Blog Action Day – Climate Change: Wildlife Species Will Become Extinct

This post is my call to you to think about the wildlife. It is my contribution to the Blog Action Day 2009: Climate Change.

Dead crocodile in dried river

When world leaders discuss climate change, the picture that is in their minds is of people caught in drought and floods, melting snow and icecaps in the mountain ranges and polar regions, and the polar bear. Well, that is not the worst case scenario. Less obvious wildlife (as compared to the polar bear) will suffer too – and perhaps more than humans.

You see human kind – as a species – will survive this rapid change in climate better than wildlife. Humans, in short, will survive. But some non-human inhabitants of mother Earth will not. It’s a given that wild species of animals and plants survived the beginning and end of the Ice Age, but they did so naturally. The climate change then was not as rapid as the climate change we are witnessing today. We all know the reason why – humans had not invented the steam engine, hadn’t discovered coal and petroleum and industrialisation was not even a seed in the little mind our ancient ancestors.

Now greenhouse gas emissions and an opulent consumerism has renderd the natural systems weak and the pace at which global warming and other climate change factors are progressing is mind boggling – and wildlife cannot keep abreast.

Take the example of trees. In mountain ranges, there is a nice tiered arrangement of different dominant species of plants. From lowland forest trees to upland, bamboo, alpine glades, tundra etc. Two problems arise here. 1) Assuming the vegetation belts can quickly stay at pace with temperature rise, they will push each other up the mountain until they all have nowhere else to go then they go extinct. 2) In reality, they cannot keep up the pace so they will die on the way up.

The great Savannahs of Africa may look indestructible – but they are not. We are increasingly seeing irregular rain patterns which is disrupting vegetation growth resulting in mass deaths of the massive herds of charismatic and much loved large herbivores, and their attending predators iconically represented by lions, cheetah, leopard and the like.

In Kenya recently, prolonged drought – and we can not rule out the effects of climate change as the cause – first killed livestock, then pushed the livestock into wildlife habitats, then killed the wildlife. Now Kenya is – ironically – waiting for El Nino rains to settle in so that it can save people, their livestock and wildlife. But the El Nino could be made more severe by the effects of climate change. So more people, livestock and wildlife will die. Iregi Mwenja, a Kenyan bushmeat researcher posted pictures of the onset of the El Nino rains in Voi today. One of the casualties of the big water was a masai goat that died in the floods.

That is a look on the extreme weather conditions that climate change is making worse. The silent increase in temperature will have the most devastating impact on wildlife as habitats change. According to the BBC:

It is estimated 20-30% of plant and animal species will be at increased extinction if the temperature rises by more than 1.5 – 2.5C. Less snow in winter, warmer temperatures in summer and more winter rain will affect wildlife across the board. Sea level rises will reduce land area in some countries, which will instantly affect vegetation which is currently used for homes and foods by animals.

In Africa, most of traditional dispersal area for wildlife is now occupied by humans as population increases exponentially. When climate change takes full effect, wildlife will attempt to move to these areas and human-wildlife conflict will escallate. The result is that wildlife will be killed. From another perspective, humans, with the effects of climate change on their heels, will invade wildlife protection areas, killing wildlife to create room for themselves, and their ravenous progeny.

Lest you tell me that the earth is man’s home, and we don’t need the wildlife, let me remind you the intricate balance between biological  systems, including bacteria! and the physical (rock) earth. The scientific author, Edward O Wilson, in his book “The Future of Life” talks of the earths biological system as a layer of living matter so thin you cannot see it sideways from space but absolutely neccessary for overall integrity of the planet as a whole (including energy flows). So there you have it: Without the biological system, there is no earth. Or in a language that you will understand, without the biological matter of old that became fossilized millenia ago, we would not have oil or coal = no fuel = no cars = no industrialization.

