Dispatches from the Field & Project Summaries
Cheetah Conservation – Namibia (Earthwatch Institute)
March 19, 2009
A grey afternoon as we head northeast from Windhoek, Namibia’s capital. A spatter of much needed rain hits the windshield as we drive through mile after unpopulated mile toward the Cheetah Conservation Fund (CCF). Patsy Cline is a strangely suiting soundtrack to this open, ancient frontier as we motor through a series of gates along a quiet, mango-hued dirt road before finally arriving at the CCF compound where our education begins.
The energized Earthwatch volunteers and cheerful staff of CCF welcome us to camp – an internationally-recognized center for cheetah research and education.
The world’s fastest land animal, capable of reaching speeds of 70 mph, the cheetah is an endangered species. Formerly a common animal found on 5 continents worldwide, due to loss of habitat, conflicts with humans and loss of genetic variation, the cheetah population has been diminished to approximately 10,000 worldwide. The largest remaining population is in Namibia where CCF champions their conservation.
The bare-bones but highly-motivated staff of CCF have a laser focus on cheetah survival through its many modalities: conservation of the species through rehabilitation, sanctuary, controlled release programs, habitat retention and reclamation, farmer education, genetic resilience, enriching its prey base and offsetting the competitive dominance of larger predators. A daunting but holistic to-do list to keep an endangered species from extinction, the CCF team is clearly up for the challenge.
We rise to document the cheetah feed the next morning – a journey to multiple compounds with the now-seasoned Earthwatch volunteers who are nearing the end of their two week tenure here at CCF. Volunteers hop jauntily from the back of a pickup to fill a bin with… cheetah food. Big cats are carnivores and they require large scale meat supplies on a daily basis for sustenance. Volunteers are candid about the experience of providing real meals to real cheetahs, “The first day we were here we had oryx heads… that was kind of gross. Random donkey parts aren’t quite as unnerving as feeding them a head with eyes and everything.”
We drive through a series of gates and once inside the compound, volunteers position themselves in the back of the truck. Volunteers hoist portions off the back of the truck as we speed along at around 30 mph, a pack (A sprint? A snarl?) of 14 female cheetahs barely gallop as they escort the feeding vehicle. With each portion tossed from the truck, the big cats hiss and spit at one another as each spirits away into the high grass with their “prey”, 14 throws later, the girls have been fed and the volunteers have one chore done in their daily list of chores that keep CCF running like a well-oiled machine, appreciatively dependent on its volunteers and dynamic as all get-out. In our short visit we witnessed the hosting of a worldwide cheetah conference, with representatives from the remaining African and Middle Eastern countries that have cheetah populations. The CCF is breeding livestock guarding dogs to distribute to farmers (fewer predator kills to livestock, fewer justifications to kill predators) alongside an aggressive farmer education program. They’ve brought local farmers to the CCF compound and watched them marvel at animals who they’ve spent a lifetime threatening and fearing… their wives and daughters holding hands to their hearts in panic as the farmers laugh nervously and take pictures with their camera phones (yes, cell phones are EVERYWHERE, even, maybe especially, in rural Africa). Visits that begin with nervousness and novelty give way to conversation and the realization that this organization understands its subject and may have some wisdom to share. Bridges are built, fingers are pulled off triggers, traps aren’t set and cheetahs survive another day.
Volunteers plant shade trees in the morning and participate in game counts on the CCF’s extensive property in the afternoon. Binoculars aimed out every direction from an aging safari vehicle, a single Earthwatch volunteer acts as accountant, pencil poised to paper as the reports chime in:
“I see 3 maribu storks,“
“ 5 warthogs…”
“…2 baboons – one juvenile, one adult…”
“…and is that a jackal?”
As the vehicle slowly lumbers back to camp, the sun begins to tilt toward sunset. The clouds collect; the winds kick up. Arid Namibia will get another hit of rain this evening… no one’s complaining, particularly not Matti, senior researcher, lead of the game drive and ad-hoc tour guide. “We Namibians, you see, we are so happy when we see this!” Clapping his hands, with a million-dollar grin on his face, he says, “It means that, oh yes, we will have a year of plenty. We live in a desert, so rain is very, very good.”
The timing of our visit was fortuitous. A female who’d been captured by a farmer had been brought to CCF 6 weeks prior. She’d been through countless trials including a root canal – hard enough for humans to endure, but how much more vexing and terrifying to a wild cheetah? The broad tracts of land that CCF has purchased outright or managed agreements with property owners have created a buffer of habitat for wild cheetahs – the right habitat and room to survive.
