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A Tale of Two Safaris

A Tale of Two Safaris

by Arusha ♥ 1 Comment

By Conor Godfrey
I have the good fortune to be writing this from a stunning lodge in the town of Aguas Calientes just a few hundred meters below Machu Picchu.

For the last week Jim has led myself and 10 other souls on a trip through Peru and Bolivia that included a week in the dense jungles of the Amazon basin and a week in gorgeous Andean highlands of the former Quechua/Inca empire.

This is the second safari I have taken with Jim and Explorers World Travel (EWT), and the two experiences could not have been more different.

I thought I might compare the previous East Africa trip with this most recent experience for the benefit of anyone considering a guided trip.

Remember, these are simply my amateur comments as a consumer, and do not reflect the opinion of Jim or EWT. (Look here for the official descriptions.)

Most Safari goers are not professional botanists, anthropologists, geologists, or masters of some other sub-specialty that would skew their interests toward any one particular type of experience. (There is, however, a wonderful microbiologist on my current trip).

If you fall into the plurality of consumers that want a little natural history, some great flora and fauna, and luxury to wash it all down, then East Africa will meet and likely exceed your expectations.

On my East African safari spectacular game viewing was never more than twenty minutes away from any given lodge.

By the end of the Safari you might realistically be bored of elephants charging your car and giant crocs taking down wildebeest.

That being said, the emphasis in East Africa was squarely on the game viewing.

Amazonia and the Andean highlands offer a more holistic experience.

The variety of flora in the jungle is unparalleled, and your guides will bring each plant to life by tying it into the jungle tapestry – the fire tree hosts the fire ant, the papaya seeds kill stomach parasites, the giant termite nests provide homes for bats and birds, etc…

Both the jungle and the highlands also offer the more culture-minded traveler much food for thought.

I was shocked and intrigued by the cultural interplay between the mountains and the lowlands in Peru, and two short weeks were sufficient to give me a grounding in the Peruvian cultural dynamics.

Jim offers great cultural tidbits throughout the East African safari, but most of your mental energy will be devoted to understanding big cat behavior as opposed to delving into the East African cultural landscape.

The jungle is not deficient in charismatic game (especially not in birds), but it makes you work much harder to find it.

A fleeting glimpse of a Tapir, or, if you are lucky, a jaguar, will likely require a long trek through a humid jungle with mosquitoes nipping at any exposed skin and sweat soaking the ‘lightweight’ pants you bought before the trip.

If East Africa feels like a wild zoo, than the Amazon feels like a bona fide bush hunt.

The excitement does not come from overwhelming numbers of game, but from the thrill of tracking paw prints, listening to the Jungle, and using your newly learned jungle lore to track the elusive animals.

(There is still a cold beer at the end of your day to chase down the parasites you’ve acquired.)

This feeling extends to the jungle lodgings.

No amount of money is going to make your room totally impregnable to big spiders, or guarantee you hot water (as opposed to the opulent lodgings available in East Africa).

Trekking deep in the Amazon trades luxury for a unique learning experience; I think for some travelers the trade off would be well worth it.

My two cents: If you are unsure what you are looking for, and want to guarantee a fabulous, restorative vacation, go to East Africa with Jim.

The lodges and the big game will blow your mind.

If big game is not your end all and be all, or if luxury is not required for your personal brand of relaxation, then a joint Andes – Amazonia trip might be just the ticket.

Safari Njema!

Farmers Driving Lamborghinis

Farmers Driving Lamborghinis

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By Conor Godfrey
Yessir. One of the world’s foremost Agriculture oracles, Jim Rogers, recently claimed Agriculture is the oil of the twenty first century on HowwemadeitinAfrica.com.

More evocatively, he quipped that investors should consider indirect plays on agriculture investment such as opening Lamborghini dealerships in farm country, because soon, “farmers are going to be driving the Lamborghinis; stock brokers are going to be driving tractors.”

Jim sees big things in the future for all the world’s breadbaskets: the American mid-west, the Australian outback, and a number of South Asian deltas for example.

But I wouldn’t be writing this blog unless he was the most bullish on Africa.

He summed up the potential for African agriculture like this – “In some of the African nations you don’t even have to farm, just sit by the side of the road long enough and something will grow.”

I have heard very similar sentiments from American farmers in Uganda, Sierra Leone, Guinea, and Angola.

In Uganda for example, the expats marvel that you just have to throw some seeds over your shoulder, turn around, and they will have grown into a forest.

A few weeks ago I wrote a blog post about the perceptions and mis-perceptions of land grabs in Africa.

In short, to coin an old cliché, Africa is the Saudi Arabia of uncultivated, highly arable land, and everyone wants in.

There are two meta trends involving agriculture at the moment that will have a huge impact on Africa for better or worse.

First – prices for commodities that Africa can or already does produce are trending upward for the very long term.

Unless science makes food obsolete or disaster reduces the planet’s population by a few billion, food prices will stay high in historical terms.

The equal and opposite counter trend regarding African Agriculture is climate change.

The African Development Bank and other multi-laterals predict harsh declines in African land productivity over the next 50 years due to changes in rainfall patterns (About 4% decrease annually as a continental average.)

It seems like the smart money – whether you are in development or in the private sector – is on agricultural technology that will mitigate climate risk while taking advantage of superior soil and other factor advantages.

While Lamborghini dealerships in Abidjan are probably still a risky play, irrigation equipment, low-water varietals, and agricultural inputs are all highly lucrative and sustainable ways to think about African agriculture moving forward.

After all, global supermarkets are already increasing the proportion of produce coming from the continent.

If you have ever had an “Out of Africa” fantasy – now is the time to move to the continent and start your farm.

Does Your State Have Your Back?

Does Your State Have Your Back?

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By Conor Godfrey
This poetic essay by Nigerian professor Pius Adesanmi helped me consider the nature of the citizenship I enjoy.

I may rail against certain U.S. policies and politicians, but I know that Uncle Sam has my back abroad.

If I get hurt, arrested, detained illegally, kidnapped, or otherwise physically or legally incapacitated, my blue passport means that someone somewhere is going to do something about it.

(I am however very sympathetic to the argument that not all citizens are equal in terms of state services.)

Nigerian Professor Adesanmi tells his Canadian students that he has “never experienced the psychological comfort of a citizenship considered sacred and inviolable by a state.”

He continues, “ I have never in my life gone to bed with the psychological comfort of knowing that a state has got my back.”

He uses the Yoruba expression “second calabash” to describe how the elite views the citizenry; the expression connotes someone or something of little import, an after thought.