It is time to act. Our first wave of action is no doubt massive adjustment to our consumption patterns in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This, if dully practiced, could slow down climate change. Talk, write, chant, wave placards at or do what you do best, but make your leader act on climate change. Tell them that when they get to Copenhagen on 7-18 December 2009, they have to come up with a climate deal that saves us and wildlife. And go over to TckTckTck and join the more than 2 million ‘planet earthians’ tell the world leaders that you are ready for a climate deal that works.

It is said that climate change is inevitable, but the pace will have to slow down. Climate change has occured before, but not at this pace. Let us all change the way we live, slow climate change and give the other inhabitants of this planet a chance to take on climate change at their own pace. We cannot make them adapt at our pace…they were not made that way.

Let’s slow climate change. Lets save our wildlife.

Worst Drought in 26 Years Threatens Survival of Last Desert Elephants in West Africa

There is a big crisis going on in Mali. In Gourma district to the southeast of Timbuktu, the 400 or so remaining desert elephants are staring death in the face through thirst and starvation. Mali is experiencing the most severe drought in 26 years and these northernmost elephants surviving in Africa, could be wiped out if nothing is done to save them.

If these pictures as provided by the Save the Elephants conservation organization do not move your heart, then you have no heart.

Dead elephants in Mali

Trying to save a dying juvenile elephant

I, therefore, feel that I should share this press release on behalf of Save the Elephants and the desert elephants of Mali. For further information please contact Save the Elephants officers through their website. You can also donate funds to help save these elephants through their website.

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NAIROBI, Kenya – 20 May 2009. The future of a rare herd of desert elephants in Mali is under threat from one of the worst droughts in living memory, which has left a key water source at its lowest level in a quarter of a century and is breaking down the usual peaceful co-existence between the elephants and local herdsmen.

The 350 to 450 elephants of Gourma, the northernmost herds still alive in Africa, are being forced to trek ever-longer distances within the Sahel on the fringes of the Sahara to find scarce water, conservation organisation Save The Elephants warns today. Juveniles are likely to be among the worst affected, as – unlike the bigger bulls – their trunks are not long enough to reach deep into remaining wells.

Six elephants have already been found dead. Four others, including three calves, were recently extracted from a shallow well into which they had fallen when searching for water. Only the largest survived.

Save the Elephants’ scientist Jake Wall is in Mali following the situation closely. He says “Banzena has almost completely dried leaving no more than 30 cm of muddy, sediment filled water. The elephants are now in a deadly situation as they wait for the rains to begin. Six elephants have died in the last couple of months from causes related to the drought conditions.”

A group of NGO’s comprising Save the Elephants (STE) and The WILD Foundation (WILD) have been monitoring the last rare desert elephants in Mali in collaboration with the Malian Environment Ministry directorate for conservation – Direction Nationale de la Conservation de la Nature (DNCN). This unique herd of elephants is now in a desperate situation due to a drastic shortage of water, and we are launching an emergency appeal to save them.

The desert elephants of Mali live in the Gourma district to the South East of Timbuktu. They are the northernmost elephants surviving in Africa, estimated at between 350 and 450 in number. They have adapted to survive in the harsh conditions of the Sahel by migrating long distances in search of water and food but live on the margin of what is ecologically viable.

Dr Iain Douglas-Hamilton of Save the Elephants has been monitoring their range since the mid 1970s. He says “In the Gourma region of Mali are the last elephants living in the Sahel and they are northernmost in Africa. Their range has shrunk drastically since the 1970’s due to climate change and overstocking of livestock which has degraded the habitat. These elephants have the longest migration route of any in Africa and move in a counterclockwise circle of about 700km. At the height of the dry season there are only a handful of shallow lakes left to them until recharged by rains in July and August.

” This year the water levels are extremely low in the Gourma region due to uneven rainfall in 2008. The most important of these lakes, Banzena, is the lowest it has been since 1983 when it dried completely. Over the last few years a team of Save the Elephants and the WILD Foundation in collaboration with the DNCN have been closely following the movements of the elephants using 9 collars fitted with Global Positioning System (GPS) receivers. The collars transmit the hourly positions of the elephants three times daily via satellite link and give real-time information about the activities of the elephant herds.

