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.
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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.
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INTERNATIONAL World Ranger Day A Great Success
This report was released officially on the NPS website. It details the activities of World Ranger Day. I thought you would like to see it.
World Ranger Day was celebrated around the earth on Tuesday, July 31st, and reports indicate that it was a truly global event, with thousands of people attending events held in the U.S. and more than 50 other nations.
World Ranger Day is an event that was conceived and advanced by the International Ranger Federation (IRF), a consortium of national and state ranger associations from countries around the world - from Korea to Rumania, from Argentina to Iceland, from South Africa to Canada. The member associations from the United States are the California State Park Rangers Association and the Association of National Park Rangers.
At the 2006 IRF World Ranger Congress in Scotland, delegates decided that July 31st of each year, beginning in 2007, would be a day dedicated to rangers all around the globe. This first World Ranger Day fell on the 15th anniversary of the founding of IRF in 1992.
This year's inaugural celebration centered on the release of a new international ranger documentary entitled The Thin Green Line which was put together by Australian ranger Sean Willmore. Based on reports he's received, Willmore estimates that more than 12,000 people saw the DVD on World Ranger Day.
World Ranger Day also received strong support throughout this country, including the following:
Here are some first-hand reports on events held in the United States:
Los Angeles - The Los Angeles premier of The Thin Green Line took place at the Mountain Recreation and Conservation Authority's (MRCA) King Gillette Ranch in Calabasas, California. Eighty people picnicked on the lawn and ate popcorn while viewing the screening on an outdoor screen under a starry southern California evening. Uniformed rangers from the MRCA, California State Parks, Glendale City Parks, and the National Park Service were in the audience. MRCA ranger Jewel Johnson coordinated the event, which included a raffle to raise money for the IRF dependent's fund. A ranger hat cake baked by MRCA supervisory ranger Fernando Gomez and a display of world ranger uniforms topped off the evening. Over $1,000 was raised for the fund. [Jeff Ohlfs]
Rocky Mountain NP - On the evening of July 31st, nearly 70 people attended the showing of The Thin Green Line in honor of World Ranger Day. The event was promoted on the front page of the local Estes Park newspaper, highlighting the International Ranger Federation. Over $200 was collected that evening for the Friends of the International Ranger Federation, and many participants took brochures with them to send contributions. [Kyle Patterson]
Yosemite NP - About 75 visitors watched The Thin Green Line in Lower Pines Campground on World Ranger Day. One of the park's long-term seasonals, retired principal Larry Montgomery from Kentucky, facilitated the viewing of the film. There was applause at the beginning and end of the film. The park plans to show the film to staff this fall and winter. [Chris Stein]
Acadia NP - Close to 60 people watched the DVD at the showing in Bar Harbor, and another 70 attended the showing in Schoodic. They contributed $470, and the Friends of Acadia raised the sum to $500. The money will go to the ranger dependents' fund. [Charlie Jacobi, Dave Buccello]
Shenandoah NP - About 50 people attended the showing. Donations weren't collected, but cards were provided with the website and contact information. The DVD will also be shown to park staff in coming weeks. [Karen Michaud]
Washington Office - About two dozen people attended the showing of The Thin Green Line at the Eye Street office. Cam Sholly, deputy associate director for visitor and resource protection, gave an introduction. He spoke about the history of rangers, about rangers at work overseas, and about rangering in the U.S. The movie was well received. [Dave Krewson]
Sequoia-Kings Canyon NPs - More than 100 visitors and off-duty staff attended the showing in the auditorium at Lodgepole. The event was emceed by Russ Wilson, the park's deputy superintendent, and attended by many members of the management team. Although collections were not allowed, everyone who attended received information about the project and IRF. There were cheers when Sequoia-Kings Canyon rangers were featured and tears during the sad moments. [Alexandra Picavet]
Saguaro NP - The park hosted two showings of the film. About two dozen people attended. The Tucson area experienced a major monsoon storm yesterday, which partially accounted for the light attendance. Those who attended very much enjoyed the program, and many wanted to know more about IRF. Meg Weesner introduced the film for both showings and answered questions afterwards. The park collected about $50 in donations. [Bob Love]
