Hi again
Herewith, some snippets from various sources.
I appeal to you to send me items to distribute to our members for the Cleft Stick, the Game Ranger magazine and to be posted on the web site. These are your magazine and website, so ensure it gets the news that you would like to see in it.
Please let me have any changes to your physical address, phone no. or e-mail address to keep the database up to date.
Thanks to all of you who have made the effort. Please will any of you who know of members who do not get this “electric” Cleft~Stick, & have access to e-mail, pass their address along to me.
Here follows a long list of members whose email addresses don’t work any longer – if any are people you have in your address book please pass along their current address to me so they can also be kept in contact with us.
Dave Nel - mwfelis@mweb.co.za ;
Dave Reynolds - dsr.darudec@dynabyte.bw ;
Dave Sandbakken - david_sandbakken@nps.gov ;
David Albert - dgalbert@sas.co.za ;
Diederick Reinecke - nature1@absamail.co.za;
Eduart Hugo - duart@global.co.za ;
Elephant Management - mgarai@esnet.co.za ;
Endangerd Wildlife Trust - coralW@ewt.org.za ;
Erwin Leibnitz - erwinleibnitz@telkomsa.net ;
Frikkie Rossouw - rikr@sanparks.org ;
Gareth Richards - bushland@iafrica.com ;
Gerald Wright - geraldw1@mweb.co.za ;
Glen Thomson - jejane@lantic.co.za ;
Gorg Wandrag - kubu@yebo.co.za ;
Gregory Bond - nyati@ananzi.co.za ;
Hendrick Hattingh - henrich.hattingh@freemail.absa.co.za ;
Jack Greef - jackgreef@yebo.co.za ;
Jack Randolph - Fishfind@erols.com ;
Jackie K Bice - jackie.bice@tvcabo.co.mz ;
Jan-Willem Sterk - shawu@intekom.co.za ;
Joachim Kouame - gracirangers@yahoo.fr ;
John Kahekwa - kakehkwajohn@yahoo.fr ;
Johnson Maoka - pilanesberg@telkomsa.net ;
Leon Serfontain - LeonS@sanparks.org ;
Leon Steyn - traleo@telkomsa.net ;
Lynn van Rooyen - JacquelineJ@sanparks.org ;
Marc McDonald - marc@loskop.co.za ;
Mike Fynn - matetsi@mweb.co.za ;
Neil Malan - ndlamiti3@telkomsa.net ;
Nicolaas van der Merwe - marlothp@mweb.co.za ;
Paddy Hagelthorn - savanna@lantic.net ;
Pamela Bristow - pbristow@ozone.pwv.gov.za ;
Paul Kalshoven - p.kalshozen@wanadoo.nl ;
Philip Hattingh - phattingh@tiscali.co.za ;
Ric Wilmot - ric@legendlodges.co.za ;
Ronald Haywood - muendi@lantic.net ;
Rudy Strydom - rjmstrydom@mail.sbic.co.za ;
Russell Smart - smart@aloe.fortcox.ac.za
Simon Struben - ecotrail@mweb.co.za ;
Snowy Botha - sbotha@clover.co.za ;
Susan Clark - clarks@waitrose.com ;
Trevor Langeveld - rockrivertraining@webmail.co.za ;
Uganda Wildlife Authority - uwa@uwa.or.ug ;
Vincent Ngcobo - vngcobo@kznwildlife.com ;
Vuyani Mapiya – div.divilliers@deaet.ecape.gov.za ;
Wayne Boyd - exeter@soft.co.za ;
Wayne Erlank - shibula@absamail.co.za
I have just posted the latest Game Ranger magazine (01 2007) so look out for it in your post box – If you didn’t get a copy it is either because you haven’t paid your membership fees recently or we don’t have an up to date address for you.
Don Yunnie
7 Chalet Drive, Hilton, 3245, South Africa Local Tel & Fax (033) 343 1534 Int. Tel & Fax (+2733) 343 1534 cell 082 377 7562 E-mail dyunnie@xsinet.co.za.
