The pandemic has seen a drastic decline in tourists visiting safari and game parks, but funding and conservation efforts are more critical today than ever before.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“I wish to see all the rangers get back to work. These iconic animals need us to speak for them… we have to protect them for the next generation, but it’s hard. So many rangers have lost their jobs.”<cite>Leitah Mkhabela, of the all-female Black Mambas Anti-Poaching Unit</cite></blockquote>



As the sun sets resolutely over the Kruger National Park, South Africa’s famed wildlife reserve in the Limpopo province, rangers begin their evening patrols on game vehicles and on foot in areas frequented by poachers. And this long, dreary nocturnal expedition in the wild will continue into the wee hours.



As office-goers emptied out of the concrete jungles of the cities during the pandemic, in sharp contrast, these rangers soldiered on in their jobs preserving life in the wilderness.



The pandemic may have seen a drastic decline in their numbers worldwide, but their role is perhaps more critical than ever before.



In a time of a global pandemic that finds its origins in a zoonotic virus, conservation efforts are more important than ever to prevent future contagion from becoming a threat.



With many of the lodges in the 19,485km2 Kruger park struggling to achieve pre-pandemic tourist numbers, novel ways of funding must be found, or many people and animals who depend on the wildlife economy for survival will be without a future.



The rangers, who continue to be employed, count themselves lucky. Many of their colleagues were retrenched in the wake of the pandemic, or had to take hefty pay cuts.   



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">&#8220;The pandemic took a lot of jobs [in conservation] away, and with it, people&#8217;s dignity. You have people selling their homes, their cars, just to survive.&#8221;<cite>Craig Spencer, former Head Warden of Balule Nature Reserve</cite></blockquote>



And this is a trend worldwide, not just in Africa.



With the spread of Covid-19 from early 2020, many countries took an understandably stringent approach to travel restrictions and lockdowns. In the absence of tested, available vaccines and lack of a clear understanding of the transmission and mortality of the deadly coronavirus, across the world, airports and borders were closed to non-essential travel, thus decimating world tourism numbers.



South Africa was affected too, as it entered a strict 21-day lockdown from March 26, 2020, barring all non-critical work, travel and business. The lockdown has been extended in differing levels until today.



It saw foreign arrivals into the country drop by 71% in comparison to 2019. With the tourism sector contributing almost 3% to the GDP and almost 4.5% of South African employment rates, the lockdowns took aim at the heart of livelihoods supported by the tourism sector – with the wildlife economy particularly hard-hit.



This impact is reflected across the continent as well as globally, with all 10 Southern African Development Community (SADC) countries suffering at least a 65% decline in foreign tourists from 2019 to 2020 (Stats SA). According to papers published by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which surveyed rangers and conservation efforts across 60 countries, a quarter of rangers saw their salaries reduced or delayed, and about 20% surveyed lost their jobs due to the pandemic, with African rangers some of the hardest hit. “We have not been able to get our usual donations and incomes for our work. Most people are sitting at home without incomes – and in the communities, when there is no money, there is no food. That’s where the poaching comes in,” says Leitah Mkabela, an anti-poaching ranger and team supervisor of the all-female Black Mambas Anti-Poaching Unit, to FORBES AFRICA.



The Black Mambas, one of South Africa’s most well-known ranger groups, has been one of the few that has managed to retain all of their staff. However, with budget and staffing cuts rife amongst most other ranger organizations and game reserve hospitality, the entire local economy that the reserves support have taken an economic knock that will take years to recover from. At the Balule Nature Reserve where the Black Mambas operate, the variety of lodges are the primary income for the reserve. Part of the Greater Kruger National Park Reserve, Balule is home to dozens of lodges which on average employ 3.5 people per bed, according to former Head Warden Craig Spencer, with the reserve generating an income in the millions of dollars a year, primarily from foreign tourists. The lodges employ almost exclusively from the local communities – with many having had to lay off staff due to the pandemic and recovery rates slow, people have become desperate. “Almost every aspect of conservation depends on the wildlife economy, be it entrance fees at lodges, funding from zoo visits, accommodation…&nbsp; The pandemic hit us very hard,” says Spencer in an interview with FORBES AFRICA. “The pandemic took a lot of jobs [in conservation] away, and with it, people’s dignity. You have people selling their homes, their cars, just to survive.”



Negative impacts due to the pandemic have also occurred at the policy level, which could have far-reaching implications for the wildlife economy, with funds being reallocated away from previous wildlife protection efforts or protection efforts being side-lined in order to stimulate economic growth in challenging times; one such example can be seen in Kenya, which has earmarked a new national roadway, a high-end restaurant and amphitheater within Nairobi National Park, despite reservations from local conservation groups, as documented by the IUCN. South Africa has largely managed to avoid similar challenges, with the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries retaining its $550 million budget for the 2020/2021 fiscal year – however, much of these funds have been allocated to make up for losses in the sector due to declining tourism. While the pandemic has offered a once-in-a-century challenge to the wildlife economy, there is, however, a glimmer of hope. As vaccination rates have increased worldwide, travel has tentatively risen as well. The South African National Parks are seeing increased numbers of attendees, and with the increases in tourism numbers come both community support initiatives and unique fundraisers to support wildlife initiatives. One fundraiser takes the form of the Wildlife Ranger Challenge, which aims to raise monies to support anti-poaching ranger operations by donating to rangers who will run a 21km race on August 21, 2021. With 150 ranger teams competing from across the continent, the competition has already raised several hundred thousand dollars so far. The funds will be used to provide salaries and support ranger services to many organizations. Many rangers have also initiated community assistance programs. The Mambas have provided food parcels for 90 desperate families throughout the lockdown, as well as begun to build community food gardens and opened boreholes during the pandemic, along with their anti-poaching duties. “The iconic animals need us – we have to speak for them. When we face the poachers, some might be from the community you’re coming from,” says Mkabela. “When people are struggling, they will take that bushmeat and sell it for maize meal. The food parcels, the gardens we build, we say ‘we are on your side’ – that’s how we’ve managed to keep the poaching down in our community.” “I think overall it has made the industry more resilient,” says Spencer. “The industry is surviving and growing closer bonds to their communities. We are all in this together.”

Alfred Dunhill Championship – Day One

Covid And Conservation – The Pandemic’s Effects On The Wildlife Economy In South Africa

Adjany da Silva Freitas Costa, the youngest minister in the Angolan cabinet, is an intrepid adventurer, biologist and conservationist committed to saving the world’s last wild places.



Adjany da Silva Freitas Costa is not your ordinary minister. At 30 years old, the Luanda local is currently the youngest minister to serve in the Angolan cabinet and an intrepid adventurer with an inspiring hands-on background.



In 2015, Costa was one of the braves who undertook a four-month journey from the highlands of Angola, meandering 2,400km by mokoro (a traditional canoe), camping wild along the Okavango River until they reached the town of Maun in Botswana. The trip illustrated how the Okavango Delta relies on Angolan rains, but also highlighted the costs of Angola’s lengthy war to its landscapes.



In April this year, Costa assumed the government position as Minister of Culture, Tourism and Environment. “It is not exactly unusual for a woman to join the Angolan government,” says Costa, “but it&#8217;s not exactly common either.&#8221; Currently, there are seven women ministers in the Angolan cabinet, creating a gender split of roughly 35% female.



“We bring a lot of benefit for the simple fact that we can bring inclusion to the politics forged in society,” says Costa. “I think that every single one of us brings a different perspective to the whole context of politics. Currently, I am the youngest minister to serve in the Angolan cabinet. It makes me feel like there is hope for youth and hope for the future. I do think we bring an innovative way of thinking and innovative vision into the current system that is very beneficial to change and to the improvement of the system here in Angola.”



The cross-country expedition revealed new species (to date, ongoing field trips have resulted in the discovery of 26 species new to science, more than 75 species potentially new to science, and more than 130 species previously unknown in Angola). It also embedded in Costa a life-long commitment to saving the world’s last wild places. It short, it changed her life.