The most recent and vivid manifestations of this are the U.S. and Nigeria’s respective responses to having nationals kidnapped by Somali pirates.

The U.S. exerted tremendous military muscle to rescue one man – Captain Phillips.

Somali pirates held Nigerian hostages on the other hand for 302 days before releasing them to make room for hostages from countries that would actually pay.

In the professor’s words, “The Somalians broke the number one rule of international hostage taking – the life of your hostage must mean something to a particular state – because they believed that anybody in the rulership of Nigeria was even remotely interested in the lives of Nigerian citizens.”

This is harsh stuff.

Obviously military resources might play a larger role than respect for citizenship in determining these outcomes, but symbolically, the images are still potent.

I don’t know if the majority of Nigeria’s 160 million people are second “calabashes” or not, but his argument was convincing in one other respect – Nigerians are treated horribly all over the diaspora, especially in other African countries.

Negative Nigerian stereotyping was rife in every country I ever visited in Africa, some of it laced with simple envy toward a larger and in some respects more successful neighbor.

Nigerians face legal discrimination abroad, and are often targeted by police and security services.

Are Nigerians treated this way abroad because their own state treats them similarly? Because perpetrators know that no one is going to stick up for Nigerian diaspora communities? Maybe.

Recently, South Africa improperly deported over 100 Nigerians on the unfounded suspicion that their Yellow Fever vaccination certificates were fake.

The Nigerian elite reacted with uncharacteristic outrage at this incident, and South Africa was forced to apologize. The South Africans seemed humbled and surprised by the reaction from Abuja. This proves prove the professors point, offered through an adapted proverb – “If you carry piss in your calabash, so will your neighbors when you lend it to them.”

The Pen..is Mightier

The Pen..is Mightier

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By Conor Godfrey
Sex, art, and politics.

“The Spear,” a painting of South Africa’s President Zuma with his genitals hanging out of his pants, has all three in spades.

Go ahead…look at it. It is art, after all.

Provocative South African artist Brett Murray painted the work, in his words, as “an attempt at humorous satire of political power and patriarchy.”

I enjoy the circus surrounding the painting way more than the painting itself.

First, President Zuma guaranteed every South African in the country saw the painting by suing the artist and the gallery, and demanding it be taken down. (When will rulers learn that censoring any particular piece is the only surefire way to make sure everyone sees it?)

He also propagates the most damaging interpretation of the painting by claiming, in his defamation suit, that the portrait “depicts [him] in a manner that suggests [he is] a philanderer, a womanizer and one with no respect. [That] it is an undignified depiction of [his] personality and seeks to create doubt about [his] personality in the eyes of fellow citizens, family and children.”

Talk about an own goal. You might as well just write and pay for the opposition ads yourself.

The de rigueur charges of racism were of course thrown about as well.

The circus moved into its next phase when two Zuma supporters defaced the painting (Don’t worry, they used oil based washable paints), and another artist painted a response work that depicted 5 recognizable naked white figures (including the leader of the opposition) being inspected by a black South African with a clip board.

I agree with the Times’ blogger Alex Perry that the real take-away here is just how thin-skinned Zuma and his coterie are.

The big chair has a big target on it.

Get over it.

Check out the infamous Obama Joker image.

I understand that many South Africans are rightfully sensitive with regard to slurs on African dignity, but this could have been a total non-issue.

Instead, the whole scene just reinforces all the key points of the anti-Zuma narrative. Womanizing, self-indulgent, overly sensitive big man who is intent on crushing media freedoms.

After all, as the Time’s blog mentions, if Zuma has trouble dealing with one bad portrait in a random art gallery, how can he be trusted to react with poise to more strident criticisms of his personality and policies?

Of course, maybe in Western discourse the never-ending stream of lurid affairs and insinuations has desensitized me to sexuality-laden attacks on political figures.

Watching a few hours of the John Edwards trial makes this painting seem rather trivial, but of course the Edwards trial does not have centuries of racial oppression clouding the nature of insinuations.

The BBC’s Andrew Harding pseudo quotes a former South African Chief Justice as saying the following in regards to “The Spear” circus…. “I know we are too thin-skinned. We should just let it go. But we can’t. You must remember where we have come from.”

That sounds about right.

In Africa We Trust

In Africa We Trust

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By Conor Godfrey
Musical selection for today’s blog: Sexion d’Assaut, Africain

The experienced traveler or cultural connoisseur must take ever more drastic measures in 2012 to experience something new.

A form of cultural convergence driven by globalization and increased wealth has smoothed out many of the wrinkles that once made Confucius’ sphere of influence look and feel different than Locke’s or Chingus Khan’s.

Cultural differences certainly exist below the surface today, but consumerism and urbanization are the norm, and even music, fashion, and architecture tend toward a global median with regional varieties.

This is why Africa can be so intoxicating.

Even though American R&B often blares from Lagos bars, and East African businessmen wear western style suits, African cultures still feel substantively different than the pseudo-Western global norm that prevails in most corners of the globe.

For everyone plagued by the sense that the current world order is still letting too many people down, or that the structures supporting the current order exclude too many people, the notion that Africa might take a different path makes us hope, in spite of ourselves, that Africa’s rise will give rise to new institutions, and inject powerful new ideas into international conversations on rights, justice, equality, and human potential.

This phenomenon is accelerating as we speak. Africa’s special if not unique needs have already moved the world forward.

Its unique history and demography have created the world’s most progressive constitution in South Africa.

The combination of traditional justice and modern conflict has given rise to various forms of truth and reconciliation as alternative judicial processes to Western inspired punitive justice focused on individual agency and responsibility.

The illogical borders of African states are forcing the continent’s governments to innovate appropriate governmental tools to manage impossibly diverse polities.

The world may soon look to Kenya as a model balance of federalism and social inclusion.

I am most hopeful with regard to how Africa will innovate around social and economic inequality.

Gross inequality is often treated as an unfortunate side effect of the transition to a market economy.

However, in many Africa states and societies, organized labor played a key role in chasing the colonizers out, and historically, many leaders in local traditions maintained their position and prestige by giving away wealth.

Controlling the means of production was only powerful in so far as it allowed leaders in some cultures to bestow gifts on important power brokers in their communities.

How will these deep-seated cultural attitudes toward inequality mesh with the notion that inequality is inevitable?

Perhaps South Africa will square this circle over the next 15 years, and the world will be a much better place for it.

I often hear people compare Africa in the new millennium to China in the 1970s.

Favorable demographics, massively improved governance and stability, filthy rich in natural resources, etc…

The same people will compare Nigeria, or Kenya in 2012 to Indonesia or Malaysia 30 years ago, and in so doing communicate that this is ‘the time’ to invest.