We drove to a clearing at the edge of CCF’s property as one of the cheetah keepers said, “We know there are a couple of wild males out here, so we know it is a viable habitat and she’ll have some company”. Her loading box is placed at the edge of high grass. A volunteer stood atop the box and slid the door ajar, which was followed by a snarl and the aggressive scratching sound of high speed nails building up for a departure and, like a shot addled with fluidity; we held our breath as she disappeared, the last snap of her tail an au revior. The crowd erupts into cheers – a fine day of work on behalf of the cheetah, now off to Sundowners (African cocktail hour).
The efforts of CCF staff and Earthwatch volunteers are like the voices of individual instruments in an elaborate musical piece – all parts feeding into a remarkable achievement designed to protect and preserve the wild cheetah. As powerful, inspiring collective, their efforts are a definitive force working toward the preservation of an endangered species.
Bicycle Empowerment Network – Namibia
March 19, 2009
In the first world, the bicycle is often viewed as just one of many options for transport, a mode of sport and recreation or simply a child’s toy. In developing nations, the bicycle is a vehicle capable of changing lives and, in very raw terms, can make the difference between employment and abject poverty; access to health care or death. With a rock-solid grasp on the many ways that bicycles improve lives and livelihoods in challenged communities, Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia (BENN) quickly evolved from a mist of heady aspirations to remarkable achievements with massive positives effects in a breathtakingly short window of time – a glimpse into their successes:
In a partnership with Bicycles to Humanity, BENN receives shipping containers loaded with bicycles donated from developed countries along with spare parts and tools. These “shops in a shipping container” are received by BENN and then distributed to community-based organizations to be run as bicycle workshops that offer bike sales and repairs in impoverished communities. In a land where personal cars are a rarity; public transportation and taxis can be prohibitively expensive yet great distances separate people from basic necessities, bicycles sustainably expand individuals’ range and efficiency of travel, allowing workers to get to their place of employment, students get to their schools and health care workers reach the homes of patients living with HIV/AIDS and malaria.
The humble shipping containers filled with second-hand bikes that transform into BENN bicycle workshops facilitate the distribution of bicycles into communities, but also operate as income-generating businesses. Along with the container and its contents, BENN provides recipient organizations with vocational training in bike mechanical skills, small business management and customer service. Profits from these businesses flow into community-based organizations such as Family Hope Center, serving 450 kids in the Katutura community by providing educational programs, meals and health care to orphans, HIV positive or otherwise vulnerable children.
But bike workshops are just a part of BENN’s work. They have also built and distributed over 100 bicycle ambulances – simple but sturdy gurney trailers that attach to the back of a bike, facilitating the transport of sick people from outlying communities to health services, sparing patients the cost of taxi services that, in many cases, puts medical treatment financially out of reach.
BENN also aids the Physically Active Youth (PAY) program in Windhoek, Namibia, an after-school program that provides tutoring and sports activities for financially challenged students that, with the donation of bikes from BENN, has added a cycling program including a racing team.
With the distribution of bikes to PAY participants, marginalized kids take ownership of an identifiable possession that liberates them, expanding their physical range and efficiency of travel along with all the positives of involvement in an organized sport. An additional regional, cultural component makes this program really novel, the equivalent of putting a man on the moon in the 1960s – putting a girl on a bicycle in Namibia in 2008.
The gender divide, particularly amongst the impoverished in Namibia, is profound and most of the students in the cycling program had never seen a woman ride a bike before seeing the girls in the program pedal alongside them. The girls we spoke with were warned that “girls aren’t supposed to ride bikes” by their family members; teased and threatened by schoolmates and strangers alike.
I spoke with Emily who told me that she was the first girl she had ever known to have ever ridden a bike in her community. Marianna and Sonya, two other girls in the bicycling program, told me that Emily was the first girl they’d ever seen ride a bike and when they saw that she could do it, they figured they could too… now all 3 of them race, speak with pride about surprising their families and communities with their accomplishments in a sport that their participation had never been dreamed of before.
Aside from supporting the endeavors of the PAY project, BENN has its own racing team (Team BENN) that’s committed to developing the sport of bicycle racing as well as combating the spread of HIV/AIDS in Namibia. These may sound like lofty, disparate goals, but when your athletes are primarily from poor communities that have been ravaged by HIV/AIDS, the connection’s an easy one to make.
The main focus of Team BENN’s educational mission has been focused promoting HIV /AIDS testing and, as Team BENN’s bright jerseys state, “KNOW YOUR STATUS” alongside images of red AIDS ribbons. Leveraging the excitement around racing events, BENN offered incentives encouraging testing including entry in a lottery to win a bike. A phenomenally successful program, testing participation increased 6 fold during the promotion.