Apostle Islands NS - About 30 people attended the screening at the Northern Great Lakes Visitor Center in Ashland, Wisconsin - an interagency facility owned by the Forest Service, with two other federal conservation agency and state agency partners, including the NPS. Bob Krumenaker, the park's superintendent, introduced the film. There was applause at the end, with viewers saying that they'd been inspired by the film. One viewer said that he had no idea what things were really like "out there." [Bob Krumenaker]
Washita Battlefield NHS - World Ranger Day was a small affair held over two days. The entire park staff saw the film and were joined by several visitors. A poster on the event was placed in the headquarters window. Another showing is planned once the park completes its move to new facilities. It will also be shown at a nearby university. [Wendy Lauritzen]
Golden Gate NRA - About 75 rangers from several state and federal agencies attended a day of seminars, panel discussions and other World Ranger Day events. The Thin Green Line was shown in the evening and was very well received. Some of the rangers attending from other agencies had never met before as a group. On the second day, there was a public "ranger day" along the San Francisco waterfront, during which agencies brought out ranger fear for people to look at and talked about their work. Four more showings were held during the day. [Tony Sisto]
Glen Canyon NRA - Fifty people attended the screening, which was sponsored by the Glen Canyon Natural History Association. It was well received. [Kevin Schneider]
Rick Smith
2 Roadrunner Trail
Placitas, NM 87043
Tel: 505-867-0047
Cell: 595-259-7161
Fax: 505-867-4175
rsmith0921@earthlink.net
Zimbabwe has declared open season
HSUS/Kathy Milani
By Bernard Unti
As famine looms for millions of his poorer citizens, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe has declared open season on one of his nation¹s greatest treasures characterized his whole career, Mugabe has ordered rangers at Zimbabwe¹s National Parks to cooperate with rural authorities in the wholesale killing of wild animals, including elephants.
The expressed goal of the political strongman who has dominated Zimbabwe since it gained political independence in 1980? To feed a hungry rural constituency whose support ensured him a majority of seats in Zimbabwe¹s March 2005 parliamentary elections.
An indeterminate number of wild animals were killed by authorities during the run up to the March elections, with at least ten elephants barbecued as part of the March 18 celebrations commemorating the 25th anniversary of Zimbabwe¹s independence. Four of the elephants were shot by park rangers, reportedly in the presence of tourists near the Matusadona National Park bordering Lake Kariba. The others were killed by a farmer at the request of a local rural council in the Urungwe Safari Area bordering the Mana Pools National Park.
Rangers killing elephants is nothing new. They¹ve been shooting a limited number of these animals for years in an attempt to minimize human-wildlife conflicts on the borders of Zimbabwe¹s parks, but in the wake of Mugabe¹s order, these actions have taken on an ominous cast to many observers. Specifically, Mugabe¹s Operation Nyama, or ³Operation Meat,² which kills elephants to provide meat for starving villagers, has come under fire for being nothing more than a front for illegal ivory poaching.
The Politics of Famine
This latest threat to Zimbabwe¹s wildlife is inextricably tied to the politics of food. Notoriously scornful of western nations, Mugabe has rejected international offers of food aid and denied the claims of his
political opposition, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), that Zimbabwe cannot meet the challenge of its food shortage without help. The MDC has urged the government to seek international assistance.
A recent communiqu&rom the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) confirms Zimbabwe¹s dire condition. The agency issued an emergency alert on May 2 saying that Zimbabwe¹s summer grain harvest will not satisfy the food needs of its residents. The country¹s population exceeds 12 million, of whom an estimated four million rural poor are affected by food shortages. Mugabe has acknowledged that Zimbabwe faces a threat of famine, and has sworn that he will not let his people go hungry. During the March elections Mugabe essentially campaigned on a Vote for Us or Starve platform. But Mugabe faces many crises at the moment: Once the engine of a promising postcolonial state, Zimbabwe¹s economy is in free fall, with high unemployment, hyperinflation, and shrinking capital investment. The country also faces water, electricity, and fuel shortages, and an accelerating crime rate.
Given all the country¹s problems U. S. Congress recently questioned whether the international community¹s policy of isolating Mugabe¹s government was the right approach. Members of Congress instead called for a concerted effort at strategic engagement, with the United States and members of the African Union, especially South Africa, pressing Mugabe to reform.