These comparisons are useful to a point, but they assume a common trajectory for all societies. A ladder with the same rungs if you will.

I, for one, hope that Africa’s ladder has new and different rungs. I hope that just as a tourist in Africa today might truly find something ‘new’ in culture or art, scholars of government and society will soon visit Africa to learn how African states and societies innovated to overcome intractable, globally applicable issues.

Deleterious or Dynamic Delta?

Deleterious or Dynamic Delta?

by Arusha ♥ 2 Comments

There is no set price in travel. Prices change constantly, and a question I constantly get is “Should I buy now?”

The controversy last month when a Minneapolis television station discovered that Delta Airlines was charging its frequent flyer customers more for the identical booking than (presumably) newer, non-frequent flyer customers underscores how fluid travel pricing has become.

The pricing discrepancy is uncontested. Two different people side-by-side on two identical computers accessed the Delta site and searched for a ticket price in exactly the same way and for exactly the same flights.

The person who signed in as a frequent flyer customer was charged more. In fact, in one case on multiple attempts to confirm the anomaly, a first class ticket from Minneapolis to Los Angeles was $1000 higher to the frequent flyer customer.

Delta insists it was a computer glitch but according to a reputable global travel watchdog, ETN, “Anyone fluent in software development and deployment knows that these kinds of issues [require] careful coding and thorough testing. The fact that Delta admits that this situation has existed for some time suggests that the issue was not a mistake…”

I doubt it was a glitch, and even if it began as such I suspect the IT department began to cultivate it.

“Dynamic pricing” is sweeping the travel market. Even hotels now sell the same room for the same date a hundred different ways, depending upon where the request comes from, how well the hotel is doing that day, and what the competition is doing.

According to American Airlines, there are 100,000 changes in its prices every day.

This is not done by 100,000 different clerks typing in new numbers. It’s done with computer algorithms and artificial intelligence designed to get absolutely the most out of you possible.

Airlines lead all travel pricing. Hotels follow immediate suit. And right afterwards, cruise companies, safari chains, and even amusement parks adjust their business practices to reflect what the airlines do.

Even the cost of a safari.

“Dynamic pricing” is the golden mantra of travel businesses today. And in the unregulated market that we live in, there really is no other way for a travel business to succeed.

Technically there’s nothing illegal about this. Travel is a commodity just like gas and potatoes, and the market demand begins to set the price. Some argue that Delta could be brought to court based on its own advertised commitments, but if you take the time to read the small print, I doubt it.

But the problem with travel is that you generally pay a lot earlier than when you fill your car or buy dinner. And this long delay between paying and getting opens up wide areas of ethical controversy.

The Obama administration’s careful and Congress-motivated increase in airline regulation this year has helped a lot. It’s in fact a miracle in these days of swaggering politicians decrying any regulation whatever.

But new rules no longer allow the airlines to fool you about ticket prices by claiming after market increases are taxes, for example.

That’s what I see is the fundamental problem, today, with travel: too little regulation. The result is utter confusion for the consumer and chaos for the travel business. The start of American deregulation of travel, which began in 1984, is the direct reason for so many large airline bankruptcies and the economic dislodging of the industry as a whole.

Had this regulation not started and never been implemented, we most certainly would have higher airline ticket prices, today. BUT…

The airlines would be more on-time and reliable…
Seating would be more comfortable…
Food would be better…
Information and scheduling would make more sense…

Lots of communities, like Cleveland and Nashville and Flagstaff, would be guaranteed multiple airline services. And smaller communities like Dubuque and Fargo and Centralia would not be at the whim of so many seasonal changes.

And in the end, travel would be more valuable for less money.

So the question, “Should I buy now?” is one that has no pat answer. If you think demand is going to go up with time, then buy now. If you believe we’re headed into a double-dip recession or war that would restrain travel, then wait.

Travel is a leading indicator of the economy, so it usually moves in the direction good analysts predict the economy will move. Although in my long tenure in travel, I still pretty much believe in a certain maxim:

If you know you’re going, buy the ticket!

Kenya & America Joined By Anger

Kenya & America Joined By Anger

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Warped democracy in both Kenya and the U.S. shows citizens will vote against their own self-interest. It amazes me.

In Kenya a poll released today shows a virtual tie between the current Prime Minister, Raila Odinga (the good guy) and his yet to announce opponent, Uhuru Kenyatta (the bad guy). The polling results are frighteningly similar to the virtual tie between President Obama (the good guy) and Mitt Romney (the bad guy).

Yet how different you’d otherwise think the races are!

On the surface, the American race is between progressive and conservative policies. The surface analysis of the Kenyan race is ethnic: Luo (Odinga) and Kikuyu (Kenyatta). There couldn’t be two different dynamics: political and ethnic.

And in both cases the large number of independents (15%) will decide the election .. Or so the polling goes. In the U.S. this is construed as independent political thinkers. In Kenya it’s any of the 41 other ethnic groups that compose 1/3 of the electorate, but the reason this is twice as large as the undecided independents identified in the Kenyan poll is because many of those ethnic groups are very remote and illiterate and probably won’t vote, or if they do will vote their “closest ethnicity.”

So what’s going on? Why is the bad guy so close?

Don’t laugh. Blogs use shorthand and avoid politeness. Bad in the U.S. is a man who has changed his positions with the wind of politics, a monsoon of hate and deception. Bad in Kenya is a man who is currently on trial in The Hague for crimes against humanity. Hope I’ve convinced you.

Yet political ideas drive one, and ethnic ideas drive another?

I guess we have to examine the similarities rather than the differences.

The bad guy’s family is not going to desert him. In Kenya that larger family is the ethnic group. In America it’s the 1%, or those-who-have-a-lot. Obviously there are exceptions in both places, but the rule looks good.

The bad guy castigates the media. Again, exceptions (Fox News & Limbaugh in the U.S. and certain Kikuyu-owned radio stations which are very important in Kenya). But the rule stands. The bulk of the media in both countries, which I believe is still founded in as much truth as can be unearthed, is broadly pro-good guy.

(I thought it particularly revealing yesterday that NPR aired a segment squarely blaming Republicans for the current political mess. Foolish to assume that NPR is always so patently progressive; they aren’t. This time one of their sources came from the very conservative American Enterprise Institute.)

The good guy compromises too much. My opinion, of course, but you could alter that to just compromises while the bad guy doesn’t. Presumably this is to attract the independents who determine the outcome, but is it really?

