Wildlife and conservation new, wild travel information and links for booking
For as long as people have studied the carbon cycle, forests are considered essential carbon sinks. Unfortunately as we damage them, their ability to absorb carbon reduces.
A new study has confirmed, that large parts of the Amazon rainforest have crossed this line.
There are many threats facing the great apes of Africa, from habitat destruction and fragmentation, to hunting for bush meat. Unfortunately, it is now thought that Chimpanzees gorillas and Bonobos face a still greater threat (assuming humans avoid killing off what remains of their population) the loss of about 94% of their remaining habitat due to forest die off from the warming that we are creating.
Even under our most rosy scenario, they stand to loose 85% of their range.
The same studies suggest that as areas become unsuitable, there are likely to be other that become suitable. Unfortunately, dealing with slow adapting animals this will not help at all without significant assistance from humans.
What is even more scary is that this loss would occur by 2050.
I find this horrifying. I have not been able to yet visit any wild great ape populations, and now it looks as though their future is severely limited. It also looks like, by the time my children have children the huge forests of Africa teeming with wildlife, will be no more.
We must act now!
Human communities which live alongside great ape populations must benefit. Of course these communities must not grow and crowd out the wildlife, but if a similar system can be set up that worked for the mountain gorillas, perhaps many of the great apes could be saved and at the same time, pull millions of Africans living in poverty, into more sustainable and profitable lives.
This is not something that must be left to African governments. Indeed, it also must not be just left to tourism. Governments around the world, need to help in this work.
As well as replanting and recovering rainforests across the globe, the human population as a whole needs to work together to save the remaining tropical rainforests which are so precious to our future and that of our descendants.
A French company Biotope is working on sustainable cohabitation between chimpanzees and local communities in the highlands of western central Guinea.
The west African Chimpanzee once numbered around 2 million. Currently there are roughly 500,000, but without urgent action that number is liable to move quickly down to close to zero.
Conservation for its own sake is all very well for those people living on the other side of the world. For those who live close by it is a different matter. Ending the population explosion that is occurring in Africa, is essential both for the human and wildlife populations that share this continent. Similar programs could do the same thing in south America and Asia.
I am well aware that even if successful, this website will only be part of the solution, but I hope that with your support we can do some good.
I have been writing about Jair Bolsonaro for quite some time. Indeed, those who have been reading this blog for years will know that I became concerned in the run up to the election.
He has a quite bizarre approach to many things. Indeed, his ruling style is very like Donald Trump. He doesn’t care about Brazil, merely that “his” people do well out of his presidency.
It is quite something, that academics and activists have come together to warn that with the increased attacks on the environmental protections, the Brazilian rainforest would not survive a second Bolsonaro term.
Continue reading “Amazon rainforest: can it survive Bolsonaro?”Travelling during the epidemic even if fully vaccinated is hard or even impossible.
We have been hoping to take our children back to South African for a few years, partly to show them the incredible places such as the Kruger, but also so that we can list many of the cheaper places to stay on this website. Unfortunately, that will have to wait (we hope only until next year.
So where will we go this year?
We are in the process of setting up our “in the shadow of mankind” and we are hoping to visit some places we would love to add.
We are thinking of heading to Scottish islands, possibly Skye and Shetland. What will we hope to see? Well Otters would be top of the list, but other creatures will include red squirrels and if were lucky orca and humpback whales.
What is happening on the website. While it does not always show on the surface we are hard at work in the background. We are building a system that will allow people to list their own wilderness place far quicker, which hopefully will allow this site to list enough places to move towards its original goal.
Watch this space
According to the African wildlife foundation estimates, there are 15000 to 20000 bonobos left in the wild. Bonobos or pygmy chimpanzees are thought to genetically be closer to humans, certainly their appearance – they are thinner, have thinner faces and a more noticeable crop of hair on their head, but are horrifically threatened.
Yet it would appear that even this estimate is too high.
Continue reading “Can we save bonobos, the great ape most similar to humans? They are more endangered than we thought.”Gorillas are threatened with extinction. We hope against hope, that these incredible animals – closely related to us, and so similar in many ways can be saved.
The Sumatran rhino is critically endangered. Just a few years ago, the last of the mainland Sumatran rhino died, leaving only the population on Sumatra itself.
This new sanctuary will be in the Leucer ecosystem, close to where the remaining wild rhinos live.
Much help is needed to reverse the enormous declines in this population which humans have caused – and if this help is not forthcoming in the next few years this ancient species will be lost for good.
It is a good move, but time will tell if it will be good for the Sumatran rhino and its future
Yesterday, I was writing about a new wolf pack that had established itself in northern California – this is exciting, because wolves have only started recolonising California in the last couple of years and they seem to be thriving (as one would expect). Indeed, wolf recovery in America is highly likely (assuming policies like Trumps delisting of all wolves, is never taken up).
Wolves appear to have successfully recolonised the Czech republic!
A small new wolf pack has formed in northern California. This pack, known as the Beckworth pack has established itself in Pumas county. The pack consists of a 2 year old female wolf born in California and two others.
This is only the third wolf pack to establish itself in California in the last century. California and their authorities have been heavily supportive of the recovery of wolves in the west of the USA and have publicly decried decisions made by its neighbours – moves which make wolves returning to the endangered list a significant possibility.
Continue reading “New resident wolf pack in northern California”Current prediction is great apes will lose 80% of their habitats by 2050
Of the great ape species, 3 out of the 4 non human species live in Africa. This is why it is so alarming the current estimates are that by 2050 great habitat will have reduced by 80%.
This is also a huge concern for the rest of the world. An 80% reduction in rainforest cover in Africa could make halting global warming impossible.
Obviously there are multiple strands of global warming and halting species loss. Unfortunately this could sink both problems into impossible or near impossible to solve.
Furthermore, there are other sad facts about this idea. Farmland rarely benefits the people who live in its vicinity. The huge plantations of Indonesia have destroyed the rainforests but they have not lifted living standards, indeed in many places they have eradicated the ability for locals to live – forcing them to leave their home.
Game reserves require significant staff to look after the guests. Furthermore, there are a great deal of resources that can be extracted without destroying the trees above. This allows locals to increase their standard of living, while at the same time allowing the rainforests to stay standing and the wildlife that lives there to continue to thrive.
It would seem that it should be possible to dig deep mines under rainforests without cutting the forest down first. Obviously we come back to the problem of poaching that might increase with the mine workers, but the simple fact is that most mines do not disturb the surface (except for the mine entrance). It likely increases mine costs, but given the wealth of minerals that are thought to lie under the Congo rainforest it should be more than worth it.
I do not want to have to explain to my grand children, why there are no great rainforests left in Africa. I have only visited one rainforest (that of the Udzungwas in East Tanzania), but apart from the environmental services that these places provide there are many parts of the planet which rapidly turn to desert if you remove the rainforests covering the ground.