Part 2… A breath-taking collection of wild bird photographs that will make you dream and fill you with wonder. How can we imagine a world without the freedom and color of birds in the wild? The most diverse, most beautiful places on earth to see wild birds are all threatened by mining, agriculture and the gradual, unrelenting pressure of population increase and development. Birds are ancient echoes of a world that measured change in millions of years and evolution and natural selection were lived in real-time. We have accelerated change on this planet and taken control of most ecosystems, making them inhospitable to the diversity of life that can only exist in a delicate ecological balance. At the moment we are doomed to live in a world of doves, pigeons, sparrows, starlings, and crows… 

Join the Wild Bird Revolution today!! Be the first to introduce your friends, family and colleagues to the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild! Advances in digital photography have given us the opportunity to capture the beauty and freedom of birds in the wild like never before. Here are the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” drawn from the thousands of photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust for consideration every week. Celebrate the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild with us and stimulate positive change by sharing how beautiful the birds of the world really are…

REGISTER NOW and JOIN THE WILD BIRD REVOLUTION!

African paradise flycatchers are common resident breeder in Africa S of the Sahara Desert, preferring open forest and savanna habitat. The males grow beautiful long tales and remains close to the female, who will lay 2/3 eggs in a tiny cup nest made of cobwebs in the low branches of a tree. (Edward Peach)

Oriental magpie-robins occur across most of the Indian Subcontinent and parts of SE Asia.They have become a common birds in urban gardens as well as forests like the Garo Hills in Meghalaya (NE India). (Israel Momin)

Northern cardinals are found in S Canada, through the E United States from Maine to Texas and S through Mexico. They prefer woodlands, gardens, shrublands, and swamps. Photographed here in Vestal (New York, USA). (Melissa Penta)

King eiders are large sea duck that breed along the N Hemisphere Arctic coasts of NE Europe, N America and Asia. They prefer coastal marine ecosystems at high latitudes, and migrate to Arctic tundra to breed in June and July. Photographed here in Båtsfjord (Norway). (Antero Topp)

Fiery-throated hummingbirds are the only hummingbird species that regularly nests E of the Mississippi River in N America. Photographed here in Costa Rica. (Nina Stavlund)

Long-tailed broadbills are found in the Himalayas, SE Asia and Indonesia. They are very sociable and usually travels in large, noisy “parties” outside of the breeding season. (Gururaj Moorching)

Kashmiri flycatchers breed in the NW Himalayas in the Kashmir region of the Indian Subcontinent. They winter in the hills of central Sri Lanka and the W Ghats of India. (Gururaj Moorching)

Magnificent hummingbirds breed in mountains from SW United States to W Panama. Photographed here in Costa Rica. (Nina Stavlund)

Juvenile african fish eagles hang out on low the banks of recently exposed floodplains until they are strong enough to compete for prime perches along the water. Photographed here in the Okavango Delta. (Antero Topp)

Hyacinth macaws are native to central and E South America. They are the largest macaw and the largest flying parrot species. Photographed here in the Pantanal (Brazil). (Wild Pantanal Eco Tours)

Feeding flamingos are swarmed by a multitude of shorebirds in the Mumbai mangroves near Mumbai (India). (Rakesh Dhareshwar)

Little-known chestnut-backed tanagers are found in Atlantic Forest in SE Brazil, NE Argentina, E Paraguay, and Uruguay. (Diego Caballero Sadi)

Changeable hawk-eagles breed in the Indian Subcontinent and are primarily located in India and Sri Lanka, and from the SE rim of the Himalaya across SE Asia to Indonesia and the Philippines. (Anup Shah)

Cattle egrets were originally native to parts of Asia, Africa and Europe. They have, however, undergone a rapid expansion in their distribution and successfully colonized much of the rest of the world. (Chris Krog)

Brahminy kites are found in the Indian subcontinent, SE Asia and Australia where they are found mainly on the coast and in inland wetlands where they feed on dead fish and other small prey. (Gururaj Moorching)

Black skimmers breed in N and S America with the N populations wintering in the Caribbean and the tropical/subtropical Pacific coasts, while the S American races make only shorter movements in response to annual floods which extend their feeding areas in the river shallows. (Dan Pancamo)

Asian openbills are found mainly in the Indian subcontinent and SE Asia. Photographed here in W Bengal (India). (Debasish Chakraborty)

Jackal buzzards pair for life and have noisy aerial displays throughout the year. The large (up to 1m wide) stick nest is built in a tall tree or on a crag, and is often reused and enlarged in subsequent breeding seasons. (Louis Groenewald)

White-eyed vireos breed in SE USA from New Jersey W to N Missouri and S to Texas and Florida, as well as E Mexico, N Central America, Cuba and the Bahamas. Photographed here in Laffite’s Cove (Galveston, Texas, USA). (Dan Pancamo)

Tickell’s blue flycatchers breeds in tropical Asia from the Indian Subcontinent E to SE Asia from India to Indonesia. (Shishir Saksena)

Swallow-tailed gulls are the only fully nocturnal gull and seabird in the world, feeding on squid and small fish which rise to the surface at night to feed on plankton. Photographed nesting in the Galapagos Islands. (Justin Peter)

Stork-billed kingfishers are resident breeders in the tropical Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia, from India and Sri Lanka to Indonesia. They are uncommon and are sparsely distributed over a wide range. (Eddy Swan)

Spotted eagle-owls are able to fly at around seven weeks of age, but only leave the nest 5 weeks later. They have a life span of up to 10 years in the wild and up to 20 in captivity. (Mark Drysdale)

Purple-rumped sunbirds are endemic to the Indian Subcontinent, and are common resident breeders in S India, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh. (Shishir Saksena)

Plum-headed parakeets prefer forest and open woodland habitat, and are found from the foothills of the Himalayas S to Sri Lanka. They are not found in the dry regions of W India. (Sathish Poojari)

Please join the Wild Bird Trust page on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to receive all wild bird photo updates and news from our research and conservation projects in the field. Submit your own photos and become part of this important public awareness campaign to bring the magic of wild birds to the world. Prepare to be blown away every week… The Wild Bird Trust was founded in South Africa in August 2009 with the primary objective of keeping birds safe in the wild. The trust aims to encourage the use of flagship endangered bird species as “ecosystem ambassadors” in their indigenous habitat. The trust focusses on linking ordinary people with conservation action in the field through innovative marketing campaigns and brand development. Saving Africa’s birds is going to take a determined effort from all of us.

See last week “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #41″: 

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/05/11/top-25-wild-bird-photographs-of-the-week-41/

We were unable to post the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” last month due to work in the field and limited internet access. Here are the first 25 of a collection of 50 wild bird photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust in April… Absolutely stunning photography that gets ever closer to capturing reality and the raw beauty of birds in the wild. Please share these collections of amazing photographs with your friends and family. You have a choice to act now by joining the “Wild Bird Revolution”! Go to: www.wildbirdtrust.com. Our network of wild bird enthusiasts is growing everyday with more than 20,000 followers on Facebook and photographers from around the world! Birds can fly and many migrate across the planet. Seeing them, in these photographs, throughout their distributional ranges makes the world seem like a much smaller place. Birds knew that the world was a globe and that we only have one planet many millions of years before we discovered these truths. We need to do everything we can to protect the intact forests, wetlands and protected areas that wild birds around the world depend on…  

Join the Wild Bird Revolution today!! Be the first to introduce your friends, family and colleagues to the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild! Advances in digital photography have given us the opportunity to capture the beauty and freedom of birds in the wild like never before. Here are the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” drawn from the thousands of photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust for consideration every week. Celebrate the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild with us and stimulate positive change by sharing how beautiful the birds of the world really are…

REGISTER NOW and JOIN THE WILD BIRD REVOLUTION!

Asian paradise-flycatchers inhabit thick forests and well-wooded habitats from Turkestan to Manchuria, all over India and Sri Lanka to the Malay Archipelago on the islands of Sumba and Alor. (AB Apana)

Osprey tolerate a wide variety of habitats, nesting in any location near a body of water providing an adequate food supply. They are found on all continents (except Antarctica). Photographed here in Byron Bay (Australia). (Deborah Pearse)

Common buzzards range over most of Europe and W Asia. They breed in woodlands, usually on the fringes, as they but favor hunting over open land, targeting small mammals and carrion. (Lennart Hessel)

Cape gannet pairs may remain together over several seasons and perform elaborate greeting rituals at the nest, stretching their bills and necks skywards and gently tapping bills together. They begin breeding on off-shore islands in August and September. (Peter Chadwick)

Blue-cheeked honeyeaters are found in open woodland, parks, and gardens, and are common in N and E Australia and S New Guinea. They appears to be sedentary in parts of their range and locally-nomadic in other parts. (Shirell Lynch)

Blue-throated barbets are are an Asian barbet seen across the Indian Subcontinent and SE Asia. Barbets and toucans are a group of near passerine birds with a world-wide tropical distribution. The barbets get their name from the bristles which fringe their heavy bills. (Shishir Saksena)

Blue-tailed bee-eaters breed in sub-tropical open country, such as farmland, parks or ricefields, in SE Asia. They are strongly migratory with seasonal sightings in much of peninsular India. (Subramanniyan Mani)

Black-throated green warblers are abundant breeders of the NE coniferous forests. They are easy to recognize by sight and sound. Its dark black bib and bright yellow face are unique amongst Eastern birds, and its persistent song of “zoo-zee, zoo-zoo-zee” is easy to remember. Info: Cornell lab of Ornithology. (Dan Pancamo)bushtit

Black throated bushtits range from the Himalayan foothills across N India and Nepal, Bhutan, N Burma, Vietnam, and Taiwan. They prefer open broad-leaved forests and pine forests at middle altitudes. (Girish Ketkar)

Atlantic puffins become sexually mature at the age of 4–5 years. They are monogamous, so mate for life and a choice like this takes time… Puffins both care for the young and are colonial nesters, excavating burrows on grassy cliffs, often with rocks and scree. (Nina Stavlund)

African penguin are Endangered and several man-made colonies have been established along the coastline, including locations like Boulders Beach in Cape Town (South Africa). Also known as “Jackass penguins” due to the donkey-like vocalizations made by adult males. (Antero Topp)

North America has more than 50 species of warblers, but few combine brilliant color and easy viewing quite like the yellow warbler… (Melissa Penta)

Wattled cranes are considered Critically Endangered in South Africa with populations continuing to decline. (Chris Krog)

Spotted eagle-owls are the smallest eagle-owl in southern Africa. Traffic, electric wires, and shortage of suitable prey in populated areas are major causes of mortality, particularly of newly-fledged birds. (Trevor Kleyn / www.trevorkleyn.com)

Snowy egrets are the American counterpart to the very similar Old World little egret, which has established a foothold in the Bahamas. (Markus Lilje / www.rockjumperbirding.com)

Ashy prinias are resident breeders in the Indian Subcontinent, ranging across most of India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Sri Lanka and W Myanmar. (Sathish Poojari)

Regal sunbirds are found in Burundi, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda, Tanzania, and Uganda. These colorful gems are a wonder to behold. (Adam Riley / www.rockjumperbirding.com)