In Kenya Odinga compromised from the day he signed an agreement 5 years ago that conceded his obvious victory in national elections and which while insuring a hunk of power for himself gave more of it to his opponent who had lost but was the incumbent.

In the U.S. Obama’s compromises are legend, now. Did you hear Jimmy Kimmel’s joke at the recent White House Press Correspondent’s dinner? The compromise section is about 2min 30sec into the YouTube link.

This is very important. Both these men compromised to the point they lost supporters, and if they lose their respective elections it’s likely the loss will be small enough that it could easily have been reversed had they not compromised.

And the inverse is true of their opponents. Both would not be where they are in the polls had they compromised at all. And this is likely the explanation for why they also flip-flop so much once their opponents in their primaries have been defeated. Their only hope for achieving independent support is to reverse intransigent positions.

(Kenya doesn’t have primaries, but it does have a primary-like process.)

The good guy had many more careers than the bad guy.

Obama was an organizer for urban groups, a practicing lawyer and a law professor before entering politics. Odinga was a very successful mechanical engineer before entering politics, and was a professor at the University of Nairobi before that.

Neither Romney or Kenyatta has done anything all their lives except business deals and politics.

The good guy was born poorer; the bad guy was born much richer. Nuff said.

Finally, and fundamental to my thesis, the only way the bad guy has gotten even to the point of being a legitimate challenger much less a possible victor is that the bad guy garners the support of the people he hurts.

In both Kenya and the U.S. the bad guy has a litany of deeds to live down, business actions that put people out of work essentially. Romney’s pinnacle was Baines. Uhuru’s was his indictment by the World Court.

While the good guy loses the support of the people he helps.

Progressives are abandoning Obama in droves. From my point of view this is their problem, not Obama’s. They read way too much into the man. Similarly Odinga has lost the support of key ministries and their lock-step constituencies because of his policy compromises he couldn’t refuse to make were he to remain in power. Again, his supporters expected more than he ever suggested he could deliver.

A corollary to my thesis, then: too much is expected of the good guy; too little of the bad guy.

Putting this all together I don’t think the dynamic is entirely that people believe lies, although with the right TV ad they might. I think rather it’s anger. I don’t think intellectuals vote against their own self-interest (Obama’s independents and original progressive supporters deserting him at their peril of a conservative administration winning) just because they want another change, just to be different.

And I don’t think Odinga’s supporters abandon him just because they want a change, just to be different.

And I don’t think Romney’s supporters vote to end social programs on which they direly depend just because they want a change, or even because they believe him when he says he won’t. Or that Uhuru’s supporters vote to elect a man who might be given a life sentence in The Netherlands just because they want a change or because he tells them the World Court is crazy.

The implications of a wrong vote, against one’s self-interest, are too severe for a willy-nilly decision. Something stronger is motivating this: anger.

And why there is so much anger, and why it’s directed as it is, is beyond my job description. But anger is a powerful tool in elections. And unfortunately, it’s pronounced in both Kenya and the U.S.

Pity it’s something that connects us.

Africa 2050

Africa 2050

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By Conor Godfrey
On Friday, I tried to provide a bird’s eye view of the U.S.–Africa relationship, with an eye for the civilizational points of contact like religious organizations, the number of Americans traveling to Africa or Africans traveling to the U.S., and state to state interaction over trade, security, etc…

I tried to make clear that, in my opinion, the relationship suffers from malign neglect, and a distortion brought on by an over emphasis on development assistance.

Before I offer some big picture ideas on how the U.S. could increase the intensity of this civilizational interaction, I suppose the first question is why this would be a good thing in the first place?

Why should American’s care about Africa, or Africans about America, more than, say, central Asia, or eastern Europe?

My basic argument is this – Africa will be a prime source of both creation and destruction over the next fifty to one hundred years.

The continent holds approximately one quarter of the world’s states, the youngest and fastest growing population in the world, seven of the world’s top ten fastest growing economies, and likely, as discussed in an earlier post, 50% of the mineral resources that the world needs to continue its upward trajectory.

The next thirty years will see African societies and individuals innovate to overcome mindboggling development obstacles.

Where states and societies fail to do so, their failure will spin off destructive forces that will extend far beyond the continent’s shores.

African innovation also tends toward the truly disruptive as opposed to incremental improvement.

In many developed markets, legacy technology encourages baby step refinements.

Think of how long it has taken mobile money to take off in the United States.

We are just now seeing the first generation of mobile payment processors, while in Africa, mobile payments were achieving wide market penetration in 2007 and 2008 (mainly M-Pesa at that time).

Why? Because there was not an entrenched cash register culture that was ‘good enough.’

Now apply these dynamics to energy and green tech, waste processing, internet and communications technology, whatever; in developed markets, entrenched technology and powerful interest groups stand to lose from truly disruptive innovation, and therefore need to co-opt or squash it.

Africa can leapfrog these legacy systems and launch entirely new industries.

As Europe, Japan, and other traditional allies turn inward to deal with their impending demographic implosions, the U.S. needs to maintain links with the most dynamic, growing societies abroad.

This includes getting their best and brightest to study in the U.S., and linking our firms with the innovation pipeline coming from emerging markets like Africa.

So lets say you believe that the U.S. needs Africa over the next century.

How do the two societies move their anemic relationship currently based on aid, security, and resources to something more robust? People to people and firm to firm.

Number one. Rebrand America in Africa.

For years America has tried to out humanitarian other countries; the foreign policy and media organs have tried to position American companies and the American people as the nicest, most considerate, and development oriented of all potential donors.

There are simply too many hypocritical counterpoints to really make this narrative stick.

Instead, America should focus on quality and creative cache.

The U.S. MUST protect its brand’s image as the best made, highest quality goods on the market.

Perhaps even more importantly, American companies, gear, and people should present themselves as the coolest, most cutting edge, and most interesting of potential partners for Africa.

The iPhone, Facebook, Twitter, GE, Akon and Lady Gaga, the New York Knicks, Pixar, Black Entertainment Television, MIT, and (oddly enough) Chuck Norris are more effective ambassadors for brand America than 80% of our development programs or security partnerships.

The creative and cultural cache represented by this indicative group of people has another advantage—it can reach over, under, and around state governments to connect directly with average citizens.

I suppose you could call this soft power; I would rather call it putting America’s best foot forward.

More practically, our immigration system needs drastic reform.

I could fill Ngorongoro Crater with the stories I’ve heard of entrepreneurial, honest and otherwise fantastic Africans getting denied visas to the U.S.

I understand the need to control the borders, and to be discerning, but if the U.S. wants the best and brightest to build ties in and contribute to the Unites States, then those people need to get here first.