What of the racers? They’re damn talented, especially in light of the fact that most of the team members come from backgrounds where owning any bike, much less a racing bike, was cost prohibitive, these racers are taking podium positions with top finishes in a sport that they’d never dreamed they’d ever participate in, much less compete. With fire, discipline and assistance from BENN, team racers are competing alongside riders with sponsorships and thousands of dollars of equipment and placing as top finishers. A recent Team BENN rider signed a contract to ride professionally with a South African Team, while his former teammates are challenging the established teams, snatching up podium placements and getting word out about AIDS awareness and testing every mile of the way.
Bicycle Empowerment Network Namibia – humble non-profit; incredible achievements.
Desert Research Foundation Namibia – Namibia
March 6, 2009
Desert Research Foundation Namibia (DRFN) has a mission statement that expresses their unique approach to doing good in Namibia, “Enhancing decision making for sustainable development “. DRFN is all about empowering decision makers with data-based recommendations, providing research, training and consultation regarding Namibia’s land, water and energy resources, making sure that projects set out to benefit others prove to be good places to put one’s charitable giving (solid returns on investment) as well as truly sustainable programs that won’t require ongoing cash flows to keep them afloat. Progressive plans with bald-faced pragmatism – a complementary combination, indeed.
Robert Schultz, the Senior Project Manager at DRFN’s Energy Desk took us under his wing for a day to share energy projects with us. His portion of DRFN’s work is a mix of education and creating prototype programs to see if they are viable investments. Our first stop was the parking lot at DRFN, visiting the Energy Demonstration Trailer. Lofty name, simple, grass roots use, the trailer is a rolling emissary for alternative energy, hauled into off-the-grid communities for multiple day visits. With its solar panels and wind turbine the trailer can run a computer, large screen monitor, sound system, multitude of lights along with a small freezer. In this region, the majority of household fuel is expended for cooking, the trailer is also outfitted with examples of fuel efficient stoves in graduated levels of sophistication – techniques and tools that make cooking faster, more economical and more efficient than common open-flame fire. In the simplest measure, DRFN exposes people in rural communities to more cost-effective ways to cook while giving contextual visual education on practical energy usage solutions.
Our next stop was into an unelectrified informal settlement – a community outside city limits operating without standard water/electric/sewage services. Residents have little in the way of resources, but what they’ve been able to do with so little is mind bending … dirt roadways were laid out straight with evident junctures; the paths were clean and convivial… we walked by a church that was simply congregants, a pastor and a cross on a treetop. Lack of services, however, does not keep the citizenry from modern conveniences. Cell phones are commonplace and seemingly in constant use. Many cell phone users charge their devices at their places of work within the electrified grid of the city, but there are still plenty who don’t work in town, and most everyone runs low on juice over long holiday weekends.
DRFN had an idea: What if a cellular cell phone charging station could be turned into a profitable business? DRFN did market research prior to investing into their first station to make sure that the cash-based market of the informal settlement could provide enough income to pay off the initial business investment before putting additional outright income into the business owners’ pocket. It turned out that it made enough sense to set up two stations – singular solar arrays on roofs wired to an assortment of adaptors for the myriad phones that arrive in the shops that offer an in-demand service that provides income augmentation in off-the-grid communities.
The last prototype we visited captured all of our imaginations, a merry-go-round designed to “harness children’s boundless energy” by attaching a gearbox to the common playground equipment to transfer the generated power to run a refrigerator, lights and a number of other small 220V appliances at a local children’s center.
But back to what makes DRFN’s work different is that they pay close attention to the difference between the “should be able to” versus “actually achieved” components of their prototype tests. As of our visit, the data wasn’t back as to whether the merry-go-round was a successful, consistent source of power that was worth the investment to re-create. Robert liked the idea of the energy kindergarten, but if it didn’t perform, it was back to the drawing board. DRFN don’t stand behind any of their designs (or anyone else’s) until they are backed by clear, calculable supporting data.
As we rattled down dirt roads away from the merry-go-round project, Robert shared yet another prototype they’d worked on – an energy efficient shack. Sounds a little oxymoronic, but their goal was to take the materials that any impoverished individual would have and see if they could make a structure that dealt with heat, cold and sun exposure more efficiently… and they did, by a few degrees here and there. In places where poverty is rife and services few and costly, simple, economical efficiencies are what can make the difference between abject poverty and life with possibilities.
Passion can be a great fuel for positive change and DRFN wants to partner good deeds with level heads. DRFN assures that efforts and monetary investments are spent to improve lives in Namibia are effective and economically sound, making for happier benefactors and beneficiaries. DRFN: three cheers for “enhancing decision making.”