“It changed the whole perception that I had of everything, personally, professionally, academically,” Costa admits. “The trip helped me see the world and my participation in the world, in a very different way. In a very concrete way and I don&#8217;t think I would be sitting here answering these questions if I hadn&#8217;t participated. I have never, ever in my entire life “envisioned myself as a minister. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve ever envisioned myself being part of politics, but there is a writer who once said, ‘You don&#8217;t choose politics. Politics chooses you’, and that&#8217;s exactly what happened. I see it as an opportunity to bring change from the outside. I am someone that has always applied the policy that&#8217;s created by decision-makers. I think it&#8217;s an opportunity to bring that applicability into the system and make it much more action-focused – and more than a piece of paper.”



In 2017, Costa was named an emerging explorer at National Geographic, and in 2019, she became the Young Champion of the Earth for Africa in the United Nations Environment Program. Before taking a seat in the government, Costa worked as an ethno-conservationist to pioneer projects that developed working conservation models for communities living alongside crucial wildlife hubs.



“Being a biologist is also a great advantage for this position. I believe that policies should be made to be applied and not archived,” Costa says. Another benefit for her position is that she knows all about being on the ground. “I started my journey in conservation, looking specifically at biodiversity and working directly with the specimens. I started with turtles, and all we did was patrol the beaches and look after the nests – and that was it. There was no engagement. For a long time, I always thought there was a separation between humans and wildlife – and that the separation was needed for us to protect wildlife. Working for the past five years in the East of Angola, I realized that it is the complete opposite. The gap that we&#8217;ve created with nature is what causes us to destroy nature in the first place.”



Costa has a masters degree in Biology and a PhD in International Wildlife Conservation Practices from Oxford University. In the wake of Covid-19, we are just beginning to see the harsh effects of tourism loss to wilderness protection.



<figure class="wp-block-gallery columns-1 is-cropped wp-block-gallery-1 is-layout-flex wp-block-gallery-is-layout-flex"><ul class="blocks-gallery-grid"><li class="blocks-gallery-item"><figure><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" width="683" height="1024" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-683x1024.jpg" alt="" data-id="45550" data-full-url="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-scaled.jpg" data-link="https://www.forbesafrica.com/?attachment_id=45550" class="wp-image-45550" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-scaled-300x450.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-scaled-600x899.jpg 600w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-200x300.jpg 200w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-768x1151.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-1025x1536.jpg 1025w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-1366x2048.jpg 1366w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/MSF2357-scaled.jpg 1708w" sizes="auto, (max-width: 683px) 100vw, 683px" /></figure></li></ul></figure>



“Rural communities are the true protectors of the environment around them,” Costa says. “Ethno-conservation is the art, and it is our privilege of being able to work with communities for the sake of nature. Not just for the conservation of biodiversity, but also the improvement of their own lives.”



The drastic decline in visitor numbers in the wilds of Kenya, Zimbabwe and across the African continent highlights the importance of such a conservation model more than ever as decades of conservation successes hunker in jeopardy due to tourism collapse.&nbsp;



“Our main target for tourism in Angola is internal tourism. We have 29 million people that don&#8217;t know most of the country,” says Costa. “We have a lot of potential though; whether it&#8217;s landscape, culture, adventure or eco-tourism, it’s possible in Angola. We are very much focused on creating the services and infrastructure for internal tourism before we look outside of our borders.



“In terms of tourism, Angola’s biggest asset is definitely diversity,” Costa enthuses. “Not just naturally and not just culturally. The conditions that you find from one place to the other are so unique that you can go, within Angola, to 10 different places that feel like completely different countries. We literally go from a tropical forest, all the way to a desert in one row. Angola has partnered with different collaborators to assure the protection of these spaces. Whatever happens in Iona National Park is completely different from what happens in the Luengue-Luiana National Park (which feeds the Okavango Basin), and that’s completely different from what happens in the Quiçama National Park.”



She also believes that protecting such wild spaces enables wildlife to flourish.



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Nature has this incredible thing that is, to me, one of the most fantastic traits. It is resilient. Even now, with this Covid-19 situation, we have seen how resilient nature is. Wilderness itself can resuscitate, and wilderness can find a future – if we just know how to protect it.”</blockquote>



When asked about inspiration and the future, Costa cites other intrepid conservationists, Jane Goodall and Sylvia Earle as strong influences.



“If I have to send a message to young women around the world, what would it be? Do it. That&#8217;s something that I always say. Do it. Whatever it is that we set our minds to do. We can most definitely, definitely do it. We can achieve impossible things. I&#8217;m a minister today. That says a lot!”



&nbsp;– By Melanie van Zyl

Adjany Costa – Forbes Africa-2

‘With Covid-19, See How Resilient Nature Is’

There is something about first impressions.
When you meet Diana Kamuntu, two things instantly strike you about her: that she is tall – very tall – and that she would probably pass off as more movie star than manager.
Half an hour into meeting with the 37-year-old Ugandan entrepreneur and mother of three running a tour company in Kampala, facts emerge that she has been a business woman for the last decade, and that is as an elephant conservationist – who would have thought?
The youngest daughter of Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni plays it down.
“In the beginning, I was more on the tourism side but in the last few years, that’s when I went more into conservation, especially of the African elephant,” she says.
“I don’t think we as Ugandans know that much about it and knowing that it’s an issue that affects the whole continent.”
Her company, Age Safaris, is in the building we are in now, in the Luzira suburb of Kampala. By the reception to her offices is a giant carpet with the image of the President, hung on the wall.
How does she blend business with conservation, we ask.
“What I have learned over the years is that business is about people, it’s about the networking. The people you meet, the people you work with, is what makes a business, they become an extended family. For tourism in particular, I think it’s a great industry because it goes right down to the people. It trickles down to the communities, and changes whole communities,” says Kamuntu.
This she admits to learning from her parents.
“I guess for me the greatest thing I learned from my parents is their love for people. It’s what drives them, what keeps them going for work and being in touch with ordinary people. Many times, I have been with my father upcountry and he’ll stop the car to talk to people and ask them how their day is and how their families are. That will always remain with me. The greatest lesson in life is people.”
Her company works with an organization called Restoration Gateway that supports children and the vulnerable in northern Uganda.
But talk still veers to the African tusker.
“Here in Uganda, our African elephant population is steadily growing, it’s about 5,000 now. That’s not enough but it came from about 2,000 in the 1980s – it’s small but at least it’s not declining… During the war, many of the elephants migrated to the Congo but now they are slowly coming back and we are repopulating but in different parts of Africa, it’s mostly poaching, so the efforts are to try and stop that poaching and stop the market for ivory.”
The mountain gorilla, found in these parts, is even more endangered.
“Efforts mostly are about bringing awareness to everyone who visits that there are only about 750 to 800 mountain gorillas left in the world and more than half of them are in Uganda.”
<div id="attachment_34780" style="width: 311px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34780" class=" wp-image-34780" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Diana-Kamuntu-1-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="301" height="452" />Diana Kamuntu (Photo by Lovington Kambugu/Blush Media)</div>
Kamuntu’s travels take her far. Her husband Geoffrey is into the logistics business, and with children aged 12, 10 and eight, she says it’s hard work but certainly not as demanding as the early years when she had to “travel for exhibitions and business development”.
“The children are your priority and at the same time, you want to contribute. It’s a big challenge especially for women. Starting a business is not easy, as investment capital is hard to come by even though there are many microfinance projects targeting women. I think those are the biggest challenges that I’ve seen,” she says.
Kamuntu recounts her own career trajectory. She studied African History at the University of Minnesota in the United States.
“My father always made fun of me saying, ‘you went all the way to the States to study that’,” she laughs.
“Back in Uganda, for a bit I was [cattle] ranching with my father. Everyone knows he loves his cows – it’s our culture, the backbone of who we are. Then I started to venture into business. I would travel to many tourism destinations and see the number of tourists and think ‘you know if Uganda was discovered as a tourist destination, it would sell’. The more I went into it, the more I discovered what a unique country it is.”
Until the age of six, Kamuntu was in exile with the family. Her earliest memories are of winters in Sweden.
“And we spoke fluent Swedish,” she smiles.
“I guess as kids we didn’t know the struggles my mother was going through trying to raise four kids on her own. For us, it was a happy time really, but I guess there was always someone missing – my father, but his presence was always looming. I remember when my sisters and brother would want me to do something, they would say ‘daddy is coming today’, and then I would get up because I never really met him until I was six years old when we came back to Uganda and were reunited… That’s when I really got to know him.
“Both my parents are amazing. I think my father tried to make up for that time lost, so he would spoil us, especially the girls. He was always encouraging us to follow our dreams and dream big. Whatever he felt or you felt as a person was your calling, he would support you.”
Like both her parents, would she ever enter politics?
Kamuntu shakes her head. “I don’t aspire to be in politics… It’s a lot of sacrifice.”
It’s clear her heart is in many other things.
“Ugandans are very creative as a people so that’s our untapped potential,” she says.
It’s only when we meet her sister Natasha Karugire the following day and she mentions that she has cast Kamuntu as the leading lady of the movie, 27 Guns, she is currently filming that we know.
What was it again about first impressions?

