A System That Supports Wildlife and People

We entered Zambia over the Zambezi and Chobe river confluence at the Kazangula Ferry. On the other side about ten kilometers towards the Zambian town of Livingingston we pulled off to enjoy the hospitality of some small subsistence farmers who formed a women's group.

They invited us to stay down on their land near the Zambezi floodplain just past the little winter food gardens where they grow basic necessities. We set up camp and asked to meet with the women's group in the morning to discuss the plans for the KAZA Trans-frontier Conversation Area (TFCA), which we are making a documentary about.


The Kazuungula ferry crosses the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi River. Four of the five countries that make up the KAZA meet here.

On the map that we got from the Director's office of the TFCA project it shows that this area is part of a local conservation project that will possibly be included in the greater KAZA plan. We wanted to sit down and talk about the future park but it was late in the day. As the word went out from the local village to bring the women's group members together in the morning we turned in early. Laying in my tent I was struck by how little night sounds there were, no birds, no animals, pretty much nothing. It is clear that a river crossing and the presence of hundreds of villagers was a somewhat effective barrier for the many African animals that roam wild just a few short miles away.

The next morning dawned clear, with plenty of birds, only they were the more common ones like the persistent 3am rooster and his many rivals vying for hen interest by being earliest and loudest.

We were met by the women's group in the closest little village. They had laid out grass mats and they welcomed us with a song and a prayer, which is fitting since both might be needed if this ambitious park plan is to succeed. We laid out our huge map on the mats and explained to the group the plan for the KAZA and the possible inclusion of their area into it. We were interested to get a real opinion from local farmers about what their feelings were. Unlike in Botswana, the people here had no exposure to tourism and had very little contact with wild animals.



The ladies of a rural women's group in Zambia are excited that the KAZA Park may give them jobs but also worried about food and personal security.

The women's group was led by a man. This might sound absurd yet in this part of Africa women have very little say in the politics within local power structures. So a man had been appointed to speak on their behalf, and while he sat in a chair, the ladies all sat on the mats in front of him in what seemed a decidedly subservient way.

As we explained the project, and the possibilities, many of the women got excited and we filmed them while they each had their say. Overwhelmingly everyone was afraid of wild animals, particularly lions and elephants. The first because they might eat their children while they walked to school, the second because they would destroy their vital food gardens. What became apparent however was that the leader, who was the chief's brother, was telling the ladies to say that they did not want this park project at all, but some ladies would not listen to him.



The ladies of the women's group in rural Zambia welcome the team with a song.

They all explained that they had never heard of the KAZA project, but some of the women got very excited, one exclaiming loudly in excellent English: "I want to be a guide!", many of the women agreed, saying they needed new jobs and opportunities before they were silenced by the leader, who started looking more and more upset.

It was a real moment of clarity for me and the team. Here was the real bare-bones challenge of the park: try to be many things to many people. Here also was the human-animal conflict issue writ small: How will the KAZA provide protection to the small gardens that almost one million rural farmers till to provide basic food for their families?

The meeting wound down, and the end result seemed to be that the women of the village would support the KAZA if they could get jobs and training and have their gardens and children protected. By contrast, in Botswana we found many rural communities and farmers very excited about being included in the park and very knowledgeable about it. Just over the river there was a high level of understanding of how it could help them, and an eagerness to get involved.

Here in Zambia, with a poorer population that have little education, promises of development and inclusion will have to be accompanied by real action and more information if the plan is to succeed. It was very interesting to see first-hand the real fear these people have for wild animals, when only ten miles away thousands of people around Kasane live among wild animals every day without many major incidents.

This fear developed over time as the animals in this area were wiped out during the 1970s and 80s. Park planners and the local government will have to redevelop the community's knowledge of how to deal with potentially dangerous animals so that the fear of reintroduced animals does not lead to further killing.


Victoria Falls spans more than a mile across.

Our team enjoyed a singing send-off as we got on our way to Victoria Falls. As this park plan develops, we will hopefully have a chance to revisit this group of women and get a greater understanding of how the TFCA is meeting these very real challenges.


The falls are one of the natural wonders of the world.

