Kruger Park e-Times 4

8/14/2019 Kruger Park e-Times 4

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kruger-park-e-times-4 1/30

Krugr Park -Times

How ToFeed TheWorld in

2050

New Tralsn Kruger

Kruger Natonal Park Steps Up

Fght Aganst Poachers

Karoo NationalPark to IntroduceLions

photo: Lynette Strauss

October / November 2009 - e4



Nwclp

kruger park times - 2 - kruger park times

The Kruger Park e-Times is published regularly to keep you updated onconservation, science, sustainable development and tourism issues inand around South Africa’s national parks, transfrontier parks and other

environmental hotspots. Send your comments and contributions to:[email protected]

Conservation biologists are set-

ting their minimum popula-

tion size targets too low to prevent extinction.

That’s according to a new study by Uni-

versity of Adelaide and Macquarie Univer-

sity scientists which has shown that popula-tions of endangered species are unlikely to

persist in the face of global climate change

and habitat loss unless they number around

5000 mature individuals or more.The ndings have been published online

in a paper ‘Pragmatic population viability

targets in a rapidly changing world’ in the

journal Biological Conservation.

“Conservation biologists routinely under-estimate or ignore the number of animals

or plants required to prevent extinction,”

says lead author Dr Lochran Traill, from

the University of Adelaide’s Environment

Institute.“Often, they aim to maintain tens or

hundreds of individuals, when thousands

are actually needed. Our review found that

populations smaller than about 5000 hadunacceptably high extinction rates. This

suggests that many targets for conserva-

tion recovery

are simply toosmall to domuch good in

the long run.”

A long-

standing idea

in speciesr e s t o r a t i o n

programs is

the so-called

‘50/500’ rule.This states

that at least

50 adultsare required

to avoid thedamaging ef-

fects of inbreeding, and 500 to avoid ex-

tinctions due to the inability to evolve to

cope with environmental change.

“Our research suggests that the 50/500

rule is at least an order of magnitude too

small to effectively stave off extinction,”

says Dr Traill. “This does not necessarilyimply that populations smaller than 5000

are doomed. But it does highlight the chal-

lenge that small populations face in adapt-

ing to a rapidly changing world.”Team member Professor Richard

Frankham, from Macquarie University’s

Department of Biological Sciences, says:

“Genetic diversity within populations al-

lows them to evolve to cope with environ-mental change, and genetic loss equates to

fragility in the face of such changes.”

Conservation biologists worldwide are

battling to prevent a mass extinction eventin the face of a growing human population

and its associated impact on the planet.

“The conservation management bar

needs to be a lot higher,” says Dr Traill.

“However, we shouldn’t necessarily giveup on critically endangered species num-

bering a few hundred of individuals in the

wild. Acceptance that more needs to be

done if we are to stop ‘managing for ex-tinction’ should force decision makers to be

more explicit about what they are aiming

for, and what

they arewilling totrade off,

when allo-

cating con-

s e r v a t i o n

funds.”Other re-

s e a r c h e r s

in the study

are Associ-ate Profes-

sor Corey

B r a d s h a wand Profes-

sor BarryB r o o k ,

both from the University of Adelaide’s

Environment Institute. The paper is on-

line at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.bio-

con.2009.09.01 Photo: Ian Whyte

Conseraton Targets TooSmall to Stop ExtnctonPoliticians, unite…

and scientists,speak up!

Writing exclusively for a special is-sue of Physics World on the “energy

puzzle”, the physicist Lord Browne,

former BP chief executive, asserts

that politicians need to avoid com-partmentalizing energy and climate-

change issues - and to work across

Government and with international

partners to pursue action that binds

economic prosperity, national secu-rity and environmental integrity.

If all goes to plan, political leaders

at December’s United Nations Cli-

mate Change Conference in Copen-hagen (COP15) will agree to a succes-

sor to the Kyoto protocol and make

further promises to cut greenhouse-

gas emissions. But the issue will, as

always, be how to put those promisesinto action.

To mark the signicance of the

occasion, this issue of Physics Worldlooks at the scientic challenges of

the energy and climate-change prob-

lem, and at the political hurdles and

the importance of communicating

the right messages, at the right pitch,to much wider audiences.

In addition to calling for joined-up

political thinking, Lord Browne also

says we should rethink the state’s role

in energy markets. “The market is the

most effective delivery system avail-able to society,” he says, “but it needs

strategic direction and a framework

of rules if it is to provide the morediversied energy structure that we

urgently need.”

On the challenge of communica-

tion, Joseph Romm, a physicist atthe US think tank Center for Ameri-

can Progress, says that scientists, andphysicists in particular, need to do

more to warn the world of the dan-

gers of climate change.

As he writes, “The fate of perhaps

the next 100 billion people to walk the Earth rests with scientists try-

ing to communicate the dire nature

of the climate problem as well as

the ability of the media, the public,opinion-makers and political leaders

to understand and deal with that sci-ence.”


http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/kruger-park-e-times-4 3/30kruger park times - 3 - kruger park times

Lynette Strauss

With the appointment of 57 new eld rangers, the

Kruger National Park (KNP) is stepping up its

crime ghting ability against the increas-

ing incidences of rhino and other animal

poaching.

This according to South African NationalParks, chief executive, Dr David Mabunda,

who said the new recruits will be adopting

a multi-disciplinary approach and will draw

on the skills and expertise of various lawenforcement agencies involved in the ght

against poaching of South Africa’s faunaand ora.

“We as a conservation agency and the

public at large are paying a high price withthese senseless killings of our animals, while

some leader of a syndicate is winning the

minds and hearts of ordinary and poor

members of society to be on the frontline of these evil operations.”

Dr Mabunda was speaking at the recenteld ranger training pass out parade which

took place in Skukuza in October.

Mabunda warned poachers that their‘days are numbered.’

“We are on their trail and closing up

quickly on them.”

He said the country continues to lose ani-mals through poaching.

“Since the beginning of the year the

country has lost 94 rhinos, of which 38

was lost in KNP, seven in Gauteng, nine inLimpopo, ve in Mpumalanga, 10 in North

West, four in the Eastern Cape and 21 in

Kwa-Zulu Natal.”

To date SANParks rangers have arrested

22 poachers “Our cross-border operationswhich include patrols with members of

the South African Police Services, and our

counterparts in Mozambique have yielded

huge successes.”

The Kruger National Park is divided intothree regions - Nxanatseni in the north,

Nkayeni in the central area and Marula in

the south. There are 22 ranger sections.

The parade was inspected by SANParkstop rangers, Dr Mabunda and high ranking

ofcials of the SAPS and SANDF border

patrol units.

According to Dr Mabunda a total of

R5, 2 million has been invested in the ghtagainst poachers.

“The funds allocated have been used to

acquire amongst others motorbikes, bicy-

cles, a bantam aircraft to be used in patrolsand night surveillance equipment as poach-

ers often conduct their operations at night.

Dr Mabunda welcomed the decision by

the South African Government to return

the military to patrol the 450 km nationalborder on the eastern boundary of the

KNP.

The withdrawl of the military forces in

this area three years ago increased the bur-den of Kruger’s rangers . “Discussions with

the military are already at an advance stage

and an announcement in this regard will be

made soon. Photo: Laura Mukwevho

Kruger Natonal Park Steps Up FghtAganst Poachers

The South African National Parks,chief executive, Dr David Mabundaand lieutenant colonel Gavin Willardof South African National DefenceForce inspect the pass-out drill.



Nwclp

kruger park times - 4- kruger park times

Since the beginning of 2008,

the Honorary Rangers Coun-

ter Poaching and Ranger Sup-

port Services National Project(CP&RSS) has raised over R1 million from

events and cash donations and donated two

motor boats, cyber trackers and essential

specialised equipment for counter poaching operations and ranger eld equipment.

The Honorary Rangers (HR) organisa-

tion comprises volunteers who focus their

efforts in support of South African National

Parks (SANParks).The counter poaching section of the HR

is chaired by John Turner of the Johan-

nesburg region. They have developed a

well tested fundraising model where they

offer two popular products in the KrugerNational Park that raises funds in support

of the Environmental Crime Investigation

unit and to obtain equipment for the rang-

ers in the parks.These include the Sunset Serenade

Weekend in Letaba Camp where classical

music enthusiasts enjoy light classical mu-

sic performed in the bush settings and theMokhohlolo

Bush Camp

w e e k e n d s

aimed at

inf luential

people whocare about

biodiversity

and nature

c o n s e r v a -tion and

are happy

to contrib-ute nan-

cially to thiscause.

This yearthey ran ve

Mokhohlolo

camps (twoin April

and three

in July/Au-

gust) overthree nights

each at aprivate bush

camp 300m

from the Mokhohlolo Dam between Lower

Sabie and Crocodile Bridge in section rang-

er Neels van Wyk’s area.

The Mokhohlolo Dam, which means “tocough” in Tsonga and aptly named after

the presence of the local leopard popula-

tion, has water throughout the year, even in

the middle of winter and so in addition to

the resident hippos, it attracts a stream of game from elephant to ocks of birds.

During their stay, guests enjoy early

morning and afternoon bush walks under

the guidance of highly qualied trail rang -ers and the opportunity to observe a game

capture exercise conducted by Johan Malan

and the veterinary wildlife services game

capture team.

Accommodation are in two-man tentswith communal ablution facilities, a mess

tent and a full bar. Perhaps the most im-portant aspect is the communal camp re

where participants meet for coffee beforesunrise and bond in the moonlight over

a few drinks until late. The camp re is

the place where the world’s problems are

fully debated and regularly solved. A typi-cal scene will see a lively discussion aboutbiodiversity and conservation issues which

often result in donation huge pledges forspecic projects in the parks.

The camp and events are run by the ex-

perienced team of John Turner and SnowyBotha supported by section ranger Neels

van Wyk and the camp offers excellent Af-

rican bush cuisine.

Recently the CP&RSS hosted a group of zoo keepers led by Peter Clark, director of

the Adelaide City Zoo and the largest open

zoo in the world. The 1 500 hectare Mon-arto Open Range Zoo, is situated north of

Adelaide in South Australia.This group of well informed animal lov-

ers stayed in a rugged bush camp in a wil-

derness setting where they observed animals

in their natural habitat. They exchanged

technical notes with the game capture teamon sedative darts and capture techniques.

A Mokhohlolo camp accommodates

20 guests and the cost this year was R150

000 per camp or R7 500 per person. Formore information about the 2010 Mok-

hohlolo bush camps contact John Turner@ [email protected]

Photo: Dominic Barnhardt

Migration mythsdispelled in UNDPreport

Most migrants do not move fromdeveloping to developed countries,

and when they do, rather than hurt-ing host economies, they benet

them, according to a new report bythe UN Development Programme

(UNDP).

The UNDP’s Human Develop-

ment Report 2009, launched globally

on 5 October in Bangkok, dispels sev-eral myths about migration, instead

underlining the economic and socialbenets for countries.

“Mobility can bring large gainsin development,” Jeni Klugman, di-

rector of the report, told IRIN. “It’s

presently very much constrained by a

whole range of barriers, and reform

[of] these barriers could allow muchgreater potential to be released.”

The annual report calls for sev-

eral migration reforms, including

for states to ensure basic rights formigrants, and the mainstreaming of

migration into national development

plans.

© IRIN. All rights reserved.

Honorary Rangers’ CounterPoachng Rases More ThanR1 mllon n Last Year



Conservation-

ists at theEndangered

W i l d l i f e

Trust (EWT) have, withthe nancial support of

Eskom, embarked on a

research project that will

enable them to better un-

derstand how birds see in

the hope that this will helpthem to prevent birds from

ying into power lines.

“Many of our bird spe-

cies are prone to collid-ing with overhead power

lines whilst in mid ight”

says Jon Smallie, Manag-

er of the EWT’s Wildlife

and Energy InteractionGroup (EWT-WEIG),

which incorporates a

long-standing strategic

partnership with Eskom.“To solve this problem,

conservationists and elec-

trical utilities around the

world have, over the last30 years, developed vari-ous marking devices that

aim to make power lines

more visible to the birds.

These devices have largely

been developed based onwhat we think birds can

see, but bird vision is fun-

damentally different from

human vision. We hopethat with a better under-

standing of how birds see

their surroundings, we will be able to designimproved marking devices and ultimately

save more birds.”Preliminary ndings show that bird fam-

ilies differ in their ability to see, and that

several of the relevant species have far bet-

ter peripheral than frontal vision. This has

major implications for collision with powerlines that are invariably in front of birdsin ight. Drawing a bird’s attention to the

front, in order to see an overhead power

line, may be even more important thanpreviously thought. The nal results of the

study will be ready by early 2010 and willbe published on the EWT’s website at www.

ewt.org.za. The EWT intends to incorpo-

rate this new knowledge into the design of marking devices as soon as possible through

its strategic partnership with Eskom.Graham Martin – Professor of Avian

Sensory Science at the University of Bir-

mingham - is an international expert in

bird vision. Professor Martin has developeda method for measuring bird visual elds

(where they see) and acuity (how well they

see) and is instrumental in this project, lead-

ing the research that will help the EWT

understand how large birds, which are par-ticularly prone to ying into power lines,

experience the world while in ight.Professor Martin recently spent two

weeks in South Africa, measuring visual

elds on blue cranes

( Anthropoides paradiseus),white storks ( Ciconia ci-

conia ) and kori bustards

( Ardeotis kori), all species

that are frequently killedas a result of ying into

power lines. This is therst time that research

of this nature has been

undertaken with regardto bird power line colli-

sions. Data were collect-

ed using captive birds at

two participating insti-tutions. Tygerberg Zoo

in Cape Town and the

Johannesburg Zoo pro-

vided four blue cranes

and two white storksand a kori bustard re-

spectively.