‘The Greatest Lesson In Life Is People’

Once upon a time, Africa alone was home to 26 million elephants. The giants roamed the continent knowing not what lay in store, that their habitats would dwindle and so would their majestic numbers.
From millions, they are now in their thousands, falling faster than trees – all for their ivory tusks.
Approximately 97 elephants are gunned down daily by poachers for their tusks. This means by 2030 there could be no elephants left in the wild.
According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the African elephant population dropped from 550,000 in 2006 to about 350,000. In East Africa, the decline is far more alarming – from 150,000 to about 100,000.
Other parts of the world have also seen a drastic decline of the elephant population. In Asia, it’s estimated less than 50,000 elephants still roam the region; more than half of them in India.
These figures are frightening – what deforestation and poaching can do.
Jeffrey Gettleman of The New York Times said: “Like blood diamonds from Sierra Leone or plundered minerals from Congo, ivory, it seems, is the latest conflict resource in Africa, dragged out of remote battle zones, easily converted into cash and now fueling conflicts across the continent.”
It’s hard not to notice the mammoths disappearing.
<div id="attachment_34014" style="width: 510px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34014" class=" wp-image-34014" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Paula-Kahumbu-e1509005131550-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="500" height="357" />Paula Kahumbu. (Photo supplied)</div>
Dr. Paula Kahumbu, the CEO of WildlifeDirect, a Kenyan conservation NGO, is currently leading a campaign, Hands Off Our Elephants – civil society, corporations, government agencies as well as other conservation organizations in a unified approach towards ending the poaching crisis in Kenya.
Born in Nairobi, Kenya, to an English mother and Kenyan father, Kahumbu is one of eight siblings. Being out in the wilderness as a child interacting with animals made her the committed eco-warrior she is today.
“My mother was often home alone and because we were so many, mother would literally tell us to get lost and we would do just that,” says Kahumbu.
“We’d go exploring – catching anything you can imagine; birds, mice, snakes, frogs. We’d go fishing and swimming in the rivers, make our way through to forests and swamps. We spent our entire childhoods in the wilderness.”
“We did the kind of stuff you would never allow children to do today actually but it was very safe at that time,” she continues.
Soon, these trysts led to an encounter with Richard Leakey, a Kenyan paleoanthropologist, conservationist and politician.
“We didn’t know all that much about wildlife so we would visit our neighbor, Richard Leakey, head of the Kenya Museum Associates. He was someone who knew a lot about animals and whenever we would spend time with him he would teach us about their ecology, behavior, and the like.”
Between the 1960s and 1980s, elephant poaching was at a dramatic high, according to the Convention of International Trade and Endangered Species (CITES).
“When I finished high school, it was very difficult at that time to get into university. My parents could not afford to take us to the local university,” says Kahumbu, who then, just as she had done countless times as a girl, returned to Leakey.
She knocked on his door, which at the time was at the National Museum, and said, “I want to be a ranger”. That got her in.
“There was one particular place I wanted to go to, Kora National Park, best known for the lions and George Adamson who is famously known as Baba ya Simba, which translates to ‘father of lions’. My dream was to be his ranger. And Richard Leakey said ‘are you sure about this’? I was 17 years old and that’s all I wanted to do. I ended up in a research facility which focused on monkeys and that’s when I realized the importance of science in studying animals,” says Kahumbu.
That was the motivation for years of study. Kahumbu was the first in her family to attend university.
“My mum was not keen on the idea of a career in animal conservation… She sent me to secretarial college because she thought that the safe [career] option is to be a secretary because everyone needs a secretary. I detested it and the day I ran to Richard Leakey’s office was the day I ran away from secretarial college.”
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Kahumu did a lot of field work early in her career.
“I went to some of the remote corners of the country, some really dangerous areas to study this wildlife. This left my mother very anxious.”
Her “conservative” mother always threatened: “I am going to speak to this Richard Leakey because it’s unacceptable that a young woman can live in the bush for months on end counting monkeys on her own.”
Her father, on the other hand, encouraged her. Kahumbu clearly broke boundaries.
“I remember my male colleagues were very angry with me because it was very uncommon for a woman, particularly a Kenyan woman, to be working in the forest usually by herself, so they would beg me to stop but of course I never did,” she says.
That did not deter her from her course.
“My son was actually born when I started working on my PhD and he was two-and-a-half years old when I had to spend extended periods of time in the wilderness conducting my research. I worked in a rainforest on top of a mountain with huge trees.”
Kahumbu and a small team of researchers were studying trees, a main source of nourishment for the elephants.
“We wanted to gauge how elephants living and eating in the forest was changing the landscape of the forest. My son was still so small, I would sit him on a mat, give him some toys to play with and go on measuring trees.”
“One day, the trees started moving as though they were being consumed by strong winds, it was actually a herd of elephants calmly making their way through the forest… But we were so busy we had not noticed they had moved in around us and I hadn&#8217;t really realized they were around us until I was about to measure what I thought was the trunk of a tree and then I realized it was the leg of an elephant,” she laughs.
“When I did [realize], I slowly tiptoed backwards and picked up the baby.”
<div id="attachment_34015" style="width: 512px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-34015" class=" wp-image-34015" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Paula-Kahumbu-elephants-e1509006154685-300x214.jpg" alt="" width="502" height="358" />Paula Kahumbu observes elephants. (Photo supplied)</div>
Kahumbu was persuaded to study elephants after her bachelor&#8217;s degree and “was offered an once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to lead the stocktake of ivory in 1989 in Kenya”.
“I had to measure every single tusk, which is a great source of information about the sex of the elephant and age. We gathered data from about 3,000 tusks and drew a timeline as every tusk had a marker of when and where it was seized.”
What the timelines showed was alarming. The tusks got smaller and smaller. This showed poachers were going for smaller elephants, calves essentially.
“Juxtaposing the data with the demography of animals, we saw there were no adults left, the species was basically finished because there were no longer breeding individuals; poachers are going for any kind of elephant, even if it had half a kilogram of ivory.”
Following that, Kahumbu decided she was not going to study the pachyderms, not only because they were virtually extinct but also because there was the threat of her becoming a target for poachers in the area.
“So, for my master’s degree, I decided to study monkeys and even from time to time, when we were out doing research in the wilderness, we’d hear gunshots and subsequently come across dead elephants on our trail and I remember thinking, ‘thank goodness I’m not studying elephants’ because every single day, I would be heartbroken.”
For three years, she refused to study them.
After her master’s, she became a senior scientist at Kenya Wildlife Service. While there, the organization hired 30 young Kenyans to conduct research on elephants.
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The ban on poaching was now in place so their task was to work out how to save the remaining elephants as well as replenish the population. This formed the thesis of Kahumbu’s PhD.
When she became CEO of WildlifeDirect, she led a campaign exposing the poaching crisis in Kenya, leading to major reforms in the laws and practices against ivory poachers and traffickers.
Poaching dropped by 80% in three years. Kenya burned her entire ivory stockpile of 105 tonnes in April 2016, an event that garnered global attention.
“The world was very surprised – how was it that a country suffering economically would forego millions of dollars’ worth of a payout to prove a point?” says Kahumbu.
It was a start, and conservation continues.
“Even after decades of working in this area, I still can’t understand the inhumanity and greed of poachers. The elephant is an extraordinary animal. They can live in any habitat except the ocean. They can climb close to the ice on Mount Kilimanjaro, they can live in deserts as they do in Namibia and northern Africa. They can live in forests and in savannahs. Elephants can also eat almost anything.
“They are a lot like humans in that way because they can easily adapt to an environment. Their brain is three to six times larger than the human brain, designed to store vast amounts of information. Further, elephant families are actually governed by females because the male leave the herd at an early age and only return to mate.”
The trade of ivory is inextricably linked to the trading of slaves. Kahumbu explains, in the late 1800s, the British could not take ivory out of Africa without the help of slaves because they did not have the means to carry it. Ivory was stolen from the homesteads of people in the Congo.
“In those days, Africans did not see the monetary value poachers saw; they would use the tusks as fence posts around their homesteads and the British would raid these villages and steal all the ivory and ship it to Zanzibar and Mombasa and then it would be taken to Europe. It was so valuable, 100 tons a year were being shipped out to be used as billiard balls.”
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And then ivory found its way to America; the volume of ivory coming into one part alone gave birth to two cities on the back of ivory trade and slavery. Business boomed. Technology was developed to transform ivory into how we know it today – thin veneers used as piano keys and hair combs.
“That was a major driver. And by the end of the 1800s, there was about 1.2 million elephants – a drastic decline. In Japan, ivory was a symbol of luck, pens and stamps were made with ivory and of course this caused the trade to skyrocket in the region.”
At the moment, various species of the elephant are on the World Wildlife Fund’s (WWF) list of critically endangered, endangered, vulnerable and threatened animals, sharing the list with another dwindling animal – the rhinoceros. The illegal rhino horn trade has decimated the world’s rhino population by more than 90% over the past 40 years.
But has the world awakened to the plight of these animals?
According to research, the common strategy adopted by many countries is to destroy stockpiles of ivory. An article in The Guardian quotes WWF: “This has been the case not only for African countries but also some developed countries that have intercepted ivory originating from Africa. The idea is to remove the ivory from the market and thus reduce the incentive for people to engage in smuggling. In Kenya, the problem of elephant poaching has spiraled out of control and destroying ivory has become the common practice in dealing with the stockpiles.”
The torching of stockpiles of ivory has not been the only way governments have tried to mitigate the poaching of elephants. Countries such as France, China, the United States, and the Philippines have destroyed ivory worth millions of dollars. However, South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe oppose the destruction of illegal ivory; this according to an article published in National Geographic in 2016.
But does destroying ivory translate to less poaching? The Conservation Trust, a nongovernmental organization sites that in 2015, elephant poaching was at its highest level in more than three decades.
The ornaments made from the tusks form part of a billion-dollar industry – prevalent and as dangerous as ever.
Kahumbu’s Hands Off Our Elephants has generated unprecedented public and political awareness and support for wildlife conservation in Kenya.
According to WildlifeDirect, the most severe financial penalty for convicted poachers was $400, and fewer than 4% of convicted offenders were going to jail, a safe haven for poachers. Since then, the Kenyan government has allocated $20 million for anti-poaching activities.
In January last year, Kahumbu partnered with media and wildlife authorities to launch Kenya’s first wildlife documentary series, NTV Wild. It shines a light on issues of poaching and the very real prospect that in the near future, the world may be without elephants.

