Safari Notes

Rarely do I read any thing about Kibera, as encouraging and elating as this article from The Standard . Here are some excerpts: Having a kitchen garden in the city is a preserve of residents in leafy suburbs. But what previously could only be a fantasy for slum dwellers has become a reality for Ms Mariam Abdala, a Kibera resident. This is how it works: Seedlings are planted on the sides of earth-filled sacks that are placed besides doorsteps, on verandas or even rooftops. One bag can support up to 30 seedlings. Many families in Kibera have adopted this mode of farming, perhaps setting precedent for a green revolution in Africa. The ‘hanging gardens’ of Kibera account for several acres of land. Residents refer to them as gunia gardens. And just like Israel’s agricultural magic, residents are zealously turning the slum green. At a time when food prices have soared, many residents in the largest slums in Africa can harvest vegetables at their doorsteps. Even schools have picked up the ide...

Some, like the British scientist James Lovelock - who formulated the Gaia theory , believe that the World is over populated and over crowded: "It is not simply too much carbon dioxide in the air . . . ," he writes in The Vanishing Face of Gaia ,"......the root cause is too many people, their pets, and their livestock -- more than the Earth can carry. No voluntary human act can reduce our numbers fast enough even to slow climate change." He goes on in an interview with the New Scientist : I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happene...

This just in from WWF : Marine turtles are a globally important species, but the number of turtles has plummeted and some populations are now on the brink of extinction. These gentle creatures of the sea swim great distances and come to land only to nest. They play a critical role in keeping marine ecosystems healthy; the same ecosystems which sustain our fisheries and tourism industries that provide food and livelihoods for millions of people. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species, Leatherbacks and Hawksbills are listed as Critically Endangered, while Green turtles are Endangered and Olive ridleys are categorised as Vulnerable. Four out of the 7 species of marine turtles land and lay their eggs on beaches in Malaysia; Leatherbacks, Hawksbills, Olive Ridleys and Green turtles. They face many threats, including the practice of consuming turtle eggs, becoming accidentally caught in fishing gear, pollution and the illegal trade of turtles and their parts. But key to all thi...