Hoerrikwaggo Trails – South Africa (South African National Parks)
March 6, 2009
On World Environment Day June 8 1998, then-South African president Nelson Mandela established what is now known as Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) in Cape Town, South Africa. The move was a definitive consolidation of 16,000 wild hectares that had previously been 3 separate conservation areas. A Natural World Heritage site, Table Mountain National Park is the backbone of the tourism economy in Cape Town – not only the most visited of all South African National Parks , but the most visited park on the entire African Continent with 4.8 million visitors in 2007. Incredibly bio-diverse, Table Mountain itself, at just under 60 sq kilometers, has at least 1,470 plant species – slightly fewer than the 1492 species in all of Britain.
Some impressive statistics, aren’t they? Truth be told, the majority of those visitors rarely stray very far into the park’s limits – most shuttle via cable car to take in the panoramic view of the city, take a few snaps and head back down into the city in time for cocktail hour. Tourist checklist: Table Mountain? Done. But the folks at TMNP understand that the vast, incredible gem in their care has so much more to offer: world class flora, fauna and photo opps galore. If they could provide visitors with a camp-to-camp hiking adventure with high quality accommodations and services that allow them to appreciate this unique resource, they’ll happily invest their vacation dollars to experience an exciting, exotic once-in-a-lifetime holiday.
This cutting-edge endeavor was dubbed Hoerikwaggo (the Khoi’san word for Table Mountain meaning, “Mountain in the Sea”) created to offer visitors a rigorous yet luxurious multi-day hiking experience. With government funds from South Africa’s Expanded Public Works Program (similar to the US’s WPA/CCC programs from the 1930s), TMNP was able to hire previously unemployed from impoverished Cape Town communities, provided them with training and jobs that helped restore and revitalize the park.
Each camp on the Hoerikwaggo trail has a visual theme that reflects the camp’s environment, designs dictated by their specific context. The first stop on our trek was an evening reception at Slangkop – a picturesque ocean side camp, complete with a white-washed lighthouse standing sentry at edge of the sea, glowing pink in the sunset. “Touching lightly on the earth” was of paramount importance in the creation of each of the Hoerikwaggo camps. New camp structures have built upon already disturbed or developed sites where teams removed alien invasive vegetation (and often using these invaders as building materials), thereby rehabilitating the location to its natural state. In addition, there are no true “permanent structures” on any site, allowing rapid recovery from human occupation should the site location ceased to be used.
Hospitality was the operative word upon our arrival. Strolling atop wooden boardwalks, edges lapped by nasturtiums, our trail guides gave us a tour of the camp, showing us our simple but incredibly well-located accommodations served by passive solar hot water heating that provide our deliciously hot showers the next morning. Toss away all your memories of freeze dried camping food – Hoerikwaggo comes with catering. Cheryl Wyngaard and her family merrily ruled the kitchen throughout our stay, serving the familiar alongside regional specialties with aplomb. In a phrase? Spice cake with creamy caramel sauce. That’ll do…
The next morning we were off on a 15 k (9.3 mile) hike. Our first stop was a visit to Silvermine Camp – a mountain themed camp that serves hikers, mountain bikers and climbers who can spend days playing on the Silvermine Crags just above the campsite or on the bouldering wall set up behind the kitchen. Onward we trekked across artistically engineered stonework paths that had been assembled by teams comprised primarily of women who had formerly lived in poverty (in 2006, Table Mountain National Park sustained almost 900 direct jobs, of which over 600 were aimed specifically at poverty relief).
We made a slow steady climb on our way to Blackburn Kloof, the trail spilling over into a rocky, windswept descent with spectacular views of Hout Bay Harbour and Sentinel Mountain (providing just a few thrilling moments of vertigo). Our guides Syndey and Thandiwe were attentive and informative, sharing their insights regarding natural history and geology along with great interpretive explanations of the incredible diversity of plantlife from a multitude of protea flowers (an indemic beauty) to medicinal plants alongside a few poisonous or spiky specimens.
At the approach to Orange Kloof, our respite for the evening, more expansive views of Cape Town come into view. Syndey and Thondiwe show us Cape Town landmarks and then point beyond the affluent, primarily white neighborhoods into Cape Flats where their families and neighbors had been moved under the Group Areas Act (also known as the Great Displacement) under apartheid. Their hands move gently along the horizon, just as they did pointing out Sentinel Point on Hout Bay Harbor, sharing stories about their homes: “Sydney’s from Mitchell’s Point, Thondiwe and Nosiviwe are from Khayalitsha, that’s Grassy Park and Lavender Hill, Zoekoe Vlei…”
Our guides are amongst the first black Africans to work as guides in Table Mountain National Park. After completing 18 months of rigorous training, they have become anomalies in their communities and are still met with disbelief by their neighbors, many of whom have never visited the park in their city, who can hardly fathom that our guides have actually spent one night, much less many nights, atop Table Mountain.