We stopped on the side of the furiously flowing Zambezi River just above Victoria Falls. At the horizon the flow of the river dropped off into the Batoka Gorge for a mile, raising a massive plume of cloud that resembles smoke. As we got closer, the roar filled our ears, showering us in the little rain forest so that I had to put the rain cover on the video camera. We stood there awed by one of the greatest natural wonders of the world. This will be the centerpiece of this grand conservation area and the main point of access. This is the end of the road for this trip into the KAZA and there no place in Africa more fitting to a start or a finish than Victoria Falls.


On the way home we made camp next to a secret waterhole in the Kalahari where elephants washed and drank noisily next to our camp while the Milky Way shined above us.


Thirty miles away the dim lights of a road camp lit the horizon under the stars next to our secret elephant watering hole.

The Wild Chobe River of Botswana

A Malachite Kingfisher rests and looks for little fish on the bank of the Chobe River in Botswana.

We drove north out of the isolated farmlands of Pandamatenga in northern Botswana and came through a wide open grassland where groups of elephants were crossing this lonely road in a northeast direction towards Zimbabwe. Like ships on the ocean, the grand beasts floated over the grasses, their long legs lost in a sea of green. A small family herd at first headed towards us then veered off and loitered about two hundred meters away, waiting for us to clear out before crossing the road.

This stretch of highway links the populated south with the more empty north, and during the height of Zimbabwe’s political crisis in 2008 it became the main thoroughfare for traffic into Zambia, Malawi and Congo. The road surface was never meant to carry hundreds of thousands of huge trucks, and is now a potholed mess. The government of Botswana is building a new road next to the old one, which further slows our progress from a gallop to a trot that is much more fitting to the scenery and the animals.


A large, slightly annoyed hippo on the banks of the Chobe River, painted up to look like a skunk.

Stopping often to see Lappetfaced Vultures, elephants, and the occasional giraffe, we stopped short of town and drove into a small forest reserve. There in the dying light of day, the sun had set and the night was looming on the eastern horizon. A big black beast broke cover, his white mask and huge scimitar horns unmistakable. It was a Sable antelope, one of the largest ones I have ever seen, and one of the rarest kinds in Africa. I had only seen one once before, on this same road, in 1997. The idea that this magnificent animal might be the same one or a distant relative, and had remained safe here with little official protection comforted me as we pushed deep into the bush under a large tree and made our camp.

The next morning we made our way to the riverside town of Kasane, at the heart of the planned Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area, or KAZA (read more about this trip and project here) in the Hog, my Toyota Landcruiser.

In Kasane we made contact with a local tour company I have used before and hired a small flat-bottomed riverboat for our small team. At three in the afternoon we boarded the boat and cruised up the Chobe River, into Chobe National Park. This is an amazing experience for anyone with a love for nature. Our little boat was small enough to pull right up onto the bank and we came face to face with many animals that are usually seen only at a great distance. A huge male hippo dressed up in wet mud down his back like a skunk was grazing on the land, and although he threatened us a little, he seemed remarkably relaxed with us only a few meters away, standing in the boat taking photos of him.

We sidled ever-so-slowly up to a tiny little Malachite Kingfisher, one of the most beautiful and shy birds in Africa. With my 400mm lens on my still camera I managed to get an almost perfect portrait of him, only two arm lengths away. He was still resting there as we motored away, further up river.


Sunset on the Chobe River

Giraffe’s bent to drink silhouetted by the setting sun while a fish eagle bided his time on a broken old tree, waiting for fish to rise so he could enjoy his evening meal. Elephants were everywhere, some of the 140,000 of them that call this area home. The sun set through an old tree by river bank while i clicked away, enjoying every moment of this incredible evening.

We forged further into the park, way past the time when we could still see through the fading light of the equatorial day. Our guide stopped us, engine off, next a group of male elephants grazing in the tall grass right next to us. We could feel their exhalations, smell their big muddy bodies, and hear their breathing and quiet munchings right over us. It was a profound moment, the light of day a distant band in the west, the stars shining down, and the intimate sounds of the grandest beasts to walk the earth all around us.



There are an estimated 140,000 elephants in the Chobe River complex, these ones are drinking by the Chobe River at dusk.

