invigorating journalistic transparency has grown even greater with such additions as FM Capital Radio. Kenya is still ranked worse than Uganda or Tanzania by Transparency International, but its improvement is significant. If there isn’t any major reversal in the way things are going, I think 2010 is going to be a very good year for Kenyan society.

Tanzania and Uganda, on the other hand, are turning gruesome in the shadows. Tanzania’s corruption is so much less known than Kenya’s, because its power centers keep it that way. But just through extrapolation of what we do know, I frankly believe that Tanzania must be infinitely more corrupt than Kenya.

One of Tanzania’s finest transparent media, This Day, was forced to reduce daily publication to weekly because it couldn’t obtain the interest or funding that the country’s strictly controlled media easily obtains.

Scandals in Tanzania’s electricity board, and worse, in its precious gold mining industry, threaten to reach absolutely astronomical proportions. It’s so bad that Zanzibar is without electricity more than half the time, and the Toronto based owner of one of the world’s richest gold mines in Tanzania is trying to sell it. And no one wants to buy it! They just can’t manage the corruption.

And Uganda is ready to dive off the end of the earth. Encouraged by disreputable American righties, the Parliament is set to pass a law that would give the death penalty to anyone convicted of being a practicing gay. And worse actually, lengthy imprisonment for anyone who knows someone actively gay and doesn’t tell! (Imagine what this will do to tourism!)

Uganda’s problems are mounting, and specifically as a result of the current president’s growing grasp on life-time power.

I think 2010 will be a GOOD YEAR for Kenya, but another BAD YEAR for Tanzania and Uganda.

It’s been a very BAD YEAR for tourism. Statistics are near impossible to come by and then impossible to confirm, but my best guess is that about a third of the tourism industry that existed in 2007 is now gone. It may be more. Kenya has taken the worst hit, and in certain sections of the industry the employee base is now less than 50% what it was in 2007. But equally deep hits were taken by Tanzania’s newer central country tourism (Zanzibar, the Selous) and Rwanda, which may be seeing a decline of more than 60% in tourist arrivals.

I don’t see this changing, soon. It may be a better year in 2010 than 2009, but it will still be a BAD YEAR for tourism throughout the region.

Most of 2009 was awful for the region’s weather. It was a BAD YEAR. But the arrival of normal if above average rains these last few months throughout the region broke the drought except in some isolated areas in Kenya’s north. All predictions are for normal if above average precipitation for 2010. So expect a GOOD YEAR for 2010’s weather.

It was a BAD YEAR for wilderness and wildlife, as the “drought” persisted through the third quarter. The lack of rains was the main cause, but by no means the main explanation. Poaching increased substantially as the age-old argument of whether a country’s wildlife should be viewed as an immediate resource for the local population (such as for food, or destroyed when threatening farms, or allowed for stock grazing). The drastic reduction in tourism only aggravated the situation: Reduced revenue for anti-poaching and other management needs contributed to a spiraling decline in the efficacy of the area’s wildernesses.

Virtually all species except the predators and scavengers (obviously) declined. Hippos took the biggest hit – they need the most grass which wasn’t growing. We aren’t sure about elephants yet, because they migrated, presumably to better places. But whether they’ll return and whether these better places helped them to survive remains to be seen.

Shore birds, especially flamingoes, suffered terribly. No one was killing or eating them, but human populations were desperate for their water sources.

As I reported earlier, we think the entire biomass probably declined by 5%. That’s not bad by the standards of past droughts, and it’s now stabilized. But I don’t see any extraordinary rebound in 2010 as was the case the year after past droughts. The natural biology that normally leads to population rebounds is this time offset by poorer wildlife management, increased poaching and less tourism preparation, caused by not just the past drought, but the current economic downturn.

So expect 2010 not to be worse for wilderness and wildlife, and basically that means it will GOOD.

Strictly economically, the entire region with Kenya in the lead is experiencing the same type of GDP jobless growth we are experiencing here in the U.S. Like here, this is a skewed statistic created mostly by government stimulus. The fact is that 2009 was a terribly BAD YEAR for the economies of all the region once you strip them of their government stimulus.

I’m afraid that 2010 will be worse. That’s one of the curses on developing countries. They are led into an economic abyss by the developed world, and then the developed world emerges out of the abyss first, often at the expense of the developing world.

How bad it will be will depend upon how much aid the developed world gives. But I can’t imagine any amount that will make 2010 anything but a BAD YEAR economically.





East Africa Report20092010
SOCIETY
Kenya
Tanzania, Uganda
Good
Bad
Good
Bad
WILDLIFEBadGood
WEATHERBadGood
TOURISMBadBad
ECONOMYBadBad

INVICTUS

INVICTUS

by Arusha ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

If you’ve traveled anywhere in Africa, or love Africa for any reason, go see Invictus and renew your best beliefs about this amazing continent.

One of the deep-seated criticisms born of racism is that however unfair an oppressed people have been treated, they are incapable of acting responsibly. The ingrained presumption is that revenge governs their every motive and will simply flip oppression onto their former oppressors.