Sydney: “Not everyone has this opportunity, this good luck. We all have had to sacrifice a lot – the commitment to very hard work, time away from family, but I am so happy to come to the mountain to work – I love my office”.
Descending a trail adjacent to manicured Constancia Vineyards, we arrive at Orange Kloof – a grassy forest clearing with peaks above, the Disa River running nearby. The camp feels very like an inviting tree house laid out across a meadow – beautifully crafted structures built with extracted alien species, the buildings offer open sightlines and lots of light along with green and sustainable methods for processing fuel.
Our guides mention offhandedly, “You know this used to be a car park…”
Ridiculous but true, this beautiful green space was once a parking lot. When humanity chooses to rectify its intrusions, nature can bounce back beautifully well and Table Mountain National Park is a brilliant combination of mindful reclamation, creation and sustainable design that provides capacity building and jobs that directly benefit economically challenged communities.
Compelling, complex Cape Town can be navigated by urban guidebooks with checklists of cosmopolitan points of interest, but the truly transcendent experience is Table Mountain – “Go Hoerkiwaggo” for the only environmentally and socially responsible world class hiking adventure to ever be enjoyed within any city’s limits.
Streetwires – South Africa
March 6, 2009
In Cape Town, South Africa, we stroll downtown under crystalline skies in a visually stunning tableau where human structures are humbled by Table Mountain National Park soaring above the cityscape. Turning onto a quiet side street, we amble into an unassuming entryway that belies the enormous creativity and productivity within. We’re welcomed to Streetwires by Cathy Ronaasen who guides us through the history and operations of this business’ unique approach to capacity building through wire craft.
Wire art’s South African origins sprung from need remedied by clever resourcefulness. Unable to access commercially made toys, South African children have long created playthings out of scrap – coat hanger wire, tin cans, and bottle caps, creations that evolved into remarkably elaborate playthings that double as whimsical folk art. Adults began to recognize the marketability of these wire toys and began making their own creations and selling them to visitors. Today, wire craft is a thriving African art in which artisans, called “wiremasters”, are able to support their families in the brisk trade of their colorful, fanciful creations.
Founded by artists in 2000, Streetwires identified wire and bead craft as a trainable, marketable skill that could be taught to the unemployed, providing both capacity building and economic benefits to the trainees whose incomes would grow as their skill, speed, and creativity increased. Streetwires recognized that wire art had previously been promoted solely as a localized tourist business. Streetwires’ founders opted to “think big” and scaled the business for volume by bringing on a team of artists and artists-in-training, marketing their creations internationally and producing on a grander scale with consistent standards of quality control. From this larger business model sprung the potential for even more previously destitute people to benefit from sustainable, meaningful long term employment. The organization set about posting job flyers at bus stops in downtown Cape Town: Will train, no experience necessary.
Fast forward to 2008: The retail store (which is truly a gallery of artwork) is a testament to the incredible range of the team’s creativity: the room is wildly colorful jewelry/curio store, home fixture shop and menagerie all rolled up into one. Our first pass through the gallery was a tantalizing tour – I knew we weren’t leaving that building without dropping some serious rand. The booming bass and disc jockey chatter from a popular radio station grows louder as we approach the lively workshop, a bright space humming with activity – tables with beading teams of 4 to 6 people, chatting and laughing while hands swiftly carry on with threading beads onto wire, sculpting, shaping, weaving.
When a beading team accepts a project, they receive an sample of the object they are to produce so that employees understand the exact size, shape and color of the deliverable, along with the calculations of the entire costing of the project so they can see how much money they will make when they complete the task – straight-forward information about the expectations and the income related to each project.
Some thrilling facts: Streetwires has provided the skills, training, support, and raw materials necessary to enable more than 100 formerly unemployed men and women to learn a marketable creative skill – many of whom have “graduated” into their own wire art businesses, making room for new trainees who can leave the ranks of the unemployed to provide for themselves and their families. Streetwires’ business is booming: a growing number of local and international retailers are selling their wares and with the excitement of the impending 2010 World Cup in South Africa, there are lots of projects on the schedule and plenty of optimism about future business.
As for our team, we departed Streetwires with bags of bright stars, sharks, cars, rhinos, soccer balls, picture frames, earrings, elephants and the coolest fully-functioning AM-FM radio (with bottle caps for knobs) to have winged its way back to North America in a suitcase.
Cape Leopard Trust – South Africa
March 6, 2009
Driving north from Cape Town, we enter into agricultural country, rolling through the vineyards this region is famous for, then slowly ascend to Bains Kloof - magnificent table mountain sandstone cliffs cut through by swift, bright streams.
