African Wildlife & Environment Issue 76 FINAL

GENERAL

Dr John Ledger EDITORIAL The Editorial in issue # 74 of your magazine was critical of the wind energy industry, the impact of wind turbines on the environment (in particular, the mortality of birds and bats), and the myth of 'carbon-free' electricity generated by wind turbines. Several readers responded to this provocative item, but there was not enough space in the next issue (#75) of the magazine to publish their letters. Instead we promised that issue # 76 would allocate the room to do so. As may be expected, the subject of energy and climate change is fraught with controversy and polarised opinions.

overseas who know and love the African continent and its unique wildlife and biodiversity heritage. We can only hope for the end of the Covid-19 epidemic to happen sooner rather than later, and a return to normality to re-open travel and tourism operations again. We also need to plan for future events like this that can bring countries to their knees. More than 100 years ago, the 1918 'Spanish Flu' epidemic killed millions of people, including my own grandfather, then a young man. With the growing world population, and international travel on an unprecedented scale, conditions for the evolution of more wicked viruses are probably going to improve. Nobody knows how we will look when our epidemic passes (they all eventually do) but for now may you, our readers, take all reasonable and responsible precautions to protect yourselves and your families for as long as possible. Better treatments, drugs, and eventually a vaccine will evolve in time. The longer we can survive until then, the better. Good luck to all of us! The sooner the tourism, hunting and wildlife ranching industries can get back to normal, the better it will be for wildlife, biodiversity and for all the people whose livelihoods are based on these economic activities. While there may be some losses of edible species due to dire human needs, history has shown that with appropriate measures, which include making wildlife valuable to the people that livewithwild animals (see reviewof Emmanuel Koro’s book, page 8), populations can recover remarkably quickly. A case in point is the Gorongoza National Park in Mozambique, which has made a spectacular come-back following its virtual destruction during the civil war in that country.

There is only one subject on the world agenda at the moment - the pandemic of the nasty Covid-19 virus that has swept across the world, causing social and financial havoc. The rural areas of Africa have been badly affected, since international travel, tourism and other attractions on the continent have been suddenly shut down. A lot of things have changed in the world since the Spanish flu ravaged the world one hundred years ago. For one thing, modern medicine, vaccines and a dazzling array of pharmaceutical chemicals have prolonged human life, and in most developed countries the allotted 'three- score-years-and-ten' (70) has been routinely extended by another ten to 15 years for many. This mostly accounts for the high mortalities among senior citizens reported from Europe, the UK and the USA. The developing world by contrast has much younger populations, so Africa (and South Africa) should theoretically be better off than the developed countries Community conservancies, national parks, private land used for photographic safaris, wildlife ranching, hunting and tourism, the lodges, tour companies, professional hunters and all of their respective staffand service providers – none have been spared. The situation in rural Zimbabwe is particularly bad. The country is in economic melt-down, and there is no food in the shops. I am a trustee of the Wilderness Wildlife Trust, and we recently held an urgent meeting to get food to people in areas where Wilderness Safaris operates. The most critical need is currently in Zimbabwe, but food aid is also being directed to wildlife areas in Botswana, Namibia, Rwanda, Zambia andZimbabwe.Afoundation in theUSAhas kindly provided funding to supply emergency food parcels for these affected people for three months, and we hope others will follow suit. It is inevitable under these circumstances that starving people will turn to wildlife to sustain themselves, and who could blame them for that? Let us hope that the potential damage can be offset to some extent by similar types of interventions by individuals and charitable foundations

Dr John Ledger Consulting Editor john.ledger@wol.co.za 083 650 1768

1 | African Wildlife & Environment | Issue 76 (2020)