Responding to Mugabe's proposal, Andrew Rowan, executive vice president for operations for The HSUS, sent a letter on May 2 asking that Zimbabwe reconsider its position on accepting food relief from international agencies. Rowan's letter to Mugabe pointed out that outside assistance would help Zimbabwe's people and its animals, preventing further damage to the nation's wildlife sector and setting the stage for Zimbabwe's future as a premiere venue for wildlife-related tourism.
Land Redistribution
Even before Mugabe¹s latest decree, Zimbabwe¹s wildlife was in serious peril, especially from the controversial land redistribution program sponsored by his government.
In 2000, Mugabe ordered the confiscation of white-owned farms for redistribution to peasants and political supporters. This marked the culmination of two decades of battles over land policy that pitted Mugabe against white farmers, political opponents, and the United Kingdom, which as a colonial power once governed the nation formerly called Rhodesia.
With Mugabe¹s encouragement, thousands of black Zimbabweans invaded the nation¹s farms. The destruction that ensued caused white farmers to flee, crippled the economy, and ushered in widespread commodity shortages, as the commercial farming sector, once an important source of exports and jobs, was devastated.
The presumed beneficiaries of land redistribution did not fare very well, either. With poor soil quality and low rainfall, many of the subdivided properties proved too barren to sustain crops. Thus, thousands of Zimbabweans turned to poaching as a source of food and income, trapping animals for their own sustenance as well as for an expanding market in bush meat.
The new settlers were indiscriminate in their killing of animals, but their main targets were antelopes (kudu and impala), buffaloes, elephants, giraffes, leopards, wildebeests, and zebras.
The Spread of Disease
Hunting and wildlife-related tourism were once the source of millions of dollars annually for Zimbabwe¹s economy; millions of acres of lands too arid or rocky for farming could sustain wildlife, and proved well-suited for photographic and shooting safaris. Despite his promise that the compulsory acquisition of white-owned lands would be limited to agricultural farms, it was not long before private reserves and conservancies were under siege.
Mugabe loyalists, politicians, police officials, the landless poor and other parties participated in a virtual invasion of private and state-owned conservation areas, killing animals for their meat and skins.
By burning grazing lands and chopping down trees along the way, the mostly impoverished legions decimated Zimbabwe¹s natural environment, even as they took a fatal toll on their nation¹s wild animal population. After all, the indigenous savannah woodland that characterized many ranches and conservancies provided suitable habitat for many rare species, including African wild dogs, cheetah, black rhino, and roan and sable antelope.
While these game ranches were never perfectly ³safe² for animals, they were at least guarded by scouts, and animals enjoyed relative safety when not within the sights of a trophy hunter¹s rifle. What¹s more, during the 1990s, such ventures enjoyed a measure of protection from the Mugabe regime, which viewed them as a reliable revenue source.
Making matters worse, once the land invasions began, trophy hunters, biltong hunters, and illegal safari operators from South Africa and elsewhere took advantage of Zimbabwe¹s unstable circumstances, bribing their way into conservation areas at a pittance, to shoot cheetahs, elephants, leopards, lions, and other animals.
Food or Trophies?
By some estimates, the combined effect of the lawlessness and disorder of the last few years has been the loss of 80% of the wild animals in Zimbabwe¹s wildlife conservancies and game farms animals in its national parks. The grim toll has shaken wildlife protection advocates. Until the mid-1990s, the relative abundance of certain species in Zimbabwe had given advocates hope that Zimbabwe could become a haven for wildlife.
Until 2000, for example, Zimbabwe had the world¹s single largest concentration of black rhinos, approximately 500 in number, having recovered from a critical two-decade decline. But in 2004, Johnny Rodrigues of the Zimbabwe Conservation Task Force estimated that only 200 rhinos remained. The slaughtered rhinos¹ horns, hacked off by poachers and others, are highly valued in East Asia, where they can bring up to $90,000.
Elephants, too, had been thriving in Zimbabwe until the recent turmoil. In 2001, the Zimbabwe Department of National Parks and Wildlife, together with the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), placed the number of elephants within the country at 84,000 justify their ongoing efforts to cull elephants or ease trade restrictions. For example, in 1999, amidst bitter international controversy, Zimbabwe received permission from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to sell ivory to Japan on a limited and strictly monitored basis.