On the16th May, Jake Wall a scientist with Save the Elephants returned from the most important water source, Lake Banzena, on which the elephants rely at the height of the dry season. He found it almost dry. “The situation is equally dire for the Touareg and Pheul herdsmen who rely on Banzena for their cattle and many cows are now dying each day from lack of water and the soaring temperatures which reach 50 degrees Celsius in the shade. The stench of rotting corpses fills the air and what little water remains is putrid and undrinkable by all standards.

The normal peaceful coexistence between the elephants and herdsmen is starting to break-down and giving way to conflict over access to water.” Very few options now exist for finding water and we are witnessing erratic movements further and further afield as they desperately search for water and forage.”Small thundershowers last week left tantalizing puddles 20 km to the south of Banzena, enough to survive on for a couple days at most, but the herds are now being forced back north to the almost dry lake.”

At a dry lake bed 50 km to the east of Banzena, 6 bull elephants are surviving by getting on their knees and reaching for water with their trunks that is 3 meters beneath ground level and through a hole dug by the Touareg. Younger elephants who are not as big or as skilled cannot possibly reach these to hard to get at water points. The long distances, high temperatures and weakened condition will also take a heavy toll on the younger elephants.

Jake Wall says “I have witnessed first hand how tough the situation can be for young elephants. Last year during a radio-collaring operation, I came across 3 elephant calves trapped in a mud hole along with a half grown female. From the age structure it looked like they had lost their matriarch. Evidently, this young female had led the youngsters into a waterless area. They happened upon a shallow well dug by herdsmen for watering cattle and it appears that the elephants, desperate for water, tumbled into the well and all four were hopelessly stuck in the mud for three days. Our Save the Elephants team pulled them out one by one, but they were so weak that only the large female survived. She was radio-tagged and we watched her dash 80 km to the nearest water at Lake Banzena.”

Urgent action is now needed to secure water for the elephants until the rains commence as predicted in early June. Fortunately, two pumps already exist at Banzena for pumping water and can be used for helping the elephants. Save the Elephants, in partnership with the WILD Foundation and the Mali government, is appealing for funds for diesel necessary for their operation. It is not certain whether the water quantity will be sufficient and close monitoring of the situation is needed.

If you want to help us save these elephants please send a donation via our website:

FMC’s Ban of Furadan In Kenya: Good Judgement or Just PR?

Something interesting happened last week. On Sunday 29 March 2009, CBS News aired a documentary on 60 Minutes showing how lions were dying in the Masai Mara ecosystem due to Furadan poisoning. Almost immediately after that the American manufacturer of the potent agricultural pesticide, FMC, issued a press release declaring that they had withdrawn it from Kenya and other African countries. They even called the WildlifeDirect chairman, Dr Richard Leakey to tell him of their action.

Furadan as it is sold in Kenya

WildlifeDirect has been running a campaign against the sale of Furadan in  Kenya through the Stop Wildlife Poisoning blog because of its rampant abuse by herders and farmers to poison wildlife. Kenyan authorities have largely ignored this campaign. FMC, and Juanco – the products importers in Kenya – have not been very responsive either.

A lion goes through the stages of paralysis after consuming a carcase laced with Furadan in Masai Mara, Kenya

Furadan is a highly effective agricultural pesticide but a very nasty poison for mammals and birds. It has been responsible for the death of large numbers of birds in the USA where its granular form is banned (it also comes in flowable or liquid form). In Kenya, it has been used to kill birds thought to be crop pests and for human food! It is also being used to kill lions, hyenas and other predators that are, or are percieved to be, preying on livestock.

The question is, did FMC ban exportation of this lethal poison because they are suddenly pious or they are just playing PR? My hypothesis is that FMC, having realized that Furadan has suddenly been identified as a poison of choice for herders, and this happened in popular American media, FMC took the obvious route: damage control. They don’t want to look bad. Why did they have to wait until the 60 Minutes for them to do something about this major problem in Africa? It is hard to believe that they did not know about the problem. If that is so, then they need to fire their entire PR team.