If they come here on student visas, and study something practical and valuable, then let them work here if they want!

As I am running out of space and audience attention, I would end by encouraging the passage of the Increasing American Jobs Through Greater Exports to Africa Act of 2012, and urging the administration to take action on the upcoming expiration of the African Growth and Opportunities Act (hopefully by adding tax incentives for U.S. companies who invest in key sectors in Africa).

Everyone, from readers of this blog, to policy makers, to the U.S. diplomatic corps, needs to start thinking about how to deepen this relationship. If it withers in the shade of current great power politics all parties will lose.

How Rich? This Rich

How Rich? This Rich

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By Conor Godfrey
Yesterday Tullow Oil struck black gold off the Kenyan Shore; Canadian and Australian miners seem to announce new gold gold discoveries in Africa all the time.

In fact, it seems like once a month I hear of another “world class” mineral or hydro-carbon discovery in Africa.

I thought it might be fun to dig into just how mineral rich Africa is. Before I get started, let me say a huge thank you to Dr. ABBAS. M. SHARAKY at Cairo University, his research on African geology was immeasurably helpful in terms of understanding why Africa is so mineral rich.

Fun fact– modern day Swaziland hosts the oldest known mining site in the world – scientists believe this mine was operational about 45,000 years ago!

See the picture of Lion’s Cave on the left. Mineral resources have also shaped African history and culture, especially the rise and fall of the great empires in modern day Mali, Ghana, and Egypt. Gold, iron, and other metals have had cultural, commercial, and even cosmetic uses for much of human history on the continent.
Today the African sub-soil is unbelievably, but not inexplicably, rich.

Before writing this, I have sifted through more geological research then I really have the vocabulary to understand, and pulled out some gems that helped me imagine the scope of both known and unknown mineral resources in Africa.

Africa is still undergoing what the field calls “Primary Exploration.”

E.g. preliminary surveys and shallow drilling.

With the very limited knowledge we have of Africa’s subsoil, the continent already holds 30% of the world’s known mineral reserves.

This includes 80% of all platinum, chromium, and tantalum, and almost 50% of the world’s gold, diamond, cobalt, manganese and phosphates, and the plurality of many others, including bauxite and uranium.

Geologists estimate that Africa likely holds more than 50% of the world mineral reserves.
Wow. 20.4% of the world’s land (actual land, not water), with upwards of 50% of the world’s mineral resources.

I guess what I’m trying to say is that catalytic converters, computer chips, cell phones, engagement rings, fertilizer, tin foil, and nuclear submarines would all be a heck of a lot more expensive without African resources.

Why? (spoiler alert, pure creationists will not be happy with this section.) Well, according to Dr. Abbas, Africa has some of the oldest rocks in the world—otherwise known as Precambrian rocks.

These rocks come from the period that covers the formation of the Earth through bacterial life….a mere 4.5 billion years.

Precambrian rocks account for 80% of the world’s industrial metals.

The Kalahari craton geologic formation covers much of Southern Africa, and contains a number of the world’s oldest (therefore Precambrian) rocks.

This formation is what makes South Africa the most mineral rich country in the world; with an estimated 2.5 trillion USD worth of resources under its soil.

To put this in perspective, remember that while Saudi Arabia has just shy of 20% of the world’s proven oil reserves, South Africa has approximately 85% of the world’s platinum, 80% of its manganese, 75% of its chrome, and over 50% of a half dozen more key resources.

Other parts of Africa have mind boggling concentrations of strategic minerals; the best examples are diamonds in Botswana, copper and cobalt in Zambia and the DRC, tantalum in the DRC, uranium in Namibia and Niger, bauxite in Guinea, and phosphates in Morocco.

Tantalum Mine DRC

Africa is loaded with hydrocarbons.

Nineteen African countries produce significant quantities of oil, and ‘proven’ reserves have been skyrocketing as exploration really gets underway.

Chew on the following statistic: throughout the 80’s and early 90’s, the mining community spent about 10% of their budgets on exploration, but only 1% in Africa.

While this has improved drastically in the 90s and post 2000, African exploration is still grossly underfunded; it currently accounts for 13% of the mining community’s exploration budget but accounts for 30% of the world’s proven reserves.

Currently, Africa has proven reserves of about 210,000 billion barrels – this number is being revised upward on a quarterly basis.

These reserves constitute about 13% of global reserves- the proportion will obviously rise as commercially viable oil continues to be discovered from Mozambique to Ghana to Uganda to Liberia, and relative peace and calm allows the major producers to double down on investment and R&D.
(Source)

Botswana Diamond Mind
Get ready for some 20,000 ft. assumptions.

The developing world’s standard of living is rising- sometimes in fits and starts, and sometimes in long 30-year runs (China).

To be rather blunt, these people, and their governments, want the tin foil, nuclear submarines, green tech, phones, and other IT products that we spoke about earlier.

New discoveries will slow in the rest of the world while they accelerate in Africa over the next 50 years; I for one am very curious to see how this ramifies through world politics.

Land Grabs Really a
Proxy for Water Grabs

Land Grabs Really a
Proxy for Water Grabs

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By Conor Godfrey

Paolo Bacigalupi is a master science fiction writer, and winner of the Hugo, Nebula, and any other Sci-fi award you can think of.

His blockbuster hit was entitled “The Windup Girl.”

The story imagined a world in the near-mid future where food-crop biodiversity had plunged due to constant genetic tampering in an effort to feed a growing planet with less available water.

Land, original seeds, and calories became the only currencies that mattered.

We are far from that, but sometimes I will read an article on “land grabs” in Africa and think that Mr. Bacigalupi was more of a slight exaggerator than an all-out lunatic.

Everyone wants a piece of the mother continent these days. Not- as you might have heard- just the Chinese.

Even South Africa recently bought tens of thousands of hectares in Guinea!

Other investors are Asian, European and American, as well as private pension funds and a number of Scandinavian and gulf state sovereign wealth funds.

Please read Professor Deborah Brautigam’s piece on some of the gross falsifications surrounding Chinese land grabs.

Anyway, who wouldn’t want in on African land?

First – there is a lot of it.

Africa’s approximately 200 million uncultivated hectares of arable land represent about 60% of the world’s total.

Second- its dirt cheap (pun somewhat intended).

In Europe, land costs about $22,000 per hectare (Germany) annually.

In the land rich United States, it costs about $7,000.

In most of Sub-Saharan Africa, land goes for about $800-1000 per hectare.

I could even afford some!