Velvet-purple coronets are found in the humid foothill forests on the West Andean slope in W Colombia and NW Ecuador. (Owen Deutsch)

Martial eagles are among the most powerful eagles on earth and are capable of lifting small antelope off the ground. They are found in open and semi-open habitats of sub-Saharan Africa. (Justin Klusener)

Arrow-marked babblers have a complex matrilineal hierarchy that governs large flocks. They behave like a troop of monkeys moving through the canopy and on the ground. Here they mob a boomslang to alert predators like humans o the scene… (Mark Drysdale)

Rainbow lorikeet are found in Australia, E Indonesia (Maluku and W New Guinea), Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. Photographed here in Byron Bay (Australia). (Deborah Pearse)

Malabar crested larks are sedentary breeders in W India, preferring open country, cultivation and scrub, often at some altitude. They nest on the ground, laying 2-3 eggs.(Dharuman Nanjan)

Giant kingfishers are resident throughout Africa and are the largest kingfisher on the continent. Photographed here in the Kruger National Park (South Africa). (Peter Pischler)

Emus are the second-largest extant bird in the world by height, after its ratite relative, the ostrich of Africa. There are three subspecies of emus in Australia. They are considered common over most of mainland Australia. (Chris Krog)

Large numbers of great white pelicans breed together in colonies, laying 1-4 eggs in a variety of nest locations. Some populations making stick nests in trees (e.g. in mangroves), but the vast majority, including all those who breed in Africa, nest exclusively in scrapes on the ground lined with grass, sticks, feathers and other material. (Peter Chadwick)

Please join the Wild Bird Trust page on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to receive all wild bird photo updates and news from our research and conservation projects in the field. Submit your own photos and become part of this important public awareness campaign to bring the magic of wild birds to the world. Prepare to be blown away every week… The Wild Bird Trust was founded in South Africa in August 2009 with the primary objective of keeping birds safe in the wild. The trust aims to encourage the use of flagship endangered bird species as “ecosystem ambassadors” in their indigenous habitat. The trust focusses on linking ordinary people with conservation action in the field through innovative marketing campaigns and brand development. Saving Africa’s birds is going to take a determined effort from all of us.

See last week “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #40″: 

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/24/top-25-wild-bird-photographs-of-the-week-40/

Explore the wilderness with us… This week we share the “golden wilderness”! The rich colors and textures of the wild can never be replaced or surpassed. Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist and marginalized by the demands of sustained development in emerging markets. Guides, rangers, researchers, ecotourists, photographers, artists and conservationists around the world apply themselves everyday to sharing, studying, photographing, writing about, protecting, conserving and celebrating the “wild” with their guests, co-workers, colleagues, and local communities. These amazing photographs are a window into their world, a world where the lions, elephants, orangutans and leopards still reign supreme and we can dream of that perfect morning in the wilderness.

Ranger Diaries and The Bush Boyes have teamed up to bring you the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness”. These stunning photographs are selected from hundreds of submissions and are intended to bring the beauty, freedom and splendor of the wilderness to as many people as possible around the world. Please submit your best photographs from the wildest places to the The Bush Boyes Facebook page or Ranger Diaries website, and stand a chance of being featured in the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness” published each week. This initiative is all about SHARING and CARING about wild places. Please “Like” this blog post and share this link with as many people as possible… So begins the “Ranger Revolution”… Anyone can be an “Honorary Ranger” if they share and care about the wilderness, stimulating positive change for wild places around the world… Join the “Ranger Revolution” now!

Leopard’s leap, by guide James Haskins. Photographed at Khwai, Botswana.

“In nature, nothing is perfect and everything is perfect. Trees can be contorted, bent in weird ways, and they’re still beautiful.” (Alice Walker)

Zebras from above by Andy Biggs. Photographed in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. (andybiggs.com)

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” (Mahatma Gandhi)

Male lion looking for his pride by guide Andrew Schoeman, photographed at Phinda, Kwa-Zulul Natal, South Africa. (andrewschoemanphotography.co.za/ andbeyond.com)

“The Wilderness holds answers to more questions than we have yet learned to ask.” ( Nancy Wynne Newhall)

Leopard cub by guide Kyle de Nobrega, photographed at Lion Sands, Kruger Park, South Africa. (inthestixx.com/ lionsands.com)

“All good things are wild, and free.” ( Henry David Thoreau)

Focus by guide Matthew Copham. (safarifootprints.com)

“Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit” ( Edward Abbey)

Thirsty cubs by guide Andrew Schoeman. The Nkuhuma Pride of lions quenching their thirst after feeding on a zebra. Photographed at Tintswalo Manyeleti, Kruger Park, South Africa. (andrewschoemanphotography.co.za/ tintswalo.com)

“In wilderness I sense the miracle of life, and behind it our scientific accomplishments fade to trivia.” ( Charles Lindbergh)

Impala sentinel by guide Keith Connelly. Photographed at Kariega, Eastern Cape, South Africa. (kariega.co.za)

“No one should be able to enter a wilderness by mechanical means.” ( Garrett Hardin)

Wild dog and hippos stand-off, by guide Tristan Dicks. Photographed at Lions Sands, Kruger Park, South Africa.

“The Promised Land always lies on the other side of a Wilderness.” ( Henry Ellis)

Jumping lion by Carole Deschuymere. (carole-wildlife.com)

“The idea of wilderness needs no defense, it only needs defenders.” ( Edward Abbey)

Elephant crossing by guide Matthew Copham. (safarifootprints.com)

“Like music and art, love of nature is a common language that can transcend political or social boundaries.”  (Jimmy Carter)

Danger in the long grass, by guide Ryan Schmitt. This lion crouches in the grass as he watches a member of his coalition walk away victorious with a lioness that they have just fought over. But the best part about this picture is obvious: how amazingly well he blends in with the long grass. Photographed at Singita Grumeti, Serengeti, Tanzania. (singita.com)

“Each species is a masterpiece, a creation assembled with extreme care and genius.” (Edward O. Wilson)

Painting the sky, by Frederick van Heerden. This lioness was trying her best not to get her feet wet. Photographed at Etosha National Park, Namibia. (frederick.photium.com)

“The fate of animals is…indissolubly connected with the fate of men.” (Émile Zola)

Running wildebeest by guide Phill Steffny. Photographed in the Serengeti National Park, Tanzania. (Phill Steffny Safaris)

“This is what you should do; love the Earth and sun and the animals.” (Walt Whitman)

Overcome by pride power, by guide Brendon Cremer. “We witnessed this kill from start to finish with mixed emotions, knowing that seeing this reality of nature is a privilege bestowed on only a few.” Photographed at Wilderness Safaris Duba Plains, Okavango, Botswana. (brendoncremerphotography.com/ wilderness-safaris.com)

“The love for all living creatures is the most noble attribute of man.” (Charles Darwin)

Kwela Kwela leopardess, by Jason Glanville. This female leopard had just been chased up the tree by lions. Photographed at And Beyond Kirkman’s Camp, Kruger, South Africa. (andbeyond.com)

“If a man aspires towards a righteous life, his first act of abstinence is from injury to animals.” (Albert Einstein)

Foam nest tree frog, photographed by Grayson Dicks. (nyamazanephotography.co.za)

“An animal’s eyes have the power to speak a great language.” (Martin Buber)

Black-backed jackal attacking a kori bustard, by Frederick van Heerden. Photographed at Etosha National Park, Namibia. (frederick.photium.com)

“When I hear of the destruction of a species, I feel just as if all the works of some great writer have perished.” (U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt)

Jumping spider by guide Calvin Kotze, photographed at Ulusaba, Kruger Park, South Africa. (ulusaba.virgin.com)

“We are the only species which, when it chooses to do so, will go to great effort to save what it might destroy.” (Wallace Stegner)

Lions mating with an audience, by guide Richard de Gouveia. Photographed at Etosha National Park, Namibia. (mybushadventures.blogspot.com)

“It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.” (Ansel Adams)

Cheetah, by guide Etienne Oosthuizen, photographed at Samara, Eastern Cape, South Africa. (photographicafrica.com/ samara.co.za)

“In the end, we conserve only what we love. We will love only what we understand. We will understand only what we are taught.” (Baba Dioum)

Lammergeier (or bearded vulture), by Lennart Hessel. (lensman.se)

“Conservation is a state of harmony between men and land.” (Aldo Leopold)

Giraffe silhouette by guide Keith Connelly, photographed at Kariega, Eastern Cape, South Africa.

“It is not enough to understand the natural world; the point is to defend and preserve it.” (Edward Abbey)

Okavango elephants, by guide Andy Biggs. Photographed in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. (andybiggs.com)

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” (William Wordsworth)

Okavango scene by guide Brendon Cremer. A typical Duba Plains scene with the buffalo feeding across the savannah, oblivious to the presence of the six lions studying their every move. (brendoncremerphotography.com/ wilderness-safaris.com)

“What is the good of having a nice house without a decent planet to put it on?” (Henry David Thoreau)

Running for life, by Frederick van Heerden. “I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time, and finally my patience paid off… This shot was taken in the riverbed of the Letaba River in the Kruger National Park. The giraffes were crossing the shallow end of the river and were coming towards the opposite side where I was sitting in my vehicle. The giraffes seemed nervous as their two tall “look-outs” were scanning the area for any imposing danger. Suddenly they spotted six lions in hunting mode. These same lions had been unsuccessful earlier in the day hunting a herd of buffalo, so they were no doubt hungry. The giraffes immediately started running away from the lions, straight towards me! (frederick.photium.com)

“Every year, my brother (Chris Boyes), Pete (“the Nare”) Hugo, Giles (“Prince William”) Trevethick and I (Dr Steve Boyes) cross the Okavango Delta, top to bottom, on mokoros (dug-out canoes) to survey the distribution and abundance of wetland birds, advocate for World Heritage Status, and share this amazing wilderness with accompanying scientists, explorers and special guests. My wife, Dr Kirsten Wimberger, joined us for the first time this year. No one will forget what happened on the 2012 expedition…”

See: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/26/bush-boyes-on-expedition-okavango-wetland-bird-survey/

In 2013, we are embarking on the Okavango River Expedition. This will be a 1,750km odyssey down the Okavango River from the source near Huambo (Angola) all the way down the catchment, across the Caprivi Strip (Namibia), and into Botswana to cross the Okavango Delta via one of our planet’s last untouched wilderness areas. Our objective is to support the Okavango World Heritage Project and achieve UNESCO World Heritage Status for the Okavango Delta and the entire catchment. See: http://www.okavangofilm.com/

“Like” the Bush Boyes page and stand a chance to WIN one of two amazing Citizen watches… Go to: http://www.facebook.com/bushboyes

An Open Letter to His Excellency, Dr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, President of South Africa and African National Congress, On the State of South Africa’s Yellowwood Forests

Dear Msholozi, Dr Zuma,

I want to draw your attention to the current state of our nation’s yellowwood forests. Our national trees, the giant “yellowwoods” of South Africa, are all but gone. You can still see yellowwoods along the highway in the Tsitsikamma forests and even stop to see the “Tsitsikamma Big Tree”, but these trees are just remnants of the impressive old-growth yellowwood forest patches that once existed along our coastline and in our mountains. In just a few generations we have forgotten what these forests even looked like and accepted how they appear today.