This is just an hypothesis and should not be read to mean that I dont support their action. If it works, then it will indeed have a phenomenal positive effect on lion population in Kenya and elsewhere.

I say if it works for this reason: when I updated my followers on Twitter on this turn of events, recycleme replied ‘what about the surrounding countries? Is it likely to get into Kenya from the countries still using it?’. I got worried.

We hope that FMC are serious about their pronouncement and they will follow it through. That they will also seal the loopholes spotted by recycleme and others.

Kenya’s Bio-safety Bill vs Organic Farming

Former UN Secretary General, Kofi Atta Annan once said that Africa should embrace biotechnology in food production. He even said that GM foods would alleviate the problem of hunger in the continent. Late last year, Kenya’s parliament passed the Bio-safety Bill with a little push by the US producers of genetically modified corn (USGC).

The USGC is openly beating it’s chest declaring that the passage of the bill is a direct result of years of their work promoting the technology in the region. They proudly declare that members of Kenya and Malawi’s parliaments – who were still debating the laws that would legalize importation of GM foods – were part of a contingent of African leaders who visited its project plot in South Africa.

According to Kurt Shultz, USGC director in the Mediterranean and Africa, in May 2006, a high-level delegation from Kenya, Malawi and South Africa consisting of Members of Parliament from each country, visited Council-sponsored biotechnology test plots in South Africa. “The timing was significant in that Kenya and Malawi were debating bills to adopt the commercial cultivation of biotechnology,” he said. “The positive impact and practical benefits the Members of Parliament saw at the USGC-sponsored test plots convinced them that Kenyan and Malawian farmers could benefit immensely from the technology if its products were made available to them.  As a result, the Members of Parliament resolved to fast-track the introduction of the technology into their respective countries.”

Su Kahumbu (right) of Green Dreams at the Kibera Organic Plot

The bio-safety bill was scheduled to be ascended to by Kenya’s President Mwai Kibaki before 1 January 2009, but that has not happened yet. As a result, organic farmers are stepping up their efforts to lobby the President not to ascend the Bill into law.

I was sent a link to an online petition calling on President Kibaki not to sign the bill on Facebook today from group called Green Dreams. Green Dreams is also the name of the organic marketing firm that is behind the group.  The petition is here for those of you who don’t want GM to be legalized in Kenya.  I don’t know how well that will work given that the entire media fraternity was all over him and he still ascended to the controversial so called Media Bill.

I am not sure, either, if the importation and/or production of GM foods is really going to change the food situation in Africa. As a matter of fact, it could bring more harm than good. Europe for instance will still prefer organic tomatoes over GM tomatoes – for those who want to export fresh produce to pay school fees for their children. With growing environmental and biodiversity awareness and sympathy, the chances of GM production methods remaining attractive in the long run is not a guarantee.

One can plainly see why the USGC wants the biosafety law – or in their words – “U.S. producers of genetically enhanced corn may soon see their products in the Kenyan market as Kenya recently passed a bio-safety bill permitting importation and cultivation of biotech crops and products.” They want a market for their products. Period.

One Kenyan legislator opposing the law in parliament on around 9 December 2008 pointed out in countries where GMO technology is used, such crops are solely used for animal feeds and not for human consumption. I believe he was saying that Africans are being treated like animals. I wonder if that is true.

While those MPs who supported the Bill said that Kenya is food insufficient and GM should remedy that, the opposing MPs countered that Kenya, and indeed Africa, is food insecure not for lack of GMOs but for lack of proper planning adding that low irrigation, lack of water harvesting coupled with poor infrastructure and effects of climate change is hampering countries in the region from ensuring food security of her citizens. And I agree with them.