Will There Be Any Elephants Left In 2030?

Private rhino horn owner John Hume recently held South Africa’s <a href="https://rhinohornauction.com/web/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">first online rhino horn auction</a>, a major event in the ongoing fight by private rhino owners to be able to sell legal horn stocks. But in a statement <a href="http://mailchi.mp/240f2571befd/john-hume-online-rhino-horn-auction-results-835477?e=ba2124a66c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">released on Hume’s behalf</a> it was admitted that there were very few bidders for the 264 horns.
The auctions result is a setback to achieve a legal, commercial trade in horn to replace poached horn in supplying demand in the main markets. Hume’s official statement tried to put a brave face on it, saying he had triumphed and that a legal and sustainable supply <a href="http://mailchi.mp/240f2571befd/john-hume-online-rhino-horn-auction-results-835477?e=ba2124a66c" target="_blank" rel="noopener">has been established</a>. He stills hopes to attract more buyers – horn will still be available for private sales as long as permits are available.
The auction website had been translated into Vietnamese and Chinese in a bid to attract more bidders. Vietnam and China are the main markets for rhino horn – supplied currently by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/wave-of-rhino-killings-points-to-shifting-poaching-patterns-in-south-africa-77806" target="_blank" rel="noopener">huge level of poaching of rhinos</a> in South and southern Africa.
But with very few bidders taking part and one presumes little horn sold, it has done little to decisively advance the cause of establishing a legal, regulated market that both John Hume and Pelham Jones, chair of the Rhino Owners Association (PROA) believe can replace poaching, and provide funds to promote the breeding, protection and ultimate survival of rhinos.
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There’s confusion over what comes next, made worse by the inconclusive result of the online auction, which has neither put a nail firmly in the coffin of legal trade nor shown a massive domestic demand that would put pressure on the government or provide economic incentives for more auctions or private sales.
This is the worst of both worlds and will only encourage further poaching, as demand shows no sign of lessening.
<h2>Controversy remains</h2>
The situation does not help clear the mess of a three way fight between private owners who favour trade, the government which seems not to know or want to say what it wants to do, and the strong and vocal lobby totally opposed to trade. Groups such as the <a href="https://www.ewt.org.za/RHINO/rhino.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Endangered Wildlife Trust</a>, for example, are against trade mainly on ethical grounds.
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The biggest block to the success of the auction was that horns legally purchased cannot be exported legally for sale. <a href="https://cites.org/eng/disc/what.php" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species</a>, or CITES, <a href="https://cites.org/sites/default/files/eng/cop/17/WorkingDocs/E-CoP17-68-A5.pdf">bans</a> this. Without lifting the ban or changing their regulations, CITES members like South Africa, China and Vietnam cannot trade any horn. Vietnamese or Chinese buyers can buy horn in South Africa but cannot take it <a href="https://beta.safarious.com/article/1902-saving-private-rhino-owners" target="_blank" rel="noopener">out of the country</a>.
Earlier this year, South Africa’s Constitutional Court <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-wildlife-rhinos-safrica-idUSKBN1771VP" target="_blank" rel="noopener">definitively overturned</a> the 2009 government ban on the domestic trade in rhino horn. The decision caused confusion over how horn would be sold, what permits were needed and whether the department would provide the permits. The ability of the government to develop a viable regulatory system for horn is also in question.
The <a href="https://www.mahohboh.org/2017/08/21/rhino-horn-online-auction-postponed/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">department set conditions</a> on issuing permits for Hume’s sale, which he agreed to comply with fully. Only permit holders can sell to other permit holders. The permit does not allow international trade. Part of the conditions was that the department must have access to the auction to do the necessary monitoring.
This would appear to be a first step in providing some sort of regulatory framework for domestic sales. It meets South Africa’s need to be seen to be complying with the 40-year-old <a href="https://voices.nationalgeographic.org/2016/10/13/cites-upholds-rhino-horn-trade-ban-but-will-this-reduce-rhino-poaching/">CITES ban</a> on the international commercial trade in rhino horn, but at the same time obeying the court order that domestic sales be permitted.
<h2>Confusion over what happens next</h2>
Earlier this year the South African government <a href="http://allafrica.com/stories/201703110005.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">published draft legislation</a> on horn sales that would allow owners of horn (South African or foreign) to take two horns out of the country as personal property but not for commercial sale and as long as the owners had the proper permits. The department then held consultations with interested parties, including private rhino owners, but the proposed legislation has not been released for consideration by parliament.
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Molewa and the department haven’t said anything about next steps. They have however released <a href="https://beta.safarious.com/article/1902-saving-private-rhino-owners" target="_blank" rel="noopener">a statement</a> affirming South Africa’s commitment to CITES regulations. This puts emphasis on the fact that commercial international trade on rhino horn remains prohibited. The department denied that the new draft regulations were meant to circumvent CITES but they did confirm that it would allow limited horn exports.
This has set alarm bells ringing that a pseudo trade could develop, with foreign buyers coming to South Africa, buying horn legally, then taking it out of the country after. Monitoring what happens then would be impossible.
There is no single solution or silver bullet to put an end to poaching, but the present impasse will only make things worse. &#8211; Written by <a href="https://theconversation.com/profiles/keith-somerville-275605" target="_blank" rel="author noopener">Keith Somerville</a>, Visiting Professor, University of Kent
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South Africa’s first online rhino horn auction ends in risky impasse