It also nicely diversifies a more traditional investment portfolio and promises to produce profitably as larger and larger players compete for fewer and fewer available commodities from here on out.

In many ways, the problem is not land; it’s water.

Map by Oakland Institute

Let me quote from a recent study by the Oakland Institute: “If all the 40 million hectares of land that were acquired on the [African] continent in 2009 come under cultivation, a staggering volume of water would be required for irrigation (…) approximately twice the volume of water that was used for agriculture in all of Africa in 2005.”

Yikes.

Some African countries have water to spare in the short term.

Others never had any.

Many pastoral and nomadic communities have negotiated (or fought over) water rights for centuries.

If their governments’ lease their land to commercial producers, they may find access to critical water sources blocked by barbwire plantation fences.

People do not suffer this lightly.

Foreign investors recently gained title to 544,567 hectares of land in Mali along the Niger river.

These new concessions will suck up about two times the entirety of Mali’s water consumption in 2000. As of today the level of the Niger river is already 30% less than in 1980. (source)

The Omo and Nile river systems are similarly fragile.

Modern capitalism still has trouble pricing in environmental externalities and some forms of risk.

Water table depletion poses obvious risks to the environment, but on the flip side, there are reputational and monetary risks for investment projects.

Draining water reserves leads more or less directly to acute political risk, and if the problem is widespread enough, sovereign risk.

Do these investors doubt for a second that a new administration facing acute domestic pressure to stop land grabs would not alter the terms of an existing contract?

Or, do foreign investors really want pictures of displaced villagers circulating among shareholders?

For example – in 2008 three people died in Uganda in riots protesting a land concession. Read this article on unrest in Guinea over an earlier land grab.

I wonder if investors are accurately assessing this types of socio-environmental risk when they sign 100 year leases.

Ironically, when the leases are for a full century, investor incentives align behind environmental and social stewardship, while the local politicians have a much shorter time horizon and might be willing to make fast cash at the expense of a small subset of their citizens.

The more I think about it the more I think our story teller Paolo Bacigalupi should apply for the empty seat at the World Bank.

USAID’s Annual Letter to Share – I mean – Stake – Holders

USAID’s Annual Letter to Share – I mean – Stake – Holders

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By Conor Godfrey

This week the highest USAID cadre, Rajiv Shaw, released his annual (2nd) letter. If this second ‘annual’ letter was intended to mimic a private sector letter to shareholders, than I liked Warren Buffet’s letter to Berkshire Hathaway better, but I do appreciate the attempt.

In his very first paragraph, Rajiv and I essentially break up.

He lauds president Obama’s push to make development assistance a core part of U.S. international strategy, right alongside defense and diplomacy.

“…But the President and Secretary both believe that the development work our staff does is just as vital to our country’s interests and national security as the work of our soldiers and diplomats.“

I confess I do not believe this is true.

In fact, when viewed in this light, it is no wonder that we drown Pakistan and Afghanistan (critical U.S. priorities) in development assistance.

It is possible that this cash actually harms people, and at best, I think it is probably a wash.

Read this NYTimes article about development assistance in Afghanistan and cry.

AID workers in these countries struggle to spend the money that has been allotted to them, and set themselves up for horrendous overbilling and corruption.

There are also two other problems with AID money in places like Afghanistan and Pakistan – one, the local economy can be trashed by the influx of foreign currency, and two, the best and brightest in those communities try and get high paying jobs with AID agencies instead of working in local government or starting businesses.

These thoughts are not new; actually, it is very much in vogue to bash development assistance.

I challenge you to go out and find someone that works in development right now, get them out of the work environment, give them two beers, and ask them what they think of either their specific project of development assistance in general.

They will start with a resume-speech that uses words like capacity building and stakeholders, but it will degenerate into a story of waste and frustration.

There are people out there who work on great projects…but I bet you go through four or five of the scenarios I just mentioned before you get to them.

To avoid being charged with too much complaining and not enough suggesting, here is what I see as the future of development assistance.

1) A clearer distinction between humanitarian relief (floods, fires, droughts, conflicts) and development assistance.

The former (staffed by former soldiers and other logisticians), should be given wide latitude to act preemptively, and should make sure the U.S. is the first on the scene and the most generous when they get there.

The U.S. already does a pretty darn good job here.

The latter, development assistance, needs to be reconceived as a social impact investment fund with a high tolerance for risk.

2) They should take on investment worthy projects that are not attractive to traditional investors because the recipients do not have collateral or other assets. (Like our current Export-Import Bank, but with a much higher appetite for risk, and a bent toward micro projects.)

Better yet, they should invest in LOCAL impact investment funds that have a better handle on vetting projects.

Most importantly, this agency should RETURN MONEY TO THE TREASURY!

Now, that might be too strict when lending to entrepreneurs and businesses at this level, so perhaps the rules should be as follows….

The agency will loan out XXX Million USD per year, but only 15% of the loans could be non-performing at any given time.

If we wanted to get really crazy, the agency could take equity positions in these companies and entrepreneurs.

(Moral Hazard alert here, the business might just expect the agency to do everything.)

Yes- this would immediately take some of the least developed countries off the USAID map.

(You could adjust the rules for least developed countries if necessary.) I think that is ok, because I do not believe what these various groups say they are achieving in those countries anyway.

If you added up the stats that various AID agencies and NGOs give you for some countries, and compound those over all the years this assistance has been given out….the problem(s) would theoretically be solved already.

It is a little like the phenomenon whereby all the purported shards of wood from the Biblical cross add up to seven or eight crosses worth of wood.

Ok I am probably getting carried away.

The biggest weakness in my argument is in health. Many health problems are not ‘investment opportunities.’

(Many are though! Check out my favorite company in this space.)

There are other problems too, but I think they pale in comparison to the waste in the current system.

The Chinese Presence in Africa Probably Does Not Look like You Think it Does

The Chinese Presence in Africa Probably Does Not Look like You Think it Does

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By Conor Godfrey

For quite a long time, I misunderstood the nature of the Chinese tidal wave in Africa.

I thought that giant SOEs like SINOPEC and SINOHYDRO, laced with agents from the public security bureau – and the People’s Liberation Army of course, were essentially buying the African subsoil on the cheap where their cash went the farthest – resource rich and infrastructure poor countries with brutal, corrupt, or otherwise unsavory leadership.

Some of this has certainly happened.

However, as the foremost experts have pointed out, repaying loans with commodities is neither new nor confined to China in Africa.

More than forty years ago, China secured a $10 billion dollar loan from Japan by leveraging its domestic resources.

Somehow, oil/commodity secured loans have taken on a nefarious connotation – why?