This is the “Eastern Monarch” or “Hogsback Big Tree” in the middle of Aukland Forest Reserve near Hogsback Village (Eastern Cape, South Africa). This is the last 1,000-1,500 year old tree in the Amathole Mountain Range. This amazing tree takes your breath away when you approach it and appreciate its size and grandeur. We need to do everything we can to protect our national “Heritage Trees”. (Steve Boyes)

The one thing that most developed countries will not have in 50 years time is “wilderness” and intact tracts of indigenous habitat. A socio-economic truth for Africa is that we have the most untapped natural and human resources on Earth. Now is the time to carefully guard this competitive edge and make sure that we use our natural resources sustainably and protect our beautiful natural heritage. This is Africa’s century and we need to make sure that we have something to show for it in one hundred years time. Our forests, grasslands, wetlands, beaches and “bushveld” are the most impressive in the world today and are the most valuable asset of next generation. Healthy indigenous forests are a direct reflection of the moral and social development of a country. We have done well so far and can save what we have left…

Dr Steve Boyes at the site of recent illegal logging of yellowwood trees in the Wolfridge Forest, one of the last-remaining intact Afromontane forest patches in South Africa that has been earmarked for protection. (Nic Armstrong)

In 1994, the new ANC government inherited a policy of sustainable timber harvesting in yellowwood forests from a regime focused on self-sufficiency during the Apartheid years. The Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) has never had the specific mandate to restore our national forests. For the last 20 years, indigenous forest management on government land has been increasingly underfunded after the privatization of most commercially viable plantations and forest plots. The truth is we are not doing enough to protect and restore our national forests and hundreds of villages, towns and cities depend on goods and services from these threatened forests. I would like to propose that it officially made the responsibility of every South African to rebuild our national forests, while government (DAFF) oversees, facilitates, licenses, co-funds and supports non-profit NGOs and local cooperatives that plant indigenous trees and tend to the forests along with local communities. Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) programs like Working for Water and Working for Fire would benefit hugely from independently-funded non-profit NGOs and community-run cooperatives planting millions of indigenous trees in areas where invasive trees like Australian wattle are currently being removed. We need to repurpose the role played by both DAFF and DEA in indigenous forest management to atone for the catastrophic damage done to our national forests by previous regimes, marginalized local communities, and colonial powers.

Aerial photograph taken during the 2010 aerial survey with the Bateleurs (http://www.bateleurs.co.za/) over Hogsback Village. On the right is the Aukland Forest reserve with some large yellowwoods remaining and the new smallholdings on the left with domesticated fruit and nut trees. Cape Parrots are having to rely on the smallholdings, as the forest fruits are too few and are hard to find. (Steve Boyes)

Cape parrots number less than 1,000 in the willd and require urgent conservation actions. We need to restore degraded forest habitat and provide temporary solutions to existing problems like nest boxes to to supplement the availability of suitable nest cavities. (Rodnick Clifton Biljon)

In 1652, Jan Van Riebeeck described the forests of t’Houtbaaijten (Hout Bay, Cape Town) as “the best in the world” and then proceeded to cut down all the yellowwoods in this secluded bay to build fortifications. This forest is still gone. Many other forests disappeared in the centuries to follow as more settlers and migrants arrived to build colonies using indigenous timber felled by European “wood-cutters”, government foresters and Xhosa pit-sawyers. Just 350 years ago there were hundreds of thousands more large, tall yellowwood trees dominating the high canopy of an archipelago of Afromontane and southern Afrotemperate yellowwood forest patches along the south coast of South Africa from George to Humansdorp, up through the Eastern Cape, Transkei, and southern Drakensberg, and all the way north to Magoesbaskloof in the Limpopo Province. According to local Xhosa people living along the Amathole Mountains, yellowwood trees have been widely exploited for over one hundred years and the older people have seen the forests decline and disappear in their lifetimes. For many years the Tribal Authorities in the old Ciskei had forest guards under a mandate to sell yellowwood trees to timber companies. Corrupt officials horded all earnings and did not share with local villages. Older people remember the yellowwood trees, the Umkhoba and Umcheya, as the “government trees” that were guarded jealously from local communities by forest guards. They call the forest guards the “forest police” that only looked out for the yellowwoods. In 1994, these local communities started cutting down and selling large yellowwood trees as a symbol of freedom after the repressive Tribal Authorities had been abandoned as part of our new democracy. DAFF got this quickly under control, but today the local communities still complain about rampant illegal logging by “people from other parts of the Eastern Cape”. We need to break down this culture of exploitation and the association of yellowwood trees with “gold and money”. I am sure you, Mr President, will agree that our natural heritage is worth far more.

Hala Village in the valleys below Hogsback Mountain where Cape parrots used to feed on yellowwood fruits, Celtis fruits, wild olives, and wild plums before they were chopped out by greedy colonists or burnt under communal land ownership. We have now planted thousands of indigenous fruit trees in “Cape Parrot Community Orchards” in several villages, fencing them off to protect them from livestock and paying local communities to care for them as the custodians of these forest plots. We have also launched a micro-nursery program that builds small tree nurseries for ten households in the village, which are stocked with yellowwood seedlings that must be grown up to planting size. These partnerships are all going from strength to strength. (Steve Boyes)

The Sompondo Village growers for the iziKhwenene Project. Each of these community members represents a household with a micro-nursery with 100 yellowwood saplings. As you can see they are excited to be forest custodians. (Nic Armstrong)

There is a shocking example in the harvesting records compiled by DAFF in King William’s Town for the period April 1994 to March 1995. These records account for 81 real yellowwood (Umcheya) and 32 Outeniqua yellowwood (Umkhoba) trees that were harvested from indigenous forest in the Amathole Mountains that year. The DAFF report entitled: “Amathole Forest Yellowwood Harvesting Levels” states that “a number of trees had to be excluded from the analysis due to missing data or discrepancies with the data.” It is notoriously difficult to get raw data on the number and size of yellowwood trees being felled each year. The fishing industry needs constant regulation and management to avoid permanent damage to our fisheries. Why not our forests? We need to overhaul government forestry in South Africa, end the harvesting of our national tree, and invest in the restoration of these important forests. This will be our legacy to future generations and will uplift poor rural communities dependent on these forests.

Aerial photograph of Hogsback Village and the Amathole Mountains in the distance. Just look at this radically altered landscape that used to have elephants, lions, buffalo, leopards and much else. There is almost nothing left of the old world here… (Steve Boyes / Bateleurs)

The core vision of the “Amathole Forest Yellowwood Harvesting Levels” technical report by DAFF reads: “Forests are managed for people and we need to create an enabling environment for economic and social development through sustainable forestry, especially at the local level”. We, the Wild Bird Trust, are fully supportive of this vision and work with local communities to grow and plant trees in our indigenous forests everyday. This vision is, however, made impossible by the ongoing harvesting of yellowwood trees and events like the felling of over 100 large yellowwoods in one year. Most local people do not benefit from yellowwood timber sales, while the ability of their indigenous forest patches to produce food, poles, building materials, clean water, fuel wood, thatching grass, and medicinal plants has almost irreparably been diminished. If, one day for example, local people want to legally hunt in these forests again, we would need to let our remaining intact forest patches recover for at least two generation. Our national forests need more than 25 years of intensive re-planting and restoration followed by 25 more years of recovery before we can say they are even on their way to recovery. By then the 3.5 million indigenous trees will be tall and strong. Just imagine large areas of indigenous forest with harvestable timber under no threat of being exploited or destroyed – a true golden “national treasure”.

Breath-taking cathedral hand-made by Trappist monks entirely out of yellowwood timber. The effect is breathtaking with the light of heaven shining off the golden wood. Yellowwood is an important part of our natural heritage, culture, and even economic development. We need to respect our national tree and restore the forest they once dominated. (Steve Boyes)

For centuries the best furniture, homes, boats and luxury goods were made from shining yellowwood timber. Named for the beauty of its wood, yellowwood adorns our parliament, estate homes, courts, embassies, and old bank buildings. Umkhoba and Umcheya are our national trees. By the late 1800s the demand for yellowwood had worked its way up the coastline past Knysna and Tsitsikamma into the Amathole Mountains and KwaZulu-Natal. Most of this yellowwood timber was used to produce the millions of railway sleepers and mining timbers necessary to sustain an explosive boom in the mining industry. By 1900, we had already decimated most of our yellowwood forests through excessive and wasteful cutting, burning and clearing geared at keeping up with demand. For almost one hundred years we were, in essence, trading gold from the ground beneath us for “gold” from our forests, bringing one up and sending the other down.

All yellowwood trees are now protected. Permits are, however, still active that allow sawmills to harvest yellowwood trees up to their quota every year. Most of trees felled are over 150-200 years old and irreplaceable. The equivalent of 600 cubic meters of yellowwood timber or anywhere between 20 and 100 large yellowwood trees are felled legally each year in the Amathole region alone. The fact is that, if we continue, legal and illegal logging will very soon destroy our national forests. We have seen more yellowwood tree poaching in the last three years than in previous years and record the loss of important yellowwood trees every year. Some desperate local communities in the Transkei region are burning yellowwood as firewood. Now is the time to protect our golden indigenous forests. Right now there are harvesting contractors targeting the last-remaining intact yellowwood forest patches, eroding our natural heritage every day that yellowwood extraction continues. Today, only a handful of yellowwood trees over 500-years-old remain scattered in remote, degraded forest patches protected from historical and illegal logging by inaccessibility, proud landowners and local foresters. In King William’s Town and Keiskammahoek (Eastern Cape) you can see 200, even 300-year-old yellowwood trees being chopped up at saw mills. Yellowwood planks are now valued at up to R25,000 ($3,000) per cubic meter, an increase in value of over 400% in the last 6 years. This sets a high price for our natural heritage, as legal yellowwood timber is getting harder to source and prices are being driven even higher.

What is incomprehensible about all this is that much of this trade is being done legally. The technical report on the “Yellowwood Harvesting Quotas for the Eastern Cape” allows a quota of 600 cubic meters of yellowwood timber from dead or dying yellowwood trees in the Amathole Mountains each year. Unbelievably every year 50 or more large yellowwood trees are marked for extraction by government foresters. From the perspective of the harvesting contractors with 70-year permits to cut yellowwood trees, the yellowwood harvesting quotas are almost impossible to use, as trees suitable for harvesting are very rare (i.e. dead trees or trees with at leas 75% of the canopy dead). Some people have turned to ring-barking or even poisoning yellowwood trees. For example, we have found evidence yellowwood trees poisoned with diesel to kill them for harvesting the next year. The new government-endorsed yellowwood harvesting protocols actually support the targeting of healthier yellowwood trees than before due to contractors complaining about poor timber quality. The technical report uses inappropriate sample plots in unsuitable locations to justify ongoing harvesting of both yellowwood tree species. It is clear that there is a need for better record-keeping and annual auditing of annual yellowwood harvesting quotas. We need external auditors to make sure that healthy yellowwood trees are not being marked and felled.