If you do not wish to receive this e-mail newsletter please send a blank e-mail to me at the above address with the word “unsubscribe C~S ” as the message heading.
South Africa: Towards a Climate of Greater Urgency
Business Day Opinion piece 12 June 2007
SO WHAT happened on climate change at the G-8+5 meeting last week? Was it a breakthrough - or too little, too late? The pace of negotiations has clearly been out of step with the urgency that climate science says we need. It not clear how much sense of urgency there was in Heiligendamm, but it was certainly big news.
In the north, the leading lights come from the European Union (EU), which has adopted a 20% emissions cut from historical levels by 2020 - minus 30% if other developed countries join in. In the east, both China and Japan have stated their seriousness to take responsibility. In the west, the sleeping giant - the U.S - is finally stirring. And in the south, developing countries such as SA and Brazil are asking: what is our fair share of climate action?
Together, this news amounts to significant movement. But it is still too little to call a breakthrough.
To claim a breakthrough, there would have be concrete targets for the reduction of emissions, such as those being suggested by the EU countries, Canada and Japan, which wanted to say that by 2050, global emissions need to be 50% less than they were in 1990. But the U.S, Russia and others would not agree, so the statement simply commits them to "seriously consider" such goals.
The first major outcome is that there is some movement on targets for mitigation -- reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The movement is that they are being talked about by all industrialised countries -- which is new for the U.S.
The second important outcome is there is a clearer signal that major developing countries will also have to act. Industrialised countries will still have to lead, but the difference in the kind of action that industrialised countries and developed ones take is starting to be framed.
Industrialised countries need stricter targets -- that is, absolute reductions of emission from historical levels. Developing countries must take more urgent action, which the G-8 text refers to as "reducing the carbon intensity of economic development". Intensity refers to the emissions per unit of economic outputs, tons of carbon dioxide per rand of gross domestic product (GDP). If GDP grows, emissions intensity can still improve, as long as the levels of emissions do not grow as fast as the economy. This "de-coupling" of emissions from GDP growth is an important step.
The statement to which the leaders of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and SA agreed received less media attention than that of the more prominent G-8 statement. Yet it is highly significant that at the highest level, these developing countries have said that "we need a flexible, fair and effective global framework and concerted international action" -- right next to a statement recommitting themselves to do their "fair share". This puts on the agenda a question that was previously taboo in climate negotiations -- what is a reasonable share of action, particularly on mitigation, by the more rapidly industrialising developing countries.
Another key outcome of the G-8 meeting was to reconfirm the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change as the forum for any future agreement. This should be old news, but it was not. The U.S. proposal the week before Heiligendamm tried to shift the entire negotiations on to its terms. The U.S. offered to invite the major economies and strike a deal within 18 months. The rest of the world, by implication, would simply have to take that deal, or no deal at all. The G-8+5 process quite smartly co-opted that process, agreeing to meet in the U.S. -- but that this U.S-initiated process would need to feed back into the UN convention. So it will be a two-step -- some agreement on mitigation among major emitters by 2008, to feed into the UN process to conclude by 2009.
So deeper cuts by industrialised countries were talked about, as were a fair share for major developing countries. But these were overshadowed by the new sense of urgency signalled by political leaders.
Perhaps the most important outcome of Heiligendamm was a political signal. The heads of government of the eight richest countries, together with five major developing country leaders, signalled that the pace of negotiations needs to pick up. The signal to negotiators is to start a new round of negotiations in Bali at the UN conference in December. And to conclude the round by 2009.
It is hard to overstate the importance of the 2009 signal for negotiations. Once an end-date is set, the pressure mounts: 2009 will be a big year in the climate negotiations. It should see a new deal, perhaps one that comes closer to agreeing on the scale of emission reductions needed.
/Winkler is a senior researcher at the Energy Research Centre, University of Cape Town. He writes in his personal capacity.