Mugabe's latest plan, Operation Nyama, may be even more controversial. Some believe that the campaign to provide elephant meat to starving villagers in northern Matabeleland is providing cover for an officially sanctioned poaching ring that moves ivory out of Zimbabwe and into illicit markets. Operation Nyama was to have ended in December, but in early March, it was reportedly still going strong.
Zimbabwe already has huge stockpiles of ivory, an estimated 24,000 kilograms. Worldwide demand, were it not hampered by the CITES prohibition and steady political pressure to maintain the ban, would make ivory a ready source of foreign exchange revenue for Zimbabwe were the international markets to open up.
The Wisdom of Elephants
In December 2003, British journalist Michael Durham published a story in The Guardian about elephant ³refugees² who fled Zimbabwe by wading across the Zambezi River into Zambia to avoid being killed by poachers, marauders, and illegal trophy hunters. The elephants¹ movement seemed to exceed normal rates of seasonal migration and a Zambian game warden told Durham that it was not a coincidence. Elephants are quite intelligent and can communicate. They know they are safer on this side of the river.
The wisdom of elephants notwithstanding, it won¹t be possible for the majority of Zimbabwe¹s wildlife to evade the long shadow cast by President Mugabe. Should Mugabe¹s orders take hold, Zimbabwe¹s national parks, where wildlife losses have not been as high as those on game farms and conservancies, will be in trouble. Dispatching armed rangers into parks with orders to kill animals for their meat would provide no real answer to Zimbabwe¹s food crisis or its other problems. It would be a disaster and should it occur, treasures such as Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe¹s largest park and one of Africa¹s outstanding havens for wild animals, will become nothing less than hollowed-out monuments of a nation¹s political, social, and ecological collapse.
Cry of the Wild
Last week four gorillas were slaughtered in Congo. With hunting on the rise, our most majestic animals are facing a new extinction crisis.
Baby Gorilla Survivor
By Sharon Begley, Newsweek
Aug. 6, 2007 issue - On the lush plains of Congo's Virunga National Park last week, the convoy of porters rounded the final hill and trooped into camp. They gently set down the wooden frame they had carried for miles, and with it the very symbol of the African jungle: a 600-pound silverback mountain gorilla. A leader of a troop often visited by tourists, his arms and legs were lashed to the wood, his head hanging low and spots of blood speckling his fur. The barefoot porters, shirts torn and pants caked with dust from their trek, lay him beside three smaller gorillas, all females, who had also been killed, then silently formed a semicircle around the bodies. As the stench of death wafted across the camp in the waning afternoon light, a park warden stepped forward. "What man would do this?" he thundered. He answered himself: "Not even a beast would do this."
Park rangers don't know who killed the four mountain gorillas found shot to death in Virunga, but it was the seventh killing of the critically endangered primates in two months. Authorities doubt the killers are poachers, since the gorillas' bodies were left behind and an infant—who could bring thousands of dollars from a collector—was found clinging to its dead mother in one of the earlier murders. The brutality and senselessness of the crime had conservation experts concerned that the most dangerous animal in the world had found yet another excuse to slaughter the creatures with whom we share the planet. "This area must be immediately secured," said Deo Kujirakwinja of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Congo Program, "or we stand to lose an entire population of these endangered animals."
To Help, WildlifeDirect http://www:wildlifedirect.org/
Back when the Amazon was aflame and the forests of Southeast Asia were being systematically clear-cut, biologists were clear about what posed the greatest threat to the world's wildlife, and it wasn't men with guns. For decades, the chief threat was habitat destruction. Whether it was from impoverished locals burning a forest to raise cattle or a multinational denuding a tree-covered Malaysian hillside, wildlife was dying because species were being driven from their homes. Yes, poachers killed tigers and other trophy animals—as they had since before Theodore Roosevelt—and subsistence hunters took monkeys for bushmeat to put on their tables, but they were not a primary danger.