If you care about our natural heritage, you must institute a zero tolerance, zero harvesting quota for the Outeniqua yellowwood (Afrocarpus falcatus) and real yellowwood (Podocarpus latifolius) for the whole of South Africa under any circumstances. None of the sawmills or harvesting contractors that sell or cut down yellowwood will go bankrupt or lose their jobs, as these businesses depend on blackwood timber to be profitable. Blackwood is an invasive species from Australia with wonderful fine, red wood that is sought after by furniture manufacturers that pay up to R15,000 per cubic meter. Removing blackwood from the Amathole Mountains and other catchments around South Africa helps our indigenous forests, removing large yellowwoods irreversibly harms them.

Legal and illegal harvesting of yellowwoods happens even though these trees are nationally protected. There are currently only seven yellowwood trees on the “Declared List of Champion Trees” published by DAFF last year. Names like “Eastern Monarch”, “King Edward VIIth Tree” and “Woodville Big Tree” speak to the grandeur of these sentinels that have stood over our forests for up to 2,000 years. We, the Wild Bird Trust, would like to propose the protection and recognition of thousands more culturally, historically and ecologically important trees by establishing the “South African Heritage Tree List”. This list will include all protected indigenous trees over 150-years-old throughout South Africa. We protect buildings over 100-years-old. Why do we not do this for trees? We must establish a task team to locate, sample (for DNA finger-printing) and mark all “Heritage Trees” with a presidential seal to protect them from harvesting in the future. “Heritage Trees” will become presidential or “government trees” again, but, this time, for the right reasons.

We need to do more research on our national tree and establish a task team to travel around South Africa to find and protect all the remaining large yellowwood trees as part of the “South African Heritage Tree List”. (Cape Parrot Project Archive)

One of a small grove of large, emergent yellowwood trees between 250 and 1,500 years old in the Aukland Forest Reserve, the only protected area along the Amathole Mountain Range and one of the last-remaining patches of large yellowwoods in South Africa. The Afromontane forest patches of the Amatholes used to have thousands of these amazing trees side-by-side in impressive 40m-tall stands. (Cape Parrot Project Archive)

The Wild Bird Trust volunteers to establish a website for the location and photo of all “Heritage Trees”, so that every South Africans can find these magnificent trees in their area and even report back on their condition or send in a photos. The “South African Heritage Tree List” will have thousands of trees on the register all of which will need to be clearly marked with a presidential seal to avoid being cut down or damaged. We must start being proud of the amazing trees we still have and stop cutting them down. Future generations will thank us and foreign visitors will be impressed. After our “Heritage Trees” have been clearly marked and protected, senior scientists at DAFF must supervise the development of new sustainable harvesting quotas for indigenous trees under 150-years-old.

Vital government-subsidized, community-based tree-planting programs, like the Wild Bird Trust’s “iziKhwenene” Project, the Wildlands Conservation Trust’s Treepeneurs Project, and the work done by Food & Trees for Africa over the last few decades, must be established throughout South Africa in and near all forests and bushveld areas. We must make “indigenous forestry” a viable economic driver for remote rural communities. This could be done through carbon trading, extracting tannins from wattle bark, and even well-funded, long-term tree-planting programs managed by non-profit NGOs. Government, public benefit organisations and local community-run enterprises are going to be the key to rebuilding our national forests. The restoration of our yellowwood forests in South Africa presents us with a development model that supports natural resource management and enterprise development in poorer provinces like the Eastern Cape, KwaZulu-Natal and Limpopo. Carbon trading is a huge opportunity, as most of the yellowwood trees planted cannot ever be felled. With government backing all proudly South African businesses and corporates will support the planting of millions of yellowwoods with disadvantaged rural communities that need jobs. We will build hundreds of small “micro-nurseries” and benefit thousands of people during the restoration of our national forests. This is going to be a national effort in remembrance of our grand, old indigenous forests.

Over 200 yellowwood seedlings ready for distribution to micro-nurseries in the surrounding villages. (Steve Boyes)

A load of yellowwod saplings ready to be moved to the planting sites below the Hogsback Mountains (behind). (Nic Armstrong)

We need your support, as the head of state, and champion of the poor. Old people in the villages near the Amathole Mountains have seen their ancestral forests destroyed and replaced with pine and Australian wattle. We, the Wild Bird Trust, herewith officially ask you to intervene by providing us with the necessary funding to plant the first 1 million yellowwood trees and mark all “Heritage Trees” in South Africa. You must end all further logging of our national tree in South Africa. We do not hunt our national bird, the Blue Crane. We do not unnecessarily cut down our national flower, the protea. In fact, we work very hard to protect these icons. The yellowwood trees that we lose tomorrow, the next day, and the week after that cannot be replaced…

We ask you, as concerned citizens and a public benefit organisation, to recognize officially that our natural heritage is more important than natural resource use, announcing that saving our remaining yellowwood forests is a national priority. These trees knew our ancestors and connect us to the greatest events in our history. With your support we could establish government “carbon credits” issued for planting indigenous trees as part of the restoration of our indigenous forests. This would kickstart corporate investment into indigenous forestry. A small handful of people have made a lot of money from logging and sawmilling yellowwood trees at a catastrophic cost to the remaining forests. It is safe to say that we now sit with less than 10% of the yellowwood trees we had 350 years ago. Every year we chip away at the remaining trees as the forests slowly shrink. The trees are getting smaller, the forests are getting thinner, and the canopies are getting lower, as exotic trees invade our open spaces and water catchments.

Yellowwood sapling planted in an Afromontane forest patch in the Amathole Mountains where very few yellowwood trees remain. This is the future of our forests and the only hope for the next generation… (Nic Armstrong)

We would appreciate the opportunity to meet with you to discuss the future of our indigenous forests and our national tree. We are proud of our rich natural heritage here in South Africa and cannot let another yellowwood tree be felled. I am a loyal citizen and servant of the Republic of South Africa and will gladly give of my time to solve this problem. I live in Hogsback Village in the Amathole Mountains, own land there, will raise a family there, and am dedicated to restoring the indigenous forests of our great country. I have wonderful friends at DAFF in King William’s Town and look forward to working more closely with them in the future.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Rutledge S. Boyes

Cape Parrot Project / iziKhwenene Project

The Wild Bird Trust

*PLEASE SIGN THE PETITION AVAILABLE AT THIS LINK*

http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/halt-yellowwood-harvesting-restore-national-forest.html

]]> http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/03/state-of-sa-national-forests-open-letter-to-the-president/feed/ 11 http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/02/top-25-photographs-from-the-wilderness-10/ http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/04/02/top-25-photographs-from-the-wilderness-10/#comments Tue, 02 Apr 2013 12:25:37 +0000 Steve Boyes http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/?p=87639

Explore the wilderness with us… This week we share the “golden wilderness”! The rich colors and textures of the wild can never be replaced or surpassed. Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist and marginalized by the demands of sustained development in emerging markets. Guides, rangers, researchers, ecotourists, photographers, artists and conservationists around the world apply themselves everyday to sharing, studying, photographing, writing about, protecting, conserving and celebrating the “wild” with their guests, co-workers, colleagues, and local communities. These amazing photographs are a window into their world, a world where the lions, elephants, orangutans and leopards still reign supreme and we can dream of that perfect morning in the wilderness.

Ranger Diaries and The Bush Boyes have teamed up to bring you the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness”. These stunning photographs are selected from hundreds of submissions and are intended to bring the beauty, freedom and splendor of the wilderness to as many people as possible around the world. Please submit your best photographs from the wildest places to the The Bush Boyes Facebook page or Ranger Diaries website, and stand a chance of being featured in the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness” published each week. This initiative is all about SHARING and CARING about wild places. Please “Like” this blog post and share this link with as many people as possible… So begins the “Ranger Revolution”… Anyone can be an “Honorary Ranger” if they share and care about the wilderness, stimulating positive change for wild places around the world… Join the “Ranger Revolution” now!

“Like” the Bush Boyes or Ranger Diaries Facebook page before 9 April and you could WIN an amazing SUUNTO Compass!!! Christopher Sebastian is the WINNER from last week! Follow both these pages and always be eligible to WIN great prizes with the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness”…

“Swimming the gauntlet”, by guide Matthew Copham. Lions do not like crossing the water, where they relinquish their position as the alpha predator. The look in their eyes says it all. Photographed at Wilderness Safaris Duba Plains, in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. (Matthew Copham / safarifootprints.com)

“If you are planning for a year, sow rice; if you are planning for a decade, plant trees; if you are planning for a lifetime, educate people.” — Chinese Proverb

“Shy cub”, by guide Brendon Cremer. “We were extremely lucky to come across this shy young leopard hiding in the fork of a tree. Although you see signs and sometimes even hear the calls of leopards at Duba, they are a very uncommon sight, so to be able to spend about twenty minutes with him was a great pleasure. Photographed at Wilderness Safaris Duba Plains, Okavango Delta, Botswana. (Brendon Cremer / brendoncremerphotography.com/ wilderness-safaris.com)

“Nature is a self-made machine, more perfectly automated than any automated machine. To create something in the image of nature is to create a machine, and it was by learning the inner working of nature that man became a builder of machines.” – Eric Hoffer

“Dancing baboons” by guide Calvin Kotze. Two baboons playing at sunset in the Kruger Park, South Africa. (Calvin Kotze / sabisabi.com)

“He that plants trees loves others besides himself.” – Thomas Fuller

“New day, new hope.” by Dana Allen. The start of a new day on the Masai Mara. Photographed at Maras Plains Camp, Kenya. (Dana Allen / photosafari-africa.net/ greatplainsconservation.com)

“When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he find it attached to the rest of the world.” – John Muir

“The bull”, by Mario Moreno. “A large bull elephant grazing on the open savannas. The sky was overcast almost every day during our safari which in my opinion made for excellent photography.” Photographed in the Kruger Park, South Africa. (Mario Moreno / marionmorenophotography)

“He who sits in the shade won’t take an axe to the tree.” — Chinese Proverb

“Leopard cub”, by guide Gavin Lautenbach. Photographed at Londolozi, Sabi Sands, South Africa. (Gavin Lautenbach / mammothsafaris.com/ londolozi.com)

“The flow of water and the future of human beings are uncertain.” — Japanese Proverb

“Looking the wrong way”, by guide Kyle de Nobrega. Rhino calf and lions, by Kyle de Nobrega. Photographed at Lion Sands, Sabi Sands, South Africa. (Kyle de Nobrega / lionsands.com/ inthestixx.com)

“How I do love the earth. I feel it thrill under my feet. I feel somehow as if it were conscious of my love, as if something passed into my dancing blood from it.” – James Russell Lowell

“Dust storm cheetah”, by Andre Marais. Photographed in the Kgalagadi Trans-frontier Park, Kalahari, South Africa/Botswana. (Andre Marais)

“When we plant a tree, we are doing what we can to make our planet a more wholesome and happier dwelling place for those who come after us, if not for ourselves.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“Lily reflection”, by guide Andrew Schoeman. A Waterlilly in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. The water was calm and offered a great reflection of the flower. (Andrew Schoeman / andrewschoemanphotography.co.za)To the wisest man, wide as is his vision. Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and measured square miles.

