Safari Notes

"It is the people who must save the environment. It is the people who must make their leaders change. And we cannot be intimidated. So we must stand up for what we believe in." Wangari Maathai For any one who loves and cares for wildlife and the environment, the documentary: Taking Root - The Vision of Wangari Maathai is a must watch. TAKING ROOT: The Vision of Wangari Maathai tells the story of Kenya’s Green Belt Movement, a grassroots organization encouraging rural women and families to plant trees in community groups, and follows Maathai, the movement’s founder and the first environmentalist and African woman to win the Nobel Prize. Maathai discovered her life's work by reconnecting with the rural women with whom she had grown up. They told her they were walking long distances for firewood, and that clean water was scarce. The soil was disappearing from their fields and their children were suffering from malnutrition. “Well, why not plant trees?” she suggested. Maat...

He is fast. Very fast. And in the ring, very smart and relentless. Unbeaten. And he is the greatest and best professional boxer today. He is not only the most popular sportsman in his home country, the Philippines but also he is the most admired person in that country. In boxing, he is undoubtedly on his way to becoming one of the all time greats; to rank as high as Muhammad Ali and Sugar Ray Robinson.     More on Pacquiao: Official Website , LA Times , HBO , TIME , BoxRec , Boxing Gurus , Fan Site , Times Online , Wikipedia , News , Videos Image: GMANews

A baby gorilla has been seized from animal traffickers by ICCN following a 3-month undercover investigation to bust an international wildlife smuggling ring , reports the official website of Virunga National Park . One suspected trafficker was caught and arrested at Goma International Airport on Sunday while disembarking from a flight from Walikale (in the interior of the country and close to gorilla habitat) with an eastern lowland gorilla (remember these animals are only found in DR Congo). The gorilla was found concealed under clothes at the bottom of a bag and was suffering from over-heating and dehydration after spending over 6 hours in transit. Baby gorillas can be sold for up to $20,000 each; for some people, that's a price that can drive them to such extreme cruelty. As for whoever would want to buy gorillas and other such wild animals, and accept the animals being so mistreated, they must be utterly heartless and sick. Gorillas should be in the wild. There are less th...

I can not think of any other living creature that is as awesome to look at and yet so gentle, majestic and noble as elephants . I have seen African elephants at close range many times, and yet, I am awed and have to stare and gawk at these incredible creatures whenever I see them. I quote from the movie White Hunter Black Heart : I've never seen one before, outside the circus or the zoo. They're so majestic. So indestructible. They're part of the earth. They make us feel like perverse little creatures from another planet. Without any dignity. Makes one believe in God. In the miracle of creation. Fantastic. They're part of a world that no longer exists, Hod. Feeling of unconquerable time. How true. Facts about elephants , are amazing. Elephants are incredibly social creatures who have lasting memories, and can communicate over long distances through low range sound waves ; they can cry, play, have incredible memories, and can even laugh ; and they grieve at a loss of a s...

On the idyllic island of Moheli , the Comoro Islands , a Chinese medical team from Guangzhou University has got involved in a project - to eradicate malaria. Malaria , which, each year, infects hundreds of millions of people around the world, especially in Africa , causes an estimated a million deaths every year; mostly in tropical Africa. The project hasn't received much support from WHO , and and many in the public health community still believe malaria can not be wiped ou t . But the Chinese medical team believes Malaria can be eradicated; if it can be eradicated on the island of Moheli, then, indeed it can be eradicated in other parts of the world. At the same time, the WHO admits that : the world's best hope for a cure to malaria is emerging from China, which is developing a range of highly effective medicines that include a derivative of a traditional herb, qing hao-su or artemisinin. The new treatments combine artemisinin, an extremely powerful anti-malarial agent...

Every day is Earth Day. ~ Author Unknown I conceive that the land belongs to a vast family of which many are dead, few are living, and countless numbers are still unborn. ~ A Chieftain from Nigeria We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children. ~ Native American Proverb Humankind has not woven the web of life. We are but one thread within it. Whatever we do to the web, we do to ourselves. All things are bound together. All things connect. ~ Chief Seattle, 1855 Only when the last tree has died and the last river been poisoned and the last fish been caught will we realize we cannot eat money. ~ Cree Indian Proverb What is the use of a house if you haven't got a tolerable planet to put it on? ~ Henry David Thoreau Celebrate !

I read the report and have watched CNN"s revealed on Wangari Mathai , twice. Some of what Wangari said: "In any society, if there is no regulation, if there is no control, you will always get greedy and selfish people who are prepared to take the economy very far for their own selfish ends." "People get leaders they deserve," she continued. "So if they are getting leaders in Africa that are not caring about us, it's because they let them." "If we want a responsible leadership, the African people have to rise up and demand that kind of leadership from their leaders." "We see time and time again that the ruling elite are the least concerned about the poor and not only use the poor to argue their case, but when the money is available they're not paying attention to the issues that would make a difference in the lives of the poor people." Watch the very interesting and absorbing video on Wangari Mathai - here .