In the 1840s, this pass offered migrating settlers from the Cape a departure from the verdant, fynbos settlements of Wellington and Ceres to the more arid regions of Central South Africa where they found vast tracks of land that, though dry, were still suitable for agriculture and livestock. From Bains Kloof we wound our way into the Cederberg Willderness Area, famous for its unique rock formations and numerous Bushman (San) paintings – a North American visual comparison: the Cederberg feels very like Utah’s Canyon lands sans the hoodoo spires. A former inland sea whose sedentary rock produces marine fossils from 30-40 million years ago, the upper elevations of the Cederberg receive snow in winter, while spring is an eruption of wildflowers before the harsh high temperatures of summer settle on an area dotted with small populations of klipspringers, baboons and ostriches… and even fewer leopards.
Quinton Martins, project manager of Cape Leopard Trust, fell under the spell of this unique region 6 years ago when he’d left a career as a safari guide to pursue his Ph.D. With each visit to the area, he talked to locals who told him that there were leopards in the area, unique to the region, were being taken out by farmers and on their way to extinction. Upon further investigation, he discovered that there had been no documentation of the leopards in this area since 1923.
A mission was born.
Quinton used all his cash, sold his car and camera equipment, finally hitch hiking from Cape Town into the Cederberg to track the elusive Cape leopard.
Quinton’s work has produced remarkable information that turned many prior investigations of the Cape leopard on their ears. Early animal count estimates were erroneous based on researchers’ beliefs regarding the limits of the range of the Cape leopard. When they identified fresh sets of paw prints within mileage disparate locations in a matter of days, it was presumed that the evidence indicated that there were two cats. What early researchers failed to consider was the possibility that Cape leopards might move swiftly across unusually large ranges for individual animals. After a motion-triggered camera count, original estimates of 80 animals in one area were dwarfed to an actual 2 leopards. GPS tracking helped Quinton verify the count, proving that territories, especially those of male animals, are dramatically larger (and the Cape leopard population perilously smaller) than ever believed in the past.
Local farmers have long viewed the Cape leopard population as robust - an army of predators out to extinguish farmers’ livestock and have used “gin traps” (known in North America as not-particularly-humane leg hold traps) that maim and kill whatever creatures fall into their jaws. Quinton and CLT have reached out to farmers in the community with perdator population and behavior education as well as livestock guard dog distribution… all steps to saving a species, but their work and plans are far from complete.
The Cape leopard leads an enigmatic life – they are hard to track and are even more challenging to capture and affix with tracking devices. With Quinton fast on foot, we had a few days of chasing the man who tracks the Cape leopard and we quickly determined that those cats have the right guy looking after them. With a small staff, an exceedingly elusive subject and countless miles of open territory to cover, Quinton is out early and late, standing on tiptoes atop precipices to receive transmitter signals from traps. Upon hearing a signal indicating that a walk-through trap has been triggered, he drives and then hikes into deep canyons to document and release animals (oft times, of the non-spotted ilk), or heading to the exact 2 foot square on a nameless cliff to make a call into the far end of the leopards’ territory to check on trap status. He’s been known to travel hundreds of miles in a day if he’s out of town when a leopard is captured. Quinton embodies tenacity, patience and the much abused word, passion that fuels Cape Leopard Trust. He’s a leader who does his best fundraising in person – when people can hear him speak and feel his fire for his cause.
But the rough and tumble life in the Cederberg isn’t without its own regional amusement. On our way out for tracking one afternoon in the company of Quinton and his fiancée Elizabeth, a teacher who is heading up the Cape Leopard Trust’s outdoor education program, the Cederberg Leopard Camps, the Land Cruiser screeches to a halt. A spitting cobra, dark iridescent hood open, is lurking through roadside weeds. As it turns its back on us, it’s a 50s underworld thug – dark sharkskin overcoat and fedora with shoulders shrugged, menacing even with its departure. Once the viper has slunk into the high grass, we accelerate to proceed to our tracking location. Not 30 seconds later, the car seizes to a stop once again as Quinton announces, “Jeepers, this is about as close as you’re ever gonna get to a puff adder!”
When the leopard safari doesn’t work out, poisonous snakes are a great way to entertain visitors.
Cape Leopard Trust muscles onward thanks to the will, wits and commitment of Quinton Martins who works all day most every day on behalf of creatures that rarely gift him with a glance. On the celebratory occasion that a capture occurs, Cape leopard sightings are an intoxicant that consistently supplies revealing data that pushes CLT onward. Dual credit to the tenure and tenacity of the species in this region go to both the Cape leopards’ own crafty, swift moving nature and the commitment and vigilance of Cape Leopard Trust.