Various different

power line marking devices are currently avail-

able, but all are installedve to 10 metres apart

along power lines thatare considered to be of collision risk to birds.

While these devices

have been effective in

reducing the number of

collisions, they do notcompletely eliminate

deaths and effective-

ness varies between bird

families. The EWT- WEIG is working with

Eskom to improve their

effectiveness. The Eskom-EWT StrategicPartnership started 13 years ago in response

to problems such as bird collision and is aworld leader in addressing this major un-

natural cause of death in large birds.

This research is funded by Eskom and

was undertaken in collaboration with Pro-

fessor Graham Martin of Birmingham Uni- versity, and University of Cape Town Phd

student Jessica Shaw.

The Tygerberg and Johannesburg Zoos

provided captive birds, and expert bird han-dling expertise.


How Brs See s Key to AongPower Lne Collson



Nwclp


On October 28, 2009, Moun-

tain Zebra National Park,situated near Cradock in the

Eastern Cape, celebratedthe ofcial opening of a newly upgraded

entrance gate and the complete renovationof its tourist roads.

The project to renovate the tourist roads

was completed in just over a year, involving

the upgrade of 42.7 km of existing gravel

roads and the construction of 13.4 km of new roads.

“Visitors can now explore all areas of the

Park for wildlife viewing on roads suitable

for all vehicle types, “ said Lucius Mool-man, South African National Parks (SAN-

Parks) regional manager, as he ofcially

opened the roads.

Cutting the ribbon on the newly con-

structed Link Road, Moolman added that

the new 13.4 km road provided an impor-

tant link between the Ubejane and Rooi-plaat Loops, making travelling around the

Park easier.

The road upgrade project, funded by the

department of environmental affairs’ Infra-structure Development Programme saw 40

local people being employed with a spend

of R11 million.

Dr. Paul Du Plessis Kruger, former Sasolchairman, ofcially opened the Park’s new-ly upgraded entrance gate – now named

the Sasol Gate - in recognition of Sasol’s

contribution to Park expansion made just

over 10 years ago.Sasol provided funds at a crucial stage of

Park development to purchase a property

that was on the market. This donation,

along with other donations and fund-

raising initiatives initiated by SANParksand the David Shepherd Wildlife Foun-

dation, helped to increase the Park size

from 6 536 hectares to over 28 000 hect-

ares. Organisations such as the BarbaraDelano Foundation, WildAid and Vesta

Medicines also played an important role.

This Park expansion facilitated the re-

introduction of species such as buffalo,cheetah and brown hyena and assuredthe conservation of the endangered

Cape mountain zebra, which now num-

ber over 500 in the Park.

Park Manager Lesley-Ann Meyer said

she was proud to announce that therenovations to infrastructure had already

succeeded in increasing both day and over-

night visitor numbers.

Visitor numbers have increased by amassive 40% and occupancy rate has in-

creased from 61% to 70% for the rst six

months of the nancial year.Moolman announced that the plans

to link Mountain Zebra National Park to Camdeboo National Park in Graaff-

Reinet to form a mega-conservation

area of about 300 000 hectares had nowbeen ofcially declared by SANParks.

These plans envisaged a linkage formedthrough contractual agreements with

private game reserves and landowners,

some of whom had already expressed

interest in the idea. Photo: Megan Ta-

plin

New Entrance Gate, UpgraeRoas Opene at Mountan ZebraNatonal Park

Dr Paul Du Plessis Kruger (right)ofcially opens the Sasol Gate asRegional Manager Lucius Moolman(left) and Park Manager Lesley-AnnMeyer look on.

Right below: Regional ManagerLucius Moolman and Park ManagerLesley-Ann Meyer ofcially openthe newly constructed roads inMountain Zebra National Park.

Animals now pickingup bugs from people,study shows

Globalisation and industrialisa-tion are causing diseases to spread

from humans to animals, a study has

shown.

Researchers from The Roslin Insti-tute of the University of Edinburgh

have shown that a strain of bacteria

has jumped from humans to chickens.It is believed to be the rst clear ev-

idence of bacterial pathogens cross-ing over from humans to animals and

then spreading since animals wererst domesticated some 10,000 years

ago.The study identied a form of

the bacteria Staphylococcus aureus – of

which MRSA is a subtype – in chick-

ens, and found that the bacteria origi-

nally came from humans.Genetic testing showed that the

bacteria crossed over from one spe-

cies to another around 40 years ago,

coinciding with a move towards in-tensive poultry farming practices.



Lynette Srtauss

Two new adventure trails will

be launched in the Kruger Na-

tional Park within the next six

months. Both trails are basedin the northern parts of Kruger - the Phal-

aborwa and Shingwedzi areas.

As from November 1, 2009 adventure

seekers can explore the management roads

north-east of the Phalaborwa EntranceGate on an overnight guided trail.

This trail will depart on a daily basis

from Phalaborwa Gate and will be avail-

able throughout the year. “However, during heavy rains or other urgent management

related issues, the route may be changed or

even be closed temporarily,” says William

Mabasa, spokesperson for the park. Onlyve vehicles plus the guide vehicle will be

allowed per trail, with a maximum of four

people per vehicle.

In April next year, the Mphongolo Back

Pack Trail will allow visitors to experience

the Lowveld bush between Shingwedzi and

Mphongolo rivers close to the Shingwedzirest camp, on foot.

Trailists will leave from the camp on

Wednesdays and return Sundays, midday.

Taking into account the rainy season, thetrail will only be open from February to the

end of November.

“There are no overnight huts on this trail

and back-packers must provide for all their

needs for the duration of thetrail such as sleeping bags, tents

and food. The trail takes a maxi-

mum of eight and a minimum

of four visitors at a time and itwill be guided by two experi-

enced trails rangers.”

The existing Nonokani 4x4

Adventure Trail, which runs in

the Phalaborwa section up tothe Olifants River, will be per-

manently closed.

“We experienced a number of

visitor related problems in the

past that affected the experience of tourists

who took part in this trail and that is whywe are closing it now;” says Ben van Eeden,

regional manager of Nxanatseni Region.

Bookings can be done at the SANParks

central reservation centre on 12 428 9111.Photos: Archive: Olifants River

Backpack Train in KNP. Andrew Des-

met

New Trals To Open n KrugerNatonal Park



Elephant dies of old age

The elephant cow that provoked an out-

cry from an animal rights group when it was

spotted, apparently distressed and in pain,

on an Mpumalanga game reserve’s live we-bcam a fortnight ago, has died.

“The elephant cow died on Sunday after-

noon, October 4, of natural causes, i.e. old

age,” Djuma Private Game Reserve owner

Jurie Moolman told Sapa in an e-mail onMonday. The cow, which last week man-

aged to rejoin its herd, had been at the end

of its natural life, with her last set of teeth

worn to the point of not being able to chewher food.

Looking out for her calf “She kept upwith the herd, and it is difcult not to think

that she had one last thing to do before she

died - ensuring that her calf was acceptedinto the herd. Her calf is with the herd and

seems to be doing well.

“Hopefully this is a lesson to us all about

interfering; we should not, unless humanscaused the suffering,” Moolman said. Dju-

ma is one of more than a dozen lodges and

reserves that make up the 65 000 hectare

Sabi Sand Reserve, which shares an un-fenced 50km border with the Kruger Na-tional Park.

On Monday last week, the group Animal

Rights Africa demanded that the reserve’s

owners help the elephant. According to the

group, the elephant was suffering with whatappeared to be birth complications. The

Sabi Sand Reserve has a “policy of non-

intervention when it comes to animals in

distress not caused by humans”, but its eco-logical committee decided to take action in

this case.

When the animal was found by rangers,it was seen to be suffering from old age and

constipation. “It was determined that she is very old - so old that her teeth are too worn

for her to masticate her food properly, and

thus a bolus of unchewed food is blocking

her alimentary canal,” Moolman said at the

time. At one point there were plans to eu-thanise the elephant, but it was granted a

reprieve when it rejoined its herd.

It was closely monitored over the past

week. The cow - which has a three-year-oldcalf - was estimated to be between 50 and

60 years of age, an advanced age for an el-ephant. Moolman reported the calf was no

longer suckling and should have no prob-

lems surviving without its mother. African

elephants, the world’s largest land mam-

mals, die more often of starvation than old

age. They go through ve sets of teeth intheir lives, but once these are gone - worn

away by the up to 250kg of bark, leaves

and twigs an adult elephant chews its way

through in a day - they are no longer able toeat. News 24

InoculationMisinformation

Wild rumors are ying about the newly

developed vaccine for pandemic inuenza

H1N1, also known as “swine u.” We’veseen e-mails stating that the vaccine is taint-

ed with antifreeze or Agent Orange, causes

Gulf War syndrome, or has killed U.S. Navy

sailors. One says the vaccine is an “evil de-

population scheme.” The claims are nearlypure bunk, with only trace amounts of fact.

If you are the sort who trusts anonymous

e-mails more than you do doctors and ex-

perts from the U.S. Centers for DiseaseControl and the U.S. Food and Drug Ad-

ministration, you may wish to stop reading

now. For others, here are the facts as stated

by the best authorities we can nd:The vaccine does have some risks – the

same risks as the seasonal u vaccine. Ex-

cept for the virus, it is functionally identical

to the vaccine that’s given every year.

The multidose formulation of the vaccine

contains thimerosal, which prevents con-tamination. Some have accused thimerosal

of causing developmental disorders in chil-dren, but scientic evidence doesn’t support

this.The vaccine does not contain squalene,

which has been accused – also without good

evidence – of causing Gulf War syndrome.There’s no reason to believe that a vac-

cination would cause Guillain-Barre syn-drome. GBS was associated with several

hundred u vaccinations in 1976, but

there’s been no evidence of an association

since then, despite close monitoring.

Update, October 23: On October 22,New York State suspended the requirement

for health care workers to be vaccinated.The governor’s ofce cited vaccine shortage

concerns as the reason for the change. www.factcheck.org/2009/10/inoc-

ulation-misinformation/

Namibian Private GameFarm Denied Permissionto Import Elephants

The Namibian Ministry of Environment

and Tourism has denied the country’s big-

gest private game farm, Erindi permissionto import 200 elephants from South Africa’s

Kruger National Park.

“Erindi needs elephants desperately

and the ministry have shut the door in our

face,” said Gert Joubert, the owner of thecountry’s biggest game reserve. Joubert said

seven years ago, Erindi identied the need,

with the help of experts and specialists, for

a substantial amount of elephants.“We proceeded to purchase state of the

art elephant catching equipment for the

catching and relocation of elephant family

groups according to the latest techniques

and practices. The cost to us was N$1 mil-lion. We applied for a source and a permit

to the ministry to bring elephants to Erindi.

Unlike in South Africa, where you can

pick up the phone and order elephants likegroceries, in Namibia it is different, with the

ministry being the only entity owning and

controlling all elephant in Namibia. The

ministry owns all elephants in Etosha, inDamaraland, in Kaokoveld, in Okavango,in Caprivi and more.

He said for ve years now Erindi has

been writing letters to the ministry but it

has refused to have Erindi import the ele-

phants. “We have bought twelve elephantsfrom the ministry at an auction in 1994

from Etosha Pans,” he said. I decided to ap-

ply for two hundred elephant from the big-

ger Kruger National Park area. We receivedan approval promptly for two hundred el-

ephant for Erindi free of charge. All we had

to do was to go and fetch them. We thenapplied again to the ministry for a permit

to relocate these elephants to Erindi. Onceagain, no acknowledgment, no answer was

given. “As a last desperate measure, I took

the decision to see the lawyers. Six months

later and N$ 200 000 out of my pocket, Er-

indi Game Reserve submitted a fully com-prehensive, legally correct application with

every issue covered by experts addressed to

the ministry. Six weeks later, we received an

answer. The ministry has now proclaimed amoratorium on the import of elephant from

South Africa. No explanation was given,”he said.

www.economist.com.

CONSERvATiON HEAdLiNES



Twenty years after ivoryban, activists up in arms

Twenty years after the decimation of Afri-ca’s elephant population through poaching

prompted a ban on the international ivory

trade, animal rights activists are calling for

a new all-out ban, saying partial sales haveled to a fresh spike in poaching. Saturday

marks the 20th anniversary of the Conven-

tion on International Trade in Endangered

Species (CITES) ban on ivory trade.

The decision, taken on October 17th,1989 in Lausanne, Switzerland, by the UN-

backed CITES was in response to alarming

levels of elephant poaching in Africa in the

1980s. Africa’s elephant population from about

1.2 million to 600,000 in the space of 10

years before the ban, according to the Inter-

national Fund for Animal Welfare.

Following the ban, “ivory prices plum-meted and so too did the incentives to kill

elephants - a good example of a conserva-

tion plan,” IFAW’s Southern Africa director

Jason Bell-Leask wrote in a opinion articlein South Africa’s Sunday Independent this

month.

But as elephant populations began to

recover, CITES, which has 171 members,also came under pressure to relax the banto allow some African countries, which had

well-managed, healthy elephant popula-

tions, sell off their stockpiles of the so-called

white gold.In 1999, CITES allowed the rst such

one-off sale. Botswana, Namibia and Zim-

babwe were allowed sell 50 tonnes of ivory

to Japan.

In 2007, CITES went further, allowing the same three countries plus South Africa

to sell 106 tonnes of ivory that had accumu-

lated in their national parks to Japan andChina.

