Seychelles news update – National Day celebrations graced by Tanzanian President

SEYCHELLES AND TANZANIA AGREE ON JOINT ANTI PIRACY MEASURES

The visit by Tanzanian president Jakaya Kikwete to the Seychelles a few days ago has brought two allies together, both affected by ocean terrorists and both losing tourism business from the absence of cruiseships and suffering from increased cost of imports due to the insurance surcharges levied on cargos headed for the East African seaboard and the Indian Ocean island states.

Both countries’ navies and coast guard have in the past been involved in shootouts with the ocean terrorists, when freeing hostages and taking hijacked ocean vessels back from captivity, and in Tanzania several ocean terrorists were arrested on shore when the brazenly decided to make landfall to ‘procure’ water, fuel and food, at gunpoint more likely but spotted early enough to lay an ambush for them and arrest them.

A recent ‘tell it all’ interview with the Seychellois Minister for Home Affairs, Environment, Energy and Transport the Hon. Joel Morgan revealed clearly how determined the Seychelles are to put an end to the menace, when in hard hitting statements, fully supported by this correspondent, he warned the Somali pirates of deadly consequences when threatening security, trade and open sealanes in Seychellois waters, a tenor now repeated when Presidents Michel and Kikwete met at State House in Victoria. Besides agreeing in joint measures to combat the ‘problem from hell’ in terms of surveillance and exchange of intelligence data, the two presidents also discussed further cooperation between the two countries’ tourism and aviation sectors, trade and other matters of mutual interest. President Kikwete was also present at the Seychelles National Day celebrations in Victoria, underscoring the importance Seychelles attaches to her relations with mainland Africa and in particular her East African neighbours across the Indian Ocean.

A new alliance of the determined and the willing, and warmly welcomed by all concerned, well not all, as the ocean terrorists will surely not be amused.

 

Uganda news update – UWA paying its ‘tormentors’ – only in Uganda

UWA TO PAY ITS ‘TORMENTORS’ – ONLY IN UGANDA

News emerged over the weekend that the Commission of Enquiry, instituted by the immediate past – and thanks for that a million many stakeholders say – Tourism Minister Kahinda Otafire has to be funded by UWA, the very body they are to investigate over allegations for misuse of donor funds. Sources within the ministry, now headed by respected Prof. Ephraim Kamuntu, claim they are not allowed to speak to the press over this and in fact any issues related to the UWA enquiry, though were willing off the record to say there was no money for the commission’s work in the ministry budget and that the former minister made a mess out of things when dealing with UWA and other sectoral matters like the question of the national museum.

Sources located in UWA and former staff however pointed out to this correspondent that UWA could not legally fund such expenditure under its own terms and regulations, a statement which might need further investigation to ascertain the facts here, but the sources were adamant that it was the ministry to provide the funding as it was the minister who instituted the commission as well as prior ‘kangaroo courts’ as several of them, in addition to previous stakeholder sentiment, put it. Yet it was also confirmed that UWA had in the past yielded to political pressures from its oversight ministry and had funded various elements of expenditure for ministry officials like travel and transportation, to which – needless to say – no comments were received, itself a deafening statement. In closing it is understood also that the new Minister Prof. Kamuntu is trying to repair the damage done by his predecessor and steer UWA into calmer waters, while also attempting to obtain additional funding for the Uganda Tourist Board, which in comparison with regional promotional efforts by Rwanda and Kenya is lagging severely behind in activities due to lack of money, which caused outraged stakeholder to start complaining to several levels in government in order to find a short, medium and long term solution to the chronically financial starvation the sector’s primary marketing body has suffered.

 

Rwanda conservation news – KWITA IZINA week concludes with naming of new babies

KWITA IZINA ‘GORILLA NAMING’ SETS STAGE FOR MORE CONSERVATION EFFORTS

 

 

 

 

 

 

(Thousands of Musanze and Cyaniga residents came to witness the event and crammed the festival grounds)

The Prime Minister of Rwanda, the Rt. Hon. Bernard Makuza, was the guest of honour at this year’s 7^th gorilla naming festival ‘Kwita Izina’ held on Saturday at Kinigi / Musanze and named in fact the first of 22 gorilla babies himself, before Ms. Rica Rwigamba, head of Tourism and Conservation at RDB ‘MC’d’ the function through the programme, naming interspersed with performances of songs, music and traditional dances by some of Rwanda’s finestcultural troops.

Drummers performed their ‘staccatos’ before each major programme item and had many of the spectators in the VIP tent clapping along the tunes and tapping their feet in the same rhythm.