SEED Project – Mozambique (CARE)
March 6, 2009
Leaving Vilanculos, the Indian Ocean-side base for CARE in this part of Mozambique, our vehicle turns inland onto a hard packed dirt road. Andreas Pelham, the Austrian-born project manager for CARE’s Sustainable and Effective Economic Development (SEED) program courteously asks if it’s okay with us if he drives faster. Seasoned washboard passengers, we all readily agree – with multiple projects to see over many unpaved miles, it’s much more pleasant and expeditious when your ride hits the sweet speed that surfs the tops the road’s bumps instead of convulsing one’s way slowly through every pothole to a destination.
The first stop on our dust-addled expedition is an innovative livestock care program that CARE has established in the community of Mabote. CARE programs are not designed to deliver ongoing aid but are instead constructed on locally based training and coaching en route to self-sustaining operations and eventual the exit of CARE’s support. If it’s not designed to be sustainable, it’s not a CARE candidate.
Mabote’s Paravet (think paramedic + veterinarian) program is a hallmark CARE project, designed to serve rural livestock keepers by improving the health of their herds, returning more dollars per pound for the sales of their animals while creating a new income generating role in the community. In areas too remote and/or poor to support regular veterinarian visits to stock, Paravets are trained to provide information regarding animal husbandry along with services including prophylactic treatment against ticks, wound care and owner education about animal market value relative to weight and age, having introduced a scale that’s used at trade times, providing an objective dollar to value number to what formerly were, at best, guesstimate prices. The net result? The program offers capacity building – vocational training for the Paravet who services otherwise under or un-served rural areas that benefit directly from improved return on investment from healthier stock, a sustainable system designed to thrive long after CARE has moved on to other projects.
Back in the truck, we drive in tandem with extension workers on enduro-style motorbikes and these 2 wheeled escorts make our adventure hint at scenes from Mad Max, but in rural southern Africa, they are ideal inexpensive, efficient, low-maintenance vehicles to navigate the washboard + thick sand in these rugged, remote environs.
Our next stop is a quintessential Mozambique meeting place – under the shade of a large tree where another income generating program is underway – the creation of traditional arts and crafts to provide economic opportunities to women and People Living with HIV/AIDS (PLWA). In a partnership with CARE and local communities, basket weaving has been identified as unique economic growth opportunity: materials are from renewable resources and, as 33% of the head-of-household in this region are women who are caring for children or the chronically ill, it allows these individuals stay at or near home while producing product for market. CARE brought in designers who helped guide standardization to the art form, recognizing that wholesalers would want a handcrafted product that still had quality, size and specification standards that they could rely upon to introduce the product to larger markets. The investment is paying off remarkably well: Since the inception of the CARE program, satisfied wholesalers are now awarding weavers with double the income previously made on their wares.
The influx of cash into the community is, of course, great, but what we saw manifest in our visits to the weavers was confidence and community. Women and children gathered in the shade, hands busy with fibers, sharing news, commentary and song, volleyed across the group with the occasional eruption of laughter.
This same guide said that while the weaver’s shade tree is a place for labor and gossip, it’s also a place of social support, education and collective self-esteem building that’s critical to the wellness of the community. One of CARE’s goals is to tackle the gender divide that excludes women from economic activities and decision making in this region. When these women congregate, they converse and understand how they have been a party to increasing economic wealth to their community, another step toward levelling the gender divide and making for a rural area that might otherwise lose its population to urban centers a prosperous and proud community.
Then we visited the coolest bank in all of rural Africa. And what may be the coolest thing about it is that it’s not a bank. It’s just people – people who are too poor and too far away from a bank to benefit from a bank. Instead, they are all involved in a simple collective investment partnership based on shared goals and community has allowed countless rural Africans to start businesses, pay for medical expenses and eliminate debts without so much as a teller or a check ledger much less an ATM.
The group of 19 people collected on benches beneath an acacia tree in front of simple huts off a quiet road. They have opened their collective cash box and they speak in slowly in unison (translated to): ONE HUNDRED AND TWENTY TWO DOLLARS and TWENTY NINE CENTS. There is no written ledger. Introduced to this region by CARE, this particular Village Savings and Loan Association (VSLA) is structured on a verbal/memory based ledger. They are announcing what they all recall the last balance on their collective savings was the prior week. Why don’t they write it down? The majority of people in these communities cannot read – a written ledger system shifts the power from the collective to the literate while the verbal recollection system levels the playing field, making everyone equal participants and, in a land of poverty, every cent is recalled almost without fail amongst every member.