The organic revolution is however catching up and the Kibera Story should wow you at any given time. Today I also read in the Independent online a story about a farmer in Malawi who chose to go organic for a very unusual reason. He owed his government $17 for fertilizer and government officers threatened to take away his 11 pigs if he didn’t pay up. Luckily, he borrowed the money from the local pastor, but he swore he’d never depend on fertilizer again. He’d grow his crops the way his father, and his grandfather grew their crops – the natural way.

Now, isn’t that a story? You are free to comment here and let the world know what your views are. Organic or GM?

Oh no! We’re all gonna die!

If your regular skeptics would read the WWF’s Living Planted Report, they would call it a doomsday conspiracy theory. They would say that the alarmist – the tree hugging scum who want us to live in the stone age – are, as usual, trying to scare us from accumulating wealth and living like space gods.

The 2008 Living Planet Report was announced today, 29 October 2008, via a press release contained here. It says, in more words than these, that by 2030, we’ll need two planets in order to continue living the way we do. Reason being that we are consuming more natural resources than the planet can produce. Demand has outstripped supply. We already need a third more of the planet to continue living.

Hectares worth of resources consumed by each country (linked from BBC)

The people (i am deliberately avoiding the use of the word “scientists” because the skeptic hates scientists) who came up with this proposition say that some nations already owe the planet a lot. Not surprisingly, the US, China and India are the biggest debtors of the planet.

In the US for instance, each person needs about two times more natural resources than the US has. In fact if the entire population of the earth was to adapt the US’s consumption pattern, we would need 4.5 planets to barely make it to the next day. Maybe the consumption in the US is not the problem. The problem could be that the rest of the world wants to live the American lifestyle instead of convincing the average American of the wisdom of living like a bushman.

Look around. African youth dress like their American counterparts and rap like them, imitate their hand signs and – painfully – curse like them. The most annoying thing is that the African youth are – in the most part – a cheap imitation of the Americans. But that is another story altogether.

In Kenya, we all dream of owning fuel guzzler Hummers – even our Prime Minister has one. Recently, one UN employee acquired the military specification Humvee and there was immediate outcry from the “ethical” online people. Again, the skeptics would have slammed the ethical people with something in the general direction of “a man cant just buy a Humvee and enjoy the attention, just because you think there is global warming?” or “If i can afford to buy, fuel, and service a Humvee, why not?” or simply “killjoys!”

The Humvee that is causing sensation in Nairobi (from Nick Wadhams Blog)

The BBC summarizes this tragedy by saying that three quarters of the human population now lives in countries where consumption levels are outstripping environmental renewal. The BBC calls these nations “ecological debtors” who are drawing and overdrawing from the natural coffers of agricultural land, forests, seas and resources of other countries to sustain them.

In a nutshell, with current consumption rates, each living person on earth needs an average 2.7 hectares of productive land to sustain his lifestyle. If we divide the total human population by the amount of land available it appears that only 2.1 hectares are available per person. This means that the earth has exceeded its human carrying capacity already.

To me, that is not the thing that the skeptics should worry about. They should instead consider that the situation is deteriorating faster than expected. In 2006, the WWF team had predicted that the two-planet syndrome would strike in 2050. Now they had to hack off a whole two decades from their prediction. That doesn’t say they are incorrect, it just says that we never learn.

So what are the solutions?

let me just quote the WWF press release:

The report suggests some key “sustainability wedges” which if combined could stabilize and reverse the worsening slide into ecological debt and enduring damage to global support systems. For the single most important challenge – climate change – the report shows that a range of efficiency, renewable and low emissions “wedges” could meet projected energy demands to 2050 with reductions in carbon emissions of 60 to 80 per cent.

If humanity has the will, it has the ways to live within the means of the planet, but we must recognize that the ecological credit crunch will require even bolder action than that now being mustered for the financial crisis

I must add that a solution also lies in how many children we choose to bring into this planet. Population growth is the problem really. There is simply too many of us such that the earth is groaning under our weight. We are eating ourselves out of existence. But maybe that is a good thing. With humans out of the way, the planet can return to sustainable existence. Problem is, humans wont go down alone; they’ll take the planet with them.