South Africa estimates the four countriestogether have over 312,000 elephants, or

over half the continent’s current estimated

population of 470,000.

The ivory comes mostly from elephants

that died a natural death, or, in the case of South Africa, elephants that were culled

before a moratorium on culling in 1995.

CITES ordered that the proceeds of the

sale be put towards wildlife managementand community development.

IFAW, Germany’s Pro Wildlife and otheranimal rights group say these sales have

whetted the demand for ivory in Asia,

where ivory is used mainly in carved orna-

ments, and led to an increase in elephant

poaching.

They point to large seizures of ivory byauthorities across Africa and Asia over the

past year as proof of a resurgent black-mar-

ket trade, which they say is leading to the

killing of over 30,000 elephants a year. As the CITES ban turns 20, Tanzania

and Zambia have petitioned CITES to fur-

ther open up the trade by allowing them to

also sell off ivory stocks, according to Pro

Wildlife. Mozambique is also preparing asimilar submission, the German organiza-

tion says.

At the same time, seven other African

countries, which are battling to containpoaching - Kenya, Ghana, Liberia, Mali,

Sierra Leone, Togo and Congo Brazzaville

- are calling for a return to a complete ivory

ban CITES will decide on which route to

take at its next conference, set to take placein March 2010 in Qatar. The four coun-

tries that liquidated their stocks have been

banned from any further trade in ivory for

nine years.Earth Times

Volunteers sought tohelp with large-scaleOlifants river pollutionstudy

The ecological health and the entireecosystem of the heavily polluted upper

reaches of the Olifants river are to come

under the spotlight in a study that kicks off

this month with the collection of rainwatersamples in the river’s catchment by a team

of volunteers.

Council for Scientic and Industrial Re-search (CSIR) principal researcher and di-

visional fellow Dr Peter Ashton tells Engi-neering News that, once sampling sites for

the study have been identied, the council

will be in a position to say how many vol-

unteers will be needed to assist with the col-

lection of rainwater samples and to identifythe areas for collection.

He stresses that volunteers in the catch-

ment are the “eyes” and “ears” of the scien-

tists, who are based in Pretoria. By collect-ing rainfall data and writing down anything

unusual that they observe in the vicinity of the sampling sites, they will help the scien-

tists in the interpretation of analytical data

when the chemistry of the samples has been

determined.

A team of more than 35 scientists and

ofcials from the CSIR, the universities of Stellenbosch and Pretoria, the Department

of Water Affairs, the Mpumalanga Tourism

and Parks Agency and the Olifants River

Forum have come together in an attemptto tackle one of the country’s most polluted

rivers in a multidisciplinary way.

“We are not just going to monitor waterquality. This will be the rst time in South

Africa that such a big team will look at theecological health of the entire ecosystem in

the catchment and how that impacts on wa-

ter quality,” explains CSIR limnologist and

project leader Dr Paul Oberholster.The team will report its preliminary nd-

ings by the end of 2010, when it will pres-

ent them at a public hearing of the Olifants

River Forum. The purpose of the hearing

will be to moti- vate funding for furtherresearch needs, conrm the identity of

problem areas with stakeholders and pres-ent preliminary ndings as well as possible

suggestions for remedial action that can beconsidered.

Martin Zhuwakinyu, www.engi-

neeringnews.co.za

98 ivory tusks seized inDouala

A total of 98 ivory tusks were seized be-

tween Sunday and Monday at the Autono-mous Port of Limbe (PAL), 80 kilometres

south-west of Douala, the economic capital

of Cameroon, sources told PANA here.

According to the Regional Delegate of Forestry and Wildlife for the Littoral, Fran-

çois Issola Dipanda, the large shipment of

elephant tusks were seized by Cameroo-nian customs ofcials in Limbe, aboard the

“Monica Express”, a ship ying a Nigerian

ag, as the vessel was about to set sail for

Calabar, in Nigeria.

The 98 tusks weigh about 500 kilo-

grammes and may have been obtained from

49 elephants killed illegally by poachers.Cameroon, with its vast surface areas of

forest and Savannah, is a hub for trafcking

on ivory tusk in Africa. Afrique en ligne

CONSERvATiON HEAdLiNES



Nwclp

F

ire is often thought of something

that trees should be protected

from, but a new study suggests

that some trees may themselvescontribute to the likelihood of wildres in

order to promote their own abundance at

the expense of their competitors.

The study, which appears in the Decem-ber 2009 issue of the journal The Ameri-

can Naturalist, says that positive feedback loops between re and trees associated with

savannas can make res more likely in these

ecosystems.“We used a mathematical model to show

that positive feedback loops between re

frequency and savanna trees, alone or to-

gether with grasses, can stabilize ecologicalcommunities in a savanna state, blocking

conversion of savannas to forest,” said the

study’s leading author Brian Beckage, asso-

ciate professor in the Department of Plant

Biology at the University of Vermont.The study’s co-authors are William Platt,

professor of biology at Louisiana State Uni-

versity, and Louis Gross, director of the Na-

tional Institute for Mathematical and Bio-logical Synthesis and professor of ecology

and evolutionary biology and mathematics

at the University of Tennessee. Beckage was

a short-term visitor conducting research atNIMBioS in 2009 and will be on sabbaticalat NIMBioS in 2010.

The promotion of re by the savanna

trees increases their own abundance by

limiting the establishment and growth of

tree species that are better competitors forresources and that might ultimately dis-

place the savanna trees. The research re-

sults suggest that some trees may modify

or “engineer” their environment, including the characteristic re frequencies in a land-

scape, to facilitate their own persistence at

the expense of their competitors, Beckage

said.

The research proposes a scenario for thedevelopment of savannas in landscapes that

would otherwise become closed forests.

Examples of savanna trees that facili-

tate frequent low-intensity res include thelongleaf pine and the south Florida slash

pine, both of which frequently shed theirneedles providing fodder for wildres. The

savanna tree initially invades grassland, butby facilitating frequent res, it limits its own

density and thus prevents conversion to a

forest.

The research was supported by grants

from the National Science Foundation. Thestudy was recently published in the journal

The American Naturalist. It can be viewed

at http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/toc/

an/0/0 Photo: Navashni Govender

Trees Facltate Wlfres as a Way to Protect Ther Habtat

Wildlife As a Sourcefor LivestockInfections

A bacterium possibly linked to

Crohn’s disease could be lurking inwild animals. According to research

published in the open access journal

BMC Microbiology, Mycobacterium

avium subspecies paratuberculosis (Map),can be transmitted between wildlife

and domestic ruminants, supporting

the theory of wildlife reservoirs of

infection.

A research team lead by KarenStevenson, from the Moredun Re-

search Institute in Scotland, used

three different genotyping techniques

to identify specic strains of Map in164 samples taken from 19 different

livestock and wildlife species from the

Czech Republic, Finland, Greece,

The Netherlands, Norway, Scotland

and Spain. The results were com-bined to investigate sources of Map

infections and show the possibility of

transmission between wildlife and do-

mestic ruminants.“Identical genotypes were obtained

from Map isolated from different host

species co-habiting on the same prop-

erty, strongly suggesting that interspe-cies transmission occurs”, the authorssay, adding, “Map infects a variety

of wildlife and host spe-

cies that potentially could

be reservoirs for infection

of domestic livestock andhave serious implications

for infection control”.

Related to the bacte-

ria causing tuberculosisin humans and in cows,

Map causes severe diar-

rhea in ruminants, andhas been suggested as a

possible cause for Crohn’sdisease in humans. The

role of wildlife reservoirs

for infection needs further

assessment, to determine

whether transmission ispassive or active, and to

examine the likelihood of

contact between wildlife

and domesticated rumi-nants. For more informa-

tion: www.biomedcentral.com/bmcmicrobiol



Richard C Haw

Many African tribes had a tradition re-

garding wild creatures. Certain birds and

animals were given the status of protected

creatures because of their rarity or beauty.Others were regarded as sacred. Even

today there are still categories of royal

game or protected species. Although manymodern-day Africans grow up without ever

laying an eye on animals in the wild, therewas a time when certain animals were well-

known to them, many being featured in Af-

rican folklore.

Some of these protected animals were

allowed to be killed under certain circum-stances or, if they were caught, had to be

taken to the local chief. Anyone nding a scaly anteater or pan-

golin, had to take it to the chief alive; andafter satisfying local curiosity, it was killed to

provide relish for the food of the chief andhis senior wife.

The scales were used for medicinal pur-

poses.Porcupines were also regarded as royal

game and any slaughtered animal had to

be taken whole to the chief, where the quills

were removed and the carcass gutted. Thechief would then reward the presenter with

a fowl or similar gift. In the case of an os-

trich the hunter was presented with a goat,and was allowed to keep the meat, while the

chief kept the feathers and any eggs thatwere found.

Elephant and eland were also protected

game, and if any were killed, the local chief

would be informed. Either the chief or a

deputy then had to be present when the ani-mal was skinned. The chief got the heart,

the surrounding fat and certain other parts,

while the hunter could keep the rest.

In the case of a lion or leopard, the hidesautomatically became the chief ’s property,

but the hunter was treated as a hero for kill-ing the fearsome animal with the primitive

weapons of the time.

After taking the skin and the hairballfound in the stomachs of some of these ani-

mals to the chief, the hunter was treated to

a drink of beer and presented with an ox

which he could either slaughter on the spotor drive home to his kraal. The chief valued

the hairballs, believing that they would give

him power to roar or frighten his subjects.Crocodiles were not often killed. They

were believed to be associated with somewitch or wizard. If a killing was made, the

chief or delegated headman had to be pres-

ent. The ‘stone’ found near the gall bladder

was prized by the chief as a charm. It was

believed to confer long life if ot was swal-lowed.

The crocodile carcass had to be thrown

back into the water. Failing this, drought

was believed to ensue.From Custos, December 1991,

courtesy of SANParks. Photo: Ly-nette Strauss

Wllfe an Afrcan folklore



A new report will guide the way

forward for Cheetah and Af-rican Wild Dog conservation

in South Africa. Carnivore

conservationists will establish a biodiversity

management plan for these species based onthis report, for submission

to the department of water

and environmental affairs.

If accepted and signed by

the minister, it will becomelegislated, providing an en-

forceable means of achiev-

ing the plan’s outlined ob-

jectives.Cheetah ( Acinonyx juba-

tus) and wild dogs ( Lycaon

pictus) share similar biologi-

cal traits and face similar

threats. For this reasonthe decision was taken to

coordinate their conserva-

tion. Both species are wide

ranging and occur at natu-rally low densities, even in

protected areas. Both are

adversely affected by com-

petition with other largepredators, and both are de-clining in number, primarily

due to persecution by humans.

The goal of this plan is therefore to im-

prove the status of cheetah and wild dogs

within their historical range in South Af-rica, and the objectives are to:

· develop capacity in all aspects of chee-

tah and wild dog conservation in South Af-

rica;· improve knowledge of the conservation

biology of cheetah and wild dogs across

South Africa;· develop and implement mechanisms for

the transfer of information relevant to theconservation of cheetah and wild dogs and

ensure active stakeholder commitment;· minimise and manage conict and pro-

mote co-existence between cheetah, wild

dogs and people across South Africa;· minimise adverse effects of existing

land use patterns and promote practices

conducive to the conservation of cheetah

and wild dogs;· improve national and provincial gov-

ernmental commitment to the conservationof cheetah and wild dogs in South Africa;

· review, and where necessary amend

international, regional and local legislation,

norms and standards, policies and proto-cols affecting the conservation of cheetah

and wild dogs, and promote the compliance

thereof; and

· establish viable populations of cheetah

and wild dogs within a matrix of land uses

using a metapopulation approach in these

species’ extirpated and resident distribu-

tions.The Wildlife Conservation Society and

Zoological Society of London are coor-

dinating a continent-wide conservation

planning process for cheetah and Africanwild dogs in Africa, under the auspices of

the International Union for the Conserva-

tion of Nature’s Cat and Canid SpecialistGroups. This has involved the convening

of a number of regional conservation plan-ning meetings, followed by national meet-

ings. The southern African conservation ac-

tion planning meeting was held in Jwaneng,

Botswana in December 2007 and the En-

dangered Wildlife Trust then took the leadrole in coordinating the South African na-

tional conservation action planning process.The rst step in this process was the con-

vening of a Population and Habitat Viabil-ity Assessment (PHVA) workshop for chee-

tah to complement the PHVA conductedfor Wild Dogs in 1997. During recent years,

cheetah have been reintroduced into at

least 37 small to medium sized fenced re-

serves, signicantly increasing the num-bers and geographic range of the species.

However, most of these reserves contain

small populations, and without coordinated

management, there is a risk that inbreeding will occur. The PHVA

provided the tools to

manage isolated rein-

troduced populations

as a coordinated meta-population, where sub-

populations are linked

by management inter-

ventions.Following the PHVA,

the National Conserva-

tion Action Planning

meeting for cheetah

and wild dogs was heldin June 2009, in Bela

Bela, Limpopo. Here

stakeholders mapped

out a comprehensiveconservation strategy

for cheetah and wild

dogs in South Africa.

Another workshopwas then held in Sep-

tember 2009 to discuss

the way forward for cheetah conservation.

At this workshop it was agreed that the

EWT’s Carnivore Conservation Group

(EWT-CCG) would coordinate the process,while the EWT’s IT 4 Conservation Group

(EWT-IT4CG) is well placed to develop the

baseline cheetah database. This will con-

tain information critical to ensuring demo-graphic and genetic integrity of the cheetah

population and avoiding over-population in

small reserves. The next step is to gain buy-in from all landowners with cheetah on their

property and to put together a managementplan for the cheetah metapopulation.