It’s why Lincoln hesitated emancipating the slaves and afterwards why freed slaves were denied the right to vote. It’s why we promoted affirmative action and womens’ rights but voted down the ERA. It’s why we praised Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner but while condemning Guess Who’s Coming to Live Next Door.

It’s why Tiger Woods is so much more a bastard than Governor Sanford.

And it may be why the film’s two main actors, playing two of South Africa’s most historic individuals, are American and not South African.

It’s why one of my most favorite critics, Bob Mondello, praised the movie but tried to justify Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon’s assumption of these august South African roles in part by claiming their South African accents were so good.

(How the hell would Mondello know that?! In fact, they weren’t very good accents.)

But racism is so ingrained that a necessary first step to liberation is to acknowledge how deeply it governs the very best of us. And this acknowledgment of the truth is infectious. That’s the story of Invictus.

Released from the international sanctions that had kept this sports nation from participating in the global arena for more than a decade, the white South African’s dearest sports team, the rugby Springboks, were finally allowed on the world stage as a competitor and host to the rugby world cup. The team was composed of a single black man in a country where blacks outnumbered whites at the time by more than 7 to 1. The team colors were the colors of the old flag of apartheid South Africa.

Completely defying the will of his own electorate, Nelson Mandela as the newly inaugurated head of state insisted that these symbols of his own oppression — of apartheid — be supported by all the other oppressed South Africans who brought him to power.

His oft stated “forgiveness” was infectious among his angry colleagues. His unexpected generosity defused the fear and anger among the whites. In the blink of an eye as compared to this country’s long and sad history of oppression, he replaced tons of vengeance with forgiveness and hopefulness.

Two of my favorite actors are Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman. I’m no film critic and often accused of being too enthusiastic where Africa is concerned, but I believe I will be supported by those more professional than I, that the South African actors far surpassed in quality of performance that of Damon and Freeman.

Patrick Lyster and Penny Downie who play Damon’s parents although having a very small role are incredibly good. And the entire body guard staff composed of South African actors could rival any Shakespearean company in the world.

Why, then, Matt Damon and Morgan Freeman, who did not perform as well as the South Africans?

I suppose because part of our ingrained racism would have inhibited this uplifting story from being taken on by Hollywood without Hollywood stars. Slumdog Millionaire is essentially apolitical and challenges few insensibilities; Invictus slams racism with a rugby scrub. So, I guess, thanks to Freeman for producing, Clint Eastwood for directing, and Damon for helping out a bit.

And thanks to South Africa and Nelson Mandella for showing us the way.

Garlic Mustard Terrorism

Garlic Mustard Terrorism

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The new regulations announced in the last few days in response to the attempted bombing of Northwest #253 are pitifully stupid and counter-productive.

I see the developed world’s response to terrorism identical to the developed science response to invasive species.

Whether it is kudzu, the Asian beetle, or the arch devil garlic mustard, absolutely astounding amounts of private and public funds have been allocated for “eradication.” The U.S. government maintains over a dozen websites with instructions on invasive species control, and enormous amounts of resources have been expended over the years to curtail invasive species.

It is hard to find a single… that is one example of success.

And yet there are many examples of secondary destruction to the environment in the attempts to control the invasives.

This is an issue I’ve written and felt strongly about for decades, and my passion about it was generated in Africa. But the topic is endless and the data copious, yet I have yet to be presented with a single true example of success.

To be sure certain invasive species have been curtailed in limited geographical regions and have produced positive economic outcomes, such as the temporary curtailment of the zebra mussel in the Great Lakes or the stabilization of kudzu in the deep south. But even these partial examples of success are hard to document, are likely to be reversed, and the environmental impacts of their containment have had their own often worse environmental ramifications.

Many gardeners or authorities over small county-like natural reserves may claim success in curtailing species like garlic mustard or loose strife, and indeed in their small geographical areas they may achieve a level of success for a while. But it doesn’t last, and the efforts expended to effect the limited success often produce more damage than had nothing at all been done.

Essentially, I do not think we can control nature in any macro-successful way. What we have to do is understand it and anticipate it. It’s appropriate and effective to have rigorous agricultural barriers at international entry points, to impede the spread of species we determine may produce negative outcomes in our own society. But once it happens, it’s beyond our current capacity to control in any demonstrably beneficial way.

That’s exactly what terrorism is to culture: Identical to invasive species to the environment.

I wrote recently that any military success we might achieve in Afghanistan would only push the centers of terrorism elsewhere, and that this was currently being demonstrated in Yemen and Somalia.

We can cull deer in the Skokie lagoon, or remove all the garlic mustard from the Kasper Conservancy, but all this does is push the vermin to the periphery, exacerbating by concentrating the problem elsewhere.

It does not deal with the cause.

In the case of invasive species, we need to study why an invasive is so successful. Success in nature should be considered a near first principle, and at least a tautology. Garlic mustard might be spreading like wildlife, because its natural inhibitors are being eradicated. Maybe, a natural inhibitor is a birch tree. Maybe garlic mustard, in turn, is a natural inhibitor to wild parsnip and maybe wild parsnip is a natural inhibitor to poison ivy. And any idiot who thinks we will ever complete the list doesn’t understand nature.