“To the wisest man, wide as is his vision. Nature remains of quite infinite depth, of quite infinite expansion and all experience thereof limits itself to some few computed centuries and measured square miles.” – Thomas Carlyle

“Buffalo herd”, by guide Brendon Cremer. “A large herd of buffalo moves out of the thickets led by their path finder onto the open flood plains of Puku Flats as the sun sets along the banks of the Chobe River, Botswana. Due to the peak dry season environment, the dust from the herd was immense, creating a fantastic mood as the last rays of light shone through.” (Brendon Cremer / brendoncremerphotography.com)

“You will find something far greater in the woods than you will find in books. Stones and trees will teach you that which you will never learn from masters.” – St. Bernard

“Portrait of a saddle-billed stork”, by Martin Heigan. (Martin Heigan / anti-matter-3d.com)

“Yesterday’s flowers are today’s dreams.” – Japanese Proverb

“Something different”, by guide Marco Tonoli. Using a well-developed sense of smell to locate its food, the ground pangolin will dig into termite and ant nests with its powerful claws to expose its food. It’s tongue is long and rounded, and attached by muscles to a free floating cartilaginous structure which in turn is triggered by a series of muscles running the length of the body. This allows for an enormous extension of the tongue which, with its accessory muscle structure, can be longer than the head and body. It’s sticky tongue is extended into the nest and withdrawn with adults, larvae and pupae, as well as large amounts of grit, attached. They have no teeth and the ingested food is ground up by its muscular stomach with the assistance of the ingested grit. Photographed at Tswalu Kalahari, South Africa. (Marco Tonoli / 4elements.co.za / tswalu.com)

“Water spilled can never be retrieved.” – Chinese Proverb

“Rhino greeting”, by guide Matthew Copham (Matthew Copham / safarifootprints.com)

“The laws of nature are written deep in the folds and faults of the earth. By encouraging men to learn those laws one can lead them further to a knowledge of the author of all laws.” – John Joseph Lynch

“Making a splash”, by guide Matthew Copham (Matthew Copham / safarifootprints.com)

“Once a tree falls, the monkeys on it will scatter.” — Chinese Proverb

“The stretch”, by guide Andrew Schoeman. A giraffe reaches up high to feed on those leaves not taken by smaller giraffe and elephants. Photographed in the Masai Mara, Kenya. (Andrew Schoeman / andrewschoemanphotography.co.za)

“Some people like to make of life a garden, and to walk only within its paths.” – Japanese Proverb

“Waiting for the rain”, by Marina Cano. Lonely wanderer photographed in the Masai Mara, Kenya. (Marina Cano / marinacano.com)

“Where there is fish, there is water.” – Chinese Proverb

“Okavango leopard”, by guide Lee Whittam. “This was one of the many top-quality leopard sightings we had on a recent ten day safari to Botswana. This female in picture was preparing for her evening hunt, we had followed her for most of the afternoon when she chose this sausage tree to climb and get a better view of the area. We made the most of the colourful back ground to get a great silhouette of her before she dropped to the ground. (Lee Whittam / essentialafrica.co.za)

“Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Fish eagle by-pass”, by guide Brendon Cremer. “This fish eagle swooped down passed us while chasing an intruding eagle out of his territory.” Photographed on the Chobe River Botswana. (Brendon Cremer / brendoncremerphotography.com)

“The world is the world for the world.” – Japanese Proverb

Shoebill by guide Lee Whittam. Their numbers are estimated at between 5,000 and 8,000 individuals, the majority of which live in swamps in Sudan, Uganda, DRC, and Zambia. They are classified as vulnerable with the main threats being habitat distruction, disturbance and hunting. Photographed in Uganda. (Lee Whittam / essentialafrica.com)

“In all things of nature there is something of the marvelous.” – Aristotle

“Lion looking across golden plains”, photographed by guide Keith Connelly at Marataba, Kruger Park, South Africa. (Keith Connelly)

“All Nature wears one universal grin.” – Henry Fielding

“Cheetah with cubs” by guide Gavin Lautenbach (Gavin Lautenbach / mammothsafaris.com)The wind, a sightless laborer, whistles at his task.

“The wind, a sightless laborer, whistles at his task.” – William Wordsworth

“A grand view”, by guide Keith Connelly. A young male leopard rises from his resting perch to begin the night’s activities. Photographed at Lion Sands, Sabi Sands, South Africa. (Keith Connelly / lionssands.com)

“Come forth into the light of things, Let Nature be your teacher.” – William Wordsworth

“Adventurous cheetah cubs”, by guide James Souchon. “Enjoying a drink and a little run around, these two little cubs make the most of the late afternoon sunshine.” Photographed at AndBeyond Phinda, KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. (James Souchon / andbeyond.com)

“The Amen! of Nature is always a flower.” – Oliver Wendall Holmes

“The stare down” by guide Kyle de Nobrega. A precious moment caught between a white rhino and a blacksmith plover. Photographed at Lion Sands, Sabi Sands, South Africa. (Kyle de Nobrega / lionssands.com / inthestixx.com)

“The sky is the daily bread of the eyes.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Drinking cub” by guide Greg McCall-Peat, Balule, Kruger Park, South Africa. (Greg McCall-Peat)

“Every year, my brother (Chris Boyes), Pete (“the Nare”) Hugo, Giles (“Prince William”) Trevethick and I (Dr Steve Boyes) cross the Okavango Delta, top to bottom, on mokoros (dug-out canoes) to survey the distribution and abundance of wetland birds, advocate for World Heritage Status, and share this amazing wilderness with accompanying scientists, explorers and special guests. My wife, Dr Kirsten Wimberger, joined us for the first time this year. No one will forget what happened on the 2012 expedition…”

See: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/26/bush-boyes-on-expedition-okavango-wetland-bird-survey/

In 2013, we are embarking on the Okavango River Expedition. This will be a 1,750km odyssey down the Okavango River from the source near Huambo (Angola) all the way down the catchment, across the Caprivi Strip (Namibia), and into Botswana to cross the Okavango Delta via one of our planet’s last untouched wilderness areas. Our objective is to support the Okavango World Heritage Project and achieve UNESCO World Heritage Status for the Okavango Delta and the entire catchment. See: http://www.okavangofilm.com/

“Like” the Bush Boyes page and stand a chance to WIN one of two amazing Citizen watches… Go to: http://www.facebook.com/bushboyes

“A celebration of bird in flight” This photograph of a bald eagle and heron flying in perfect formation shows us why we should all want to be birds… The eagle is chasing the heron away from a nest with eggs, but still manages to do this with grace and power. If the policies we use to govern this planet do not accommodate a safe future for all wild bird populations, we will be doing ourselves a great disservice… We have the choice to make a difference right now. Join the “Wild Bird Revolution”!! Our network of wild bird enthusiasts is growing everyday with almost 20,000 followers on Facebook and photographers from around the world! Birds can fly and many migrate across the planet. Seeing them, in these photographs, throughout their distributional ranges makes the world seem like a much smaller place. Birds knew that the world was round and that we only have one planet many millions of years before we discovered these truths. We need to do everything we can to protect the intact forests, wetlands and protected areas that wild birds around the world depend on…  

Join the Wild Bird Revolution today!! Be the first to introduce your friends, family and colleagues to the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild! Advances in digital photography have given us the opportunity to capture the beauty and freedom of birds in the wild like never before. Here are the “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week” drawn from the thousands of photographs submitted to the Wild Bird Trust for consideration every week. Celebrate the freedom and splendor of birds in the wild with us and stimulate positive change by sharing how beautiful the birds of the world really are…

REGISTER NOW for a chance to WIN a pair of Swarovski binoculars. The vibrant colors, fine feathers, and sparkling eyes are all crystal clear through these amazing binoculars….

“This award-winning photograph was taken by Owen Deutsch in Fox Lake, IL and is a North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA) 2011 Top 10 Showcase Winner. This Bald Eagle was chasing the Great Blue Heron away from the eggs in her nest. It wasn’t trying to kill the Heron or she would have done so long before this once in a lifetime shot was captured.” (Owen Deutsch / owendeutsch.com)

Asian koels are found in S Asia, China, and SE Asia. They are brood parasite that lays its eggs in the nests of crows and other hosts that raise their young. (Anantha Murthy)

Cape parrots are endemic to South Africa and with little food left in their natural habitat they are struggling to bring back population levels since a collapse in the 1980s. (Rodnick Clifton Biljon / Cape Parrot Project)

Snow geese breed north of the timberline in Greenland, Canada, Alaska, and the NE tip of Siberia, wintering in warmer parts of North America from SW British Columbia through parts of the United States to Mexico. Photographed here in Ontario (Canada). global ppoulation is increasing after decades of hunting to over 5 million. (Nina Stavlund)

Blue-throated barbets are distributed across the Indian Subcontinent and Southeast Asia. Photographed here in the Garo hills in Meghalaya (NE India). (Israel Momin)

Black-naped monarchs breed across tropical S Asia from India and Sri Lanka E to Indonesia and the Philippines, preferring thick forests and other well-wooded habitat types. Photographed here in the W Ghats (India). (Shishir Saksena)

Least terns breed in N America and locally in N South America, migrating to Central America, the Caribbean and South America. Photographed here in Quintana (Texas, USA). (Dan Pancamo / blog.pancamo.com)

Eurasian jays occur over a vast distributional range from W Europe and NW Africa to the Indian Subcontinent and further to the E seaboard of Asia and down into SE Asia. (Lennart Hessel / www.lensman.se)

Volcano hummingbirds breed only in the mountains of Costa Rica and Chiriqui, Panama. During the breeding season the males perch conspicuously in open areas with flowers and defend their feeding territories aggressively with diving displays. (Nina Stavlund)

Greater racket-tailed drongos extend from the W Himalayas to the E Himalayas and Mishmi Hills in the foothills. They are also found on the islands of Borneo and Java. Photographed here in Kerala (India). (Kamal Hari Menon)

Greater flamingos are the most widespread species of flamingo found in parts of Africa, S Asia (coastal regions of Pakistan and India), and S Europe (including Spain, Albania, Turkey, Greece, Cyprus, Portugal, Italy and the Camargue region of France). (Guido Muratore)

Malachite sunbirds are found throughout Africa, the Middle East, and SE Asia. They are also called “Green Sugarbirds”. (Louis Groenewald)

Ring-billed gulls breed near lakes, rivers or the coast in Canada and the N United States, preferring nest colonies on the ground, often on islands. They are migratory and most move south to the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of North America, also the Great Lakes. (Nina Stavlund)

The little-known silver-breasted broadbill occurs at a range of elavations across its distributional range. Living between 800–2,000 metres (2,600–6,600 ft) in Sumatra, but dropping to 300–700 m (980–2,300 ft) in China. (Gururaj Moorching)

Snowy egrets breed in large inland and coastal wetlands from the lower Great Lakes and SW United States to South America. Photographed here in the Florida Keys Wild Bird Center. (J. Bernardo Sánchez)

Spot-billed pelicans breeds in S Asia from S Pakistan across India east to Indonesia, preferring large inland and coastal waters, especially large lakes. (Yogi Badri)

Ultramarine flycatchers are common breeding migrants to W Himalayas from Jammu, Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh to Uttarakhand, wintering in S India. (Debojit Deb)

White-throated kingfishers are common throughout their wide distributed in Eurasia from Bulgaria, Turkey, W Asia all the way to the Indian Subcontinent and the Philippines. Photographed here on Salt Lake (West Bengal, India). (Raj Sarkar)