The report that will form the basis for the

Biodiversity Management Plan for Specieshas been nalised and is available at http://

ewt.org.za. The Biodiversity ManagementPlan for Species will take another year tonalise. The national planning process was

made possible by a grant to the EWT by

the Howard G. Buffett Foundation’s AfricanCheetah Initiative.

photo: Ian Whyte

Report to Gue Cheetah an Wl dogConseraton n South Afrca



Karoo National Park rangers dem-onstrate their skills at the 30th An-niversary celebrations

K

aroo National Park, situated

near Beaufort West, celebrat-

ed its 30th Anniversary with

the announcement that lions

would be introduced to the Park in 2010.Speaking on behalf of South African Na-

tional Parks (SANParks) executive manage-

ment, Dr. Nomvuselelo Songelwa made the

announcement at an event held today tocommemorate 30 years of the Park’s exis-

tence after its proclamation on 12 Septem-

ber 1979.

“The introduction of lions will bring back

a historically-occurring species to the GreatKaroo ecosystem,” said Songelwa.

Songelwa added that the introductionwould take place in the rst half of 2010

once measures had been put in place to en-sure the safety of visitors walking around

the Park’s rest camp. The decision had been

made after careful consideration of the vi-

ability of introducing this top predator, tak-

ing into account the numbers of prey spe-cies most likely to be targeted by lions in the

Park.

Truman Prince, Executive Mayor of

the Central Karoo District Municipality,opened the cel-

ebrations with a

welcome speech.

Prince pledgedthe full supportof the district and

local municipality

for Park conserva-

tion initiatives in

general, as well asa specic fencing

issue delaying the

full completion of

the Park’s preda-tor-proof fencing.

Upon receiving

a Kuduzela fromthe Park manager,

Prince – an ex-ecutive member

of the South Afri-

can Football Asso-

ciation - declared

that he would putit into use at Bafa-

na Bafana’s next

match against Ja-

pan.Beaufort West

Executive Mayor, Juliet Jonas, high-

lighted the contri-

bution to the Park’s existence by the local

community which commenced in 1976 with

the donation of communal land to form the

core of the Park prior to proclamation.

Jonas also expanded on the role that na-tional parks play, saying: “Like the Karoo

National Park, all national parks lie at the

centre of our South African character. Theyreect and strengthen our sense of place;

they protect and support our unmatched

biodiversity and increasingly, they anchor

growth, job creation and hope through

tourism for our communities.”

SANParks regional manager, LuciusMoolman, declared that the cooperation

with and support from local government

was “the best experienced by any national

park in the country”.Mzwandile Mjadu, Karoo National Park

Manager, expanded on the major develop-

ments and achievements in the Park over

the 30 years of its existence.

Highlights included the opening of thePark’s rest camp in 1989, the opening of

SANParks rst-ever 4x4 trail in 1992 and

the opening of the rst Braille fossil trail in

the world in 1994.

More recent developments of tourist fa-

cilities include the opening of the Interpre-

tive Centre in 2005, Bulkraal picnic site and

swimming pool in 2006 and Grantham En-

vironmental Education Centre and in 2008.New 4x4 eco-trails and overnight facilities

were opened earlier this year.

Mjadu praised the Karoo National Park

management and staff over the years fortheir dedication and service to SANParks,

saying this is what had led the Park to its

current success.

Testament to the improvements in tour-

ism facilities is the increase in visitor num-bers by 26% and an increase in accom-

modation unit occupancy by 5% over six

months.

Karoo National Park’s rangers put on aparade to demonstrate their skills while the

Park’s choir entertained guests with a few

songs. Photo: Megan Taplin

Karoo Natonal Park to introuce Lons



Jason TrollipClean-up campaignfor SA’s borders

South Africa wants to create an

awareness amongst all communitiesresiding in the vicinity of its borders,

to take care of the environment.

Deputy water and environmental

affairs minister Rejoice Mabudaf-hasi and Zimbabwean environmental

minister Francis Nhema on Friday,

October 16 launched an awareness

campaign at the Beit Bridge border

post.The Clean-Up Campaign is the

rst of its kind and is not limited to

cleaning the borders, said Mabudaf-

hasi.She said it would also be used to

highlight other critical environmental

issues, including climate change, air

quality and the need for the conti-

nent to forge strong links in mattersrelating to sustainable development.

The two will also use the platform to

create awareness about xenophobia.

“We are starting to create aware-ness among communities residing in

the vicinity of all our borders. This is

being done in partnership with coun-

tries with which we share borders,”said Mabudafhasi.

The campaign, she went on, will be

rolled out to other countries sharing

borders with SA, including Botswa-

na, Lesotho, Swaziland, Namibia and

Mozambique.The deputy minister further point-

ed out the need for the continent

to adopt a common position at the

forthcoming talks on climate changewhich will be held in Copenhagen,

Denmark.

“As the most vulnerable conti-

nent we are haveto speak with one

voice. We are

among the ones

likely to bear the

brunt of climatechange the most.

Our continent is

one of the areas

where the adverseeffects will be felt.”

- BuaNews

Nwclp

U

nseen and unheard, insects

are all around us. And with

more than a million different

species, each one perfectly

adapted to its environment, no other formof animal life comes close to matching in-

sects for diversity. Scientists now want to ex-

ploit this diversity to develop and test new

medicines, new methods of pest control,new industrial enzymes and even bionic

systems.

In search of this goal, the Justus-Leibig-

University Giessen and the Fraunhofer-

Gesellschaft will build and expand a col-laborative “Insect Biotechnology” research

program supported by the Land of Hessen,

which is providing four Mio Euros from its

research fund, LOEWE (Initiative for theDevelopment of Scientic and Economic

Excellence). “Up to now, there has been

no facility that systematically develops andeconomically benets from the potential of

insect biotechnology”, explains Prof. UlrichBuller, senior vice president for research

planning at the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft“

in Munich, Germany. Therefore, we antici-

pate gaining a truly unique position withinEurope.”

The stated goal of the Bioresources proj-

ect group is to identify new enzymes and

metabolites in domestic insects that can beused in medicine, pest control and indus-trial biotechnology. For example, an array

of previously unknown substances has been

discovered by studying how insects success-

fully defend themselves against microbes,

and the Insect Biotechnology project groupwill soon embark on research that will use

these substances to develop new antibiotics.

“The strategic alliance between these twopartners is fostering synergy in the elds of

medicine, nutrition and the environment,”

says Hessian minister for science and the

arts EvaK ü h n e -

H ö r -m a n n

c o m -

f i r m s ,

“Not to

mentionthe fact

that this

structural

develop-ment is a

scientificand eco-

n o m i c

boon to central Hesse”. The establishment

of a new Fraunhofer facility together with

the university is planned in the medium-

term,” adds Prof. Dr. Joybrato Mukherjee,

rst vice president of JLU. “Now we canwork intensively from a multifaceted per-spective on a totally new kind of eld of

research, which will allow us to create the

foundations for the targeted long-term pres-ence of Fraunhofer in Gießen. We hope to

gain the state’s long-term commitment to

these structural development perspectives,

which are setting the trend for all life sci-

ences departments at our university.”The Fraunhofer project group will ini-

tially be housed at the Technology and In-

novation Center (TIC) Giessen, as a satel-

lite ofce of the Fraunhofer Institute forMolecular Biology and Applied Ecology

IME which has facilities in both Aachen

(molecular biology) and Schmallenberg (ap-

plied ecology). Prof. Vilcinskas and his teamhave their sights set on three specic topics:

the development and testing of new drugs,

innovative strategies in pest control and

integrated risk management for food and

feed. The third of these topics involves theuse of certain insect species (e.g. rice our

beetles) as tools to develop highly sensitive

test systems that can be used in the future

to monitor the quality and safety of food onan affordable and reliable basis.

The researchers are also focusing on in-

sects with powerful immune systems, such

as rat tail maggots. These larvae from cer-tain hover ies are the only animals that

can survive and thrive in sludge and liquidmanure pits, feeding on the microbes there.

Pest control will feature strongly in the re-

search because insects can be major pests inelds and in storage warehouses, but may

also hold the secret to controlling other in-

sect populations. It is important to imple-

ment pest control without harming bene-cial species such as bees, whose pollination

activity is required for the propagation of many crops.

Insects also possess enzymes that enable

them to exploit otherwise indigestible sub-

stances, such as wood, as food. With bun-

dled research competency, it is now possiblein Hessen to tap the potential of insects as

a resource for new enzymes for use in white

biotechnology (another name for industrial

biotechnology). For example, researcherswill try to develop a way in which buttery

cells could be used in future industrial facili-ties to produce high-grade raw materials or

enzymes.

Learnng from nsects



C

ould the world go through

another food crisis on a scale

similar to the one in 2007/08?

“Never say never again’”, was

the general consensus at a two-day High-Level Expert Forum on How to Feed the

World in 2050, organized by the UN Food

and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in

Rome, Italy.During a robust debate on the outlook for

food and agriculture, Kitty Smith, admin-

istrator of Economic Research

Services (ERS) at the US De-

partment of Agriculture, said the2007/08 crisis was “symptomatic

of what we can expect in the fu-

ture”.

Global cereal prices more thandoubled between 2007 and 2008,

pushing 100 million more peo-

ple into chronic hunger, and the

global total of hungry people to

more than a billion.Homi Kharas, an economist

and expert at the Brookings Insti-

tution, a US-based public policy

think-tank, said there was still“uncertainty” over the reasons

for the last crisis: climate shocks,

market speculation, increased

demand for grains in populouscountries, and volatile energyprices.

In the rst session of the fo-

rum, which began on 12 Octo-

ber, the links between food and

energy prices were mapped out.The 2007/08 food price crisis

was partly driven by steeply ris-

ing fossil fuel prices, which led to

an increased demand for grain toproduce biofuel as a cheaper al-

ternative.

Jacques Diouf, director generalof FAO, said food production

would face increasing competi-tion from the biofuel market,

“which has the potential to

change the fundamentals of ag-

ricultural market systems”. He

said biofuel production was set toexpand by nearly 90 percent over

the next 10 years, reaching 192

billion litres by 2018.

Michiel Keyzer, of the Centrefor World Food Studies in Am-

sterdam, The Netherlands, said

there was an urgent need to regulate the

global production and sale of biofuel.

The world’s population is projected to in-

crease from the current 6.7 billion to 9.1 bil-

lion in 2050, requiring a 70-percent growthin farm production.

The 300 or so experts attending the gath-

ering will try to design policies and pro-

pose ways to meet the burgeoning demand,which will set the scene for a global meeting

of heads of state on the issue in Rome in

November.

Jikung Huang, agricultural advisor to

the Chinese government, said the 2007/08

crisis had been a “wake-up call” for many

countries to focus on agriculture, but now“I think some countries need an even bigger

wake-up call.”© IRIN. All rights reserved.


Workng on how to fee the worl n 2050



2010 must be used tochange Africa’s image

The United Nations Secretary Gen-eral, Ban Ki-moon, has called on 2010

FIFA World Cup organisers to use next

year’s tournament to change Africa’s

image reports Bua News.

“There is great power in this [tour-nament]. It is a time to present a dif-

ferent story of the African continent,

a story of peace, democracy and in-

vestment,” Ban told Local Organis-ing Committee (LOC) boss Dr Danny

Jordaan in a meeting in New York on

Wednesday, October 21.

Jordaan was in New York to update

the United Nations General Assemblyon the preparations towards the World

Cup, with emphasis on the legacy ben-ets of the tournament for the African

continent.Ban said the tournament was about

far more than the 90 minutes on the

pitch and was an event which touched

every corner of the globe.

The game of football above all othersports, unies people and builds soli-

darity and consensus, said Ban, adding

that he believed this would be the case

when South Africa hosted the WorldCup in June and July next year.

All members of the United Nations

General Assembly this week passed a

resolution to endorse next year’s eventin South Africa as a platform for socialdevelopment and peace across the Af-

rican continent.

“More than ever, we are beginning

to see the legacy of this event take

shape and it is given more impact andimpetus to have the endorsement of all

the 192 member states of the General

Assembly,” Jordaan enthused.

He thanked Ban for his assistance inhelping South Africa take the message

of hope to the world, saying that peace

is not just the absence of war but it cre-ate circumstances that create hope.

“The legacy of this World Cup em-barks on changing the circumstances

of many people through its social lega-

cy projects, job creation and advance-

ments in telecommunications and in-

frastructure,” Jordaan told Ban.The LOC boss has also extended

an invite to Ban to attend Africa’s rst

World Cup next year and later, saying

that it was imperative for the UN Sec-retary General to attend the tourna-

ment.

The United Nations Ambassa-

dor for the Year of the Gorilla,

Ian Redmond, has called forthe inclusion of gorillas and

elephants, as important components in Af-

rican rainforests, in the upcoming climate

negotiations in Copenhagen.Large mam-

mals, such as

elephants and

gorillas, are

keystone spe-cies in their

relevant eco-

systems. Goril-

las act as ‘gar-deners’ in the

rainforests of

the Congo Ba-

sin, and pro-

tecting themhelps prevent

loss of ora

that are ecolog-

ically dependent on them.Gorillas are second only to elephants in

the number of seeds they disperse each day

in the forests of Africa. When eating fruit

and seeds, the seeds pass through their sys-tem and are in this way prepared for ger-mination.

