in response to the Beard quote...

I feel compelled to write something in response to the quote that Gillian posted by Peter Beard (on my Feb 23rd posting), about the parallel destruction that elephants and humans cause. First of all, the destruction that he mentions is not just in Kenya (where he spent most of his time in Africa), I have seen it right here in Botswana, in Makgadikgadi (where I work) and in Moremi, where parts of the park look like a war zone because the number of elephants is just too big for the small space they inhabit and they have completely destroyed the vegetation. In the past, the answer to this was culling ( controlled shooting of elephants to keep the population down), but to me this seems like a pretty inhumane way to solve the problem. Especially because often the reason for overcrowding of elephants in the park is a result of the fact that they have been hunted and poached in all of the unprotected areas just outside of the park, and have been smart enough to realize that they are much safer if they stay inside the boundaries of the park, even if this means less space to roam. So wouldnt a better answer be to stop ele hunting outside the park, rather than wait until there are too many in the park, and then kill them anyways, under the guise of "management"?

The other part of the quote I thought was interesting was:
"Again and again, we adapt to the damage we cause. That is our genius. We do to our forests what we have forced all the Babars and Dumbos to do to theirs. At the highest levels of leadership (and guilt), we cover our tracks and invent perfect excuses."

In one of the books I was in fact just reading this past weekend about Peter Beard, a friend of his commented that he had been a follower of Peter Beard (who preaches a sort of end-of-the-world gloom and doom rhetoric) until another friend of his once said something along the lines of, if we as humans can destroy the world, who says we cant build it back up again? To me there is something really unsettling about this statement, but I cant exactly pinpoint it or put it into words...any thoughts?

(and if you are all wondering who peter beard was, funnily enough, i only was introduced to his work this past weekend, the day before gillian put up that post...he is a new york-born artist/photographer who has spent a large part of his life in kenya, both in the bush photographing wildlife (he recorded the great elephant die-off in Tsavo Park in keyna a few decades ago) but also a big figure (ie playboy) in the kenyan expat social scene and the new york art world. he discovered iman (took photos of her with lions), was married to cheryl tiegs...etc etc. you can google him for yourself. )

never a dull day out in the bush...

I have been mainly in town for the past few weeks, compiling data and trying to plan a trip to Gaborone, but I did manage to escape town for a few days last weekend, and again, have the most incredible time out in the bush. I went out to the lion camp research center in the delta with my friend paul, who has just started working there, flying the bushbaby and doing aerial tracking with the researchers. After a looong drive into camp (i.e. we broke down and it took us 2 hours to do the last 15kms), we arrived at what to me looked like a little piece of heaven--several forest-green canvas tents hidden under the shade of a island of towering trees, in the middle of an open sea of savannnah grasslands stretching for miles and miles, dotted occasionally with acacia trees and bushes off in the distance. apart from these few tents, and the tracks that we had followed in to camp, there had been no sign of humans or human settlement for almost a hundred kilometers. i fell in love with camp immediately--there was an open air mess tent, simple bedroom tents for each of the researchers and then a bigger tent piled high with tracking equipment, computers running off of the big generator, and tons of books and articles all about--what else--lions!! and course, wildlife all around. we saw a hippo out of the water (which was cool, because usually they just stay in the water with their ears out and thats all. :-)), and at supper a hyena came within a few meters of our dinner table, picking up some leftover scraps, and i fell asleep to the sound of her whooping cry that night. i finally got my leopard sighting (right in front of us on the road in the morning, absolutely beautiful), AND i got to help with the tracking of two prides of lions, riding high on the roof of their land rover research vehicle with a giant antenna and headphones, listening for the beep beep beeping of their collars and looking for them resting under the shade of acacia trees. seeing them was absolutely incredible--i don't think i could ever get sick of looking at their faces; they are even more perfect in the flesh than in all those photos you see. After tracking in the morning, we came back to camp for lunch, had siesta time, and i did some reading during office-work time--very relaxing after the hecticness of maun! My last night there we went for sundowners at the hippo pools, where several hippos were lazily floating through the water, and as I sat on the roof of the Landy, sipping malibu fruit punch with newfound friends and watching tbe hornbills fly low against the backdrop of a flamingo-pink sunset in this untouched paradise, I felt pretty damn lucky, i must say.
(so check out my flickr page to see photos, too!)