That has changed. "Hunting, especially in Central and West Africa, is much more serious than we imagined," says Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International. "It's huge," with the result that hunting now constitutes the pre-eminent threat to some species. That threat has been escalating over the past decade largely because the opening of forests to logging and mining means that roads connect once impenetrable places to towns. "It's easier to get to where the wildlife is and then to have access to markets," says conservation biologist Elizabeth Bennett of the Wildlife Conservation Society. Economic forces are also at play. Thanks to globalization, meat, fur, skins and other animal parts "are sold on an increasingly massive scale across the world," she says. Smoked monkey carcasses travel from Ghana to New York and London, while gourmets in Hanoi and Guangzhou feast on turtles and pangolins (scaly anteaters) from Indonesia. There is a thriving market for bushmeat among immigrants in Paris, New York, Montreal, Chicago and other points in the African diaspora, with an estimated 13,000 pounds of bushmeat—much of it primates—arriving every month in seven European and North American cities alone. "Hunting and trade have already resulted in widespread local extinctions in Asia and West Africa," says Bennett. "The world's wild places are falling silent."
When a company wins a logging or mining concession, it immediately builds roads wide enough for massive trucks where the principal access routes had been dirt paths no wider than a jaguar. "Almost no tropical forests remain across Africa and Asia which are not penetrated by logging or other roads," says Bennett. Hunters and weapons follow, she notes, "and wildlife flows cheaply and rapidly down to distant towns where it is either sold directly or links in to global markets." How quickly can opening a forest ravage the resident wildlife? Three weeks after a logging company opened up one Congo forest, the density of animals fell more than 25 percent; a year after a logging road went into forest areas in Sarawak, Malaysia, in 2001, not a single large mammal remained.
To Help, WildlifeDirect http://www:wildlifedirect.org/
A big reason why hunting used to pale next to habitat destruction is that as recently as the 1990s animals were killed mostly for subsistence, with locals taking only what they needed to live. Governments and conservation groups helped reduce even that through innovative programs giving locals an economic stake in the preservation of forests and the survival of wildlife. In the mountains of Rwanda, for instance, tourists pay $500 to spend an hour with the majestic mountain gorillas, bolstering the economy of the surrounding region. But recent years have brought a more dangerous kind of hunter, and not only because they use AK-47s and even land mines to hunt.
The problem now is that hunting, even of supposedly protected animals, is a global, multimillion-dollar business. Eating bushmeat "is now a status symbol," says Thomas Brooks of Conservation International. "It's not a subsistence issue. It's not a poverty issue. It's considered supersexy to eat bushmeat." Exact figures are hard to come by, but what conservation groups know about is sobering. Every year a single province in Laos exports $3.6 million worth of wildlife, including pangolins, cats, bears and primates. In Sumatra, about 51 tigers were killed each year between 1998 and 2002; there are currently an estimated 350 tigers left on the island (down from 1,000 or so in the 1980s) and fewer than 5,000 in the world.
If a wild population is large enough, it can withstand hunting. But for many species that "if" has not existed for decades. As a result, hunting in Kilum-Ijim, Cameroon, has pushed local elephants, buffalo, bushbuck, chimpanzees, leopards and lions to the brink of extinction. The common hippopotamus, which in 1996 was classified as of "least concern" because its numbers seemed to be healthy, is now "vulnerable": over the past 10 years its numbers have fallen as much as 20 percent, largely because the hippos are illegally hunted for meat and ivory. Pygmy hippos, classified as "vulnerable" in 2000, by last year had become endangered, at risk of going extinct. Logging has allowed bushmeat hunters to reach the West African forests where the hippos live; fewer than 3,000 remain.
Setting aside parks and other conservation areas is only as good as local enforcement. "Half of the major protected areas in Southeast Asia have lost at least one species of large mammal due to hunting, and most have lost many more," says Bennett. In Thailand's Doi Inthanon and Doi Suthep National Parks, for instance, elephants, tigers and wild cattle have been hunted into oblivion, as has been every primate and hornbill in Sarawak's Kubah National Park. The world-famous Project Tiger site in India's Sariska National Park has no tigers, biologists announced in 2005. Governments cannot afford to pay as many rangers as are needed to patrol huge regions, and corruption is rife. The result is "empty-forest syndrome": majestic landscapes where flora and small fauna thrive, but where larger wildlife has been hunted out.