News from Jim Feely
Hi
Have just returned from East Africa where inter alia we were on a wonderful safari with James Culverwell. We visited Tom Butynski, one of the editors of the Mammals of Africa in prep, who told us about the Desert Warthog and its specific identity with the extinct Cape Warthog, a species distinct from the Common Warthog. Also how to identify it in the field: upper warts turned down at ends, ears very widely spaced, ears turned backward at tips, nasal disc as wide as mouth.
We then went to Tsavo East NP east of Voi, where lo and behold, we saw not one but two family groups of Desert Warthog, their identity confirmed by Tom from James' and Sheila's photos (see ours attached, not good but good enough, small camera) – note not attached - ed. This is a considerable extension of the known range, also previously unknown in Tsavo. A joint paper on this and other range extensions is in the offing with Tom, a colleague of his and James.
In conversation with Tom the subject was discussed of re-introducing the Desert Warthog to the Western and/or Eastern Cape Provinces where it occurred until the middle 19th century,
??e.g. Shamwari Game Reserve, Addo, Mountain Zebra, Camdeboo and Karoo National Parks, Greater Fish River Nature Reserve??. The purpose of this message is to raise this idea with you for your reactions.
Tom gave us copies of two relevant recent publications - too long to attach due to slow farm lines - as follows:
d'Huart, J-P & Grubb, P, 2001. Distribution of the common warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) and the desert warthog (Phacochoerus aethiopicus) in the Horn of Africa. African Journal of Ecology 39: 156-169.
d'Huart, J-P & Grubb, P, 2005 (December). Photographic guide to the differences between the Common Warthog (Phacochoerus africanus) and the Desert Warthog (Ph. aethiopicus). Suiform Soundings, PPHSG Newsletter, 5(2): 4-8. (available at: http://iucn.org/themes/ssc/sgs/pphsg/home.htm)
Looking forward to all your responses.
All the best
Jim & Sheila
J M Feely
Cornlands Farm, P O Box 237, Maclear, 5480, South Africa
ph: 045 9321 437, fax: 045 9321 713, mobile: 083 578 0337 only when away from home (where it doesn't work) , e-mail: jimfeely@xsinet.co.za
Editorial Observer, June 19, 2007Millions of Missing Birds, Vanishing in Plain Sight
By VERLYN KLINKENBORG
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/19/opinion/19tue4.html?th&emc=th
Last week, the Audubon Society released a new report describing the sharp and startling population decline of some of the most familiar and common birds in America: several kinds of sparrows, the Northern bobwhite, the Eastern meadowlark, the common grackle and the common tern. The average decline of the 20 species in the Audubon Society’s report is 68 percent.
Forty years ago, there were an estimated 31 million bobwhites. Now there are 5.5 million. Compared to the hundred-some condors presently in the wild, 5.5 million bobwhites sounds like a lot of birds. But what matters is the 25.5 million missing and the troubles that brought them down — and are all too likely to bring down the rest of them, too. So this is not extinction, but it is how things look before extinction happens.
The word “extinct” somehow brings to mind the birds that seem like special cases to us, the dodo or the great auk or the passenger pigeon. Most people would never have had a chance to see dodos and great auks on their remote islands before they were decimated in the 17th and 19th centuries. What is hard to remember about passenger pigeons isn’t merely their once enormous numbers. It’s the enormous numbers of humans to whom their comings and goings were a common sight and who supposed, erroneously, that such unending clouds of birds were indestructible. We recognize the extraordinary distinctness of the passenger pigeon now because we know its fate, killed off largely by humans. But we have moralized it thoroughly without ever really taking it to heart.
The question is whether we will see the distinctness of the field sparrow — its number is down from 18 million 40 years ago to 5.8 million — only when the last pair is being kept alive in a zoo somewhere. We love to finally care when the death watch is on. It makes us feel so very human.