UN Ambassador, Ian Redmond, whohas just returned from a fact-nding mis-

sion across eight African gorilla range states

said: “The gorillas and elephants of Africaare doing the world a service. UNEP has

just succeeded in its Seven Billion Tree

campaign, but I would estimate that the

apes and elephants of Africa disperse someseven billion seeds every day! The full ex-

tent of the role they play in maintaining

the health of their forest habitat - a centralcomponent of the Earth’s climate regula-

tion -is still poorly understood.”Fifteen years of armed conicts in the

Great Lakes region of Africa, accompaniedby illegal exploitation of minerals to nance

militias, led to a sharp increase in demand

for bushmeat. In addition, rapidly growing urban populations accelerated deforesta-

tion through charcoal production. Conse-

quently, gorillas and elephants have been

poached in large numbers. A dramatic decline in the diversity of

vegetation can be observed in parts of theKahuzi-Biega National Park in the Eastern

Democratic Republic of Congo. As gorillas

declined and elephants vanished from themontane area, the forest’s ora changed into

denser, less diverse vegetation. Weed-likeplants, which were formerly held in check

by elephants and gorillas, have become

much more dominant and are suffocating

trees, thereby accelerating deforestation.Myrianthus

fruit trees,

whose seeds

had formerly

been dis-persed espe-

cially by large

m a m m a l s ,

are being killed by the

Ser ic o s tachys

scandens vines

and if this

c o n t i n u e smay become

increasingly

rare.

By building nests, gorillas break off branches and create gaps in the forest can-

opy that allow light through to the forestoor enabling smaller plants to grow.

The survival of forests requires the pro-tection of the animals in them as well as thetrees. In the long term, deforestation is as

much a consequence of over-hunting as of

cutting trees for charcoal or timber.

Insights gained from encounters with se-nior government ofcials, ex-militia, park

wardens, conservationists, poachers, log-

gers and farmers highlight the need for a

comprehensive approach to conserve rain

forests and gorillas in the Congo Basin.Supporting existing national action plans

to halt deforestation of gorilla habitat is one

of the major objectives of the CMS Agree-ment on the Conservation of Gorilla and

their Habitat during the Year of the Gorillacampaign.

The Convention on the Conservation of

Migratory Species of Wild Animals works

for the conservation of a wide array of

endangered migratory animals worldwidethrough the negotiation and implemen-

tation of agreements and species action

plans. With currently 112 member coun-

tries, many of them in Africa, CMS is afast-growing convention with special im-

portance due to its expertise in the eld of migratory species. Photo: Pieter Strauss

Carbon fnance s key to betterprotecton of gorllas an elephants



Climate scientists describe Af-rica as an information “black

hole”. The World Meteoro-

logical Organization (WMO)

notes that there are only 744 weather sta-

tions, but only a quarter of them are of in-ternational standard; at least 3,000, evenly

spaced across the continent, are needed,

with another 1,000 in densely populated

areas; ideally, Africa should have at least10,000 stations.

The need for better weather informa-

tion is clear - at the beginning of Septem-ber 2009, oods inundated West Africa,

dislocating 250,000 people; a quarter of the normal annual rainfall was dumped on

Ouagadougou, capital of Burkina Faso, in

one day. In contrast, the Horn of Africa is

reporting a major drought every two years,and the countries there are taking up to ve

years to recover.

At the World Climate Conference

(WCC3) in Geneva, Switzerland, Michel

Jarraud, Secretary General of WMO not-ed: “Strengthening weather observation in

Africa will benet Africa, but it is also go-ing to benet the rest of us. It’s a win-win

situation.” Government representatives atthe conference did not have the required

mandate to commit but the meeting laid

out a blueprint for moving forward towards

a global framework for collecting and ana-lyzing climate information for adaptation toclimate change.

Jarraud’s sentiments were echoed by

Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the US

National Oceanographic and Atmospheric

Administration (NOAA), who stressed thatit was important to standardize data and set

up a global framework for providing climate

services, so that experts and weather servic-

es could work from the same page.“Different countries

have different philosophies

about information relatedto the climate,” she said.

“It is not that one is rightand the other wrong; it is

that they need to be har-

monized.”

The proposed frame-

work has four components:observation and monitor-

ing; research, climate mod-

elling and prediction; a cli-

mate services informationsystem; and a user interface

programme. The rst twocomponents already ex-

ist but need strengthening.

The last two components will constitute a“World Climate Service System”.

An intergovernmental meeting at the end

of 2009 will establish a task force to draft

a blueprint for designing and implementing

the framework, and submit its report to the WMO congress in 2011 for action.

Plans to improve climate services are al-

ready underway. One reason is that the

wealthier industrialized countries realizethat they are also being affected by climate

change.

Thomas Karl, who heads the NOAA’s

climate services, reported that the US has

been experiencing reduced rainfall in itswestern states and unusually heavy precipi-

tation events in the northeastern states.

New opportunitiesGrowing recognition of the seriousness

of the problem is opening the door to in-

novative ideas like “Weather Info for All”,

a global public-private partnership initiativeto put automated weather stations on the

cellular phone towers springing up across

Africa.

The project involves the WMO, Ericsson,an international telecommunications and

information technology company; Zain,

a Middle Eastern telecommunications

company; the Earth Institute at ColumbiaUniversity in the US; and the Global Hu-manitarian Forum, an annual gathering of

humanitarian community leadership in Ge-

neva, Switzerland.

The automatic weather stations draw

electric power from the cell phone towersand use sensors to measure temperature, at-

mospheric pressure, humidity, wind speed,

precipitation and sunshine.

The information is transmitted to nation-

al meteorological and hydrological services,analyzed, and fed back to national decision-

makers in Africa, and eventually to farmersand other clients in the eld.

In the rst phase of the project, 19 such

stations are on a trial run in Tanzania; inphase II, 489 stations will be set up across

the rest of Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda,

and become operational after technical

kinks have been ironed out. The initial roll-out of 508 automated weather stations is

expected to cost just under US$9 million,

and the partnership hopes to expand the

programme to the rest of Africa.

One of the functions of the climate services framework will be to provide hard

data to demonstrate to decision-makers and

the public why it is important to act now.

In Africa, especially, there has been anunderstandable tendency to spend on press-

ing short-term problems and worry about

the weather later, but it is becoming increas-

ingly clear that major climate events likeoods, droughts and cyclones are driving

more people below the poverty line.

Sudden increases in rainfall also increase

health risks, ranging from malaria to red

fever and meningitis, and decision-makersneed a broader understanding of the hid-

den threats of climate change.

Climate emergencies cannot be avoided,

but with good planning based on solid in-formation, a country’s vulnerability to suchevents and the often crippling costs of re-

covery and reconstruction can be reduced

considerably. For these reasons, climate is

emerging as a major factor in development.

Reducing greenhouse emissions is likelyto prove more complicated, but NOAA’s

Lubchenco told reporters in Geneva that

the urgency of dealing with the climate is

now becoming apparent, even to scepticswho previously questioned glob-

al warming.

“Regardless of what happensin Copenhagen [where the UN

Framework Convention on Cli-mate Change will meet in De-

cember to set new targets for

emission cuts] the need for infor-

mation will only increase.”

© IRIN. All rights reserved.photo: Lynette Strauss

Sable Dam in the KrugerNational Park towards theend of the dry season,

October 2009

Tryng to work from the same weather page



Section 1

Patrol duties were carried out by theranger on the 3rd, 4t, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th,

11th, 13th, 14th, 17th, 18th, 19th, 21st,

23rd, 25th and 28th.

The lorry with 20 staff went to Numbion the 10th with locust poison as locusts

are hatching there. The ranger accompa-

nied them. The Numbi picket also reported

small swarms of locusts near the Kruger

Park boundary.The matter was investigated.

Two umfaans were caught for catching

a wildebeest in a snare. A zebra was also

caught in a snare near the gate in the adjoining reserve.

Section 3Patrol duties were carried out by the

ranger on the 23rd, 24th, 26th, 27th and

28th.On the 25th the grass in the Gomondwan

area was burnt and the grass near the camp

was burnt on the 26th.

Section 4 A patrol was made to Saliji and Mlondozi

between the 1st and 8th. No game were

seen, but the grass is tall and green all over.Some of the old veldt near Sololwe was

burnt.

Numerous small hatchings of hoppers are

to be seen between Tshokwane and Salij,but none near human habitation. Sufcient

time having now elapsed for the crocodile at

Esweni picket to digest its gruesome prey, a

snare was set to catch it, which was success-ful the rst night. The beast was a big one

(12’6”). There is a lot of zebra and wilde-

beest along the Makonkolwine road.The ranger has a bad bout of fever.

Some more blasting was done on top of

the mountain, thus completing the clear-

ance of this road for its full length. Theclimb is one and 3/4 miles long. All of it

needs more metaling, prior to grading.

On the 13th the gang was reduced to sev-

en labourers so that the work will progress

only slowly.More grass was burnt along the Saliji

road and Sololwe spruit, incidentally de-

stroying all swarms of hoppers in that area.

Large numbers of hoppers are in theMlondozi area, but these do not, as yet,

threaten any crops. There are hundreds of

storks in this section praying on hoppers

and all but very large hatchings will be ac-

counted for by the birds. Hawks, and even

dgest of Rangers’ dares: February 1941

Kruger Natonal Park

continued on page 19



dgest of Rangers’ dares: February 1941

Kruger Natonal Park

eagles feed on them in swarms, a phenom-enon observed for the rst time this year.

A young lion which was badly mauled

and had taken up its position at the Mazite

dam, was shot. An old local trespasser gave the eld

rangers from Esweni a headache by the

aimless manner in which he had walked

across country from the PEA border. They

followed his spoor. He was ultimately foundlate in the afternoon at the Mazite dam in

an exhausted state and the lorry was sent

to fetch him - this undoubtedly saving him

from being killed and probably eaten by li-ons, for a troupe of 10 was seen at the spot

the next morning!

His emaciated condition was mainly due

to starvation. Mason Knoetze suffered from

a fairly severe attack of fever.Large herds of wildebeeste and zebra

concentrated along the Manzentodo River

from Tshokwane to Kumane. It has not

been a very successful breeding season forthese two species in this area. Sporadic birth

are still taking place at the moment, but the

number of calves are still small.


ranger on the 2nd, 4th, 5th, 12th, 13th,

14th, 18th, 22nd, 3rd, 24th and 25th.

Grass was burnt on the 13th, 23rd, 24thand 25th. Four lions were killed on the 12th

at Semane. Two of them were eaten by oth-

ers during the night.

Section 6

Patrol duties were carried out by theranger on the 3rd, 4th, 9th, 11th, 13th,

14th, 16th, 17th, 21st, 23rd, 25th, 26th and27th.

Grass was burnt on the 19th, 21st, 22nd

and 24th.

Field rangers George, Solomon and

Malunzane report having counted a herdof nine buffaloes on the Maradze spruit.

About 25 wild dogs were seen at Ma-

fulene on the 9th. On the same date the

causeway was also under water. Total rain-fall for month 1.18”. The warden arrived

at the rest camp on the 27th on his way toPunda Maria.


ranger on the 3rd, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th,

12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, 16th, 19th, 20th,

22nd and 25th.

Sections 8 and 9Patrol duties were carried out on the 1st,

3rd, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 10th, 11th, 14th,17th, 25th and 28th.

Eland were seen by the eld rangers on

the Mojolo side but very few calves. On his

way to Pafuri Rest Camp the ranger saw very few game and in every case a very

small percent of increase. On a patrol down

the Shingwedsi river it was observed that

the grass is dry due to excessive heat and no

rain. Game few and scattered. Lions seemto have returned to this area.

A lorry of poachers have been active

again outside the Park about seven miles

from the boundary. Judging by the tracksone lorry and one light car or vanette were

used.

Signs show that two tsessebe were killed.

On the 10th it was gatheredfrom eld rangers and sgt

Oosthuizen that buffalo have

been drinking at the Punda

Maria dam.

It rained in patches but

some areas are very dry. Ithas been noticed that the

nyala are lambing and sev-

eral does were seen with very

small kids. A poacher was brought

in to the eld ranger Philip

from Pukwane and sent off to Punda Maria.

On the 14th the eld rang -ers Fifteen and July reported

that a lorry with Europeans

and locals were camped in

the veld outside the Park

boundary. The ranger wentto the site and found six males

and two female Europeans, a

lorry and a quantity of meat

also a kuku dull skin and ears.The owner was asked for his

gun, and the skin and earswere also taken. The number

of the lorry was noted and

the names taken of the male Europeans.The ranger went down with fever on the

19th was taken to the hospital on the 21st

and returned on the 24th.

Kruger National Park,

7th March, 1941

The SecretaryNational Parks Board

RANGER KIRKMAN

I have already advised the above of-

cer of what took place at the recent board

meeting in connection with his application

to join the Defence Force.He has not, however, yet made any ofcial

application in writing and I gathered from

him verbally that there had been some hitch

in connection with the appointment which

he had hoped to secure. I will advise you atonce of any development in this matter.

(sgt) J Stevenson-Hamilton

Photos: Sasha Strauss

continued from page 18



M

ozambique’s effort to

become the rst of the

world’s major mine-con-

taminated countries to be

declared mine-free is faltering on the homestraight.

There are a variety of reasons: Mozam-

bique’s donor-dependent government no

longer sees demining operations as a prior-ity; the withdrawal of humanitarian dem-

ining operations, sending the wrong signals

to donors that the job was done, and that

the focus of global demining activities has

largely shifted to Iraq and Afghanistan.“We can nish this. We can get rid of

them [landmines] ... This is not a never-

ending story,” Aderito Ismael, Mozam-

bique’s Mine Action coordinator for Handi-cap International (HI), a non-governmental

organization, said. “I want to be out of a

job by 2013, or maybe by 2012.”