There is something special about a light-mantled sooty albatross. Yes, you are right, all albatrosses are special. But the light-mantled is especially special. Even Professor Peter Ryan, guru of gurus on all things ornithological, thinks it is special. He has seen more albatrosses than the Ancient Mariner.
“Only two people I know have seen one in southern Africa,” he said; it is that impressive.
Well, make that more than 1,002 now.
This tale has four components: BirdLife South Africa’s Annual General Meeting, albatrosses in general, the light-mantled, and South Africa’s extraordinary achievement.
A decade ago, BirdLife SA struggled to get 100 people to its AGM. So, because nobody wants to go to an AGM, the name was changed to Flock, and at Flock 2011 the number of participants doubled.
This year, the AGM was held at sea. Flock at Sea 2017 attracted an astonishing 1,969 birders.
The good ship Sinfonia was jammed to the rafters with cameras, bird books, lenses, tripods, experts, ornithologists, birdwatchers and twitchers, the last being birders who like to keep lists of birds they have identified.
She set off south from Cape Town at the end of April, and for four days and nights wandered about the ocean searching for albatrosses, prions, shearwaters, storm petrels, et al.
The ship steamed into a very productive patch of birds just as the AGM was about to start, and like children called for ice cream, birders abandoned the AGM for the decks, where shouts of “Indian yellow-nosed albatross on the port side!” and “Wilson’s storm petrel at three o’clock off the back” disturbed the dry reading of the financials.
Some on the Sinfonia had just booked the ‘Cruise to Nowhere,’ not realizing the boat would be colonized by birders. Like the crew, they looked on bemusedly as people rushed from port to starboard, bow to aft, binoculars at the ready, from dawn to past dusk.
Nobody was to be seen in the casino on board, despite seductive pleading from the croupiers. Even the shops were deserted. But the back of the boat was crowded, and BirdLife’s experts were there to help those who couldn’t tell a sooty from a shearwater. At nights the bars were filled with tales of birds seen and birds missed.
Strangely, the shy albatross was the most common albatross seen, then the wandering and Indian yellow-nosed. In all, seven albatross species were seen. Also seven petrels, two prions, three storm petrels, and a couple of skuas. Besides birds we saw seals, sharks, striped and Heaviside’s dolphins, Bryde’s whale and long-finned pilot whale.
Wandering albatrosses are amazing. The egg takes 80 days, a long time, to hatch. After another nine months to fledge, the chick waddles to the edge of the cliff on a remote island, stretches its wings somewhere between 2.8 to 3.6 meters (think of two six-foot tall people end to end), hops off the cliff for a maiden flight, and returns to dry land four to five years later. It has flown many times around the world by then, yet returns unerringly to its natal island. Albatrosses can fly without a wingbeat for 100 kilometers, and can smell prey on the sea from 200 kilometers away.
After its first return to the island the sub-adult bird takes several years to choose a mate, but does not breed. Only after a pair has been together for a few years, between the age of eight and 12, is the marriage consummated.
The oldest albatross we know of, named Wisdom, is my age, 68. We don’t really know how long they live. The wandering albatross is the largest and most impressive of the family Diomedes, which I think means two nostrils.
Ken Newman labelled the light-mantled sooty albatross a “rare vagrant”, and added: “very rare in Cape waters.” Many of the Flock 2017 bunch saw 10 or 20 or even 30 ‘lifers’ to add to their life list. I saw nine.
Oh, I am so pleased you asked. Yes, I did see the light-mantled. Fabulous. Not that I wish to name drop or brag…
South Africa has the extraordinary distinction of having cut the number of birds caught by fishing trawlers and long-liners, from about 6,000 annually a few years ago to only 100 last year. BirdLife SA has now been given substantial funding to teach other nations how to do it.
All those who went flocking this year contributed to the bycatch environmental success. Around $19,000 (R250,000) from the trip will go towards teaching trawlers to prevent seabird bycatch. So this four-night trip was truly ‘sometime in Africa’ that was really worthwhile. &#8211; Written by Peter Sullivan