Cape grassbirds breed in S Africa in South Africa, Lesotho, Mozambique and Swaziland with an isolated population in E Zimbabwe. They prefer coastal and mountain fynbos and long, rank grass on mountain slopes or in river valleys. Photographed here in the Western Cape (South Africa). (Trevor Kleyn / www.trevorkleyn.com)

Great spotted woodpeckers are distributed throughout Europe and N Asia, and are usually resident year-round except in the colder parts of their range. Nesting trees chosen by this woodpecker almost invariably have soft heartwood and tough sapwood, often due to parasites or diseases that weaken the heartwood only. (Lennart Hessel / www.lensman.se)

Puffins shed the colorful outer parts of their bills after the breeding season, leaving a smaller and duller beak. Their short wings are adapted for swimming with a flying technique under water. In the air, they need to beat their wings rapidly (up to 400 times per minute) to stay airborne. (Samuele Parentella / www.samueleparentella.it)

Verditer flycatchers are found in the Indian subcontinent (especially in the Lower Himalayas). They are interesting among flycatchers as they forage above the canopy and perch on electric wires or exposed tree top branches. (Debojit Deb)

Spotted eagle-owls are common in southern African cities where they hunt rats and mice at night between buildings and in open grasslands. They are targeted by the pet trade, as they make amicable pets. (Denis Smit)

Malachite kingfishers are small river specialists that dart just above the surface from low perches to catch fish, tadpoles, frogs and insects on the water’s surface. They are found throughout SubSaharan Africa. (Chris Krog)

Ivory gulls breed in the high Arctic and has a circumpolar distribution through Greenland, northernmost N America, and Eurasia. Photographed here in the Arctic Circle in a snow storm… (Laura Dyer / www.lauradyerphotography.com)

Please join the Wild Bird Trust page on Facebook or follow us on Twitter to receive all wild bird photo updates and news from our research and conservation projects in the field. Submit your own photos and become part of this important public awareness campaign to bring the magic of wild birds to the world. Prepare to be blown away every week… The Wild Bird Trust was founded in South Africa in August 2009 with the primary objective of keeping birds safe in the wild. The trust aims to encourage the use of flagship endangered bird species as “ecosystem ambassadors” in their indigenous habitat. The trust focusses on linking ordinary people with conservation action in the field through innovative marketing campaigns and brand development. Saving Africa’s birds is going to take a determined effort from all of us.

See last week “Top 25 Wild Bird Photographs of the Week #39″: 

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/03/16/top-25-wild-bird-photographs-of-the-week-39/

Breath-taking cathedral built by Trappist monks out of yellowwood (Left). This thousand year old yellowwood tree called the “Big Tree” is one of only four remaining yellowwoods this size… (Steve Boyes)

Cape parrots would have had yellowwood fruits available to them all year round and these forests were once scattered with massive dead yellowwood snags that stood for centuries as Cape parrot nesting sites. The forests that these parrots flocked over are long gone and can now only be imagined from readings of old travel journals and research notes. Today the indigenous forest these parrots once relied on cannot support them and the parrots have learnt to feed on plums from Japan, cherries from Mexico, pecan nuts from the USA, acorns from England, Jacaranda pods from South America, and seringa fruits from India. None of these food items are good for parrots – too much fat and sugar… The “catch-22″ is that without these food resources we would have no Cape parrots.

Southern African Bird Atlas Project 2 (SABAP2) data for the endemic Cape Parrot (Poicephalus robustus) in South Africa (http://sabap2.adu.org.za/spp_select.php)

Cape parrot flying low over a wild plum tree. Africa’s most endangered parrot like never before… (Rodnick Biljon)

After the major population collapse in the 1970s and 80s due to removal of nesting sites and persecution by pecan farmers, the small founding population have reinvented themselves and behave more like a population of feral parrots released into unknown habitat. Parrots are clever and resourceful, and Cape parrots have collectively managed to find a way to exist in what remains of their indigenous habitat. They have food for up to 10 months of the year, falling short between January and March when Psittacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD) takes over strips many of the parrots of all their feathers just before winter. There is no doubt that the Cape parrot needs intervention and assistance. The Wild Bird Trust’s Cape Parrot Project works hard everyday to solve problems and mitigate threats to Cape parrots. We plant thousands of yellowwood trees, erect hundreds of nest boxes, help the parrots find suitable feeding sites, maintain safe drinking sites, lead the development of a vaccine for PBFD, and get local communities involved as the custodians of South Africa’s yellowwood forests. Please help us by donating via the World Parrot Trust. Go to: http://www.parrots.org/capes

PLEASE READ THE LINKS BETWEEN THESE PHOTOGRAPHS…

Local community member from Hala Village taking care of her iziKhwenene Project micro-nursery with 100 yellowwood seedlings… (Nic Armstrong)

The Sompondo Village growers for the iziKhwenene Project. Each of these community members represents a household with a micro-nursery with 100 yellowwood saplings. As you can see they are excited to be forest custodians. (Nic Armstrong)

Over 2,000 yellowwood saplings from our first partnered indigenous tree nursery, the Phampani Medicinal Plant Nursery in Izeleni Village near Stutterheim. (Steve Boyes)

Cape parrots number less than 1,000 in the willd and require urgent conservation actions. We need to restore degraded forest habitat and provide temporary solutions to existing problems like nest boxes to to supplement the availability of suitable nest cavities. (Rodnick Clifton Biljon)

Introduction to Cape Parrot Project:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/16/upholi-want-a-forest-rescuing-africas-most-endangered-parrot-from-extinction/

5 April: Stunning vision of a healthy male Cape parrot in the canopy of a wild plum tree in King William’s Town (South Africa). (Rodnick Biljon)

“Africa’s Most Endangered Parrot Revealed Like Never Before…”:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/08/16/africas-most-endangered-parrot-revealed/

15 May: Female Cape parrot feeding on the nutritious, oily kernel of the yellowwood fruit. This consumption has been linked to breeding successes in the 2009/2010 breeding season. This fruit also has strong anti-microbial action that could help stave off beak and feather disease infection… (Rodnick Biljon)

National Geographic “On Assignment” news piece on Cape Parrot Project:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/ng-on-assignment/parrots-deadly-virus-ngoa

Absolutely stunning portrait of a proud, wild Cape parrot sitting in a Cape lilac tree (often erroneous called a syringa tree). These yellow fruits are thought to be poison, but the parrots have been recorded eating them for over 50 years. (Rodnick Clifton Biljon / Cape Parrot Project)

15-minute insert on the Cape Parrot Project for a popular nature show in South Africa:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2013/02/13/south-africas-cape-parrot-a-story-of-people-and-parrots-over-many-generations/

An adult female Cape parrot that was rescued after being found unable to fly in a swimming pool. She spent 3 months in a warm box on anti-biotics and supplements, and another 3 months in rehabilitation before being released back into the wild. She was to become known as “Alice”. (Steve Boyes)

“We need to do everything we can to guarantee that these shining, amazing parrots are screeching loudly above the yellowwood forests of South Africa forever.” — Dr Steve Boyes

Cape parrot displaying advanced symptoms of Pssitacine Beak and Feather Disease (PBFD) infection. The feathers have degraded, crumbled and fallen off and the only reason this parrot is still alive is that the beak has not yet broken. We could not catch this individual and it can be accepted that he/she died a few days later. (Steve Boyes)

Community-based conservation work being done:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/05/04/the-izikhwenene-project-establishing-local-communities-as-forest-custodians-to-save-the-cape-parrot/

Hala Village in the valleys below Hogsback Mountain where Cape parrots used to feed on yellowwood fruits, Celtis fruits, wild olives, and wild plums before they were chopped out by greedy colonists or burnt under communal land ownership. We have now planted thousands of indigenous fruit trees in “Cape Parrot Community Orchards” in several villages, fencing them off to protect them from livestock and paying local communities to care for them as the custodians of these forest plots. We have also launched a micro-nursery program that builds small tree nurseries for ten households in the village, which are stocked with yellowwood seedlings that must be grown up to planting size. These partnerships are all going from strength to strength. (Steve Boyes / Cape Parrot Project)

We would like to take this opportunity to thank our funders, sponsors and partners in the Cape Parrot Project, including: Prins Bernhard Natuurfonds, Critical Ecosystems Partnership Fund, Mazda Wildlife Fund, Abax Foundation, Rance Timber, University of Fort Hare, Cape Parrot Working Group, BirdLife Border, Border Rural Committee, and many charitable donors from around the world… Please help us find new sources of funding to support sustained growth in the work of the Cape Parrot Project.

Please consider donating to the Cape Parrot Project via World Parrot Trust or Wild Bird Trust (Ref: CPP)… 100% of donations go to the Cape Parrot Project!!!

Explore the wilderness with us… This week we share the “golden wilderness”! The rich colors and textures of the wild can never be replaced or surpassed. Within the next 10-15 years we will see the last-remaining wilderness area on earth dominated by the demands of growing human populations and undermined by accelerated climate change. When the earth’s last wild places are gone, all we will have are fenced off protected areas dependent on constant intervention to persist and marginalized by the demands of sustained development in emerging markets. Guides, rangers, researchers, ecotourists, photographers, artists and conservationists around the world apply themselves everyday to sharing, studying, photographing, writing about, protecting, conserving and celebrating the “wild” with their guests, co-workers, colleagues, and local communities. These amazing photographs are a window into their world, a world where the lions, elephants, orangutans and leopards still reign supreme and we can dream of that perfect morning in the wilderness.

Ranger Diaries and The Bush Boyes have teamed up to bring you the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness”. These stunning photographs are selected from hundreds of submissions and are intended to bring the beauty, freedom and splendor of the wilderness to as many people as possible around the world. Please submit your best photographs from the wildest places to the Bush Boyes wall or Ranger Diaries website, and stand a chance of being featured in the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness” published each week. This initiative is all about SHARING and CARING about wild places. Please “Like” this blog post and share this link with as many people as possible… So begins the “Ranger Revolution”… Anyone can be an “Honorary Ranger” if they share and care about the wilderness, stimulating positive change for wild places around the world… Join the “Ranger Revolution” now!