But by concentrating on understanding the links, we will increase an overall awareness of nature’s tautologies. We will cease trying to reverse nature, and may, ultimately, be able to manage its future outcomes to our greater benefit.

Ditto for the Darth Vaders in the world.

There is a cultural reason for the persistence of Al-Qaeda. It will not be eradicated, any more so than garlic mustard will be eradicated. Al-Qaeda is part of the human fabric of culture, exactly as garlic mustard is of nature. It is as impossible that we will eradicate Al-Qaeda from the world as we will eradicate garlic mustard.

But if we cease to think of it as a growing threat capable of taking over the world’s sweat peas than we might spend some time trying to understand why it is so successful, and we might ultimately come to some terms with it. Maybe one solution is to let it grow and take over the distant prairie, and thereby orchestrate a cease fire that allows our sweat peas to flourish in our backyard garden.

There’s an old saying: live, and let live.

In the last few days, airlines have instituted some of the most absurd regulations described as enhanced security in response to the attempted bombing of Northwest #253.

Perhaps the most absurd regulation is that you can no longer leave your seat (or even stand up) during the last hour of the flight. The “rationale” for this is that the bomber had to leave his seat and retrieve his hand luggage to mix the incendiary device. OK, so our incendiary devices will now be mixed 65 minutes before landing instead of 60. In fact in the mayhem as dozens of kids and grownups race to the toilets and pull down the luggage hatches to arrange their last hour of imprisonment, any monitoring of unusual behavior becomes more difficult! How stupidly absurd is this new rule!

We are not going to stop future terrorism with rules like these. We are going to infuriate the public and make travel infinitely less desirable, which may even be an objective of the terrorists.

We are not going to eliminate Al-Qaeda by wiping them out of Afghanistan and Pakistan. They’ll just then go to Somali, then to Yemen, then to the Congo… it is a link so long that when the last chain is used, the first will be ready to be used, again.

If we want to stabilize terrorism, if we want to stabilize the spread of garlic mustard, we will cease trying to eradicate it. We will expend our resources to understand it fully, and then to negotiate our own subsequently more intelligent behavior in ways that make it ineffective as a future threat.

It is in preparation and manifestation of the future that we will succeed. Not in trying to reverse the situation of the present.

Live, and let live.

Horn of Alarm

Horn of Alarm

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The massive U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq to oust Al-Qaeda from the area is like a failed deer culling operation in the Skokie lagoon. It’s just pushing the vermin elsewhere.

And that “elsewhere” is the Horn of Africa, mostly Somalia, but recent events including the attempted Northwest Airlines bombing two days ago, suggest Yemen may be growing unstable enough for Al-Qaeda infiltration, too.

Yemen is a terribly misunderstood society. After the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in 2000 and the numerous publicized connections between terrorists and radical imams in Yemen, it’s been wrongly presumed that the country is an universal den of iniquity.

Nothing can be further from the truth. Last month’s military raid which included fighter bombers on a presumed Al-Qaeda outpost in the Yemeni wilderness was at the least a joint effort between the Yemen government and the U.S. Many think it was completely a CIA operation, given wide support by the Yemenis.

What Yemen is can best be summarized by the fact that even during the Cold War, a Marxist (if Maoist) revolutionary government in the south befriended and worked with a highly capitalistic and western-oriented government in the north, until the two were unified in 1990.

Since then, what the U.S. has proudly termed “fair elections” have democratically created a somewhat autocratic politic that overseas some of the Mideast’s most celebrated intellectuals, religious fanatics calling for each other’s extermination, and a society that is trying desperately to remain open.

And that’s the problem. If you think the U.S. is polarized between Republicans and Democrats, you can’t imagine the polarization among educated, activist Yemenis.

So far, more or less, so good. Somehow this ancient and educated society has managed to hold its remarkably disparate pieces together. And it’s more important than ever that the developed world – particularly the U.S. – find quick and effective ways to support democratic Yemeni society.

Because now, for the first time in maybe … 2000 years, Yemeni society may be fraying at the seams.

It began with the country’s open policy towards refugees. The Yemeni government claims there are currently 95,480 refugees cared for by a mixture of Yemeni and U.N. support. Human Rights Watch and others, however, claim it is closer to 150,000.

According to the latest UNHCR estimates, 74,000 refugees fled to Yemen from Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia just this year. That’s a 50% increase over 2008.

Reflecting its hugely varied cultures and politics, Yemen has the most welcoming policy to refugees of virtually any country in Africa or the Mideast.

Strategically positioned reception centers on the coast take in the boat refugees that survive the treacherous Red Sea crossing. In addition to providing temporary shelter and assistance, Yemeni authorities counsel refugees on how to obtain U.N. refugee status, provide job placements within the Yemeni society, run job searches throughout the Mideast for more qualified persons and even provide some job training.

But the remarkably humanitarian policy is coming under increasing strain just by the numbers now fleeing the Horn of Africa.

I reported last month how the Al-Qaeda Somali offshoot, Al-Shabaab, had consolidated its grip on most of southern Somalia. In response, ten days ago Ethiopian troops began reentering Somalia and engaging Al-Shabaab.