In most cases, this ensures that something is actually delivered to the host population.

If China uses its leverage to unfairly price-fix the commodity, or overvalues the infrastructure to be provided (as in Angola), then sure, the government and civil society should jump all over it.

While they are at it, however, they should also jump all over the development assistance programs from other partners that skim local talent and spend millions of dollars while leaving precious little behind.

The biggest misconception regarding the Chinese presence in Africa is the make-up of the Chinese diaspora on the continent.

There are probably about 750,000 – 1,000,000 Chinese in Africa – no one has a great estimate.

Many are former day-laborers, farmers, bankrupt shop owners, convicts, and other mother’s sons who took “going global” seriously.

They are not secret agents, nor do they receive concessional financing or other goodies from state owned banks.

They are free-wheeling entrepreneurs with huge appetites for risk and the desire to escape cut throat competition back home in China.

A recent documentary – When China Met Africa does a great job exploring the edges of the African-SINO civilizational collision. Here is a trailer, and here is a review by the always insightful Damien Ma.

While big State owned enterprises certainly cause some friction, much of the antipathy toward China and Chinese in Africa comes from the success of small-time Chinese traders in local markets. (I’m taking about the private buccaneer types, not big company reps.)

Entrepreneurship is hard, especially in Africa.

Formal capital markets for small to medium sized business barley exist, and the cost of electricity and transport makes manufacturing prohibitively expensive.

(This is changing…look for wave of African manufacturing in 2015.)

However, Chinese entrepreneurs in Africa (the private, buccaneering types) are beating out local suppliers in local markets.

Why? Connections, or Guang Xi, as the Chinese would say.

What do you do if you need a generator fixed in East Africa?

You call a Fundi (loosely, “a guy who knows stuff”).

In the Peace Corps I had a guy for pretty much everything – a money exchange guy, a taxi guy (this guy was a real wildcard), a goat guy, a make-me-a-sweet-Boubou guy, and most importantly, a bad-Muslim who-sells-beer-guy.

The Chinese have fundies too – only theirs own factories in China, trans-ocean transportation firms, and are flush with cash from thirty years of double digit economic growth.

When a Chinese business-person sees an opportunity in Africa, he/she (almost always a he) can usually access the credit, manufacturing capacity, and skills necessary to act on it.

Local entrepreneurs often cannot.

I am not fatalistic about this though – African entrepreneurs have all sorts of linguistic, cultural, and geographic advantages when competing in their own backyard.

Look at how Ethiopia’s footwear industry survived the cheap Chinese shoe onslaught and improved their products because of it.

The African firms that survive the waves of cheap Chinese goods will be stronger and ready to compete globally – bring it on.

Anyway, it helps to remember that China and Africa are not two massive, sentient entities crashing against each other, but rather, millions of individuals and tens of thousands of firms each having their own personal interactions.

Sorry Mr. Kristof – I Don’t Buy It

Sorry Mr. Kristof – I Don’t Buy It

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By Conor Godfrey
[Song of the day: This blog is on empathy; more specifically, what elicits it and what doesn’t. Have a listen to this Tiken Jah Fakoly remake of a song you will likely recognize – his version is called “African in Paris.”) For the life of me I cannot find an English translation online, so watch the video unless you speak French (except this rather awful one).]

I have a confession to make. I really, really do not like Nick Kristof’s reporting on Africa.

A few years ago I wrote a piece ridiculing the still common tropes that weasel their way into Western writing about African issues.

This includes stories with one dimensional human characters and three dimensional animals, or articles with such relentlessly negative points of view that all positives are expressed as little points of light in a tunnel of darkness.

Nick Kristof is the unapologetic champion of this type of writing.

The documentary “Reporter” follows Kristof around Africa as he reports on various crises.

Kristof literally (no exaggeration here) walks up to someone in a Congolese village and asks if there is “anyone very sick, maybe someone who lost children…that he could speak to.”

Talk about a selection bias! This drove me nuts.

Imagine if I walked into downtown Anywhere, USA and only spoke with mothers of teenagers that had recently been gunned down in gang violence.

To make matters worse, this mythical me is the most famous journalist reporting on Anywhere, USA, and therefore my thoughts on the health of this city reach policy makers, possible investors, ordinary Americans, and other journalists who then invite me on their syndicated television shows to talk about my horrid and emotional trip to Anywhere.

Professional Africa hands –African and Euro— have been criticizing Kristof for the paternalistic tone of his writing for years.

To his credit, Kristof publicizes their critiques on his blog and attempts (unsuccessfully I think) to address them head on. Read this entry for a recent iteration of the argument.

It goes like this…critics claim that victims in Kristof’s writing are always black and helpless, while the protagonists are often American or European, and “doing” something about the problem.

Kristof responds that he uses that construction to elicit empathy from Western readers who are apt to turn the page if there are no “bridge characters” (Kristof-speak for white people) in this article.

He takes this even farther in his famous op-ed piece Save the Darfur Puppy, (which I actually though was quite clever as a one-off piece – too bad this is his go-to trick).

Apparently, psychological research supports the idea that “bridge characters” and both literal and metaphorical “Darfur Puppies” can build empathy with audiences unfamiliar with the topic of a given article or report.

But I don’t think this type of empathy matters.

That feeling a reader gets after reading a Kristof story about malnutrition in Niger is actually entrenched indifference and superiority masquerading as human connection.

Let’s say for the sake of argument that most Kristof articles painted an accurate picture of life in many African communities (which they do not).

How could middle class America in any way relate/empathize with a severely malnourished mother, or a torture victim, if all these people are to the reader is someone who is malnourished, or someone that has been tortured?

We need to hear about real, complete people, not one dimensional victims.

The brutal truth is that when I read about torture in Syria I feel very little beyond the revulsion conjured up by images of torture.

However, when I read about the excitement of Libyan ex-patriots returning to Libya after decades in exile, or how a young Guinean entrepreneur built a web services firm with nothing, or the difficulty of changing old traditions, even when those traditions are as harmful as genital mutilation, I feel connected to the participants in those stories.

I have felt pride in my community, I have felt the thrill of success in a difficult project, and I understand how hard it is to break ingrained habits.

This is empathy…what Kristof makes you feel is not.

These Guys Are Worse Than Pirates

These Guys Are Worse Than Pirates

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By Conor Godfrey
Last week, Greenpeace shadowed an unlicensed 120-foot Russian Trawler off the Senegalese coast.

Ships like these often pull in 250 tons of fish a day by dragging 700 meter nets behind them. Some of them use incredibly damaging bottom trawling and other techniques that increase hauls while destroying marine habitats.