To Help, WildlifeDirect http://www:wildlifedirect.org/
Which is not to say the situation is hopeless. With governments and conservationists recognizing the extinction threat posed by logging and mining, they are taking steps to ensure that animals do not come out along with the wood and minerals. In one collaboration, the government of Congo and the WCS work with a Swiss company, Congolaise Industrielle des Bois—which has a logging concession near Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park—to ensure that employees and their families hunt only for their own food needs; the company also makes sure that bushmeat does not get stowed away on logging trucks as illegal hunters try to take their haul to market. Despite the logging, gorillas, chimps, forest elephants and bongos are thriving in the park.
Anyone who thrills at the sight of man's distant cousins staring silently through the bush can only hope that the executions of Virunga's gorillas is an aberration. At the end of the week, UNESCO announced that it was sending a team to investigate the slaughter.
With Scott Johnson in Virunga Park and Julie Scelfo in New York
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc
UN General Assembly meeting on climate change
Dear BIOPLANNERS,
As a quick follow-up to my posting of 24th July, please see below an International Herald Tribune story on the first-ever UN General Assembly meeting on climate change.
Best wishes
David Duthie
UNEP-GEF Biosafety Unit, Geneva, Email: david.duthie @ unep.ch
-- General Assembly needs extra day for first climate change meeting because worried nations wanted to speak The Associated Press, Published: August 2, 2007 http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/08/02/news/UN-GEN-UN-Climate-Change.php
UNITED NATIONS: The first-ever U.N. General Assembly meeting devoted exclusively to climate change needed an extra day on Thursday to hear speakers from nations worried about the impact of global warming and impatient for international action.
Calling climate change "the most pressing and important international issue of our time," Britain's U.N. Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said "the world is actually motivated on the issue in a way it wasn't" in January — "and the political momentum has to just grow and grow."
"Never has the challenge we face from climate change been so well understood, or so evident. We face a shared dilemma, developed and developing countries alike. Collective international action by us all ... is imperative. It is not a choice," Jones Parry said.
Deciding on that action will likely take several years of intense and difficult negotiations, which are expected to start at a December meeting on the Indonesian island of Bali. It will focus on a replacement for the Kyoto protocol, which requires 35 industrial nations to cut their global-warming emissions 5 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, when the accord expires.
The question of what to do has become increasingly complex because of competing environmental, economic and energy concerns from countries with different priorities. Today on IHT.com Search for survivors moves slowly at collapsed Minneapolis bridge Company accused of abducting Filipinos to build U.S. Embassy in Iraq Suspect burned in Glasgow attack dies
The United States, the largest emitter of greenhouse gases, is not a party to the Kyoto agreement and large developing countries such as China, the second-largest emitter, India and Brazil are exempt from its obligations. They are afraid they will be called on to reduce emissions after 2012, which would hurt their economic growth and poverty-eradication efforts.
At the same time, small island states in the Pacific are demanding action to deal with rising sea levels, while oil-producing countries are concerned that a major source of revenue is going to be harmed by climate change action in the future.
The General Assembly meeting is part of a major U.N. effort to generate support from political leaders and ordinary citizens around the world who have been affected by drought, floods, searing heat and other climate changes caused by global warming.
It was scheduled to last two days, with an opening day for panel discussions, and a closing day for speeches. But nearly 100 of the 192 U.N. member states wanted to speak, so an extra session was scheduled on Thursday.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who has made climate change a top priority since taking the reins of the U.N. on Jan. 1, said at Tuesday's opening session that the issue "is finally receiving the very highest attention it merits."
"I am convinced that this challenge, and what we do about it, will define us, our era, and ultimately, our global legacy, " he said. "It is time for new thinking. We all need to shoulder this responsibility, not just for ourselves, but for our children and their children."
Ban urged all countries to reach an agreement by 2009 on a successor to the Kyoto protocol that tackles climate change on all fronts including developing clean technologies, addressing deforestation, ensuring that developing countries can continue economic growth, and mobilizing resources to fund the programs.
Ban said he is convening a high-level meeting on climate change on Sept. 24, a day before the General Assembly's annual ministerial meeting, "to build on existing momentum" and "galvanize political will."
Jones Parry said world leaders attending that meeting could "kick start" the Bali negotiations if they say a successor agreement to Kyoto is crucial.
The leaders would take "a huge step forward" if they also say that Bali must deal with the transfer of technology, address ways to help poorer countries meet U.N. development goals while curbing emissions — and if they support incentives and a carbon trading system, he said.