Hundreds of Ethiopian troops were photographed Saturday at the Kalaber intersection about 10 miles north of Beledweyne town in central Somalia, an area previously claimed by Al-Shabaab. This is a strategic point that some believe could define a demarcation of Somalia into two countries: the more developed north with Mogadishu as its capital, and the less developed pirate-infested south with Kismayu as its capital.

And last week Kenya sealed its nearly 1000-mile border with Somalia. The Kenyans are even refusing entry to wounded refugees.

The Minister for Internal Security and Provincial Administration, Prof. George Saitoti, claimed the move was necessary to keep terrorists disguised as refugees from entering Kenya, and to restrict Kenyan Somalis from joining the conflict.

“The government takes seriously threats by one of the fundamentalist factions … that some Kenyans of Somali origin were being recruited to prop up the fledgling Transitional Federal Government in Mogadishu and we will go out to ensure that partisans of the two factions fighting for control of the chaotic country do not cross the border disguised as refugees,” the Minister said at a press conference in Mombasa last week.

What is happening is that western Somalia is becoming more appealing to global terrorists than the increasingly stressful environment of Afghanistan. Like deer culling in America, though, we’re ridding certain suburban gardens only to have huge infestations pushed to less policed areas.

And Kenya and Ethiopia combined have not a fraction of the power of Pakistan to contain the spread of terrorism, despite their current valiant efforts. And Yemen is the intellectual bleeding heart liberal that increasingly can’t hold its own society, together. What a perfect safe haven the Horn is becoming for Al-Qaeda!

Military success in Afghanistan is pointless. Listen to the Horn of Alarm.

Rhinowash

Rhinowash

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This week’s arrival in Kenya of one of the most endangered animals left on earth was not the cute Christmas present the world media reported.

In fact, the relocation of 4 of the remaining 8 northern white rhino in existence, into a country where poaching is becoming epidemic, may be one of the most stupid moves the conservation world has ever engineered.

The four northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) came from a zoo in the Czech Republic. The only other place that this subspecies of rhino survives is in the San Diego Wild Animal Park. There are none in the wild.

Eight life forms is statistically impossible to propagate. What is hoped is that some of the genes of this subspecies will get preserved if the four animals breed with other rhino subspecies. It is known, for example, that this highly endangered animal is immune to tse-tse fly transmitted diseases, whereas its less endangered cousins in Africa are not.

“It makes no sense to move them at this point .. It’s way too little, too late,” said Randy Rieches, curator of mammals for the San Diego Wild Animal Park, which has two northern whites.

Rieches and a host of other scientists have been fighting this move for months. Lately the argument has been a financial one, with proponents claiming that the quarter million dollar cost of the move is insignificant compared to the chance they might breed, and critics claiming the cost of the move is being grossly underestimated and is diverting resources from other much needed conservation efforts.

Funds were raised from just a handful of individuals, including the vice chairman of Goldman Sachs of Australia and Berry White, a controversial animal activist nicknamed the “rhino whisperer.” The effort was coordinated by Rob Brett, the director of Fauna and Flora International.

This is stupid.

There has been some reluctance to embrace Rieches’ many astute and scientific criticisms for fear this is not a scientific but a PR question, and that San Diego lost out to the Czech zoo. This is rhinowash.

The four animals transported to Kenya haven’t bred in 30 years. While they are being transported into a private reserve (Ol Pejeta) which has a good record of captive rhino maintenance, it is still in Kenya, and even better reserves near Ol Pejeta like Solio have had poaching incidents.

As I’ve often written poaching isn’t just a Darth Vader pastime. It increases in times of economic stress, and need we be reminded of the current times?

Rhino are one of the easiest animals on the African veld to poach. And the horn is worth more than its weight in gold.

So I consider the risk ridiculous. And as for preserving the gene pool of this subspecies, there are more conservative ways that are much less expensive, such as DNA deep-freeze. There is little research on cloning rhino, but the chances (the “statistical” chance) of one day cloning a rhino from its preserved DNA is astronomically greater than hoping these four animals will breed into existing populations.

In fact zoos are one of the best places to breed rhinos, not a private tourist game ranch.

And much more DNA research needs to be done on rhinos, to move towards a genome that will specifically show the differences between the 8 world subspecies which are now mostly presumed from taxonomical differences. I fear that money is directing research, here, as individuals who probably spent less time reading the monographs on the controversy wrote checks to get their names emblazoned round the world as animal rescuers.

We just don’t seem to have the attention to read very far down the page. If there is some real value to saving these rhinos’ gene pool, flying them to Kenya is absolutely not the way to do it.

Air Charter

Air Charter

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Rosemary

Q. What type of planes are there and how many passengers do they hold?

A. I presume you mean the planes used within East Africa. There is a huge variety of charter aircraft, but there are some trends.

Between Kenya and Tanzania, between Kenya’s small Wilson airport and Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro airport, and between Mombasa (in Kenya) and Tanzania, these are usually larger planes, like ATRs, which have up to four engines and hold up to 46 people.

These larger planes are also often used between Nairobi and the Maasai Mara.