To put the effect of these super trawlers in perspective, allow me to quote a few statistics from the Greenpeace report on illegal fishing published last week:

1. “It would take 56 traditional Mauritanian pirogue boats one year to catch the volume of fish a [super trawler] can capture and process in a single day.”

2. “The amount of fish discarded at sea, dead or dying, during one [super] trawler’s fishing trip at full capacity is the same as the average annual fish consumption of 34,000 people in Mauritania.”

Green Peace struggles to unmask illegal fishing ship off West African Coast
These ships rotate the same license among a number of ships, or more crudely, simply cover up the name of the vessel to prevent anyone from documenting their breach.

In short, bloated European fishing fleets have already overfished their own territorial waters, and are now taking advantage of poor African countries inability to enforce their maritime borders. (Japanese, Korean, Chinese, and Taiwanese companies are all guilty as well.)

The vast majority of these illegally caught fish are ‘fenced’ through Los Palmas in the Canary Islands, owned by Spain, and through a few other ports of convenience where illegally caught fish can enter lucrative European markets.

(The European commission estimates that at least 10% of seafood sold in the E.U. could be illegally caught; other groups put the estimate considerably higher.)

This gets me riled up.

My home away from home in West Africa – Guinea — has the most overfished territorial waters in the world.

The U.K.’s development agency estimated that in 2009 about 110 million USD worth of stock was illegally fished off the Guinean coast.

That might not sound like much to a country such as Portugal or Japan (culprits in the overfishing), but that is serious money to a country that cannot even provide reliable power to its capital city.

The 110 million USD estimate does not even take into account the near permanent damage done to the habitat and reproductive stocks.

So why can’t the next foreign super trawler without a license in Guinean territorial waters be given a warning, then boarded, then confiscated and the crew thrown in Guinean jail until their host country groveled for their release?

Of course – there is the rub.

Guinea (and most of its neighbors) does not even have patrol boats and crews capable of executing that type of interdiction.

(Also, the last thing you want to do is give unruly Guinean soldiers the authority to start shaking down fisherman arbitrarily.)

Of course, some harbor masters, judges, and other gatekeepers in the maritime industry are probably on the take or could be easily paid off at a number of points (giving out licenses, enforcing fines, etc.)

This can also happen legally.

Even though almost all West African fisheries are now in critical condition, many licenses are sold legally for hard-to-turn-down sums.

Some ideas:

1. The U.S., France, and other bi-lateral donors should kill a few of their grossly ineffective aid programs, and spend the money on professionalizing and equipping a local coast guard interdiction team. (Just one small ship would do it.)

If the E.U. is as concerned as they say, then this should be right up their alley.

Most West African countries (excluding Mali and Mauritania and Niger perhaps) could not care less about anti-terrorism, while illegal fishing on the other hand is a hot button domestic political issue.

The local authorities will be ready, willing, and receptive to assist in kicking the bums out of their territorial waters.

*Interesting model: Australia was concerned that other Pacific countries’ lax fisheries enforcement was hurting Australian interests. So the Australian government created a training program along these lines for a number of neighboring countries that has been very successful in curbing illegal maritime activity.

EJFoundation Photograph
2. Lock down Los Palmas in the Canaries.

This is the Sodom and Gomorrah of illegal fishing, and as long as it continues to offer a back door to E.U. markets, I refuse to believe that Spain is at all concerned with the plight of West African fisheries.

3. West African countries might enlist the help of international companies that are also concerned with maritime criminality.

The obvious partner would be the oil companies operating in their territorial waters.

The oil companies might allow host country customs officers to ride on their ships, or use their surveillance helicopters, etc.

This idea needs to be fleshed out, but it seems like a natural partnership.

I get tired of the numerous conspiracy theories that accuse Europe or the U.S. or China of commercially pillaging Africa; most of the less nuanced theories are simply critiques of capitalism.

This fishing business, however, is as clear as day: more developed countries (including some more developed African countries) are plundering poor countries’ fisheries simply because they can.

And they are doing it as fast as possible because someone else will if they don’t, and because they need to do it before these countries get their act together and start enforcing their own laws.

Biggest! Strongest! Smallest!

Biggest! Strongest! Smallest!

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A ridiculously small, and a ridiculously large chamaeleon and a ridiculously strong little bird. Africa at its best!

I have personally seen the northern wheatear breeding in Alaska and foraging in Africa, and we’ve not known until now where the Alaskan birds migrated. That’s because there are wheatears in eastern northern Canada and even Greenland and Scotland.

Most bird migrations are determined in a pretty easy way. The bird is banded and then it’s found where it’s migrated to. And dozens and dozens of wheatears have been banded, but they’ve never been found.

That wasn’t actually unimaginable with regards to the wheatear. Unlike most species of bird, the wheatear breeds over a massive portion of the northern hemisphere and there are lots of them. So the odds of a banded bird being found were greatly reduced.

But technology to the rescue! The bird is so small, .8 ounce, that anything other than a light-weight leg band could not be used for tracking, until scientists recently concocted a really itty bitty geolocator hardly heavier than a band. And that’s where this data comes from.

There’s a real surprise, too. The birds in Alaska travel west to Africa. The birds in eastern Canada travel east. The route from Alaska to Africa is impressive: nearly 20,000 miles roundtrip! The eastern migration is half that, but it has to cross the Atlantic Ocean, the world’s most turbulent sea.

So either way around this you’ve got a remarkable little African bird! (Well, it’s also an Alaskan, Canadian, Greenlander, and British Isles bird, too.)

Note: the birds with the longest migration (approaching 50,000 miles) are the arctic tern and winged albatross.

The other fabulous African nature news this week was of still more treasures from Madagascar. We’d already found the world’s largest chamaeleon there. Parson’s chameleon is the size of most cats! Now this week scientists announced the discovery of the world’s smallest chameleon. It can fit on a matchhead!

What is really amazing about this, actually, is that these two creatures from Madagascar although definitely both chamaeleons in many common ways, are probably very different and likely have extremely different evolutionary paths.

Their point of last convergence could conceivably be at the dawn of reptiles, meaning more than 250 million years ago! The fact that they then physically changed so little except in terms of their size, likely has something to do with the special island-continent ecology of Madagascar. Island systems provide narrow paths for evolution, encouraging speciation but then subsequently constricting radical divergence.

On safari we usually find a chameleon or two and always some type of wheatear (there are several). Along with the new snakes and new primates and primate behaviors discovered recently in Tanzania, we’re learning that Africa has much more to reveal than we ever thought before!