The Group of 77, which represents 132 mainly developing countries and China, said the Bali conference, organized by the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, will have a successful conclusion if it takes "fully into account the needs and concerns of all developing countries."
Pakistan's Environment Minister Mukhdoom Faisal Saleh Hayat, whose country heads the group, added that Pakistan wants the Bali conference to agree on "a comprehensive and clear timeframe" to achieve a post-Kyoto accord.
"With the clock continuing to click, we need to move fast and act before climate change turns into a climate crisis," he said.
The Maldives' U.N. Ambassador Mohamed Latheef, who said his country "is threatened not by invading armies but by rising sea levels," said a projected temperature increase of two degrees Celsius "is more than we can bear."
He announced that the Maldives would host a meeting on climate change and human rights on Oct. 31 and Nov. 1 as part of a vigorous effort to raise awareness of global warming.
Yvo de Boer, the U.N.'s top climate change official, said industrialized countries must take the lead in reducing emissions and stressed that there can be no solution without the U.S.
U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told the General Assembly the U.S. is committed to the U.N. Framework Convention and its objective of stabilizing the concentration of greenhouse gases.
At the Bali conference, he said, the U.S. will work "to accelerate progress on key issues" including promoting sustainable forestry and agriculture, adapting to the impacts of climate change and improving access to clean and more energy efficient technologies.
TIGERS IN THE FREE STATE – GIMMICK OR CONSERVATION?
By PETER OPENSHAW
Do South Chinese tigers belong in the Free State? The most obvious answer to this question is an emphatic no. They are exotic and not part of the biodiversity of Africa. However, what if the last resort and best option to give this most endangered sub-species of tigers a fighting chance of survival does lie in ex-situ conservation in South Africa? Can one then make out a case for them being here?
The South China tiger (Panthera tigris amoyensis) is the most endangered of the remaining 5 sub-species of tigers. There are less than 80 tigers left, 60 of which are found only in zoos in China. Due to habitat destruction, lack of conservation knowledge and skills and decades long extermination, this sub-species is the next to go extinct, most probably within the next 5 years. An ambitious and very controversial project has been mounted by Li Quan, a Chinese born former fashion executive and Stuart Bray, her American investment banker husband to do at least something to try and prevent this inevitability.
The plan calls for zoo born South China tiger cubs to temporarily come to South Africa to be rewilded and to breed and for all these tigers to return to China within a 5 – 10 year time frame. The most important part of the project is taking place in China where pilot tiger reserves are being established for these tigers to return to. South Africa was chosen because of its 150 year conservation history and successes in saving species such as the white rhino. South African experts are also being used in China to assist the Chinese government in establishing these pilot reserves. Another feature of this project is to train Chinese forestry officials, who will ultimately oversee the reserves in China, in South African conservation techniques and practices.
The most important aspect of this project is the fact that biodiversity is being recreated and restored not only in China but in South Africa as well. The Laohu Valley Reserve outside Philippolis in the Free State is 33 000 ha in size and has been created out of 17 farms that were until recently used mainly for sheep farming. The veld type is False Upper Karoo, and Laohu Valley Reserve comprises the largest single tract of this veld type currently being conserved in South Africa. Endemic game species are also being introduced. Ultimately, once all the tigers have returned to China, a very large nature reserve typical of this region would have been created and will remain.
Will this project succeed in preventing the extinction of the South China Tiger? Only time will tell, but for now it is the only programme specifically aimed at doing so. To date Stuart Bray and Li Quan have spent $10 million of their own money in South Africa alone and the estimated cost of one reserve in China is $20 million. Whatever you may think of so called amateurs getting involved in conservation, these people have surely put their money where their mouths are.
The tigers sent to South Africa during 2003/04 have all successfully learnt to hunt and fend for themselves within one year of being at Laohu Valley Reserve. The rewilding process does not involve taming, teaching or training the tigers, but merely facilitating their natural instinct to hunt. The first phase has thus successfully been achieved. The next phase is for these tigers to breed and having only recently reached sexual maturity, the next year will be crucial in achieving this goal. The cubs born at Laohu Valley Reserve will also be rewilded and will be returned to the pilot reserves in China where the rewilding will continue. Their offspring will eventually be returned to the wild in fenced protected areas. The original aim was to send the first rewilded tigers back to China in 2008, but all depends now on the speed at which the pilot reserves in China are developed and completed to achieve this goal.