Like you, I’ve been reading dire reports of declining species for many years now. They have the value of causing us to pay attention to species in trouble, and the sad fact is that the only species likely to endure are the ones we humans manage to pay attention to. There was a time when it was better, if you were a nonhuman species, to be ignored by humans because we trapped, shot or otherwise exploited all of the ones that got our attention. But in the past 40 years, we have killed all those millions of birds or, let us say, unintentionally caused a dramatic population loss, simply by going about business as usual.
Agriculture has intensified. So has development. Open space has been sharply reduced. We have simply pursued our livelihoods. We knew it was inimical to wolves and mountain lions. But we somehow trusted that all the innocent little birds were here to stay. What they actually need to survive, it turns out, is a landscape that is less intensely human.
The Audubon Society portrait of common bird species in decline is really a report on who humans are. Let me offer a proposition about Homo sapiens. We are the only species on earth capable of an ethical awareness of other species and, thus, the only species capable of happily ignoring that awareness. So far, our economic interests have proved to be completely incompatible with all but a very few forms of life. It’s not that we believe that other species don’t matter. It’s that, historically speaking, it hasn’t been worth believing one way or another. I don’t suppose that most Americans would actively kill a whippoorwill if they had the chance. Yet in the past 40 years its number has dropped by 1.6 million.
In our everyday economic behavior, we seem determined to discover whether we can live alone on earth. E.O. Wilson has argued eloquently and persuasively that we cannot, that who we are depends as much on the richness and diversity of the biological life around us as it does on any inherent quality in our genes. Environmentalists of every stripe argue that we must somehow begin to correlate our economic behavior — by which I mean every aspect of it: production, consumption, habitation — with the welfare of other species.
This is the premise of sustainability. But the very foundation of our economic interests is self-interest, and in the survival of other species we see way too little self to care.
The trouble with humans is that even the smallest changes in our behavior require an epiphany. And yet compared to the fixity of other species, the narrowness of their habitats, the strictness of their diets, the precision of the niches they occupy, we are flexibility itself.
We look around us, expecting the rest of the world’s occupants to adapt to the changes that we have caused, when, in fact, we have the right to expect adaptation only from ourselves.
* Report (295 kb)
http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/content/Report.pdf
* Table 7 (15 kb)
http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/content/Table7.pdf
* Table 9 (15 kb)
http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/content/Table9.pdf
* Appendix 1 (191 kb)
http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/content/Appendix1.pdf
* Appendix 2 (22 kb)
http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/content/Appendix2.pdf
* Appendix 3 (150 kb)
http://www.audubon.org/bird/stateofthebirds/CBID/content/Appendix3.pdf
INVITATION: KNP RANGERS DAY – 24 JULY 2007
You are warmly invited to attend the Kruger National Park Annual Rangers day display
The display is scheduled as follows:
Date : 24 July 2007
Venue : Letaba Shooting Range
Time : 07H30 for 08H00
RSVP:
Lombard Shirindzi ; Tel: 013 735 6311 & Cell: 0784606072. email: lombards@sanparks.org &
Derick Mashale ; Tel: 013 735 6060 & Cell: 084 700 1486. derickm@sanparks.org
It will be appreciated if you can indicate your availability before the 30 June 2007. Accommodation will be on your own account.
Your presence will be highly appreciated.
Regards
KNP RANGERS
Morné du Plessis appointed as WWF CEO
June 2007
WWF South Africa, the conservation organization, has announced the appointment of distinguished conservationist Dr Morné du Plessis as CEO.
Dr du Plessis has headed the Percy FitzPatrick Institute (PFIAO) at UCT since 1996. Dr Rob Little, who has acted as CEO will resume his duties as WWF’s Director of Conservation.
Mark Read, Chairman of WWF South Africa, said: “In our search for a new CEO we were conscious of the need to find a conservationist, so we’re delighted to have secured Dr du Plessis’ services.
“We’re very pleased to have been able to appoint Dr du Plessis and make the announcement in World Environment Week. He has made a significant contribution to conservation and we expect WWF’s work in promoting sustainable use of natural resources to progress under his leadership.”