“Like” the Bush Boyes or Ranger Diaries Facebook page before 29 March and you could WIN an amazing SUUNTO Compass!!! Follow both these pages a be eligible to WIN great prizes with the “Top 25 Photographs from the Wilderness”…

Beam, by guide Kyle de Nobrega. Young male lion illuminated by a safari vehicle’s spotlight. Photographed at Lion Sands, Kruger Park, South Africa. (Kyle de Nobrega / inthestixx.com / lionsands.com)

“There is just one hope for repulsing the tyrannical ambition of civilization to conquer every inch on the whole earth. That hope is the organization of spirited people who will fight for the freedom and preservation of the wilderness.” – Bob Marshall (Co-founder of the Wilderness Society)

Savuti Channel leopard by guide Lee Wittam of Essential Africa. Leopards have a phenomenal diversity of prey species and will feed off creatures ranging from dung beetles to a 900kg (2000lb) eland. Photographed in the Savuti, Botswana. (Lee Wittham / www.essentialafrica.co.za)

“The wilderness is a place of rest — not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, in the slowing of the daily centrifugal forces that keep us off balance.” – David Douglas (Scottish botanist)

Chobe Sunset, by guide Andrew Schoeman. Photographed in the Chobe National Park, Botswana (Andrew Schoeman / andrewschoemanphotography.co.za)

“The love of wilderness is more than a hunger for what is always beyond reach; it is also an expression of loyalty to the earth … the only home we shall ever know, the only paradise we ever need — if only we had the eyes to see.” – Edward Abbey (American writer and naturalist)

Early Morning Africa, by guide Zane Engebrecht. Photographed at Lake Panic, Kruger Park, South Africa (Zane Engebrecht / zanewildphoto.com)

“In God’s wildness lies the hope of the world – the great fresh, unblighted, unredeemed wilderness.” – John Muir (American naturalist and co-founder of the Sierra Club)

The great wildebeest migration begins, by guide Andrew Schoeman. Over 1.4 million wildebeest are involved in this almighty march across the plains of East Africa. Photographed in the Masai Mara, Kenya. (Andrew Schoeman / andrewschoemanphotography.co.za)

“If you know wilderness in the way that you know love, you would be unwilling to let it go. We are talking about the body of the beloved, not real estate.” – Terry Tempest Williams (American nature writer)

Sparring lechwe, by guide Brendon Cremer. A couple of Lechwe spar in the early morning as the sun rises, the dust from the rest of the herd as they move back towards the marsh adding some great mood and drama to the image. Photographed in the Okavango Delta, Botswana. (Brendon Cremer / brendoncremerphotography.com)

“The Wilderness holds answers to questions man has not yet learned how to ask.” – Nancy Newhall (Conservationist writer and photography critic)

Morning dove by guide Andrew Schoeman. A Cape Turtle Dove photographed at sunrise in Etosha National Park, Namibia. (Andrew Schoeman / andrewschoemanphotography.co.za)

“When all the dangerous cliffs are fenced off, all the trees that might fall on people are cut down,all of the insects that bite are poisoned… and all of the grizzlies are dead because they are occasionally dangerous, the wilderness will not be made safe. Rather, the safety will have destroyed the wilderness.” – R. Yorke Edwards

Desert gem, by guide Gary Parker. This rarely seen pangolin was photographed at Tswalu, Kalahari, South Africa (Gary Parker / tswalu.com)

“Plans to protect air and water, wilderness and wildlife are in fact plans to protect man.” – Stewart Udall (Arizona cabinet member)

Python ambush, by guide James Haskins. “I came across this scene recently while on game drive along the Boteti River (Makgadikgadi Pans, Botswana). The python is suffocating a red-billed teal in shallow water. Over the years, I have seen pythons in similar situations, strangling birds they have caught on the edge of rivers – they submerge themselves to provide flawless camouflage, and lay in wait for the perfect ambush.” (James Haskins)

“Wilderness is the raw material out of which man has hammered the artifact called civilization.” – Aldo Leopold (American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist, considered to be father of American wildlife management)

Cheetah surveying the Karoo, by guide Etienne Oosthuizen. Photographed at Samara, South Africa (Etienne Oosthuizen / photographicafrica.com / samara.co.za)

“As long as there are young men with the light of adventure in their eyes or a touch of wildness in their souls, rapids will be run.” – Sigurd F. Olson (Naturalist author of The Singing Wilderness)

Leopard in gold, by guide Gavin Lautenbach. Photographed at Londolozi, Kruger Park, South Africa (Gavin Lautenbach / mammothsafaris.com / londolozi.com)

“Wilderness itself is the basis of all our civilization. I wonder if we have enough reverence for life to concede to wilderness the right to live on?” – Margaret (Mardy) Murie (Known as “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” wife of Olaus Murie)

Standing elephant, by guide Etienne Oosthizen. “This 40 year old male is the only one in his herd to have learnt this trick, and it enables him to pick the tastiest, freshest pods from the tree. He has a group of younger fans that follow him around in the hope of collecting scraps.” Photographed in the Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia. (Etienne Oosthizen / photographicafrica.com)

“Something will have gone out of us as a people if we ever let the remaining wilderness be destroyed; if we permit the last virgin forests to be turned into comic books and plastic cigarette cases; if we drive the few remaining members of the wild species into zoos or to extinction; if we pollute the last clean air and dirty the last clean streams and push our paved roads through the last of the silence, so that never again will Americans be free in their own country from the noise, the exhausts, the stinks of human and automotive waste.” – Wallace Stegner (American writer, historian, and environmentalist), 1960, from the “Wilderness Letter,” written to the Outdoor Recreation Resources Review Commission, 1960

`Which one?’ Photographed by Craig Vedders in the Kgalagadi Transfronteir Park, South Africa/Botswana. (Craig Vedders)

“Wilderness is a necessity … They will see what I meant in time. There must be places for human beings to satisfy their souls. Food and drink is not all. There is the spiritual. In some it is only a germ, of course, but the germ will grow.” – John Muir (American naturalist and co-founder of the Sierra Club)

Golden leap, by guide Etienne Oosthuizen. “This troop of baboons roosted close to our camp each morning and before they ventured out to forage would sit and warm up in the early morning sunlight. Little things warm up quicker than big things, and soon enough the games amongst the youngsters began”. Photographed in the Lower Zambezi National Park, Zambia. (Etienne Oosthuizen / photographicafrica.com)

“These are islands in time — with nothing to date them on the calendar of mankind. In these areas it is as though a person were looking backward into the ages and forward untold years. Here are bits of eternity, which have a preciousness beyond all accounting.” – Harvey Broome (Co-founder of The Wilderness Society)

Springbok and dune, by guide Gavin Lautenbach. Photographed at Sossusvlei, Namibia (Gavin Lautenbach / mammothsafaris.com)

“To me, a wilderness is where the flow of wildness is essentially uninterrupted by technology; without wilderness the world is a cage.” – David Brower (American environmentalist and mountaineer, founder of the Sierra Club)

Black rhino sunset, by guide Ian Lombard. Photographed at Kwandwe, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Throughout most of the 20th century, the Black Rhino was the most numerous of the world’s rhino species and at one stage could have numbered around 850,000. Two years ago, a subspecies, the Western black rhino, was declared extinct. The black rhino now numbers around 6000. The last stronghold of the black and white rhinoceros is South Africa, where last year 668 rhinos were killed (compared to 13 in 2007) as well as many humans in order to feed the demand for rhino horn from China and Vietnam. (Ian Lombard)

“The wilderness that has come to us from the eternity of the past we have the boldness to project into the eternity of the future.” – Howard Zahniser (Author of the Wilderness Act), from The Need for Wilderness Areas

Cheetah and six cubs, by Albie Venter. “We managed to follow this female with her six cubs for several days. I am glad to say that against all odds all six survived to independence.” Photographed in the Masai Mara, Kenya. (Albie Venter / africa-unlocked.com)

“We are part of the wilderness of the universe. Some of us think we see this so clearly that for ourselves, for our childres, our continuing posterity, and our fellow men we covet with a consuming intensity the fullness of human development that keeps its contact with wildness.” – Howard Zahniser (Author of the Wilderness Act)

Golden elephant, photographed by guide Keith Connelly at Kariega, Eastern Cape, South Africa (Keith Connelly / kariega.com)

“Many of our greatest American thinkers, men of the caliber of Thomas Jefferson, Henry Thoreau, Mark Twain, William James, and John Muir, have found the forest and effective stimulus to original thought.” – Bob Marshall (Co-founder of the Wilderness Society)

Jungle gym, by guide James Kydd. There is a small pride of lions known to the Londolozi guides as the Tsalala pride that have survived the last decade against impossible odds under the leadership of a single lioness and her two daughters. Photographed at Londolozi, Kruger Park, South Africa. (James Kydd / rangerdiaries.com / londolozi.com)

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.” — Mahatma Gandhi

Lioness and cubs in the water, by guide Lee Whittam. Photographed in the Linyanti, Botswana. “Lions don’t enjoy the water crossings, the threat of crocodiles in this area always makes the prides cross with a bit more haste.” (Lee Whittam / essentialafrica.co.za)

Destroying rainforest for economic gain is like burning a Renaissance painting to cook a meal.”– Edward O. Wilson (an American biologist, researcher, theorist, naturalist and author)

Leopard on the lookout by guide Kyle de Nobrega. Photographed at Lion Sands, Kruger Park, South Africa. (Kyle de Nobrega / inthestixx.com / lionsands.com)

“I hope the United States of America is not so rich that she can afford to let these wildernesses pass by, or so poor she cannot afford to keep them.” – Margaret (Mardy) Murie (Known as “Grandmother of the Conservation Movement,” wife of Olaus Murie)

Carmine colony, by guide Brendon Cremer. A Southern carmine bee eater flying through the nesting colony on the look out for potential mates. Image captured during a recent photo trip to Kalizo along the Zambezi River, Namibia where thousands of these beautiful birds return every year to nest. (Brendon Cremer / brendoncremerphotography.com)

“If we kill off the wild, then we are killing a part of our souls.”– Jane Goodall (International advocate for primate conservation)

Lords of the bushveld, by guide Lee Whittam of Essential Africa. Elephants love water, and often herds will pick up their pace when they approach it. Photographed in the Linyanti, Botswana (Lee Whittam / essentialafrica.co.za)

“Nature is not a place to visit. It is home.” ― Gary Snyder (American poet)

Huge male leopard tests large python, by Susanne Baden. Photographed at Singita Sabi Sands, Kruger Park, South Africa. (Susanne Baden / singita.com)

“Every creature is better alive than dead, men and moose and pine trees, and he who understands it aright will rather preserve its life than destroy it.– Henry David Thoreau (American author, poet, philosopher)

Waterbuck having a last feed before dark, by guide Keith Connelly. Photographed at Kariega, Eastern Cape, South Africa. (Keith Connelly / kariega.com)

“To those devoid of imagination a blank place on the map is a useless waste; to others, the most valuable part.”– Aldo Leopold (American ecologist, forester, and environmentalist, considered to be father of American wildlife management)

“Every year, my brother (Chris Boyes), Pete (“the Nare”) Hugo, Giles (“Prince William”) Trevethick and I (Dr Steve Boyes) cross the Okavango Delta, top to bottom, on mokoros (dug-out canoes) to survey the distribution and abundance of wetland birds, advocate for World Heritage Status, and share this amazing wilderness with accompanying scientists, explorers and special guests. My wife, Dr Kirsten Wimberger, joined us for the first time this year. No one will forget what happened on the 2012 expedition…”

See: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2012/07/26/bush-boyes-on-expedition-okavango-wetland-bird-survey/

In 2013, we are embarking on the Okavango River Expedition. This will be a 1,750km odyssey down the Okavango River from the source near Huambo (Angola) all the way down the catchment, across the Caprivi Strip (Namibia), and into Botswana to cross the Okavango Delta via one of our planet’s last untouched wilderness areas. Our objective is to support the Okavango World Heritage Project and achieve UNESCO World Heritage Status for the Okavango Delta and the entire catchment. See: http://www.okavangofilm.com/

“Like” the Bush Boyes page and stand a chance to WIN one of two amazing Citizen watches… Go to: http://www.facebook.com/bushboyes