Handicap International, one of three hu-

manitarian demining operations still work-ing in the mine-infested territory, is only

continuing operations through the sup-

port of the UN Development Programme

(UNDP), while the HALO Trust - Mozam-bique’s largest humanitarian deminer - is

working below capacity because of funding

shortfalls. APOPO is the third and smallest

of the operations in the country. When demining activities began in 1992,

predictions were that clearing anti-person-

nel landmines and unexploded ordnance

left by four decades of independence and

civil wars could take about 50 years.

“Mozambique could set an example of a country signicantly affected by mines ...

ticked off as cleared ... we are talking about

a marginal timeframe,” Hanoch Barlevi,

UNDP’s chief technical advisor secondedto Mozambique’s Institute of National De-

mining, said.

If donor funding had not subsided, Mo-zambique may have already lost its sobri-

quet as one of world’s most heavily minedcountries, leaving such countries as Angola,

Afghanistan and Cambodia as reluctant

holders of the title.

Mozambique, a signatory to the 1999

Mine Ban Treaty (MBT), was granted ave-year extension of the 1 March 2009

deadline to remove all known anti-person-

nel mines and unexploded ordnance on its

territory, saying that “Through a relativelymodest investment [about US$39 million]

on the part of both the Republic of Mo-

zambique and the international community,

Mozambique can indeed fulll its obliga-

tions in a relatively short time.”

The government attributed its failure to

meet the deadline to the size of the job -123 of the country’s 128 districts were iden-tied as mine contaminated - the competing

needs of demining and poverty alleviation

in one of the world’s poorest nations, and“some donor fatigue, which in turn resulted

in a slow-down of efforts to implement Ar-

ticle 5 [of the MBT].”

Article 5 of the treaty states that “Each

State Party undertakes to destroy or ensurethe destruction of all anti-personnel mines

in mined areas under its jurisdiction or con-

trol as soon as possible but not later than

ten years after the entry into force of thisConvention [MBT] for that State Party.”

A country that became aminefield

Exactly how many mines were plantedduring the conicts is unknown - estimates

vary from millions to about 500,000 - but

whatever the numbers, there were enough

to place the southern African country in

the premier league of mine contaminatedcountries.

Mozambique began to address the daunt-

ing challenge 17 years ago. There were no

records or maps of where landmines were

laid, memories had dimmed, witnesses tothe laying of mineelds had died, and some

communities still feared retribution for in-

forming the authorities about where mines

had been planted.

Landmines were widely used. The Portu-guese colonial administration and Mozam-

bique’s rst post-colonial government, ruled

by the Frelimo party, used them for “defen-sive purposes” to protect infrastructure.

In the civil war that followed indepen-dence Frelimo often commandeered schools

to use as army barracks and surrounded

them with landmines to deter attacks by

Renamo, the anti-government rebel move-

ment.Mine belts turned villages and towns into

fortresses, as much for government soldiers

to defend their positions “as to ensure con-

trol of population movement,” a formerFrelimo soldier said.

Renamo would sometimes create phan-

tom mineelds, planting landmines by day

in view of communities and then removing

them clandestinely at night, but the effect of

denying land to communities was the same.

Better information

Mozambique’s extraordinary progress to-wards becoming a mine-free state has been

achieved by meticulously digging out the

weapons - which have no expiry date - and

more accurate assessments by deminers.The rst survey in 1992 estimated there

were about two million mines, but the Land-mine Impact Survey (LIS) in 2001 - the rst

comprehensive survey, later recognized as

awed - said that about 1.5 million Mozam-bicans, or nine percent of the population,

lived in 1,374 mine-affected areas covering

an area of about 561,689,063 square me-

tres.

Most information on the location of mineelds was provided by local commu-

nities, but ooding in 2000 displaced thou-

sands of people and the LIS was undertak-

en after the water subsided. HI’s Ismael toldIRIN that the “large number of suspected

sites [identied by the LIS] did not repre-

sent reality”, and the survey was undertaken

by people who often did not have the techni-cal skills to gauge the extent of a mineeld.

In 2007 the HALO Trust, which removes

war debris, produced the Baseline Assess-

ment after eradicating duplicate sites, con-

ducting thousands of site visits, and collat-

ing data from HI and Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA), and concluded that 12,166,401

square metres of Mozambique at a total of

541 sites were known to be contaminated.

Having a mine-free state suddenly be-came possible, as the task of clearing more

than 500 million square metres was reduced

to a more manageable area of just over 12million square metres within six years.

However, after 13 years in Mozambique,Norwegian People’s Aid (NPA) closed its

operations in 2006, following the exit of

other international operators, such as the

German deminer Menschen Gegen Minen

(People against Landmines) in 2003, andthe Washington DC-based humanitarian

and commercial mine action and ordnance

disposal organization, Ronco, in 2006, cre-

ating the perception that mines were no lon-ger a major problem.

Per Nergaard, the NPA director of mine

demnng s not a neer enng story

continued on page 21



action, told IRIN the organization was

comforted that HALO Trust and HI re-

mained in the country when the decision

was made “to take our limited resources[elsewhere].”

UNDP’s Barlevi said the Baseline Assess-

ment and NPA’s decision to withdraw led to

two different responses by donors between

2006 and 2007. Some donors used NPA’sexit to close the chapter on their funding,while the ndings of the Baseline assess-

ment encouraged other donors to return

because the task had been dened.“The paradox is that the number of

mine victims has dropped to a few a year,

and if there was 50 mine accidents each

year people would jump up, that is the iro-

ny. The human impact is going down, butit is not going away,” Barlevi said. “There

is less money around, and even less in Mo-

zambique.”

An ever present danger

According to Mozambique’s 2008-2014National Mine Action Plan, between 1993and 2006, 269 million square metres were

demined, 173,091 landmines were cleared

and 133,143 items of unexploded ord-

nance were destroyed.

The four northern provinces of Niassa,Cabo Delgado, Nampula and Zambezia

are currently undergoing a verication

process following the end of demining op-

erations; the remaining provinces of Tete,Manica, Sofala, Inhambane - seen as the

worst affected province - Gaza and Ma-

puto had yet to be cleared.Landmines had also been found along

200km of the border with Zimbabwe, as

well as in a belt around the Cahora Bassa

dam, and beneath about 200 electricity

pylons stretching 80km between the South African border town of Komatiepoort and

into the high density suburbs of the Mo-

zambican capital, Maputo. Further surveys

were required in areas bordering South Af-

rica, Zambia, Malawi and Swaziland.Helen Gray, HALO Trust’s Mozam-

bique’s programme ofcer, like others in

the demining community, is optimistic that

the 2014 deadline can be met with “an in-crease in funding ... soon”. They expect to

have 208 deminers in the eld by Novem-

ber 2009, but ideally require 364 deminers,

excluding support staff and management,

to meet the revised deadline.Gray said they needed about $4.2 mil-

lion annually for the Mozambique opera-

tion, but were getting by with about $2.5

million. “Achieving a milestone like [de-mining the] Maputo [pylons] will help

things,” she said.

Peri-urban communities scratch a liv-

ing on the vacant land along the corridorcreated by the pylons from Komatiepoortto Maputo, growing the staple maize and

other crops, often within a few metres from

the estimated 20,000 landmines planted

along the pylon route.

Up to 200 mines have been found ateach pylon, planted by Frelimo to protect

the electrical infrastructure from saboteurs

during the civil war; it takes two or three

deminers about a month to clear a pylon.“We are behind the curve ... but we still

might meet the ... deadline by 2014,” Gray

said.© IRIN. All rights reserved.

demnng s not a neerenng story

continued from page 20

South Africa’sSumbandila satellitelifts off

South Africa made history on the

September 17, 2009 with the success-

ful launch into space of its low-earth

orbiting satellite, SumbandilaSat.The 81 kg microsatellite blasted into

space at exactly 17:55 (South African

time) from Baikonour in Kazakhstan,

aboard a Russian Soyuz rocket.Naledi Pandor, the minister of sci-

ence and technology, was in Kazakh-

stan to witness the historic occasion.

Pandor said SumbandilaSat had

paved the way for bigger and betterthings.

“We look forward to implementing

our space strategy so that we can join

other nations in exploring the myriadpossibilities presented by scientic and

technological research.”

Director-General of science and

technology, Dr Phil Mjwara, said the

launch reinforced South Africa’s rolein national, regional and international

space initiatives.

“This is a momentous occasion,

not just for the department of scienceand technology and its partners and

stakeholders, but also for the people

of South Africa. This launch is a mile-

stone in our efforts to develop and en-hance space science and technology inour country.”

The satellite carries a high-reso-

lution camera that will produce im-

ages for use in monitoring agriculture,

mapping infrastructure and land use,tracking population movement, and

measuring the water levels of dams.

Data will be streamed to the Coun-cil for Scientic and Industrial Re-search’s Satellite Applications Centre

(SAC) at Hartbeeshoek, near Pretoria,

for analysis and policy developmentpurposes.

The SAC will carry out commandand communication functions by

tracking the satellite using a large dish

antenna.

In addition to the camera, the sat-

ellite carries a secondary communica-tion payload from the Department of

Communications and experimentalpayloads for the scientic community

in the areas of low-frequency radiowaves, radiation, software dened ra-

dio, forced vibrating string and radioamateur transponder.

Policymakers are relying too heavily

on predictions of the impacts of climatechange, a new study says.

As a result, they are claiming they need

more research and more predictions before

they can take action – and when policiesare made, too little action follows.

Research by Dr Mark Charlesworth of Keele University and Dr Chuks Okereke

of the Oxford University’s Smith School of

Enterprise and the Environment also warns

that decision-makers are assuming impactswill take effect gradually without sufcient

evidence.

The study, published in the journal Glob-

al Environmental Change, urges govern-ments and others to rely less on cost-benet

analyses in determining policies becausethey may not be appropriate.

Economcs cannot sole clmate change”, researchers say



The secret lives of some of Afri-ca’s iconic carnivores, includ-

ing big cats, are revealed in a

new study in the journal, Ani-

mal Conservation.The results shed light on how different

habitats are used by some of Tanzania’s

most elusive meat eaters, such as the leop-

ard.

Scientists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), the Wildlife Conservation

Society (WCS) and the Tanzania Wildlife

Research Institute (TAWIRI) carried out

the largest survey of Tanzania’s carnivores,using a novel approach making use of over

400 camera trap locations.

The research reveals that many species,

including the leopard, are particularly fussy

about where they live, actively avoiding cer-tain areas. Surprisingly, all the species sur-

veyed tended to avoid croplands, suggesting

that habitat conversion to agricultural land

could have serious implications for carnivore distribution.

“Camera traps provide a fantastic oppor-

tunity to gain knowledge on habitat use and

spatial distribution of otherwise elusive andpoorly known species. This methodology

represents a powerful tool that can inform

national and site-based wildlife managers

and policy makers as well as international

agreements on conservation,” says Dr Sar-ah Durant from ZSL.

Until now, many of the species had been

under reported because of their nocturnal

habits, or because they live in heavily for-ested areas. The strength of the technique

to document habitat preference of elusive

species is highlighted by camera trap obser-

vations of bushy tailed mongooses – includ-ing the rst ever records of this species from

one of the most visited areas in the country.

These data can also be used to under-

stand how Tanzania’s carnivores may re-

spond to habitat changes caused as a resultof environmental change.

“Carnivores are generally thought to be

relatively tolerant to land conversion, yet

our study suggests that they may be moresensitive to development than previously

thought, and that protected areas need tobe sufciently large to ensure that these

charismatic animals will roam in Tanzania

for the decades to come,’ says Dr NathaliePettorelli from ZSL.

She adds: “All species were affected by

rivers and habitat, and the analysis pro-

vides important information relevant to theexamination of future impacts of climate

change.”

The project continues to map carnivore

distribution across the country, working

closely with the wildlife authorities to sup-port local conservationists and to generate

information that is used to inform conserva-

tion planning. Photo: Tommy Javerfalk

No place lke home: Afrca’s bg catsshow postcoe preference



Cairo and Alexandria, some 200

km apart, could merge in the

foreseeable future, a spectrathat presents a nightmare for

urban planners and managers in Egypt.

A future of sprawling unending cities

is already a bleak reality in other parts of the world. In Latin America, Mexico City

(Mexico) has encroached upon two different

states, while Buenos Aires (Argentina) cov-

ers 30 different municipalities.

A major feature of North American cit-ies is urban sprawl, which has been attrib-

uted to permissive land-use planning andthe growth of afuent households. By 2000,

sprawl was increasing at twice the rate of urban population growth in the United

States, with Las Vegas being the fastest

growing metro area. Canada currently has

three of the world’s 10 urban areas with the

most extensive sprawl. They are Calgary,Vancouver and Toronto.

Fifty-two per cent of the world’s 3.3 bil-

lion urban population live in cities and

towns of fewer than 500,000 people. Indeveloped and developing countries 54 per

cent and 51 per cent of urbanites, respec-

tively, live in such cities.

However, as city populations grow, so cit-ies expand by consuming most of the previously separated towns and cities. In some

cases this results in turning such areas into

metropolises, and others into peri urban

entities. Either way, the process of urban

sprawl is presenting a major challenge forurban planners and urban management

worldwide.

Urban sprawl is one of the challenges

facing urban planners and local authori-ties according to the new UN-HABITAT

report Planning Sustainable Cities: Global

Report on Human Settlements 2009. Thereport argues that increasing socio-spatial

challenges, especially social and spatial in-equalities, urban sprawl and unplanned

peri-urbanization are some of the key chal-

lenges facing the 21st century city.