But on all the other routes throughout East Africa, the size of the plane is never guaranteed until you actually arrive at the airport. The charter companies use planes to fit the number of bookings.

Probably the plane most used is the Cessna 208, commonly known as the Caravan. This is a single-engine, 12 or 13-passenger aircraft. But again, you just never know until you arrive for check-in!

Democracy vs. Famine?

Democracy vs. Famine?

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Yesterday, USAid’s Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS) warned of a famine that could engulf about half of Kenya next May.

The sober report is not surprising given the three years of seriously reduced rainfall, the political turbulence of this period in Kenya, and Kenya’s growing population needs.

What remains surprising is how the local media uses every opportunity to blame the situation on the weather rather than government.

Right now is normally the period when half of Kenya’s food stocks are harvested, including beef and other hoofed stock. As a result of the “drought” just ended there is little to harvest and moreover, a fraction of what had grown is being lost in floods and mud slides.

The report forecasts a 2010 main maize harvest of 1.9 million metric tonnes, three-quarters the average. While that harvest is nearly double that of 2009, the lagging effects of the “drought” will worsen the food situation. The report forecasts a 32% increase in the number of people who will need emergency food aid next year.

Nearly two-thirds of these 3.8 million people the report says are in danger of starvation are not foiled farmers or herders living in drought-stricken areas, but residents of urban slums. They are considered “chronically food insecure” and would be so even if there had been no “drought.”

As I’ve often emphasized before the main problem here isn’t the weather. Despite the innuendos in local reporting of the report, the rains have been more or less normal, albeit it on the light side in Kenya’s north.

The situation could just as easily have been caused by internal political turbulence, a swine flu epidemic, or war with Somalia. Last year, in fact, part of the food emergency was caused when the Minister of Agriculture was caught swindling food aid being off-loaded foreign ships in Mombasa!

This time it was exacerbated by the weather, and climate change means such hits on Kenyan society are likely to occur more and more frequently. In fact the report suggests an additional 750,000 people are in danger of food insecurity because of “freak floods” occurring now in the coast and north east.

Kenya is surrounded by more stable societies in Uganda and Tanzania that suffer the same natural beatings that it does (although this “drought” I must concede hit Kenya particularly hard). But Uganda and Tanzania with all their corruption and social flaws seem to manage better than Kenya.

Why this is so is the stuff for a Ph.D thesis. I think it’s because Kenya is actually more transparent, less corrupt and more democratic than either Uganda and Tanzania.

Aha! I see the Chinaman winking in the corner. Are these noble western morals (democracy, transparency) the right prescriptions for moving developing societies forward in such troubled times?

I want to believe so. It’s up to Kenya to prove it.

Slower Tourism in Rwanda

Slower Tourism in Rwanda

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Travel is a leading indicator of the economy, and the evidence is mounting that the recovery will be slower than in the past. Rwanda is today’s example.

Since the end of the Rwanda turbulence in 1994, so much money has flowed into Rwanda in all its sectors, that this little country has emerged as an economic powerhouse.

Its roads are the best in east and central Africa. Its capital is the most modern. Its communications are the least flawed. Its textile and tea industries for a country 1/20th the size of Kenya is now approaching 1/5th the revenue.

Rwanda tourism has been more or less limited to its mountain gorillas, its prized treasure, and this, too, has expanded nicely. In 1993, 24 tourists daily could visit the mountain gorillas. Today, it’s 56.

This is because increased research, habituation and park development, have combined to not just increase the gorilla population, but also visitor access to it.

And the pressure for tourism development has been so heady that the country set aside another huge swath of wilderness to develop as chimp and primate reserves. The great Nyungwe National Park has always been a protected wilderness as such – mainly because the dense forest makes any normal human development very difficult – but in the last five years was earmarked for very serious and rapid tourist development.

One of the problems for a small area is that there just isn’t enough room for a lot of players. So the Rwandan government put its faith in Dubai World, a property development company which we now know is the reason that the government of Dubai is in the tank.

Nyungwe was going to be developed by Dubai World. The first and now ailing mountain gorilla lodge, Gorilla’s Nest Lodge, was bought by Dubai World for refurbishment. Kigali’s second conference complex hotel was going to be built by Dubai World.

Not now.

And while this example is an exclamation point of how the economy has tanked, the broader picture supports the leading indicator thesis that tourism overall is recovering very slowly.

Gorilla permits are not being bought up. There always seem to be some available. There were supposed to be six lodges serving the mountain gorilla park up and running, now. There are only 3 functioning continually.

The aid and directed investment to Rwanda is greater than any other country in the area compared to its overall economy. That will continue. But in this relatively small universe of tourism, we can see all too clearly that the future for tourism in Africa isn’t too bright.

Law of the Jungle!

Law of the Jungle!

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Tourist fees in the Serengeti and NCA (Ngorongoro Conservation Area) have doubled, and in some instances, tripled, and it’s not clear whether this is law or graft.

The law is printed on the official TANAPA fee schedule. Click here to download that schedule. The fees are basically $50 and in bold red letters at the bottom of the brochure it states, “NB: Fees valid for 24 hours only.”

