Tag archives for South Africa
South African Anti-Fracking Activist Calls for Global Alliance
Posted by Sandra Postel of National Geographic's Freshwater Initiative in Water Currents on May 13, 2013 
“We’ve got to stop doing this,” said Jonathan Deal, with a sense of urgency tinged with discomfort. Deal could well have been talking about hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, the oil and gas drilling practice he has tirelessly fought to stop in his native South Africa. But at this moment, he was talking about the energy-guzzling…
Worsening Rhino war Strains Countries’ Relations
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on April 30, 2013 
The growing incursion of rhino poachers from Mozambique into South Africa’s flagship Kruger National Park is beginning to strain relations between the two countries. South African security operatives trying to stem the relentless killing of the enigmatic animals speak of it as a “border war”. They are getting increasingly fed-up with Mozambique’s security agencies for not doing more to clamp down on the poachers and the rhino-horn smugglers on their side of the boundary.
Posted by The sweeping slums of Khayelitsha outside Cape Town are a stark reminder of the endemic inequality that continues to haunt South Africa almost twenty years since the end of apartheid. Here we find around half a million people living in a sea of shacks that are often associated with urban blight across the developing world.…
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An “Open Letter” to His Excellency, Dr Jacob Gedleyihlekisa Zuma, President of South Africa and the African National Congress, on the current state of South Africa’s yellowwood forests. We lost most of our grand, old yellowwood trees to mining timber and railway sleepers in the 1800s. Today, we continue to legally and illegally whittle away at the remaining forest patches. We now face a choice between beautiful furniture and the last giant yellowwood trees. Halt the harvesting of yellowwood trees in South Africa and restore these forest to their former glory…
As with most wild parrots, the story of the Cape parrot of South Africa, is a tale of people and parrot over many generations… We have been fascinated by parrots, their colors, characters and voices. for thousands of years. A longtime ago in prehistory the ancestors of today’s Cape parrot Poicephalus robustus specialized their behavior…
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…
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The new wave of killing of elephants in Africa is in many ways far graver than the crisis of the 1970s and 80s. Firstly there are fewer elephants, and secondly the demand for ivory is far higher. Record ivory prices in the Far East are fueling poachers, organised crime and political instability right across the African elephant range. And the situation shows no sign of calming.
South African Rhino Poaching Hits New High, Group Says
Posted by Dan Stone of National Geographic Magazine on January 11, 2013 
Despite ongoing protection efforts, rhinoceros poaching continues its sharp increase.
Posted by “We are cheetah friendly”. The sign hangs on the gates of farms who participate in Cheetah Outreach’s Livestock Guardian Dog Program. In a land where commercial farming has encroached on wildlife for generations, certain NGOs and farmers are working together to create new ways of solving the problems of predation. Cheetah Outreach comes not…
Record 618 South African Rhinos Poached for Horns in 2012, so far
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 11, 2012 The number of rhinos killed for their horns in South Africa so far this year has shot up to 618. This is well past last year’s shock record of 448 and substantially more than the tally of 550 predicted at the beginning of 2012. And still there is no sign of the onslaught letting up.…
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The king of the African savannah is in serious trouble because people are taking over the continent’s last patches of wilderness on unprecedented scale, according to a detailed study released this week. The most comprehensive assessment of lion (Panthera leo) numbers to date determined that Africa’s once-thriving savannahs are undergoing massive land-use conversion and burgeoning human population growth. The decline has had a significant impact on the lions that make their home in these savannahs; their numbers have dropped to as low as 32,000, down from hundreds of thousands estimated just 50 years ago.