The Gliding Grace That Flies Without A Flap

Flying over the 400-mile wide Mozambique Channel that separates Madagascar from the African continent, my heart raced at the prospect of visiting a remote island that separated from the African continent some 165 million years ago.
Imagine an island more than 1,000 miles long in a blue tropical ocean uninhabited for most of its history. Forests cover vast areas, interspersed with swamps where eight-meter-long crocodiles lie in wait to prey on pygmy hippopotamuses. In the rain forests and in dryer parts of the island live some of the strangest primates to have ever existed on earth. Some 110 species of these lemurs live throughout the island and range in size from the world&#8217;s smallest primate, weighing about one ounce, to a lemur the size of a gorilla (now extinct).
Peering out of my aircraft window, I watched the stratocumulus clouds tower over the many swollen rivers draining the rainwaters as we descended towards Antananarivo (Tana), the capital of Madagascar located in the cool central highlands. With golden paddy fields blanketed by green clusters of trees, I was descending into what appeared to be a paradise of forests, paddy fields and rolling hills.
At the arrivals area, I was surprised to be greeted by faces that displayed a unique blend of African and Indonesian bloodlines. First populated 1,600 years ago by ancient sailors from Borneo, in today’s Indonesia, its early history is being slowly peeled by anthropologists one excavation at a time.
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Nearly all the species here evolved in isolation since it broke off and drifted away from east Africa many million years ago. What I found here is a lost world of unique animals and plants, unseen by humans until their first arrival.
My planned take-away from this trip included photographing colorful chameleons, trekking the lush rainforests, navigating spiny thorn forests and climbing the spectacular rock formations. At the end of it all, what left me with a deeper sense of this country was its unique people following ancient customs, despite their wanton destruction of a paradise.
My guide in Antasibe, Maurice Ratsesakanana, was instrumental in me tracking down the apex lemur, indri. Its haunting calls are reminiscent of the songs of the humpback whales. Each morning in my bungalow, at the Hotel Fenny Ala at the edge of the rain forest, I woke up to its call. The indri is the largest lemur in existence today and tracking and photographing them in rain was a trophy to be had. Indris have never been successfully bred in captivity and this is the only place on earth that one can see these unusual primates.
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Maurice also exposed me to some of the 600 amphibians and reptiles that inhabit the forest, most of them endemic to Madagascar, meaning found nowhere else on earth. Frogs of every imaginable color and pattern leapt in this wet jungle. Chameleons, some brilliantly colored, and others shades of mottled brown, crept invisibly about. The largest can capture mice and birds, while the smallest, measuring only an inch, feeds on insects.
More than 80% of Madagascar’s 14,883 plant species are found nowhere else in the world. The rain forests had many orchids growing on tree barks and stems. Maurice indicated that three-fourths of Madagascar’s 860 <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orchid" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">orchid</a> species are endemic, as are six of the world’s eight <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adansonia" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">baobab</a> species. I found orchid nursery’s lining all along the Antasibe road, simply harvested from the rainforest each day.
At the World Heritage rain forest of Ranomafana, Theo Farafidison, my guide, educated me on so many aspects of the fauna there. Theo worked with filmmaker David Attenborough during the shooting of the BBC series there. Almost all the amphibians and reptiles in Madagascar, half the 300 birds and all its 110 species of lemurs are endemic. Theo and I spotted a Parson’s chameleon that was almost two feet long and capable of grabbing birds with its sticky tongue. I could not help but coax it to walk on my arms, a small violation of the park’s rules. The bamboo lemurs are a specialty here, along with seven other species.
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My personal highlight was that of grabbing a six-foot tree boa at night while we were looking for nocturnal lemurs and chameleons. He was quite docile and surprisingly comfortable in my hold. After studying him in my confines, I gently eased him on to a tree, not realizing that they hunt on the ground. After photographing many species of frogs, scores of geckos, including those that mimic leaves, several chameleon species, five snake species, including a very large Madagascar tree boa, I moved to the drier side of the highlands. The unique animals of this country, especially the tree boa constrictor, are a target for pet suppliers from all over the world.
Some of the amazing landscapes I found in the country’s national parks included spectacular rock massifs, canyons, aquatic environments, savannahs and dry lands. Isalo, Zombitse, Kirindy and Andatringa come to mind as places that cannot be missed. Waterfalls abound, cascading down tall cliffs into rivers and lakes, the central highlands are a mosaic of woodland and savannah, while the eastern regions are covered in dense, humid rainforest.
In my quest for soaking up this paradise I swam in cool pools inside canyons, trekked the Tsaranoro massif, a sheer rock 800 meters tall known for world-class rock climbing, went sapphire prospecting on river banks, walked in wet, dry, semi-humid and spiny forests enjoying everything from insects like the endemic kung fu cricket, which takes on a martial posture when approached by the diverse ethnic groups that populate this island.
One great adventure that will last in my memory was my attempt to reach the spectacular limestone karst formations of Tsingy de Bemahara in the rainy season. It is an impenetrable wilderness of limestone spikes and sharp rocks that dominates the North West. The Tsingy is an ancient 200-mile long coral reef lifted from the ocean and carved over the millennia by wind and water into dagger-edged pinnacles. Crossing rivers on barges and driving through the dirt roads that had become three-feet deep streams during the rainy season, I reached this remote area to be hailed as the first tourist to arrive there that season. A nine-mile trek and climb ensued my visit to this world heritage site from the top looking down since all road access was inundated.
Deforestation has been present on the island since its colonization by humans, approximately 2,000 years ago, with 90% of the original forests lost. With an unprecedented population growth, extreme poverty (one of the highest in the world), and a brewing political crisis, the nature of the island is helpless and besieged by multiple fronts including corruption at the highest level. There is a police stop almost every few miles; they find something wrong with every vehicle in order to squeeze a few arriaris out of innocents and crooks alike. Thankfully, they do not bother tourists. One interesting behavior that I wish to write about is that of the gendarmerie (national police) who offered a full ceremonial salute when all our papers were in order.
In addition to the traditional system of slash and burn deforestation, which allows local people to open forests to cultivate, international players in cahoots with local officials selectively log rosewood tree species and have become the main threat for the biodiversity of the island. Lorries of hardwood leaving forested areas forced me to enquire about its legitimacy to everyone I met. They all shrugged almost helplessly even though their future was being stripped one day at a time.
Other threats include killing lemurs for meat, poaching reptiles and amphibians for the pet trade (the ploughshare tortoise fetches $200,000), habitat alteration and the clearance of forests, primarily for firewood and charcoal production. En route to the rainforests of Antasibe, I could see virgin rainforests burning outside the limits of the park for agriculture and cattle grazing that brought tears to my eyes. At every turn during my trip, my driver Tony Rebetsitonta, reflected on the different forested areas that had disappeared in his 25 years of driving around the country. It is anticipated that all the island’s rainforests, excluding those in protected areas and the steepest eastern mountain slopes, will have been deforested by 2025. As a result, several charismatic species such as chameleons and lemurs that evolved for millions of years here may become extinct by the end of the century.
The urgency to conserve the habitat has long been noticed by western scientists and conservation funding for Madagascar is at its peak. From protecting flora, fauna, habitats and large swathes of remaining forest, organizations are finding new ways to compensate the locals, educate them on sustainable land use and above all deal with a complex system of taboos that hold back progress.
While at Ranofamana National Park, I came to realize that this large virgin rainforest was protected and later converted into a park by none other than Dr. Patricia Wright of Stony Brook University in 1980, while studying bamboo lemurs as a post doctoral research worker there. This is another example of a driven woman scientist challenging government officials, locals and vested interests to create a legacy for mankind.
By the 16th century, the central highlands where the bulk of Madagascar’s population resides had been largely cleared of their original forests. It was small wonder that I saw red top soil getting washed off into the rivers from the air with no roots to hold them down. More recent contributors to the loss of forest cover include the growth in cattle herd size since their introduction around 1,000 years ago.
I met a professor from the University of Pretoria who is studying land grabs and cattle rustling in Madagascar and did not want his name publicized. This is a country where people still keep their wealth in cattle and not cash. He told me that rustling cattle is big business and as a result big groups of heavily-armed men attack villages and run away with the several hundred heads of cattle. I am told that the Malagasy people register their Zebu cattle at birth with the authorities, and not their own children.
Today, there are around 18 different ethnic groups living on the island. These include the Asiatic Merina (who make up over a quarter of the population), the Betsimisaraka, Betsileo, Tsimihety, Antaimoro and the Bantu Sakalava. The Malagasy language is very similar to the Indonesian language Minaan; spoken only in Borneo, it has accepted some Bantu/Swahili words over time. Their customs especially of burials, land ownership, taboos and professions are very unique for the traveler to see and experience.
The Malagasy burial customs matches closely with cultures from Indonesia where I have traveled extensively to study them. This includes periodic exhumation of the bones and huge celebrations, keeping the corpse at home until it dries before burial or placing them inside rock cairns in hard to reach places, all of which bankrupt families in pursuit of satisfying their forefathers. Their philosophy, much like the ethnic Indonesians of Sulawesi and Borneo, is that life on earth is very ephemeral when compared to the soul’s journey through the universe.
This beautiful land and its people are in a ticking time bomb of land loss, top soil erosion and desertification in a few centuries. While western agencies are doing their best to stem the degradation, it is inevitable that it cannot be reversed. Added to this, poor education, absent healthcare and a corrupt government have kept the people very poor, just living under an annual $500 per capita.
It is a paradise in retreat and all our efforts to decelerate this decline is all I can hope for these wonderful people and its other living denizens. It is a travesty created by man in his effort to conquer nature. &#8211; Words and photos by Ramdas Iyer