There is nothing that says it is for a single entry. But many tourists are now being charged $100, and some, $150, based on the notion that the gate is a toll-booth, not a park gate, and that every time you pass you have to pay!

The vast southern grassland plains of the Serengeti are technically composed of two separate parks management authorities: the Serengeti National Park (north) and the Ngorongoro Conservation Area [NCA] (south).

Ngorongoro Crater, Olduvai Gorge, Lake Natron, Olmoti and other old volcanoes and most of the lakes region of Ndutu is technically in the NCA. Naabi, Seronera, Moru, Gol, the western and northern corridors are technically in the Serengeti National Park.

The multiple charging occurs to tourists who are lodging in one area but traveling during the day into the adjacent area. The first example I can document of this in August… to me!

(I paid $50 for the day of August 31 at Ndutu Lodge in the NCA. Then unexpectedly I had to drive into the Serengeti to pick up guests who had been delayed. The rangers charged me $50 for simply driving to the airstrip to collect the guests. But then as we returned into the NCA, the rangers charged me a third $50 for “reentering” the NCA.)

At the time I chalked this as just one more incident of African graft. There’s nothing on the permit which could otherwise explain it, and I didn’t want to duke it out with the rangers while welcoming my newly arrived guests into the Serengeti.

Increasingly, though, it is happening to many of our safaris.

The northern border of the NCA abuts the southern border of the Serengeti and traditionally game drives have moved back and forth over this vast area, more commonly known as the southern grassland plains of the Serengeti.

Often the great herds are partially in one area and partially in the other, and moving back and forth between the two areas is the only reasonable way to undertake a game drive in the area. Now, it seems, every time the invisible line is crossed, tourists will be charged $50!

Every country has the right to charge whatever they deem fit for foreigners to use and visit their natural resources. But what if this is not what the Tanzanian government believes is being charged? Who, really, is pocketing this money?

And if it is legal, then the permit and literature like the fees schedule should say so.

Hyaena Attack

Hyaena Attack

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We love animals to death. The reverse is also true.

I have a multitude of reasons why we as conservationists and animal lovers must put at the top of our priorities a constant vigilance against anthropomorphizing. If we start to think of the marvelous diversity of life as being just like us, then we lose diversity. Ultimately, our arguments for conservation become diluted.

But the easiest reason to avoid anthropomorphizing is because it can kill us.

Last Wednesday in a brazen and viscous attack, two hyaenas mauled to death two residents near the quite busy and developed city of Machakos in Kenya.

You probably weren’t expecting me to tell a story about hyaenas, but this extreme emphasizes my point. Whether it’s Animal Planet or the Harrar Hyaena Man, there are plenty of examples of humans foolishly tempting hyaenas with humanity.

“We have never seen hyenas attacking human beings. We have always regarded them as cowardly creatures,” said Machakos resident, Mrs Beatrace Peter, to Nairobi’s Daily Nation as she hastened home at around 7pm on Saturday.

The hyenas attacked and mauled the two young men returning from a friend’s house around 7 p.m. It was hardly dark, and it was on the edge of the town. One of the boys was killed on the spot and the other died the next day in the hospital. Their screams attracted police that shot one hyaena and scared off the other.

I’m not suggesting we should rewrite the script for Lion King but I am suggesting that we guard ourselves against perspectives that attach human emotions like love, or human intellect to animals of any kind.

I am endlessly fascinated reading the science and trying to imagine which early hominid finally achieved consciousness similar to mine. I have never for a moment wondered that about my cat or dog, or the elephant I’m viewing in Tarangire, or even the chimp I see in Kibale.

The more subtle reasons for avoiding anthropomorphizing may, in fact, address more extensive, systemic flaws in our human culture that over long periods of time might inhibit our greater understandings of ourselves and nature.

But this story isn’t as deep. Shows on Animal Planet that stress and tempt animal behavior are simply wrong, scurrilous TV. Might just as well syndicate the Guatanamo tapes.

The Rain is “normal”

The Rain is “normal”

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Nairobi’s Daily Nation newspaper claimed Thursday that the drought was continuing. That the ground was parched; that crops were destroyed; that famine was everywhere. This burns me up.

Within a day, of course, media around the world picked up the story. I found it in the Zanesville, Ohio Times Register. My god is there no fact checking, anymore?

Below I have documented by weather satellite the real story. But before discussing that, I think we need to wonder why one of Nairobi’s great newspapers was so inaccurate.

1 – East Africa weather reporting is awful. I worked for a while with the man from the University of Nairobi who was responsible for retrieving the (then) printed data from the machine near Mt. Kenya for Nanyuki area weather. He was supposed to have organized it daily; he made it about once a month.

Hopefully, today, it’s digital, but the facts continue to suggest there is very poor reporting. In fact, what the facts are suggesting right now is a bit more onerous than just poor reporting.

Of nine Kenyan weather stations that are supposed to report back to NOAA (the U.S.’ “National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration”), the only ones that reported back since October are stations where the rainfall was less than normal: Marsabit, Meru, Mombasa, etc.

Nairobi where rainfall has been between 200-300% of normal — the most important reporting station in the country — didn’t report! Or Kisumu, where it was flooding!