The dwindling few. Black rhino photographed by guide Keith Connelly at Kariega, South Africa. Over 600 black and white rhinoceros have been slaughtered this year in South Africa, the last remaining stronghold of these creatures. Conservation authorities do not have the finances or manpower to effectively combat the trade driven by China and Vietnam. (Keith Connelly)

1%4Wildlife, a small South Africa-based conservation NGO, exists to provide a platform whereby financial assistance can be translated into tangible wildlife conservation outcomes like this rhino capture. On 16 November 2012, 1%4Wildlife sponsored a team consisting of ecologists, veterinarians, a helicopter pilot, and game rangers in the capture and immobilization of three white rhinos. This capture forms part of an anti-poaching initiative focussed on individual identification (i.e. unique ear notches), micro-chipping of the horn and hump (for identification), and taking blood samples (for DNA sequencing). DNA samples are crucial in the establishment of a DNA database for all rhinos in South Africa. Past DNA samples were actually matched to severed horns in Asia, resulting in successful prosecutions in those specific cases. The extraordinary lengths we need to go through to sample just one rhino requires significant resources, expertise and funding. Rhino research and conservation is very expensive and will always be limited by available funding. Rhino poachers and horn traders in the Far East, on the other hand, earn hundreds of thousands of dollars per kg and demand for this ”drink of millionaires”, cure for cancer, and powerful aphrodisiac is booming. To save rhinos in Africa we are going to need to match the illegal rhino horn industry dollar-for-dollar. Every cent from sold rhino horn and ivory needs to be matched by government, corporate and private sponsorships and donations. If anti-poaching has less funding, personell and resources then the poachers will get there first and be gone by the time game scouts get there! We are losing what has turned into all-out war against rhino poaching. Organizations like 1%4Wildlife across Africa are gearing up to micro-chip and DNA database all rhinos, while training and equipping private anti-poaching and game farm security units. We need to do everything we can to support them in their work to halt the decline of Africa’s rhino after we saved them from extinction due to the same threat just 30 years ago!

Rhino calf chasing ostrich. “A very playful baby white rhinoceros calf having fun with the wildlife. The ostriches and warthogs didn’t enjoy the game as much as the mischievous little rhino”. (Martin Heigan)

2013 is touted by all as a “make-or-break” year for wild rhinos. The official number of rhino poached for their horns in 2012 was 668, up from 448 in 2011. More poachers and anti-poaching guards were killed last year. This “conflict” is fueled by greed and the desire to enjoy the “drink of millionaires”. Under-funded conservationists are chasing helicopters on foot and listening helplessly at night while dangerous poaching operations continue. There are private security forces on some game farms now and unmanned surveillance drones have been deployed to better protect the last white and black rhino. Most reserves, national parks, game farms, and community-owned lands with rhinos on them do not have the funds to adequately protect and manage local rhino populations. A significant portion of the wild rhino population is privately-owned and represent an important investment. Today, rhinos cannot easily be sold and private collections are dwindling. We are reaching a tipping point after which we will have to retreat to core protected areas in Africa and around the world to conserve what we have left…

Black rhino sunset, by guide Ian Lombard. Photographed at Kwandwe, Eastern Cape, South Africa. Throughout most of the 20th century, the Black Rhino was the most numerous of the world’s rhino species and at one stage could have numbered around 850,000. Two years ago, a subspecies, the Western black rhino, was declared extinct. The black rhino now numbers around 6000. The last stronghold of the black and white rhinoceros is South Africa, where last year 668 rhinos were killed (compared to 13 in 2007) as well as many humans in order to feed the demand for rhino horn from China and Vietnam. (Ian Lombard)

1%4 Wildlife raised the funds for the rhino capture in September last year and produced a short video on the event. They then approached the hugely popular UK band Coldplay for permission to use one of their tracks on the video clip and the band agreed! The song, “Til Kingdom Come”, sings of feeling like we are out of control and don’t know where we are going or where we came from. This surge in rhino poaching has us stunned and confused, and we need to snap out of it and do something… Here is an excerpt from the song:

The wheels just keep on turning,
The drummer begins to drum,
I don’t know which way I’m going,
I don’t know which way I’ve come.

1%4 Wildlife are hugely thankful to Coldplay who recognize the significance of raising awareness around rhino conservation and anti-poaching initiatives. It is hoped that this short video goes viral and helps change the world for the better. If we all gave 1% of our collective time, money or attention to the preservation of our planet’s last wild places, we might as well give up now and reserve ourselves to a less diverse, less wild future without wilderness and the great wild animals that have taken our breath away for millennia….

Please help by donating towards rhino conservation here!

www.forwildlife.givengain.org

Black beauties, photographed by guide Edward Peach of Ivory Tree Lodge, Pilanesberg, South Africa. “These two black rhino where coming towards me and (unfortunately) the sun was behind them. I tried to get a photo in order to document the notching in the ears for identification and research, and it turns out shooting with the sun behind the subject does have its advantages…” (Edward Peach)

Follow 1%4Wildlife and their progress here…

www.forwildlife.org

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It has taken us less than 70 years to decimate most grey parrot populations, transforming the species into one of the most abundant, well-known and widespread pet parrots on Earth. Over a million have been captured and removed from the wild to accommodate booming demand over the last century. Millions have now been bred in captivity and sold into international markets. Grey parrots are big business. African grey and Timneh grey parrots were once widespread throughout the tropical forests of central and West Africa. Today, they are restricted to protected forests with reported declines over the last 10-15 years. We have already experienced local extinctions in parts of Rwanda, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and throughout the range of the Timneh grey parrot in West Africa. The United States banned all trade in wild-caught birds in 1992 and the European Union followed in 2006. Demand for wild-caught birds remains high and may in coming years see a boom in demand from growing, affluent markets in the Far East. High-quality breeding facilities are the norm in the United States, Europe and Australia, but emerging markets and poorly regulated hubs like Bahrain and South Africa are cutting corners and depending heavily on wild-caught birds. Please listen to this interview and watch this slideshow on the trade in wild-caught grey parrots. We need to make sure that no further grey parrots are removed from the wild.

500 confiscated African Grey parrots being allowed to stretch their wings at the Lwiro Sanctuary. They were later called the “Congo 500″.

In an effort to better conserve the species BirdLife International split the grey parrot into two species, the Timneh grey parrot in West Africa and the African grey parrot in central Africa. It is hoped that this move will upgrade their threat status to Endangered and Vulnerable respectively. The World Parrot Trust petitioned the CITES Secretariat to upgrade both species to Appendix I, worked with airlines and cargo carriers to track trade levels, and recently rehabilitated confiscated grey parrots for release back into the wild. See: http://www.parrots.org/pdfs/parrotnews/grey_parrots_uganda.pdf We are moving slowly in the right direction, but much research is needed to support targeted conservation actions like the protection of potential capture sites and seasonal bans on capture with local government. We need local governments to see the value of protected flagship species like grey parrots. Local conservation authorities almsot always agree that any further capture and trade threatens species survival.

African grey parrot in captivity. One of the most intelligent birds on earth and an important global ambassador for Africa. (Cyril Laubscher)

African grey parrots and timneh grey parrots are threatened by habitat destruction and capture for the wild-caught bird trade. The effort to keep grey parrots safe in the wild is moving into the forests, salt licks and clearings of the Congo and West African forests, as we mobilize a global effort to save the species from further local extinctions. Saving one of Africa’s most important global ambassador from persecution and capture back home needs to be a global effort. Emerging markets and the increased use of container ships to move large numbers of live birds and animals is spurring recent increases in trade levels. In recent years we have seen several African countries exceed their CITES import/export quotas for wild-caught African parrots. Traders are pushing the limits and moving large numbers of birds at a time, resulting in incidents like the tragic death of hundreds of wild grey parrots on a commercial flight from Johannesburg to Durban. We need to make sure that customs officials have access to the correct information and, for example, know the difference between an African grey parrot, Timneh grey parrot, and Cape parrot. We have a long way to go before we get anywhere near being able to adequately police the wildlife trade in Africa.

This radio interview examines the circumstances surrounding the tragic death of 687 wild-caught African grey parrots on a commercial flight from Johannesburg to Durban…

Link: http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2011/12/27/mystery-death-of-687-wild-grey-parrots-on-1-hour-flight-to-durban-revisited/

Companion parrot owner reading a book with their captive-bred African grey parrot. Yes, they are that intelligent… (Frankie Fortyfour/Cape Parrot Project)

I recently visited a non-commercial parrot breeder near East London (South Africa) to film an insert for a local wildlife show (See: “Cape Parrot Project: A Story of People and Parrots over Many Generations…”), and had this experience:

“We were filming outside an African grey parrot breeding pair on eggs. Both were in the nest box when we arrived. After a few minutes the male stuck his head out and turned it upside down to consider us for who we were and figure out what the camera was… After a long silence in contemplation he emerged from the nest hole and walked over like a lurching old man in a grey jacket. He stopped a foot from us and asked, in a perfect parrot voice: “Hello. Do you have an appointment?!” After a calm delivery he paused for a moment and then began to growl softly. Both of us stood there amazed.”

Grey parrots have demonstrated advanced cognitive abilities in long-term lab tests and form complex relationships with human companions. In the wild, these parrots live in balance with nature, avoiding unnecessary risks wherever possible, mating for life, and living long, interactive lives in local populations of thousands of individuals. In captivity as companion parrots they have helped people through personal distress and become important members of the family. Grey parrots have well developed emotions and feelings and need to be treated accordingly. These truly amazing ambassadors of Africa’s tropical forests need several decades of care and conservation action before we can consider harvesting quotas for the wild-caught bird trade. There are too many serious threats and too much historical trade to justify any further trade in wild-caught grey parrots. A similar case can be put forward for most African parrot species. Most species are data deficient or have experienced range reduction and population declines in the last 30 years.

African grey parrots feeding in the wild. © Diana May. All rights reserved. Source: World Parrot Trust – http://www.parrots.org

“Outrage over dead parrots”(January 14 2011) By Yolandi Groenewald

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-01-14-outrage-over-dead-parrots

Grey parrots crammed into a travel crate that was confiscated during a smuggling operation. Just look how stressed these poor parrots are… (World Parrot Trust/PASA)

 

“Bird mafia threatens African greys” (April 18 2011) By Fiona Macleod

http://mg.co.za/article/2011-04-08-bird-mafia-threatens-african-greys

Wild-caught African grey parrots being transported in cramped crates to markets like South Africa and the Far East. (World Parrot Trust/PASA)

“Birds perish as ownership row rages” (July 19 2011) By Sheree Bega

http://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/birds-perish-as-ownership-row-rages-1.1101863#.UUbz6nyhIXc

 

African Grey Parrots take several weeks to rehabilitate due to the stress of capture and confinement. 

“State hands over parrots to Mozambique” (August 23 2011) By Sheree Bega

http://www.iol.co.za/saturday-star/state-hands-over-parrots-to-mozambique-1.1123416

African grey parrots destined to be used a breeding stock for the pet bird trade. (World Parrot Trust/PASA)

Please support the World Parrot Trust’s “Fly Free” Campaign by donating to stimulate positive change for parrots in the wild: 

http://www.parrots.org/flyfree/