A Paradise In Retreat

It was a passion for art. He quit his job after being influenced by international street art. He started small then grew to spraying walls in the city of Johannesburg. Now he travels the world spraying more walls for nature and conservation.
It’s a sunny midweek afternoon and FORBES AFRICA is off to meet Sonny in Rosebank, Johannesburg. He is a self-taught artist, painting murals big enough to challenge the animal poachers in Africa.
“I decided to teach myself how to paint; had to start from scratch. Had to learn to mix colors, learn to airbrush with a gun; my main passion was just to make things bigger and better,” says Sonny.
<div id="attachment_32693" style="width: 319px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32693" class="wp-image-32693 " src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/The-Buitengraght-Wolf-Cape-Town-by-Sonny1-200x300.jpg" alt="The Buitengracht Wolf, Cape Town (Photo by Sonny)" width="309" height="464" />The Buitengracht Wolf, Cape Town (Photo by Sonny)</div>
Sonny never went to art school. It all began when he started losing interest and slacking at his sales job. He started digital art and mixing PVA paint at the age of 23. That’s when he started getting commissions for indoor murals. It led to his first street mural, using a spray can for the first time, three years ago in Maboneng, the art heart of Johannesburg.
Sonny never looked back to his desk days in sales; he has become an international artist.
What gives him a kick is seeing passers-by – who might have never stepped into an art gallery – stopping to stare at his work.
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A few years after his first painting, it’s now his living. He charges between R1,000 ($75) and R2,000 ($150) per square meter and some of the murals can be as large as 400 meters squared.
The long-haired, short and soft-toned 30-year-old’s work is influenced by Africa, where he was born and bred. His work focuses on nature and animals, combining realism with fantasy.
“At the moment, I’m busy bringing more abstract elements in my work which hasn’t been seen in my paintings yet, but all my new murals will slowly have abstract elements and incorporate people,” he says.
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Sonny recently completed a body of work for a solo exhibition titled <a href="http://sonnyonline.com/tothebone/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">To The Bone</a>.
This work combines wildlife imagery with a social message about the importance of animal conservation; a passion he truly has. He hopes to create international awareness of the fragile state of wildlife in the world.
<blockquote>“I aim to inspire people through the pure beauty of these animals, while reinforcing their importance in shaping our cultural identity.”</blockquote>
<div id="attachment_32694" style="width: 680px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32694" class=" wp-image-32694" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Transkei-Cheetah-Transkei-by-Sonny_Photo-by-Tessa-Cunliffe-300x200.jpg" alt="Sonny's Transkei Cheetah artwork, in Transkei (Photo by Tessa Cunliffe)" width="670" height="447" />Sonny&#8217;s Transkei Cheetah artwork, in Transkei (Photo by Tessa Cunliffe)</div>
Sonny has partnered with <a href="https://www.google.co.za/url?sa=t&amp;rct=j&amp;q=&amp;esrc=s&amp;source=web&amp;cd=1&amp;cad=rja&amp;uact=8&amp;ved=0ahUKEwi8pKmwxvHUAhViKsAKHX5RBpYQFggiMAA&amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ifaw.org%2F&amp;usg=AFQjCNFOanECt8D37Y251dlwq0POsaorzg" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">IFAW</a> (International Fund for Animal Welfare) to raise awareness through the murals and artworks and has a campaign to sell artwork online where a portion of the proceeds will be given to this fund.
“Anybody that sees the murals and follows the link will see what it’s about, and can give R10 or R20 ($1.50),” he says.
He also has a sponsorship drive, where companies or people can sponsor a wall or part of it. The money will be used to spread graffiti to more parts of the world. The sponsorship will enable him to fly over and paint a wall.
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He has recently painted in New York and other parts America. He will be moving on to Canada, London and then Amsterdam. He also has a series of murals to sort out for the rest of the world.
<blockquote>“I paint in third world countries where they have the animals but struggle to see the importance, but I also paint in first world countries where they have power over the rest of the world to try change legislations to help protect the animals,” he says.</blockquote>
African art is been noticed around the world thanks to the likes of Sonny. Not only is he making an income, he is making a difference in society by conserving nature with a spray can and walls.
(Featured photo by <a href="https://www.forbesafrica.com/author/tlhabi-monnakgotla/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Motlabana Monnakgotla</a>)
Stay up do date with Sonny&#8217;s latest work on <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sonnyartist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Facebook</a> and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sonnyartist/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Instagram</a>
<div id="attachment_32696" style="width: 658px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32696" class=" wp-image-32696" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Little-Girl-Johannesburg-by-Sonny-300x240.jpg" alt="Little Girl, Johannesburg (Photo by Sonny)" width="648" height="518" />Little Girl, Johannesburg (Photo by Sonny)</div>
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<div id="attachment_32695" style="width: 660px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-32695" class=" wp-image-32695" src="http://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Speakers-Corner-Cape-Town-by-Sonny-300x200.jpg" alt="Speakers Corner, Cape Town (Photo by Sonny)" width="650" height="433" />Speakers Corner, Cape Town (Photo by Sonny)</div>
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Spray It Out – Graffiti To Protect Animals

The South African government has taken a big step towards fracking in Africa’s biggest economy that is likely to lead to months of heated debate and court battles.
Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, involves extracting natural gas from shale rock layers deep within the earth. The process requires vertical and horizontal drilling and the injection of pressurized fracking fluids, water and sand to extract the gas.
Oil companies see fracking as a potential boost for energy exports, jobs and foreign investment. Conservationists argue it will destroy ecosystems found in the semi-desert landscape of the Karoo, where much of the shale gas is located.
On April 29, 2011, the minister for mineral resources, Susan Shabangu, placed a moratorium on applications to explore fracking in the Karoo while her department conducted investigations. That ban on exploration was lifted on September 7 and the Investigation of Hydraulic Fracturing in the Karoo Basin of South Africa report, which the cabinet based its decision on, was released four days later.
Derek Light, an attorney for farmers in Graaff-Reinet, was unhappy with what he called a hasty decision to lift the moratorium.
“The task team could not have effectively performed its function in such a short a time. It should have performed a strategic environmental assessment in the broadest possible terms which would have enabled them to make a well-informed decision that would be in the best interests of the people of this country,” says Light.
Light was pleased to see that the report recognized the importance to revise the country’s regulatory framework, in order to control fracking.
Jonathan Deal, chairman of Treasure The Karoo Action Group—the official opposition to fracking in South Africa—says that the country’s first reaction was “let’s frack” instead of investigating other forms of energy.
“There is natural gas, offshore, in reservoirs which do not need to be fracked in order to remove it,” he says.
“We plan to lodge an appeal if and when exploration licenses are issued,” Deal says.
Ferrial Adam, a Greenpeace Africa climate and energy campaigner, also believes that the country should consider other forms of sustainable energy.
“Greenpeace’s research on ‘Advanced Energy Revolution’ scenarios shows that it is possible to create 50% of electricity from renewable energy by 2030, if we have the same political determination that government seems to put into fossil fuels,” she says.
Adam says that in a dry country like South Africa this decision by government is short-sighted.
“Contamination of groundwater aquifers and surface waters can occur due to fracking operations and through the disposal of waste waters. Small amounts of carcinogenic hydrocarbons are harmful to humans. In some cases, this waste water is minimally processed before being dumped into surface waters feeding public water supplies, or is held in ponds that may lead to releases of the chemicals into the environment.”
The head of Living Planet Unit, WWF South Africa, Saliem Fakir, says we can only see the outcome of fracking by looking at extractive industries at present. The track record for communities is rather dismal. The national coffers and private industry may benefit but the problem of impoverishment could be the inheritance of the local setting. Fakir pointed to countries like Nigeria, a country where Shell is active, to show how countries that are rich in oil can be poor.
“Extractive industries have boom and bust cycles. They often attract lots of labor and people from outside that leads to conflict, social pressure and displacement of local interests, the truth is that resource rich countries tend to have high levels of inequality. Elites tend to capture the rents and leave out the poor. We may see a similar phenomenon with shale gas if the extractive process suffers from poor governance and oversight,” says Fakir
Bonang Mohale, chairperson for Shell South Africa, was pleased with the details of the report.
“The suggestions made by the task team are in line with our exploration plans for the Karoo Basin,” says Mohale.
“South Africa needs energy now. Approximately 10 million people in South Africa do not have access to electricity. At the moment, South Africa is a net importer of energy. This means that South Africa needs the full range of energy sources. In combination with other energy sources, including renewables, gas could help secure South Africa’s energy future, while creating sustainable and permanent jobs for South Africans.”
Shell is preparing to submit a comprehensive environmental, social and health impact assessment (ESHIA) that is in line with the National Environmental Management Act. Shell promises to continue working closely with the people of the Karoo and South Africa to address concerns and ensure that they benefit from shale gas exploration.
Group Media Manager for Sasol Limited, one of the biggest energy companies on the continent, Alex Anderson, says that Sasol gave up its fracking license last year.
“We concluded an extensive technical study of the area and then decided not to pursue further exploration activities in the assigned TCP area. The decision was based on subsurface technical and operational considerations and was unanimously taken by the partnership,” said Anderson a few months back.
“Sasol has taken note of the decision by the South African government to lift the moratorium on shale gas exploration in the Karoo region. We continue to be very interested in the upstream oil and gas business landscape, which includes the shale gas in the Karoo and elsewhere. As a consequence we continue to monitor these developments with interest and if new opportunities present themselves we will actively evaluate and pursue if they are attractive from a technical and commercial perspective,” says Anderson.
The report commissioned by the department of mineral resources indicated that during the exploration phase, only normal exploration, would be allowed. This excludes hydraulic fracturing but instead includes a process whereby drilling, geophysical and geochemical mapping can take place.
The report spoke of the economic potential fracking would bring to the country. According to the United States Energy Information Administration there is an estimated 485 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of gas in the Karoo Basin, which could reduce the national dependence on other fossil fuels. It mentioned the environmental and socio-economic implications of water use. and the disposal of the fracking fluids. The task team said that due to the high volumes of water to be used and the possible contamination of water with the fracking fluids, they would need to conduct further research into water sources.
The report called for aa re-evaluation of South Africa’s regulatory framework to ensure that any possible negative impacts would be alleviated. A monitoring committee will be appointed to ensure a comprehensive and coordinated framework and the supervision of operations.
Now the conservationist and protestors await the application for the first exploration license and will see the applicant in court.