“There are a number of key messages

emerging from the Global Report, all of them contributing towards nding a new

role for urban planning in sustainable ur-

ban development,” says Anna Tibaijuka,

executive director of UN-HABITAT.“One important message is that govern-

ments should increasingly take on a morecentral role in cities and towns in order to

lead development initiatives and ensure that

basic needs are met. It is clear that urban

planning has an important role to play in

assisting governments to meet the challeng-es of the urban century.”

Asia is home to the most megacities in the

world. A major trend is that urbanization is

pushing past metropolitan borders, leading to the formation of enormously extended

mega-urban regions (such as Shanghai and

Beijing in China) that have developed along

infrastructure corridors, then radiating over

long distances from core cities. This hascreated complex planning and governance

problems within the region. In Asia, urban-

ization is taking ruralopolitan urban forms,

an entirely new phenomenon. This is oc-curring in Bangladesh, China, India, Indo-

nesia and Pakistan where vast stretches of

rural lands are being engulfed by expanding

cities. Sprawl of this kind, then, explains the

unique mixture of rural and urban land usein this region.

Sub-Saharan Africa

Urban sprawl in Sub-Saharan Africa is

not as drastic but it is occurring. Many citiesare spreading out and engulng surround-

ing rural land and adjacent towns, leading to continuous belts of settlements. This pro-cess is largely informal and is driven by the

efforts of low-income households to secure

affordable land at reasonable locations.

Another facet of sprawl characteristic of

the region is the growth, primarily, in thecapital city.

One consequence of this merging of

previously non-adjoining towns and cities

around the world is metropolitanization.The process refers to the conversion of ru-

ral land into urban uses and the engulfment

of adjacent municipalities by larger cities toconstitute new metro areas.

Developed countries present a contrast-ing picture of urban sprawl. A common

feature of developed countries is that urban

densities have been declining, and this has

been contributing to urban sprawl. Between

1960 and 1990, Amsterdam (the Nether-lands) experienced a 10 per cent reduction

in its population density, but expanded its

land area by more than 60 per cent.

One factor that accounts for urbansprawl in these countries is economic pros-

perity. The problem has been more acute inNorth America, where a signicant segment

of the population owns cars. Another rea-

son for sprawl is that population growth hasintensied the density of some inner-city

areas, prompting the wealthy to relocate tosuburbs. Consequently, in Western Europe,

sprawl is acute in Belgium; the Netherlands;

eastern, southern and western Germany;

northern Italy; the Paris and Madrid re-gions; Ireland; and Portugal.

A major determinant of sprawl is govern-

ment policy, which has been more tolerant

in North America, but more stringent in

Western Europe. Development of core ar-eas of many Western European and Japa-

nese cities before the era of the automobile

explains their relative compactness, com-

pared to Australia, New Zealand, Canadaand the United States. However, the need

in European cities today to commute is

evidence of sprawl of the North American

kind.

Oceania and Japan: Sprawl is a majorenvironment concern. Throughout this re-

gion, sprawl has become a major planning concern, as trafc congestion and pollu-

tion have worsened. In New Zealand, cit-ies are expanding and blurring urban-rural

boundaries, as peri-urban populations grow.

This complicates municipal governance. In

Australia, annexation and consolidation areresulting in the “disappearing towns syn-drome”. There, Hursbridge, Bellowie, Ad-

inga Beach and Golden Bay-singleton dis-

appeared and became parts of Melbourne,

Brisbane, Adelaide and Mandurah, respec-

tively.Transitional Countries: During the com-

munist era, centralized decision-making

structure permitted the state to establish

compact, highly dense cities with functionalpublic transport. However, since the po-

litical and economic reforms of the 1990s,

which presided over the whittling away of communism in these areas, low-income

families and lower-level retail business hasmoved form inner city to low-cost neigh-

bourhoods on the urban fringes. Here also,

sprawl has been encouraged as private de-

velopers erect exclusive and high-income

suburban enclaves.The report concludes by calling on urban

planners to encourage more compact cities

in a bid to reduce green house gases and

emissions.UN-HABITAT report Planning Sus-

tainable Cities: Global Report on Hu-man Settlements 2009

Cty sprawl, Cty Crss



A

s South Africans grapple with

huge hikes in their electricity

bills, the residents of an infor-

mal settlement on the outskirts

of Cape Town have turned to the sun toprovide for their heating needs in Africa’srst project registered under the Clean De-

velopment Mechanism (CDM).

The almost 2,000 families in Kuyasa, alow-income informal settlement that is part

of the sprawling Khayelitsha township,

have not only managed to cut their electric-

ity costs by 35 percent a year, but are also

doing their bit to reduce harmful green-house gas emissions.

Each solar water heater helps save

around 1.29 tonnes of carbon dioxide per

household per year from being emitted,which equates to the total carbon emission

in a ight from Lagos, Nigeria, to Surabaya

in Indonesia.

The CDM, set up under the UN Frame-

work Convention on Climate Change (UN-FCCC), allows industrialised countries to

meet part of their commitment to reduce

greenhouse gases by investing in projects

that reduce emissions in developing coun-tries, while also contributing to the sustain-

able development needs of the host country.

Projects registered under the CDM can

earn saleable Certied Emission Reduc-tions (CERs) credits, each equal to one met-ric tonne of carbon dioxide.

The Kuyasa project was developed by

SouthSouthNorth (SSN), an NGO work-

ing to counter climate change, for the City

of Cape Town’s Environmental Resource

Management Department and Urban Re-

newal Programme.The project hopes to complete installing

solar water heaters in 2,300 houses by 2010,

with funding from the national department

of environment and tourism and the West-ern Cape Province government.

The Cape Town City Council, owners of

the Kuyasa project, have already sold CERs

to the UK government and hope to gener-

ate and sell more credits so as to maintainthe water heaters and invest in other com-

munity development projects.

Funding has come from national and

provincial governments and the South Af-rican Export Development Fund (SAEDF),

a non-prot organization has underwritten

the project.

Eskom, a parastatal utility, generates

most of South Africa’s electricity in coal-red power stations, and the cheap energy

alternative presented by Kuyasa has stirred

some interest.

Zuko Ndamane, the project manager, ispushing for integration of the solar power

generator model into new low-income

housing developments, because “It is more

expensive to retrot houses with energy-saving devices, like we did in Kuyasa.”

© IRIN. All rights reserved.

Sang the planet, an money Solving Hydrogenstorage Limit toPower Green Cars

Hydrogen fuel, because its only

byproduct is steam, should be the

ultimate in green alternatives to fos-

sil fuels, but it hasn’t delivered on its

promise yet because of one enormousstumbling block, storage. Now a team

of chemical engineers at the Univer-

sity of Massachusetts Amherst has de-

veloped a computational model thatshows that carbon nanotubes may of-

fer a solution. Results are presented in

the October 2009 online issue of the

journal, Applied Physics Letters.

“If this works as we expect, it’s per-haps no longer science ction to hope

for a briefcase-sized hydrogen battery

to run a bus or car,” says UMass Am-

herst chemical engineering professorDimitrios Maroudas. The UMass Am-

herst computational model stronglylends itself to verication in laboratory

experiments, say Maroudas and col-

leagues, and it provides ample testablehypotheses for future experimental re-

search.Specically, Maroudas shows that

proper arrangement of carbon nano-tubes can overcome hydrogen trans-

port limitations in nanotube bundles.

It should also prevent ineffective and

nonuniform hydrogenation, which iscaused by nanotube swelling due tochemisorption of hydrogen atoms on

the nanotube walls.

If one were to think of carbon nano-

tube bundles as something like a tooth-

brush, one strategy that Maroudas andcolleagues recommend for holding

hydrogen atoms most efciently is that

the brush arrangement should not be

too dense. If it is, when the tubulesswell they’ll block efcient passage and

diffusion of the hydrogen, Maroudas

explains. In addition to an optimalbundle density, further improvement

can be achieved by optimizing the in-dividual nanotube congurations to

limit their swelling upon hydrogena-

tion.

Following this approach should re-

sult in one hydrogen atom being ableto chemisorb onto — form a chemi-

cal bond with — each carbon atom of

the nanotubes, leading to 100 percent

(atomically) storage capacity, he adds.This chemisorbed hydrogen, bound to

the surface, can then be easily releasedby applying heat.

Each of the 6.7 billion people on Earth

has a signature body odor — the chemi-cal counterpart to ngerprints — and sci-

entists are tracking down those odiferousarches, loops, and whorls in the “human

odorprint” for purposes ranging from dis-

ease diagnosis to crime prevention. That’s

the topic of an article in the current issue

of Chemical & Engineering News, ACS’weekly newsmagazine.

C&EN Senior Correspondent Ivan Am-

ato points out that police long have used

trained dogs to sniff out these uniquelypersonal scents in pursuing criminals. Sci-

entists now are trying to decipher the chem-istry of human odor to develop technology

that can detect and classify smells. That’s

a difcult task, the article says, noting thateach person’s odorprint is a complex mix-

ture impacted by multiple environmentalfactors, including diet and cosmetics.

The article describes progress in that di-

rection, explaining that scientists alreadyhave identied odors in human breath and

skin associated with diabetes, cancer, andother diseases.

Scientists are even trying to detect the

“smell of deception,” or chemical changes

that occur with heightened stress that mayhelp screen and identify, for example, ter-

rorists planning to blow up an airplane andcriminals intending to rob a bank.

Trackng own human smell



Proposals for tighter trade controls forspecies such as the Atlantic blue n tuna,

sharks and corals have been submitted forthe next meeting of parties to the Conven-

tion on International Trade in Endangered

Species of Wild Flora and Fauna (CITES).

The meeting, which will have changesto trade rules for an unusual proportion of

marine species on its agenda, will be held in

Quatar in March 2010. Controversy is alsoexpected over conicting proposals con-

cerning elephants. WWF especially welcomes the proposal

by the Principality of Monaco to list At-lantic bluen tuna on Appendix I to the

convention, which would ban internationaltrade for commercial purposes and was sub-

mitted as Atlantic bluen tuna stocks are

declining dramatically because of uncon-trolled overshing.

“An Appendix I listing for Atlantic bluen tuna has become imperative if we are

to save the species,” said Amanda Nickson,

director of the WWF international species

programme.“If we act now we can secure the future

of this species and guarantee that shing

can be resumed in the future, but at a sus-

tainable level.”Proposals to list several shark species on

Appendix II, which allows for international

trade but imposes strict regulations and re-

quires proof that trade is sustainable andlegal, were also submitted. Threats such asbycatch and shark nning and illegal shing

and overshing have caused serious declines

in shark populations. Also proposed for an Appendix II listing

were red and pink coral, which are used

to make jewellery. Red and pink corals are

found throughout the world’s tropical and

temperate seas but the absence of effectiveinternational trade controls has led to over-

harvesting.

Elephant debateexpected to becontroversial

Elephants will be a topic of debate at theCITES meeting as potentially conicting

proposals were submitted for elephants. Ke-

nya submitted a proposal – together with

a group of west African countries - that

would impose a 19 year ban on other coun-tries seeking permission for one-off ivory

sales, such as the one that took place under

CITES supervision in 2008, and that would

suspend the legal sale of ivory souvenirs inNamibia and Zimbabwe.

One the other hand, Zambia and Tan-

zania submitted proposals that would have

elephant populations within their bordersmoved from Appendix I to Appendix II in

order to ease the permitting rules for trophy

hunting and allow for the sale of govern-

ment-owned ivory stockpiles.“WWF recognizes that some southern Af-

rican elephant range states have successfully

demonstrated that their populations should

be placed on Appendix II,” said Nickson.

“However, Tanzania and Zambia have yet to prove their case by demonstrating

that their management of ivory stockpiles is

adequate enough to prevent laundering of

poached ivory.“And while we acknowledge the concerns

that have motivated Kenya’s proposal, we

must not forget to address what WWF sees

as the main issue driving elephant poaching

– that is, unregulated domestic markets incentral and West Africa.”

Two other of WWF’s priority species

that were not the subject of listing propos-

als but that will be discussed at the meeting are tigers and rhinos, which are both criti-

cally endangered and are being poached

in order to feed the illegal market for their

parts and derivatives. Tiger numbers couldnow be as low as 3,200 and rhino poach-

ing has reached a 15 year

high according to new re-

search released this sum-

mer.

WWF will now engagewith its partners TRAF-

FIC and IUCN, which

will do a full analyses of

the proposals in orderto assess whether or not

they meet the criteria

required for a species tobe listed in the CITES

appendices. WWF willformulate its position on

each proposal based on

this analysis.photo: Lynette

Strauss

Elephants near theLetaba Rest Camp inthe Kruger NationalPark

Treaty partners learn of 40 proposewllfe trae rule changes



Kruger Krazies’ Claim to Shame

These photos of transgressors of Park rules are published in an attempt to assist in restoring basic respect forothers and the Park. Entries are sent by visitors, rangers and all people concerned wit the welfare of the Park andits visitors.




Volunteers, greater Hoedpsruit based-

businesses and staff from the Klaserie Pri-

vate Nature Reserve and Children’s Eco

Training joined hands with teachers, pupilsand parents of Mawuvana Primary School

on a clean-up drive at the school.

All contributed to the success of ‘Do-

it’Day’ by planting, painting, putting inwindows, restoring and xing desks, re-

placing desk tops and surprising the school

with new shelves in the storeroom. “This

hard work and incredible changes gave the

school new hope and a sense of belonging and pride,” says Zani Kunz of Children’s

Eco Training.

