I enjoy being ignorant to what’s happening in the world. The lack of news is a pleasure. No news is good news, eh? Better than having to suffer through:
“Our top story tonite is the carjacking this morning on Hwy 80 at the toll booth plaza. Two were killed at the scene and two are in critical condition tonite at Children’s Hospital in Oakland. Jane?”
“Thanks Bob, in other news, a family of four were victims of a home invasion robbery in the Mission District earlier tonite. Neighbors reported hearing shouts and gunfire but did not bother to come to their aid. Back to you, Bob.”
“In world news tonite, six American soldiers and 189 Iraqi’s died at the scene of a car bomb attack in Fallujah. And now Bill with our weather report, Bill?”
“Thanks Bob, the Bay Area will be cold & foggy with no chance of sunshine. We turn now to Stu with all the sporting action, Stu?”
“Thanks Bill, top story tonite is the discovery of steroids in the gym locker of 9 year old baseball youth. And Randy Moss, the newest Oakland Raider, was stopped at a routine traffic checkpoint and a large sack of cocaine as well as a 9mm pistol was found under the seat of his Hummer. Apparently, he was gently scolded by police and released after giving the officers a signed jersey. Stu Pittfool, reporting live from the Oakland Coliseum, for channel 2 News.”
Worse yet is having to endure CNN’s saturation coverage led by the dramatic trumpet & drums intro music of Janet Jackson’s Nipple Gate, her brother’s slumber party guests, Pubic-Hair Gate (that supreme court justice, Clarence-somebody), Monica dropped something under Clinton’s desk Gate, Kobe Dribble-Drive-to-the-hole-and-Scores Gate, Martha Stewart Investment Gate, and OJ brutally-murders-two people-and-gets-off Gate.
Being disconnected from world events definitely has its advantages. The Pope could die and there could be a devastating outbreak of Ebola virus and Id never know. But I do hear about local events. The most disturbing of which has to be the Miss HIV contest. Yes, it’s real, yes the contestants have tested positive for the virus, and yes the categories are the swimsuit, evening gown, and sporty wear. Local health organizations produce this tragic event to make light of it in order to get the public talking about the issue. Up until now, it’s been a taboo subject to discuss openly. I’ll be tuning in to see if any of them respond with the standard, “If I were chosen Miss HIV, I’d work to bring about world peace.”
Today I went up to Jwaneng, a town about 2 hours drive northwest. Cheetah Conservation Botswana was hosting a predator/livestock workshop and had invited all the local farmers to attend. The room was filled with conservationists, vets, wildlife dept staff, and ranchers, about 60 in all. There were presentations by several different researchers doing field work in Botswana (leopard, hyena, cheetah). The focus of the conference was to discuss the wildlife/livestock conflict and offer methods of resolving it. It was fascinating to be there and listen to all sides of an extremely contentious debate. Across Africa, this is the crucial problem which is devastating predator populations. Large carnivores, primarily lion, cheetah, leopard, hyena, & wild dog, get bumped off their traditional ranges by an expanding human population and wander onto unprotected private ranch land. They see an easy meal in a cow, goat or sheep. They dine. Next time they return to finish dessert, the rancher is lying in wait with a rifle, poison bait or a snare. Both parties have a valid argument. The ranchers are losing their livelihood each time one of their stock gets predated on. There is a compensation scheme designed to reimburse ranchers for each reported loss. If they can prove with evidence that a predator attacked their stock, they get $75 (even though a cow is worth $200 on the open market. However, they argue that attempts to contact the Wildlife Dept are futile. The response time is poor and the reimbursement time is even worse. The Wildlife Dept is pitiful here. None of them give a shit about wildlife and they are extremely lazy. So the ranchers take matters into their own hands and eliminate the problem.
The conservationists argue that the farmers must take accountability and build stronger boma’s (corrals where livestock are kept at night). The predation occurs at night once the cattle are herded into these boma’s. A predator can easily penetrate these poorly built structures, which are often just wood posts with wire connecting them and some thorn bush to fill in gaps. A leopard simply has to jump a 10 foot wall and he has his choice of dinner entrée. A lion simply needs to roar, which spooks the cattle until they stampede out in a mad panicked rush of fear. Then he just pounces on whichever one looks tasty. Measures need to be initiated by the farm owner to protect his own herds. Employ a night guard equipped with a spotlight, use electric fencing, deploy large guard dogs (one cheetah project in Namibia uses Anatolian Herding dogs from Turkey), use bricks & cement. But these farmers are lazy bastards and don’t understand that spending a little money on prevention will save them huge in the long run.
So the workshop was a great forum to exchange ideas and an opportunity for both sides to air their laundry. It was very apparent that there was a lot of built up tension on the farmers behalf and that they are tired of hearing the same ol’ conservation speech. One rancher stood up in exasperation and declared “who do you people think you are!? White foreigners coming in to our country to tell us how to manage our livestock.” He had a point. The discussion heated and then a local Botswanan lady spoke up and defended the conservationists. She directed her comments back to the ranchers and told them, “Hey look, these people are only here to help. They sacrificed a lot to come here from great distances. Most of them are just volunteers not getting paid. They quit their jobs and disrupted their lives to come to Africa to make a difference. Don’t be so quick to chastise them.” The room was now seething with tension. I felt my own wave of personal engagement surging and I wanted to jump into the debate. Comments were now flying back and forth in a passionate frenzy. I was only there as a guest, a fly on the wall, to listen and learn. Would it be inappropriate for me to participate since I wasn’t part of the core group? Probably, but fuck it. I’m droppin’ in. I didn’t come across hemispheres and oceans to be passive. Most of my life has been inappropriate and outspoken so why stop now? I know that if I inadvertently offend someone, that my intentions are good and someone in the room will notice. I knew what I wanted to say and I was just waiting for the right break in the discussion to unload. All efforts to calm my nerves failed horribly. I was shaking with anticipation until I finally got my opening: “Look, part of the message here is ‘learn from our mistakes’. In America & Europe, we have domesticated or killed nearly all of our wildlife. Africa is the last stronghold of wildlife left on the planet. People come from all over the world to view this extraordinary treasure you have. If the killing continues at this pace, there will be no predators left within a decade. And people wont be flying here to take pictures of antelope.”
As I finished, one rancher looked directly at me and nodded in agreement. I resumed breathing and my blood pressure fell back to proper levels. On the ride home, I worried that I sounded like the cliché idealistic hippie who spouts grossly overused environmentalist jargon like “sustainable” and “ecosystem” and “community” to the point where their meaning has been devalued and I cringe when I hear them. But it felt great to be involved with this type of conservation. The days of radio tracking and pure scientific research are over. The future of conservation is in applied methodologies. Providing solutions to real problems people face is far more useful than finding out the reproductive behaviour of a species. Determining home ranges and population densities are certainly significant and have their role, but the end of the game is upon us. We no longer have the luxury of time to spend 5-10 years on a research project. There might not be anything left to study by then.
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