The controversy surrounding this project, especially in conservation circles, has resulted more due to the involvement of previous business partners of Li Quan and Stuart Bray than the tigers per se. Legal action and litigation is ongoing and will hopefully be resolved in the next year.
Gimmick or conservation? You decide.
www.savechinastigers.org
Ronel Openshaw, Communications Manager, email openshaw@futurenet.co.za
Tel: +27 51 773 7042, Fax: +27 86 684 2121, Cell: +27 82 892 5875
"Where Endangered Species Roam..."
Mokala is SANParks newest park, situated approximately 80km south-southwest of Kimberley, and west of the N12 freeway to Cape Town.
Nestled in the hills, Mokala is in a unique position to offer your guests a SANParks experience like no other. The unique landscape and abundance of rare game are complimented by a range of accommodation to suit group visits. Current facilities include two lodges; a restaurant and conferencing facilities. There is also a small rustic camping area as well as a private landing strip at the park.
As the park prospers under the wide Northern Cape skies, a number of activities such as mountain biking, day walks, sunset and night drives, cultural excursions, star gazing activities and bush braais will become available.
The park has a well established road network and future plans include the development of some self catering accommodation, as well as day visitor facilities.
Please visit www.SANParks.org for more information on accommodation and tariffs or contact reservations@sanparks.org. You can contact the park on 053 204 8000/1/2/ or 053 2040 158/164/168 and fax: 053 204 8003
Yours Faithfully,
From Corporate Communications & the Mokala Park Management Team www.SANParks.org
POSITION(s) AVAILABLE
I am looking for an experienced ranger to work on a private game ranch (5000 ha) in the Umkomaas valley.
Preferably a single male who can work alone and is good with fencing, welding, patrols and supervising of field rangers. The ranch is still developing, so this is a long-term prospect for someone who is looking for stability.
Please keep a look out for ex-NPB types who may be interested.
Thanks,
Peter le Roux [mwpler@mweb.co.za]
REPORT ABOUT THE RESCUED TORTOISE
The tortoise you can see on the attached photo (not included – ed) has been rescued from a trafficker who had with him 3 tortoises and one parrot. He had already sold one younger tortoise to a Rwandan businessman at 205$US. One of the two remaining we saw was dead and the S.E.A Volunteers have succeeded to confiscate the last tortoise surnamed “FOUTA” that you can see in the hands of Paul LUGHEMBE, the S.E.A Coordinator Activities.
It is since the August 4th, 2007 that Fouta was liberated after having spent one month and half in a small house of cement, in darkness, hidden in a small box.
The trafficker told our team that he is used to this business and he always bring two kinds of Tortoises.
-The First kind is the one which are old tortoises like Fouta.
These kinds are sold in some local Hotels here in Goma for being eaten and are sold between 25 and 35 $US per one tortoise.
Also notice that the shell of an old tortoise is used in several practices of spiritism and fetishism.
-The second kind of the tortoises is the youngest tortoises which are sold very expensive because they can procreate and as they can lives one more years than the old tortoises.
These cost between 200$US and 250$US. And these are often bought by people from neighbour countries.
Paul LUGHEMBE
Safenv4all@yahoo.fr
Tailpiece-
When you have a " I Hate My Job" day, try this:
On your way home from work, stop at your pharmacy and go to the thermometer section and Purchase a Rectal Thermometer made by Johnson and Johnson. Be very sure you get this brand and no other.
When you get home:
* Lock your doors
* Draw the curtains
* Disconnect the phone so you will not be disturbed.
* Change into very comfortable pyjamas and sit in your favourite chair.
* Carefully open the package and remove the thermometer.
* Now, carefully place it on a table or a surface so that it will not become chipped or broken.
Now the fun part begins:
* Take out the literature and read it carefully.
* You will notice, in the small print, there is this Statement.
"Every rectal thermometer made by Johnson & Johnson is Personally Tested."
Now, close your eyes and repeat out loud Five Times:
"I am so thankful that I do not work for quality control at Johnson and Johnson."
HAVE A GLORIOUS DAY AND REMEMBER, THERE IS ALWAYS SOMEONE ELSE WITH A JOB THAT IS WORSE THAN YOURS!
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