Dr du Plessis completed his PhD on the “Behavioural Ecology of the Red-billed Woodhoopoe in South Africa” at the PFIAO in 1989. During a post-doctoral stint in the USA, he spent six months at the University of New Mexico and a further year at the Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, UC Berkeley. Up until this time most of his research focused on the evolution of co-operative breeding in birds.
Upon his return to South Africa in 1992, he took up a contract position at the PFIAO and later moved as Biodiversity Research Co-ordinator to the Natal Parks Board in 1994. Shortly after his move out of academia he was awarded the first Foundation of Research Development's President's Award within the Animal Sciences. After two-and-a-half years at the coal-face of conservation research, he took on the directorship of the PFIAO in September 1996.
Dr du Plessis is no stranger to WWF, as he previously chaired WWF’s Project Approval Group and currently chairs its Conservation Committee. An announcement will be made at some stage on when he will take up his duties as CEO.
More land claims settled in the Wetland Park 9 June 2007
Five more land claims in the 220 000 ha Greater St Lucia Wetland Park have been settled after extensive negotiations with affected communities. The historic signing of agreements took place today at Mnqobokazi near the uMkhuze Game Reserve section of the Park which became South Africa’s first World Heritage Site in 1999. At the time the Park was a 100 percent under claim. Today’s agreements bring settlement of claims to 75 percent of the 220 000ha Park..
Title now passes from the State to the new landowners with restrictions in title including that the land remains under formal conservation and part of the Park for ever.
Principles of economic viability, financial sustainability and holistic management are incorporated. Mining continues to be prohibited. The Park will continue to be managed by the Wetland Authority established in 2000 for this purpose, with Ezemvelo KZN Wildlife as its conservation partner. Going forward, co-management agreements will be entered into with each Landowner Trust.
Signatories to the agreements were the Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs, Lulu Xingwana; the Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk; Chief Land Claims Commissioner Tozi Gwanya; KZN
Land Claims Commissioner Siduduzile Sosibo; Wetland Authority CEO Andrew Zaloumis and each of the Land Claimant Trust Chairpersons of Sokhulu, Mnqobokazi, KwaJobe, Nsinde and Mdletshe.
Together the 5 claims total about 12 000ha and include 1550 households who will be compensated R14.5 million, with a futher R52 million being paid by government to the Land Owner Trust as development grants. While not large in area they include high value conservation areas. As mandatory partners, claimants now have preference in activities like employment and training, sharing of gate revenues, ownership in tourist developments and natural resource harvesting like incema reeds.
In a message read to assembled communities and guests, Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk said: “It is fitting I acknowledge the history of suffering associated with conservation in this country. Along with many of our protected areas, the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park was an area where people once lived – we can trace the story of occupation of this area back to the early Stone Age people between 500 000 and one million years ago. Ironically and unfortunately, conservation and forced removals went hand-in-hand."
“The Wetland Park is one of the world’s outstanding natural treasures. Its five unique ecosystems include species such as black rhino, oribi, wild dog, elephant, cheetah, whales and coelacanths."
“This new model for conservation is evidence of the government’s commitment to continuing to fulfill its national and international obligations to protect our natural assets whilst at the same time providing a framework for economic upliftment and poverty alleviation.”
Sixteen parcels of land have been consolidated to create the World Heritage Site. New access roads, tourism routes, game fences and improved beach, boating and camp facilities have been created.
Wetland Park CEO Andrew Zaloumis said: “There are still many challenges. Among them ensuring progress continues towards putting an end to the paradox of poverty amidst the plenty of nature. Restitution and sustainable settlement of land claims is key to this.”
* The Greater St Lucia Wetland Park has been officially renamed iSimangaliso Wetland Park as gazetted in May. The new name comes into effect on November 1.
Amendment bills shock for landowners and environmentalists
Environmentalists are gravely concerned about proposed legislative amendments before Parliament – by two government departments - they say will take away any control of landowners over their own land and also deny the public any participation in environmental impact assessments (EIAs).
