Safari Notes

With the recent voting down on proposals to protect sharks at the UN conference on endangered species, the future for the endangered sharks is very bleak. Millions of hammerhead and whitetip are extracted from seas each year, mainly to satisfy a burgeoning appetite for sharkfin soup, a prestige food in Chinese communities around the world. The nations gathered in Doha, Qatar, for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, rejected proposals that would have required countries to strictly regulate — but not ban — trade in several species of scalloped hammerhead, oceanic whitetip and spiny dogfish sharks. NYT What is very sad and shameful about all this destruction, is that - some of the wealthiest countries in the world are the most exploiters of wildlife: China is the largest consumer of shark fins; imagine - sharks are caught, their fins are removed and the rest of the fish is thrown; many times, all this - the cutting of the fins and the thr...

Uganda, at last, surrenders Migingo Islands : Uganda on Wednesday gave up its claim on Migingo Island and apologised for what it said was an inaccurate decision based on wrong interpretation of a 1962 map. In compensation, it announced that it would allow Kenyan fishermen access to 400 nautical miles of its territorial waters in Lake Victoria. “Our surveyors were wrong in their interpretation of the 1962 map. “It is an old map and not as accurate as modern maps,” said presidential spokesman Loofapril Kabalagala. Mr Kabalagala said President Yoweri Museveni had spoken to President Kibaki on the matter. What a relief? At one time, many thought that Kenya and Uganda might go to war to settle the dispute over the Island. But, thankfully, the territorial dispute has been peacefully resolved. See also map of the Island .