Between A Rock  And A Hard Place

It is tempting to see the KAZA Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) as a country in the making. But reality falls short of this—at least for now.
The project is so breathtaking in both its scope and ambition that it does inspire dreams of a different tomorrow for a region that is still suffering the miseries inflicted by one of the most brutal wars in recent history. After nearly four decades, the anti-colonial conflict that turned into civil war and at stages involved South Africans, Namibians, Angolans, Cubans and, in surreptitious ways, even the Russians and Americans, came to an end 10 years ago when Angola’s Unita strongman Jonas Savimbi died in a hail of bullets.
<div id="attachment_621" style="width: 210px" class="wp-caption alignleft"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-621" class="wp-image-621 size-medium" src="/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/IMG_2009-200x300.jpg" alt="" width="200" height="300" />Dr Victor Siamudaala program manager</div>
Part of the wonder of the project is that the vision for turning the area into a “peace park” started taking shape immediately after the Angolan civil war ended.
“KAZA” stands for the Kavango and Zambezi rivers, with the territory including adjoining sections of Botswana, Namibia, Angola, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Its map is practically a state in its own right.
The binding factor is the region’s exceptional natural beauty, including the Victoria Falls, the Okavango Delta and the vast elephant herds traversing its plains and swamps. The area’s relatively sparse communities are so distant from the heartland of their respective states that most of them probably associate more closely with each other than with their countrymen.
Of course, Zimbabwe and Zambia would not dream of ceding those spectacular falls thundering between them. Neither would Botswana consider letting go of the Okavango and the Chobe National Park. These are their countries’ signature natural wonders, and they are the geese laying those golden tourist eggs.
But it is to the credit of the five governments that they have agreed to join these adjacent portions of land in a transboundary scheme that comes to a mammoth 444,000 square kilometer chunk of Africa, with conservation at its heart and tourism as the economic objective for the 2.5 million people living there.
At last year’s Southern African Development Community (SADC) meeting in Luanda, the countries’ leaders issued a declaration when they signed the KAZA TFCA treaty, which came close to conferring a kind of satellite, if not colonial, status on their shared holding.
It said: “The KAZA TFCA shall become an international organization with a legal persona, capable of entering into contracts, and acquiring and disposing of property. Institutions established through the treaty to govern the TFCA, particularly its secretariat, will be empowered to ensure that the objectives of the treaty are realized and corresponding strategic plans and protocols implemented.”
The project includes a range of national parks, game and forest reserves and conservancies. Although these are in varying states of repair, many can be linked across boundaries and through corridors to become mutually supportive within a broader framework that will have nature-based tourism as its main industry. There is even talk of a “KAZA visa” to ease cross-border traffic within the territory.
The scheme has the backing of the German and Netherlands governments, the Swiss Agency of Development and Cooperation, the Peace Parks Foundation and the Worldwide Fund for Nature. Victor Siamudaala, the program manager, is a veterinarian from Zambia. His secretariat is based in Kasane, the charming north-eastern Botswana town where it is not unusual to see elephants wander through, or pedestrians casually step around warthogs scuffling on the sidewalk.
The secretariat is at the center of an intricate bureaucratic web that gives practical effect to the scheme.
As explained by Werner Myburgh, chief executive of the Peace Parks Foundation, each country made a development plan for its particular part of the greater territory with the help of various government departments, the private sector and affected communities. The five plans were then aligned under the umbrella plan for the scheme as a whole. The result is a detailed plan showing how the boundaries run, which areas are earmarked for conservation and which for development, and what the infrastructural requirements are.
Each country has a coordinator who, together with the central secretariat, reports to a committee of senior officials, which is in turn overseen by a steering committee of five ministers from the respective governments.
The wide range of factors that need to be taken into account, including security, customs, veterinary, agricultural and conservation matters, require the involvement of several government departments in each country. Generally, decisions are taken by consensus, which makes the process even more complex.
It explains why the central secretariat, which drives the program’s implementation, prefers to abide by the governments’ jointly approved statements.
But the transfrontier project has caught on since its initiation in 2006. The official launch function was held on March 15, 2012 in the Caprivi town of Katima Mulilo where, under the magnificent trees along the bank of the Zambezi, the South African Defense Force had its forward base more than two decades ago.
The occasion was attended by more than 700 people, including the environmental and tourism ministers of the five governments, SADC’s executive secretary, Dr Tomaz Salamão, and traditional leaders from the five countries.
Myburgh says the sense of ownership of the joint project was tangible. He quotes Botswana’s minister of the environment, wildlife and tourism, Kitso Mokaila: “… (We) have emphasized in the KAZA Treaty… that we will own and lead the planning and development process of the TFCA. We take cognisance of the fact that our land and other natural resources are a valuable heritage of the five partner countries.”
Dr Salamão spoke of the project as a commendable achievement and “a true symbol of regional integration”, which is one of SADC’s goals. He saw it as “a door to further milestones that have the potential to change the lives of communities who live in the KAZA TFCA area for the better”.
The project is not without challenges. Land mines left by the war are scattered around Angola’s Cuando Cubango province that adjoins the Caprivi in the south and southern Zambia to the east. The mines were planted despite the Geneva Convention’s requirement that such areas be mapped, which makes them hard to locate. But, according to Myburgh, clearing has been going on for some time and remains a high priority.
The area includes the Luiana Partial Reserve, which, like rest of the area, was left stripped of game by the fighting armies. But already the vast elephant herds of Botswana have started migrating across Namibia’s Caprivi strip through Zambia, back to the vast woodlands where their ancestors once roamed without fear of soldiers and their explosives.

Tag: Conservation

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