If a key element in proposed amendments to legislation is accepted, hugely positive environmental gains made since the advent of democracy in 1994 could be reversed, the Botanical Society of SA has warned, and result in an effective blanket exemption from environmental authorisation being published for public comment.
Angela Andrews of the Legal Resources Centre has described the amendment proposed by the Minister of Environment and Tourism to chapter 5 of the National Environmental Management Act (NEMA), the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) Regulations, 2006, as: “one of the worst pieces of legislation I have seen in a long time.”
“It completely undermines the whole system of environmental impact assessment legislation and leaves it in the hands of officials to exercise discretion as to whether they will apply NEMA section 23 and 24 at all. No guidance is given as to how to exercise this discretion and no provision is made for public participation.”
Of particular concern to land owners, is the Department of Minerals and Energy (DME) introduction on 9 May 2007 to Parliament of the Mineral and Petroleum Development Amendment Bill (MPRDA). If passed, it will effectively give anyone the ability to apply for a prospecting or mining licence on your land without even having to inform you.
Download a copy of the bill from Download a copy of the Bill
The Bill inserts into the MPRDA a new section 39 entitled ‘Environmental Authorisations’ as well as several new definitions of terms used in NEMA EIA procedures (e.g. ‘basic assessment report’). Applicants for various mining authorisations will in future need to apply for an environmental authorisation. However, these environmental authorisations will not be issued by the provincial or national organs of state responsible for the environment in accordance with the NEMA EIA regulations, but by the DME, in accordance with regulations made under the MPRDA and after considering comments from State departments responsible for administering environmental laws.
The environmental justice group groundWork stated in its submission on this bill that “it is clear from the experience of people and as witnessed by groundWork that peoples’ land is still in the present dispensation being taken away from them in order that mining operations can take place.”
“The consultation in terms of section 4(c) calling upon ‘notifying and consulting with the land owner or lawful occupier of the land in question’ is critical to enable people to secure their rights. Changing this to the present formulation of ‘giving the land owner or lawful occupier of the land in question at least 21 days written notice’ allows for companies and government to act unilaterally in confiscating peoples’ land and therefore their livelihoods. groundWork opposes such a change and believes that the original phrasing should be maintained.”
June 4 was the closing date for comments on Environmental Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk EIA amendments. The amendments seek to provide decision-makers with greater flexibility when considering applications for environmental authorisations. It is particularly concerning to note that the amendments are designed to allow the authorities to grant exemption from not only the EIA Regulations, 2006 but also from provisions of the Act that deal with environmental authorisations.
The legislation does not give guidance on the criteria to be applied in deciding whether or not to grant an exemption. The proposed amendments to the EIA Regulations, 2006, also do away with the need to obtain the landowners consent where a third party intends to undertake a listed activity on that owner's land. And, they attempt to streamline the number of activities that may require basic assessment or scoping and EIA.
According to environmental law specialists Winstanley and Cullinan, while the attempts to refine and streamline the EIA process is welcome, there is a real danger that the largely unfettered powers of exemption will create a major loophole through which inappropriate and unsustainable development projects will slip.
“It seems that not only the DME, but also the DEAT who is supposed to protect the environment, are creating inappropriate loopholes with the kind of flexibility that, if given to government organizations verges on dictatorship - stripping people of their rights to participatory governance,” said a statement from the environmental group Earthlife Africa.
“Are South Africans aware that these proposed amendments will do away with their rights as landowners since landowners' consent is not required where a third party intends to undertake a listed activity on that owner's land?”
The statement added that it was also shocking to learn that the government has delayed between two and three years in producing very important strategic planning reports: the National Environmental Outlook (formerly the State of Environment Report) and the National Framework for Sustainable Development (formerly the National Strategy for Sustainable Development).