VSLAs are groups of no more than 25 people (usually 15-20) who assemble for a 9 month cycle. Groups self-select: members invite neighbors and family members who they believe have similar financial means and goals. Once the group has been assembled, individuals receive passbooks that have 5 squares available for “share investment” at each group meeting. At the first sessions, the group agrees to the value of the shares, and that is, for all intents and purposes, the last number that the group ever writes down. From that point forward, stamp pads fill in one to five squares on each session representing shares invested and all monetary values are announced by the group.
Once the group begins collectively investing their money, members can lobby for a loan (which VSLA members vote on) with a specified “service charge” instead of a percentage payment. This service charge, along with payments on the loan, become interest paid to the VSLA members – their gains on their invested savings.
Why only 9 months at a stretch? It’s just long enough to let everyone benefit from the results of shared saving while also allowing members reasonable window after which they can step away and re-evaluate if they want to participate and whom they want to participate with. We spoke with a number of VLSA members who leveraged loans to launch businesses… incredible how a few well placed dollars can do veritable miracles here and how satisfying for members to know that their relatively humble collective funds have been able to fuel the genesis of small-scale industry and success in their community while fortifying their own savings funds? Genius.
Chiawa Cultural Village – Zambia (African Wildlife Foundation)
March 6, 2009
In Zambia on the invitation of the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) to report on the opening of the Chiawa Community Cultural Center, we arrive after sundown at the bush camp that serves as headquarters for Conservation Lower Zambezi (CLZ) just across the legendary river from Mana Pools in Zimbabwe. Bags over our shoulders, we head to our tents on quiet pathways lit by the moon.
I was awakened at 2 am – outside, the slow crunch of great weight against the earth, followed by thundering defoliation that sounded like whole trees were being wrested to the ground. After scraping myself off the mosquito-netted ceiling, I looked out and could see the figure in the shadows.
An elephant.
Of course.
With the profusion of wildlife in this lush riparian habitat, Lower Zambezi tourist lodges are popular vacation destinations for adventure travelers. River and land safaris offer scenic, up-close views of many of the continent’s most impressive animals who, in all their otherworldly charm, are not necessarily viewed as good neighbors by the local population. Elephants stomp through crops and wreak havoc and destruction when they thunder through nearby villages. Hippos greet river visitors with what sounds like a guttural, sinister laugh – truth in advertising from one of the most aggressive animals on earth and, who knew? FAST – considered to be amongst the most dangerous creatures in Africa. Then there are Nile crocodiles that make riverbank fishing a potentially lethal endeavor. The sum effect is that wildlife are viewed by the local population to be a threat to livelihood, even life itself and an income or food source when…“neutralized”.
“Preserving a culture, conserving wildlife.”
AWF has worked in Africa for almost 50 years, embracing the challenges of the Zambezi Heartland (which includes Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique) for the last 7 years. AWF believes in conservation with and by the people of Africa for Africa, uniting locally managed enterprise with sustainable ecological policy is vital to preserving both land and culture in Africa.
The Chiawa Cultural Village was born of a partnership between conservation organizations (with Africa Wildlife Foundation as a key strategic partner), Lower Zambezi Lodges and the Goba people of Chiawa, championing a cultural tourism enterprise prototype that empowers local people to benefit directly from the tourism trade generated by the profusion of wildlife in the region.
At the Chiawa Cultural Village, visitors learn about the lives of the Goba people, their traditions, trades, tools, edifices and arts including dance, song and handiwork of local craftspeople. What is made clear in the Cultural village is that the Goba people are very much a present day community with a vital connection to their history. In dance and song one comes to understand that the Goba are both fueled by and embattled with the Zambezi. The river that is their nemesis is also their lifeblood. The Zambezi feeds; the Zambezi floods – it is parent and provider as well as a merciless spirit and destroyer. You can hear in their stories, it reverberates in their dance and drumbeats.
All profits from the Chiawa Cultural Center project will go back into local healthcare and sanitation efforts. Visitors will learn about the lively traditional community adjacent to a flourishing natural wonderland and, in turn, that same traditional community views wildlife as a partner, not an adversary, in the economic success of their region.
One of the best views of the river at the Chiawa Cultural Village is from the elephant lookout – a simple wooden tower on the far end of the property that offers a 180 degree view of the banks of the Lower Zambezi. Built as a traditional watchtower, manned with sentries to sound alarms for elephant interlopers, visitors can ascend its steps in hopes of a sighting of these regal beasts.
This watchtower is doing more than ever imagined by its original designers: allowing divergent cultures to see through each others’ eyes, an exchange that offers a glimpse of resident and visitor perspectives – physical views influencing, shifting internal views, preserving culture, ensuring livelihoods and conserving wildlife.