When the African penguin made a comeback to the South African mainland in the 1980s, most people were thrilled that the embattled bird was again breeding in places other than on a few rocky islets off the coast of Cape Town. Fences and viewing platforms were erected to protect the penguins from tourists flocking to…
“Howzit? How are the cheetahs?” ask my new friends in Cape Town. “I’m going to Bray for a few days.” “Where??” When even a South African hasn’t heard of this place, I know I’m in for another adventure. Bray is a frontier post located 200 meters from the border of Botswana in the Southern…
Paul Simon Looks Back on the Anniversary of the Amazing “Graceland”
Posted by Pop Omnivore on October 11, 2012 This year, Paul Simon released a 25th anniversary album edition of Graceland in a boxed set. In honor of this special occasion, we spoke with Paul Simon about what has changed in the quarter of a century since he first set foot Under those African Skies…
Tourists traveling in the Cape Town area of South Africa often make the scenic drive through wine country, which is where Cheetah Outreach is located. Founded in 1997 by Annie Beckhelling, Cheetah Outreach started off as an educational project, bringing ambassador cheetahs to the public. Since then, it has grown to a facility that trains…
Four white rhinos were poached for their horns in a privately owned nature reserve in South Africa this week, taking the total number of rhinos killed illegally in the country this year to around 400. The total number of rhinos poached in South Africa in all of 2011 was 448, compared with 333 in 2010.
Deep in the Karoo of South Africa’s Eastern Cape is a land starting over. The air is dry, the ground recovering from drought, and on high plateaus great plains of golden grass are home to large herds of zebra, red hartebeest, blesbuck and wildebeest. The animals never descend to the bushland below which is also…
Shellfish Poaching Fuels Illicit Economy in South Africa
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on February 9, 2012 The tough shellfish known as abalone is highly prized as a delicacy in the Far East, where it is fetches excessive prices. Poachers picking abalone off the rocky shallows of South Africa’s southern coast have become brazen, plying their illegal trade in open view in daylight. Is the abalone trade fueling its own economy through corruption and big spending by the poachers?
Is Tourism Good for South Africa’s Great White Sharks?
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on January 17, 2012 
Shark cage-diving has become big business in South Africa, luring visitors from all parts of the world. Conservationists say that the tourism could be good for the overall image people have of sharks, and the ecosystems the predators need to survive.
Cape Town, South Africa, December 21, 2011 — I have just returned from a 9-day trip through the remote North West Province and the Karoo in the Eastern Cape. It is my day off and I fully intend to do nothing other than stroll around beautiful Cape Town without purpose. In famous Greenmarket Square, while…
Almost exactly a year ago, on the 24th December 2010 at 3pm, the ground staff from 1time Airlines and BidAir Cargo at the King Shaka International Airport (Durban, South Africa) discovered almost 700 dead African grey parrots crammed into 15 crates in the cargo hold of the MD-80 they were offloading. The staff on hand reported…
Surprise Deal Emerges at United Nations Climate Talks
Posted by Mason Inman on December 15, 2011 In a surprise turnaround, the United Nations climate talks managed to produce a new deal to eventually curb global emissions moving forward. In a press release announcing the agreement, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) called it a “breakthrough.” The new agreement marks a break from the Kyoto Protocol, which divided the world…
Record 443 Rhinos Killed by Poachers in South Africa in 2011
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 14, 2011 It has been a bad year for rhinos in South Africa. Many more got killed than in 2010, the 333 toll of which was described with words like “shocking” and “outrageous”. Most thought it couldn’t get worse.
It’s got much worse. The tally for 2011 is at least 433. It could end up being higher, for even as the year drew to a close, reports kept coming in of more dead rhinos found with gruesome wounds or just stumps left where their horns had been.
Durban Plan for Climate Treaty Greeted With Mixed Feelings
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on December 12, 2011 The COP17 round of climate negotiations in Durban has once again shown just how hard it is to devise a cohesive international response to this threatening phenomenon. It is for this reason that the conference’s agreement to sign up to an all-inclusive legal commitment to reduce carbon emissions has been hailed as a major breakthrough,…
African Penguin Colony at the Edge of Extinction
Posted by Leon Marshall of Environmental Journalist, News Watch South African Contributor on November 28, 2011 
A colony of African penguins living and breeding on a small island off the southern tip of Africa is fighting an increasingly desperate battle for survival.