The Chobe National Park is the benchmark for much of the planned KAZA park, and after a few days of exploring the town of Kasane and the countryside, we headed off over the Kazangula Ferry and into Zambia, where the lessons of Botswana are being implemented, and the grandest part of the KAZA is starting to take shape in fits and starts.


Sunset over the Namibian side of the Chobe River, near Kasane, Botswana.

Human-Animal Conflict?

A small fresh-water pan near Pandamatenga, Botswana where elephants often come to drink.


We crossed the cattle fence five kilometers north of Ben’s Elephant Sands, on our way up to Pandamatenga. This isolated farming area is completely surrounded by game areas and wildlife. It is the largest contiguous crop growing area in Botswana and produces much of the produce and grains that the country consumes. The farmlands are protected from elephants by a huge electrical fence, paid for by the farmers and government. Local subsistence farmers are also given lands to plant within this little island of agricultural productivity.

Its odd to be in an area that is the opposite of the rest of the world. In virtually every country place Earth the land is for the people and little isolated protected areas are fenced off for nature. Pandematenga is a little island of humanity isolated in a sea of wilderness.

We have come here to interview Andrea Bolla. She is a geographical scientist from Canada who is researching a PHD on human-animal conflict issues. This petit lady from Vancouver has some pretty big ideas about wildlife and people.

In the agricultural history of the human race, we have, arguably, been in “conflict” with the natural world we rely on. This conflict takes many different guises. Termites eat the fence posts that are built to stop larger game from eating our produce. Before the electrical fence was put in here, elephants or a large herd of buffalo could ruin thousands of acres of productive fields.

But without conflict we would also not enjoy the presence of wilderness on our planet and the very diversity that sustains us. Andrea argues that conflict needs to be studied to find out what constitutes unacceptable loses, and what measures are needed to mitigate those losses.

First, she suggests, lets define conflict. In every farmer’s field all over the world there are losses. These losses are caused by disease, blight, birds, lack of regular moisture, animals, a vast variety of things. Most farmers can handle a small amount of loss, maybe even up to 20%. In Pandamatenga, when the fence was built, ungulates like antelopes and others like warthogs were trapped within this barrier. Big animals like elephants, buffaloes, hyenas and lions were pushed out and kept out for the most part. Without the predators the antelopes increased and often eat the farmers crops. many farmers enjoy the wild animals and have chosen to farm here because of the romance associated with them. These antelope and warthogs and birds and other critters eat their crops, and some feel that this is an acceptable loss for living among them. Other farmers disagree, and call for a major reduction in the numbers of wild animals within the fences in order to boost production. So there is a balance of a sort that is constantly being discussed and maintained. Sometimes there is culling, sometimes there is not.

Andrea asks: “Is this balancing act actually conflict or a man-made semblance of the natural order of things?” She is using this closed system to study the relationships between man and nature, hoping to find guidance or at least some truisms that can be extrapolated from it. I ask her if what she discovers can be applied elsewhere, but she demurs. “Every system, every interaction between man and nature needs to be discussed on its own merits, and although some broad lessons can be learned and applied, we should not assume that what works for one place will work for another”.

She has a very valid point. The farmers in Pandamatenga are an anomaly in the region. Protected by a fence and the wealth to pay for it, they are commercial farmers for the most part, making a profit from their work. But most people in the region are subsistence farmers, operating without resources of any kind, living hand-to-mouth.

In Botswana, where many people make a livelihood from wildlife and nature, the benefits of living and farming among wild beasts are usually better understood than in most areas of Africa, where wild beasts are looked upon with an almost mythical fear we would usually reserve for minotaurs and dragons. The very idea of living with them in peace and harmony is an anathema. Often for good reason. Lions may eat children on their way to school, elephants can trample a family’s only food garden and predators can decimate livestock, leaving a farmer penniless.

This issue is shaping up to be the real challenge of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The KAZA, once established, will be home to almost a million people within it’s borders. In the Okavango, where wild beasts and people co-exist and mutually benefit from each other, our team has learned what it takes to do that. Read about the Jakotsha Trust from an earlier trip here. These are hard won lessons, and we are on our way to rural Zambia, where farmers and villagers will have to be included from the very beginning in any animal reintroduction that occurs in their area.