“We would like to thank all of you, the

volunteers and our sponsors, who assisted inmaking this an awesome experience,” says

Zani.

School principal S Ndlovu said he is

delighted to see their planning come into

fruition. “The participation of teachers and

parents are much appreciated,” he said.

Sponsors: Klaserie Private Nature Reserve(main Sponsor), Gomo Gomo Lodge, Mica

Hoedspruit, The Waterhole,

Lowveld Building Supplies,

Hoedsruit Spar, Honey Suckle,Glass Planet, Bavaria, Campre

Safaris, Johan du Preez, Bertie

Vorster, Hennalie Steyn, Wil-

lem van der Nest, Johan van

Zyl, Gert Rautenbach, Wouter& Annamarie de Vos, Am-

mie Minnaar, Chris & Barbara

Huddle, Jaco & Ilonka Crau-

kamp, Theo Sauerman, AutoDoctor, Maliora, KPNR staff:

Erik Manyike, Lawrence Ma-

thonsi, Newman Mahatlane,

Reuben Motloutsi (CET), CET staff: Elvis

Mathebula, Thabo Mhangane and Ronald

Moropane, KPNR volunteers: Nikiwe Ndl-

ovu (KPNR) and Frank (Matamani camp).

volunteers get rty at school



The impact of climate changeon cities and towns, as well as

the reduction of dependency

on fossil fuels are among the

foremost challenges to urban managementtoday in creating sustainable cities. The cre-

ation of sustainable cities requires the mini-

mized use of non-renewable resources; the

use of renewable resources; and for cities to

stay within the absorptive capacity of localand global waste absorption limits. Mea-

sures taken to attain these objectives pro-

vide the link between the natural and built

environments, or, put another way, betweenthe green and brown agendas.

Green and BrownAgendas

A signicant dilemma for urban planners

and politicians trying to implement sustain-

able urban development is how to integrate

different concerns of the green and brownagendas.

The Green Agenda refers to the natural

environment: it is about the natural systems

of the local, bioregional and global ecosys-tems that cities and other settlements use asservices for open space, biodiversity, water

provision, waste dispersion, health air, andreliable climate, food and bre.

The Brown Agenda concerns the human

environment. The agenda is essential formaking a city work; for a healthy and live-

able environment; and for creating the hu-

man and economic opportunities that have

been driving cities. This agenda is aboutoptimizing land use; engineering of waste

systems; minimizing energy consumption

and transport; reducing use of materials;and creating an efcient built environment.

The rapid growth of cities in the past 50 years has meant that the brown agenda of

providing buildings and transport, while

coping with waste, has often overwhelmed

many cities, especially in the developing

world. Brown functions of a city often de-grade its green resources, unless city inter-

venes through processes such as urban plan-

ning and environmental management. This

is no longer feasible and cities need to slashtheir impact on the natural environment,

and ensure that bioregional and global eco-systems are shielded from degradation.

Key innovat ions are occurring globally

to synergise the green and brown agendas.They are as follows:

Development ofRenewable Energy

This enables cities to create healthy envi-

ronments using minimum fossil fuels. Some

urban areas are now partly powered by re-

newable energy techniques and technolo-gies, from the region to the building level.

Harnessing solar, wind, hydro and geo-

thermal power for urban use: Urban plan-

ning is necessary to create the infrastructureneeded to support renewable sources of

power at the scale necessary to help power

a city.

Transport: electric vehicles can play a

critical role in enabling renewable to buildup as a much higher proportion of the ur-

ban energy grid.

Fossil fuels: The move away from fos-

sil fuels requires serious localizing and lo-cal sourcing of building materials. Striving

for carbon-neutral cities: The key objective

of this trend for “carbon-neutral cities” is

to ensure that every home, neighbourhoodand business is carbon neutral. Carbon-neutral cities are able to replace fossil fuels,

thereby providing a basis for the regenera-

tion of the ecology.

Minimizing carbon footprints: This needs

to become a feature of whole neighbour-hoods and even complete cities if the world

is to move to post-carbon cities.

Increasing photosynthetic spaces as part

of green infrastructure: Growing energyand providing food and materials locally is

becoming part of urban infrastructural de-

velopment.Development of distributed power and

water systems: this aims to shift cities fromlarge centralized power and water systems

to small-scale and neighbourhood-based

ones.

Newer forms of power and water are in-

creasingly smaller scale: This will ensure areduction in the use of water. Distributive

systems are being tried in cities such as Mal-

mo (Sweden) and Toronto (Canada).The urban eco-efciency agenda includes

the “cradle to cradle” concept for the design

of all new products and new systems suchas industrial ecology, where industries share

resources and wastes like an ecosystem.

Sustainable TransportIncreasingly, more energy efcient cit-

ies neighbourhoods and regions are being

planned, by offering walk-able transitori-

ented options and renewable energy pow-ered vehicles. Such cities have been able to

reduce use of fossil fuels, as well as through

reduced urban sprawl and reduced depen-

dence on car-based infrastructure. The

agenda for large cities now is to have moresustainable transport options to reduce traf-c while reducing greenhouse gases by 50

per cent.

Street Planning andMobility Management

As cities build freeways, more car trafc

follows. On the other hand, if transit trafc

is emphasised, it could enable streets to be-

come an important part of the sustainable

transport system. Streets can be designed tofavour pedestrian and cycle trafc. When-ever this is done, cities become more attrac-

tive and business friendly. now contain gro-

cery stores, childcare centres and improved

public toilets.

Cities without Slums

“Cities without slums” is one of the most

important goals of urban planning in devel-

oping countries today.Slums pose a signicant threat to the

green agenda, at the same time; the brown

agenda is seriously compromised for those

living in slums. There are two trends inresolving the phenomenon of slums: rst,

is upgrading of existing slums; second, is

adoption of urban and housing policies thatprevent the emergence of slums.

Slum upgrading consists of improving security of tenure and installing new or im-

proving existing infrastructure and services

up to satisfactory levels, especially water

supply, sanitation and waste management.

This includes storm water drainage, elec-tricity, access roads and footpaths.

UN Habitat: Global report on Hu-

man Settlement 2009

did YOU KNOW?

Ctes an Clmate Change



The rescue of nine abused el-ephants from a commercial

training facility in Zimbabwe

will begin on Monday, No-

vember 2, 2009 the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) has announced.

The elephants were conscated in April

2009 after an inspection by the Zimbabwe

National Society for the Protection of Cru-

elty against Animals (ZNSPCA) found crueland torturous methods were being used to

“tame and train” them for the elephant

back safari industry - a popular tourist ac-

tivity in Zimbabwe and elsewhere in south-ern Africa.

The ZNSPCA requested IFAW to step in

and assist in translocating the elephants to

a safe haven with a view to rehabilitating

the elephants and releasing them back intothe wild.

“These elephants have been subjected to

the most appalling cruelty, all in the name

of servicing an indefensible form of safariindustry,” said Neil Greenwood, spokesman

IFAW Southern Africa.

“In fact 10 elephants were originally

caught for training. Tragically one - a young male named Dumisani - died of malnutri-tion and the abuse he was subjected to.

Given all of this, IFAW has

assembled a top team of cap-

ture experts to translocate the

remaining nine elephants tosafety with the least possible

stress.”

The elephants will be trans-

ported from a privately ownedranch in the West Nicholson

area, south of Bulawayo where

the elephants were being “trained,” to Hwange Nation-

al Park, some 700 kilometres(437 miles) further east.

The wild elephants were

originally caught on protected

land in October 2008. In April

2009 when the ZNSPCA in-spected the training facility

they discovered some of the

following abuses taking place:

* Elephants chained on oneleg and being fed from a dis-

tance requiring them to standon three legs and strain at their

chains to reach their food.

This practice was intended to enforce thedominance of the handlers and caused se-

vere wounds to the chained legs.

* Restricted access to water and shade.

* Varying degrees of wounds caused bytraining techniques and chaining.

* An adult female elephant separated

from her male calf causing unnecessary

stress and physical suffering to both calf

and mother.* Chaining for long hours preventing the

elephants from socialising with each other.

The translocation of the elephants will

begin on Monday afternoon, 2nd Novem-ber and has been mandated by the Govern-

ment of Zimbabwe. The elephants will be

darted and transported in a single group

to Hwange National Park overnight before

being released into a large rehabilitationboma for monitoring before eventually be-

ing released into the park.

For more information on the transloca-

tion and on making a donation to supportthe move, please visit www.ifaw.org.

International Fund for Animal Wel-

fare

Battere an Bruse -Abuse Elephants to BeRescue n Zmbabwe

South Africa to hostG20 Tourism Meetingin 2010

South Africa has been elected as

the Africa representative to the ex-

ecutive council of the United Na-

tions World Tourism Organisation(UNWTO) at the organisation’s 8th

annual assembly in October 2009.

“Our election follows an absence

of ten years from the ExecutiveCouncil. During this four-year term,

South Africa will use its position to

advance Africas development agen-

da and the objectives of the New

Partnership for Africas Development(NEPAD).We will also actively work

towards the realisation of the Millen-

nium Development Goals (MDGs),

because we, as an African country,regardtourism as pivotal to unlocking

greater economic growth, infrastruc-

ture development, trade promotion

and job creation on our continent,”

says South Africa’s minister of tour-ism, Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

He was addressing the 8th annual

tourism conference which took place

in Johannesburg on October 30,2009.

In Kazakhstan, the ministerial

representatives from the G20 coun-

tries also met to discuss tourismscontribution to the economic stim-uli required for the recovery of the

global economy. South Africas willhost a rst meeting of the G20 tour-

ism ministers from 22 to 24 February

2010 in Gauteng under the themeTravel and tourism: Stimuli for G20

economies.

As the new UNWTO Roadmap

for Recovery report adopted in Ka-zakhstan highlights, there is grow-

ing evidence that tourism and travel

could make a valuable contributionto the process of global economic

recovery, which will include amongstothers rebuilding consumer con-

dence, stimulating source markets

and, in the longer term, supporting

the transition to a greener economy.

The new UNWTO Roadmap toRecovery recognises the fact that

tourism is one of the worlds top job

creators (providing 75 million direct

jobs worldwide) and that it drives the viability of many small and medium

enterprises.



On the eve of 2010, International Year

of Biodiversity, the National Museum of

Natural History and Pro-Natura Inter-

national are working in partnership with

IUCN to launch’ Our Planet Reviewed’,an unprecedented programme of naturalist

expeditions.

The expeditions will span ten years to

conduct a massive inventory of biodiversityin geographical areas which, up until now,

have been little explored. The objective isto accelerate the scientic discovery of new

species, by focusing our efforts on the re-

gions of the planet which are considered apriority in terms of nature conservation.

Madagascar and Mozambique receivedthe rst of a series of expeditions on sea

and land in April 2009. The last is sched-uled for June 2010. Under the leadership of

Professor Philippe Bouchet, from the Na-

tional Museum of Natural History, and Ol-

ivier Pascal, from Pro-Natura International,

these expeditions aim to develop existing knowledge of biodiversity in regions which

are considered to be the richest in species,

but which are also lesser known and the

most threatened on the planet.Over four months of research in the eld,

around a hundred participants across all

disciplines, from all around the world, and

exceptional technical resources bear witnessto the scale of this inventory project.

These new expeditions will draw on the

expertise acquired during Santo 2006, an

inventory operation carried out in the Van-

uatu archipelago, in the heart of the SouthPacic, which revealed several hundred new

species.

Essentially dedicated to neglected bio-

diversity, such as marine and land inverte-

brates, plants and fungi, which represent95 percent of biodiversity and play a fun-

damental role in the balance of ecosystems,

the Mozambique/ Madagascar project in-tends to return this eld of research, all too

often ignored in favour of large fauna, toits proper place and thereby encourage new

conservation policies, which are no longer

solely based on emblematic species.

Disappearing habitats (forests, coral

reefs), overexploitation, pollution, climate

change - there are numerous causes for the

disappearance of living things and the scale

of the biodiversity crisis is now proven. The

actual number of living species could be

between eight and 30 million, yet only 1.8million are currently known. A quarter, or

even half, of these species could disappear

from the planet by the middle or the end of

this century; the issues at stake are thereforesubstantial and, now more than ever, it is

time to start a new pattern of exploring and

describing biodiversity.

Mozambique and Madagascar are hometo an exceptionally rich ora and fauna,

which is still largely unknown, despite

the attention which has been accorded to

Madagascar, in particular, by nature protec-

tion organizations over a number of years.Therefore, it is natural that these two large

countries should form a strategic target for

scientists.

The Museum has created a bilingual

website (French/English) entirely dedicatedto the project: This allows the public to fol-

low the expeditions, take a look behind the

scenes and share the researchers day to day

experience through photos, reports, inter-

views and much more. www.laplaneterevisi-

tee.org and www.ourplanetreviewed.org

The Ploughshare Tortoise (Astro-

chelys yniphora) was uplisted fromEndangered to Critically Endan-gered in 2008. This species has avery small range, occurring onlyaround Baly Bay in northwesternMadagascar. The total wild popula-tion is estimated at about 600 indi-viduals and is declining. Its currentrestricted range and past declinesare believed to be the result of ex-

ploitation (poaching for the inter-national pet trade) and habitat losscaused by deliberate res. It is nearcertain that the species will becomeextinct within the next generation(42 years) if the current level ofthreats continue unabated. Photo ©Anders Rhodin.

Our Planet Reewe

The Kruger Park e-Times is published regularly to keep you updated on conservation science sustainable

Documents

Kruger Park e-Times 4