Despite lobbying from six large environmental groups (the Endangered Wildlife Trust, BirdLife South Africa, Botanical Society of SA, Wilderness Foundation South Africa, Wildlife and Environment Society of SA and WWF South Africa) government has not yet released these reports that could have huge significance in relation to planning and use of South Africa's natural resources.
“Does the government assume that these resources are infinite?” asked the Earthlife Africa statement. “The Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism needs to speak up on behalf of the natural resources of South Africa as a protector - not allow this nation to be plundered by foreign industries and left destitute.”
The NGOs have called on government to release the reports as these studies represent independent, objective reviews of the opportunities and constraints to development, based on the country’s natural resource base, reports the Sunday Tribune.
In the absence of these reports, plans are being made which assume our natural resources are infinite. The lack of access to information contained in the two reports often inhibited NGOs and officials from the DEAT from achieving their reasonable goals. The NGOs also demanded reasons for the delay, a time frame and written commitment for the release of the reports.
The department has responded by saying the sustainable development framework will be publicly released after a final set of stakeholder consultations, probably by end of July, and the outlook report by the end of June.
Both these departments are actively involved in the government’s R150bn nuclear plan for 36 Nuclear Pebble Bed Modular Reactors plus another 10 to 15 conventional nuclear reactors countrywide, as well as a large scale resurgence of uranium mining.
This Information Brought to you by www.environment.co.za
Tailpiece-
Nigel Johnson-Hill, Park Farm, Milland, Liphook, GU30 7JT
To Rt Hon David Miliband MP
Secretary of State.
Nobel House,
17 Smith Square
London SW1P 3JR
16 May 2007
Dear Secretary of State,
My friend, who is farming at the moment, recently received a cheque for £3 000. from the Rural Payments Agency for not rearing pigs. I would like to join the “not rearing pigs” business.
In your opinion, what is the best kind of farm not to rear pigs on, and which is the best breed of pigs not to rear? I want to be sure I approach this endeavour in keeping with all government policies, as dictated by the EU under the Common Agricultural Policy. I would prefer not to rear bacon pigs, but if this is not the type you want not rearing, I will just as gladly not rear porkers. Are there any advantages in not rearing rare breeds such as Saddlebacks or Gloucester Old Spots, or are there too many people already not rearing these?
As I see it, the hardest part of this programme will be keeping an accurate record of how many pigs I haven’t reared. Are there any Government or Local Authorities courses on this?
My friend is very satisfied with this business. He has been rearing pigs for forty years or so, and the best he ever made on them was £1,422 in 1968. That is – until this year, when he received a cheque for not rearing any.
If I get £3,000 for not rearing 50 pigs, will I get £6,000 for not rearing 100?
I plan to operate on a small scale at first, holding myself down to about 4,000 pigs not raised, which will mean about £240 000 for the first year. As I become more expert in not rearing pigs, I plan to be more ambitious, perhaps increasing to, say, 40,000 pigs not reared in my second year, for which I should expect about £2.4 million from your department. Incidentally, I wonder if I would be eligible to receive tradable carbon credits for all these pigs not producing harmful and polluting methane gases?
Another point: these pigs that I plan not to rear will not eat 2,000 tonnes of cereals. I understand that you also pay farmers for not growing crops. Will I qualify for payments for not growing cereals to not feed the pigs I don’t rear?
I am also considering the “not milking cows” business, so please send any information you have on that too. Please could you also include the current Defra advice on set aside fields? Can this be done on an e-commerce basis with virtual fields (of which I seem to have several thousand hectares)?
In view of the above you will realize that I will be totally unemployed, and will therefore qualify for unemployment benefits.
I shall of course be voting for your party at the next general election.
Yours faithfully
Nigel Johnson-Hill
Matter of Fact
This is an electronic newsletter of the Game Rangers' Association of Africa. The opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the Association, nor of the Editor. This is intended to be an exchange of news snips, ideas and communication between members. Newsletter content may be copied and re-distributed without authorisation. Correspondence should be addressed to the Editor at dyunnie@xsinet.co.za