Is someone trying to skew… no, I better not say that. How terrible of me to think such a thing.

(Who cares if Kenya reports to NOAA? Anyway! That’s supposedly Kenya’s payback for getting good weather data provided by NOAA’s satellite.)

2 – Equatorial climates have always been, and will continue to get more erratic with global warming. In short reporting intervals, there is never any uniform rainfall pattern in the tropics. There are small areas of very heavy rain right next to small areas of drought.

But more and more there are growing population centers spreading across every arable bit of the tropics, and over the boundaries between drought and no-drought. No-drought is not a news story. Drought is.

3 – African populations are becoming stressed beyond belief in even the best of times. Kenya just came out of terrible political turmoil followed by very little rain for nearly three years. Each exacerbated the other.
RainCharts.EAF.OctDec09
NOAA’s satellite shows the October – December, traditionally north and east of Nairobi as the period of “Short Rains” as being normally erratic, with about a third of the country receiving less than 70% of normal rains, but with nearly a third receiving almost twice as much rain as normal, and the remainder third around normal on the heavy side.

The graph to the right can be better explained by removing the areas where rainfall was better than 70%, and leaving marked only those areas where rainfall was 70% or less.

Less than 70% rains is a condition of climate stress, although not drought by any means, and the fact that there was such a large fraction of the country in this deficit is terrible. But it’s not unusual. There can be floods next to droughts in short intervals, remember? For the country as a whole because so many parts received so much rain, the graph of precipitation for the area as a whole for the last quarter of 2009 is … utterly normal.

We would have liked torrents, everywhere. But… it was normal.

The story is hardly over. El Nino might or might not play out. Every drop of water deficit in Africa today results in growing tragedy and that’s the ultimate lesson to be learned from this: what is normal in terms of rainfall over the last century in Africa may be life-threatening by current population needs.

But skewering the facts and exaggerating the bad to evince this position might do just the opposite. No one will know what to believe. Rather than blaming over-population, or egregious neglect by the developed world, we blame the weather.

There’s nothing we can do about the weather… right now.

The Daily Nation said Thursday that Kenyan meteorologists considered that El Nino would not occur and that the rains would all end shortly over the whole country.

WASHINGTON — (Associated Press, Dec 10) : The El Nino climate phenomena has strengthened and is expected to last into spring, potentially affecting weather around the globe for the next few months, the government said Thursday…
RainForecast11-24Dec
That “government” the AP refers to is NOAA, which put out a number of releases and graphs about El Nino this morning.

And the forecast for next two weeks is for pretty heavy rain. Nearly countrywide.

Green represents normal precipitation for this time of the year; blue, more than normal. It’s going to be a rainy Christmas. And for the entire next rainy season, March – May, NOAA is currently predicting a very average season, with the possibility that a strengthening El Nino could make it wetter than normal.

My days as a weatherman are numbered. But this data is available for everyone, including The Daily Nation, Kenyan politicians and those spineless naysayers that wittingly or otherwise shift blame for Kenya’s ills onto the … weather.

Weather Confusion: Rains aren’t Failing

Weather Confusion: Rains aren’t Failing

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KENYA RAINS CONFUSE ALL

Today Nairobi’s main newspaper reported that widespread famine will continue, because the short rains failed. This just isn’t true.

It is true that there remains widespread famine, and I reported earlier as to why that was the case: the entire system is so much more fragile than the last drought, the effects of this one have been devastating and will likely be lasting.

And as has always been the case in equatorial East Africa, rains are not uniform. The Kenyan meteorological department, which relies heavily on the U.S.’ own NOAA agency, confirms that in many of the more populated areas the rains have been greater than normal.

This is true of nearly all the wildlife reserves, and true throughout Tanzania.

There are places in Kenya where so far the rains have been slight, and if they do end, now, it will produce a deficit from normal. These are the far north and eastern regions. It does not include the Rift Valley province, as implied by today’s Daily Nation in referring to rain in the “rift province” being light.

El Nino didn’t come, and boy could we have used it. But I wonder if any amount of additional rain will satisfy the needs which are just nearly beyond contemplation, particularly in Kenya’s north.

We’ll monitor this closely. Normally by mid-December the rains end throughout an area north and east of Nairobi, and do not return until March.

Weight Restrictions

Weight Restrictions

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From Denise@

Q. We are so excited about our family safari in December! But I’m concerned about the weight restriction for the small aircraft. Is this for real?

A. Yes, and here are the details. Bottom line: if you carry too much, you could lose it. Alternative: charter your own plane, or buy multiple seats.

Charter companies in East Africa presume an average tourist weight of 75 kilos per person. They know how much they as pilots weigh, how much their fuel and safety equipment weighs, and it’s a simple calculation to know how much weight is left for luggage, and that the plane can still take-off.

It’s that simple. The result is to presume the plane is fully subscribed and that leaves about 15 kilos (32-33) pounds per person for everything besides tourist bodies.

This is also the limitation that the larger commercial aircraft (ATRs, etc.) that fly between Nairobi’s Wilson airport and Tanzania’s Kilimanjaro and Mombasa’s airport. But on these flights you can bring extra luggage and pay an excess weight charge (of about $1 / pound).