The ‘namers’ this year again came from across the world, with greater emphasis though on ‘local namers’ from Uganda and the wider region, aimed to create more ownership in Rwanda and Eastern Africa of the gorillas and using the often very prominent name givers as ambassadors for conservation in their professional and social circles, but also increase the fundraising potential in the region, where large corporate companies can now ‘name their gorilla’ in exchange for contributions towards Rwanda’s conservation efforts, a fair deal considering the enormous cost of maintaining the park and looking after the nearly 500 mountain gorillas now found in the ‘Volcanoes National Park’.

Each and everyone of the ‘namers’ was dressed in a traditional Rwandan outfit, put on them in the nearby ‘cultural village’ which shows visitors to the site the homesteads as they were once common sight before making way for brick and mortar houses with mabati roofs, in a way a sign of progress but also a sadly felt loss of cultural identity, now however vigorously revived by the National Institute of Museums of Rwanda which is adding the ‘culture component’ to the local tourism circuits, as recently reported here.

The large local crowd, estimated to be as many as 7.000+ strong, took particular pleasure in the cultural performances which were accompanied with traditional songs and often the local spectators became the background choir for the on stage performance, testimony how much they enjoyed the day and were part and parcel of the celebrations and how far Kwita Izina has come since 2005 when the first edition was staged and President Paul Kagame named the first gorilla baby during that function.

  

The Prime Minister in his formal address emphasized Rwanda’s commitment to conservation as a matter of high priority and in fact mentioned and reiterated government’s plans to replant wider tracts of land with trees, so as to link the various forests from Nyungwe to the shores of Lake Kivu and create migration corridors for game while enhancing the water towers of the nation.

Kwita Izina has become the ‘pride of the nation’ as one RDB staffer put it and it is indeed often a point of equal admiration as well as a little envy by other East African countries, that ‘The Land of a Thousand Hills’ has managed to capture the world’s attention year after year by celebrating conservation and their unique gorilla tourism products, and have in the process managed to create ownership through participation and reward programmes from tourism incomes with and for the local communities, which often elsewhere go ‘empty handed’ and struggle to embrace wildlife based tourism which in their own context gives them little of nothing. Revenue share schemes, mandated by law in Uganda and now trialed elsewhere are beginning to make an impact though, often inspired by Rwanda’s example and the success story of its tourism industry which  rose over the past decade to the top of the country’s economic performance list and has governments’ fullest support.

This report concludes the ‘live reporting’ from Kinigi’s Kwita Izina festival ground and until June 2012 for the 8^th edition, dates for which will be reported here as soon as the announcements are made.

 

 

Kenya conservation news – Dr. Paula Kahumba earns global award

DR. PAULA KAHUMBA EARNS GLOBAL ACCLAIM FOR HER CONSERVATION WORK

When talking of work done by women in Africa and especially the accomplishments of women in Africa that list may be long, yet the recognition by society is often slow in coming and more often even only grudgingly given at home. Not so in the international arena where Dr. Paula Kahumba, Executive Director at the Kenya Land Conservation Trust Fund and of Wildlife Direct just received one of National Geographic’s highest accolades, being awarded the National Geographic Annual Award.

Paula, an ardent Blogger and use of Twitter in her fight for the rights of wildlife – and to constantly promote the Nairobi National Park, richly deserves this recognition, as she has proved instrumental to bring the need for conservation and to maintain biodiversity to the forefront. Besides her daily work-schedule she is also actively involved in FoNNaP, Friends of Nairobi National Park, from where she sends her daily tweets enroute to her office about wildlife sightings and often ‘special moments’ when encountering lions or rhinos blocking her way in traffic jams of a different kind.

Paula has also become an ardent critic of the use of Furadan, a pesticide banned in many countries including the US where it is manufactured and now exported to countries with weak legislation, poisoning wildlife in an almost serial manner. She has demanded, while in Washington to receive her award, that the US ban the manufacturing and export of Furadan immediately. More notably however she is having a fight at hand back home in Kenya where she is galvanizing the conservation fraternity into opposing the ‘hemming in’ of the Nairobi National Park, where the ancient migration routes from across the Athi Plains and beyond are increasingly cut off for wildlife and where a new recently discovered highway project appears to turn the park area into a glorified open air – and admittedly very large – wildlife park a la Europe.

Said another source when discussing this issue and Paula’s accomplishment: ‘We don’t want a little Disney Animal Kingdom in front of our doors in Nairobi, we want to maintain the park and keep at least some migration routes open and Paula’s award will help our cause a lot because now, when she talks about it, people will sit up and listen. This should not become another Serengeti Highway problem for us conservationists and our national road authority has to learn to leave wildlife areas alone, which also includes their plans for a highway across a section of Nakuru National Park’.

Congratulations to Paula from this correspondent on her outstanding achievement, as the struggle for conservation and the protection of our environment continues.