But on a remote national park airstrip when your smaller Cessna 208 or such comes in to get you, there are no scales for the pilot to use. If the plane is full, and if the pilot believes you have too much, he’ll simply start taking pieces and off-loading them.

I’ve seen it happen. Not often, admittedly, but it does happen. The pilot tends to off-load luggage, understandably, from those who have the most. He gives it to the driver/guide who has brought the customer to the airstrip, and arrangements are then frantically made to somehow have the luggage catch up with the passenger.

It usually doesn’t. And it usually costs a lot.

If you’re having difficulty with this and don’t want to incur the extra costs associated with chartering your own plane or buying extra seats, then there’s only one alternative left.

Have the “extra” bag that you know might be the one held back. If you do this, don’t scimp on this bag, or the pilot won’t choose it when he begins to off-load. But in sum this is a pretty bad idea, since you just never know. Best thing to do is just off-load those hair dryers, hard cover books, extra pair of shoes and let your guide bring the first-aid!

Dave’s Winning Video

Dave’s Winning Video

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I am sent hundreds of hours of video and thousands of photos every year, and I love watching them all. But this takes the prize!

The prize winner is by one of the nicest guys I’ve ever guided on safari, Cleveland veterinarian, Dave Koncal. He is not a photographer or cinematographer by trade, but he has acquired a necessary skill that the vast majority of travelers don’t have: patience.

Dave doesn’t take 2-3 second clips then swerve the camera around. He’s not counting the megabytes clicking through his camera chip. He stays… focused and patient and I imagine he has hundreds of hours of video that he discards.

This is one clip that’s been passed around YouTube and throughout the universe of wildlife lovers. It’s definitely one that won’t be discarded!

We were in the crater at dawn. We’d just come down from Sopa Lodge and the sun was just rising. We had hardly reached the floor and had taken a right after the ranger’s hill before coming upon this night-time kill. The lions were gone, and the birds and hyaenas were having a heyday. Obviously, the lions had gone down to the Muigie River to drink, which they have to do after gorging themselves.

Nothing particularly unusual yet. This was a Cleveland Zoo safari, and by the end of the safari we would have seen nearly 120 lions and four kills.

But Dave was… patient! And as everyone else was starting to yawn:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r50225yFGDs[/youtube]

Lions hate birds, hyaenas and everything else that disturbs their dominion over meat. But I had never seen, and probably never will again, a scene like this!

Here’s another fabulous Dave clip. It was around 8:30a and we’d been in Tarangire since dawn, traveling the east river road down from Sopa. We saw some lions along the river and a fabulous collection of elephant where the river swings out of the swamp near the broken bridge, and it had been pretty good game viewing all around.

We were hungry for breakfast, but had to get down to the south end of the swamp before turning up along the swamp edge to the picnic site at the north end, so we had a bit of a ways to go.

I don’t think I was alone in contemplating danishes, boiled eggs, bacon, sausage, cheeses, honey and marmalades, scrumptious Parker rolls, sizzling hot tea, coffee, hot chocolate, yoghurt, lots of fresh fruit… well, you get the picture.

We were in the lead car when our track was blocked by a humongous ele. I knew that if we didn’t do something, she’d just stay there all day proving her dominance. She was just not going to move. Her youngster had just moved in front of her into the bush, and she was a proud lady. Well, as you can see, we finally made a move:

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JyliijVyyUc[/youtube]

It was one of the few times on safari that Dave stopped filming! So I guess I’ll finish the story:

We forgot about the danishes.

War Against the UnWilded

War Against the UnWilded

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Up to a third of East Africa’s tourism work force is now out of a job. Until now, it didn’t take guns to send them packing.

A number of high-end, professional robberies have been reported at camps in East Africa over the last month. As in downturns in the past, many disgruntled workers turn on their former employers in a number of ways. The most common one is to become the thief that knows where the clients’ valuables are stored.

As in the past, we’re all more vigilant in instructing clients how to act if there is a hold-up. And we’re more careful where we stay. And usually, nothing happens. Thefts tend to occur in areas with less police protection, like private reserves, and on lonely roads we have to avoid.

And until Tuesday the current trend wasn’t violent, but Tuesday Tanzanian police confronted five robbers fleeing the prestigious Grumeti Reserve and shot them to death.

The media has been all over with praise for the Tanzanian cops, but frankly, I think this is bad. There’s no need to make a war against redundant workers.

According to two sources, Agence France Press and Wolfgang Thome, a reporter based in Uganda, staff at the upmarket Grumeti Reserves tipped off area police that five laid off workers were planning an inside job. Presumably it was the inside that ratted on the outside.

Police and other security operatives laid a trap for the robbers. When the robbers arrived, they were killed in a gun battle started by the police.

I’m not suggesting that our empathy for redundant workers should transform into letting them off the hook. But my experience with these guys is that they’re hungry, educated and have little interest in doing anything but stealing wallets. The Tanzanian response might just have been a bit over the top.

Note: The next day, Grumeti Reserves announced it was seeking a new head of its Tanzanian operations.