It’s clear from our time in Pandamatenga that people and animals can coexist by determining what are the issues and needs of both groups, whether there is indeed a conflict, and what can be done to mitigate that. Whether these issues will relate to the local subsistence farmers is something we are only starting to explore.



Megan Izen, left, from The City University Of New York (CUNY) doing video work while scientist Andrea Bolla looks out over a small fresh water pan near Pandamatenga.

Lions and Elephants: Thrills and Chills

Nestled among the Aloes: our first camp near Baltimore, South Africa.



This blog has been poorly serviced because I have been on the road. On July 14th we headed into the wilds of Southern Africa to continue my work on a documentary for LinkTV about the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. Called the KAZA for short, this massive project is working to create the biggest protected area in the world. Larger than Italy and spanning the borders of Angola, Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana, it is the most ambitious project of it's kind ever attempted. I have been working on a long-term story about the project and some entries from past trips are found here and here.

Johannesburg's dry wintery cold had lifted a bit by midday. Four of us, including Carl the trainee cameraman and Megan Izen, an intern from the the City University of New York left the city late. We headed due north, up towards the border where Zimbabwe, South Africa and Botswana come together. It's not safe to drive at night in Africa so we found a little spot in a communal area near a town called Baltimore. This little village of concrete houses was about as different as it is far away from US city of the same name.

The Hog, our Toyota Landcruiser, had a small hiccup and decided our fate for us. By the time I had reconnected the little wire that keeps the diesel switch open the sun had set and we felt the chilly African night start to settle in the little valley. Some boys on a donkey cart came, axel-squeaking, toward us from a small woodland and we asked if we could camp there for the night. They smiled largely and said no problem, so we forded the small stream and found a little clearing nestled into the trees and big aloe plants. Wild camping in Africa is usually no problem, but it is important to ask the local people not only for their permission, but for any helpful advice and even their protection. In a small rural community a truckload of people with cameras will be seen and talked about for kilometers around and we are in essence their guests, so it's best act as such.

We were heading for the ancient kingdom of Mapungubwe. By the 10th century, Mapungubwe had become the center of power in Southern Africa. Connected by trade all the way to the coast of Tanzania, the kingdom reigned supreme until the arrival of slavers. It is now the site of the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area that spans the borders of South Africa, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We came to get a sense of what a working TFCA looks like. Lodges and guest houses as well as community camps dot the area, which is also known as the Tuli Block, a place notorious for smugglers, elephants, buffalo and of course, lions.

That night, after crossing over to the Botswana side, lions circled our little bush camp. We lay in our tents, hearts beating as first one then two lions started booming their WUh HU hu hu hu sound on either side of our flimsy shelters. My heart was so loud I was sure the lions could hear thumping against the earth. During dinner our small party had relocated to the roof of the truck when a lion boomed the first time. Plates and all, most of us finished our tasty curry perched on the top of the canopy of the Hog.

I was not too worried on account of that old truism: you don't have to run faster than the lion, you just have to run faster than your slowest friend. I have always been a good runner. Nevertheless, lions very rarely tear into a tent, and many a night I have heard them, breathing, pacing and circling the camp. They are more curious than anything else, I am sure, but regardless I usually wait until first light to make a trip to the latrine.


Our Camp on the second night of the trip in the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area that was surrounded by lions.

The next day, bright eyed and less bushy tailed we headed up to the very edge of the KAZA park itself to visit some farmers and lodge owners who are interested in integrating their lands into the conservation area.

Botswana is big, and despite an early departure we only arrived at my friend Ben Mueller's Elephant Sands camp a few hours after dark. Ben is a large personality of a man, and he loves elephants. Some jokingly refer to him as the elephant whisperer. Ben has turned his three farms into a conservation area all his own. He is happy to share it though and has already been approached by the KAZA park officials and local chiefs to see if he is interested in being included in the park. He wholeheartedly agrees. like most people in Botswana, he has seen the benefits of tourism firsthand, and already runs a successful lodge and bush camp.

His farms are designated cattle country, but tell that to the thousands of elephants that pass by his waterhole every year on their annual migration from Botswana's Kalahari desert and into Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe.

Cattle do not thrive here. They fall prey to lions and some of Africa's only free ranging wild dogs, but it's the tsetse flies other insects that prey on them that really make it difficult for cattle ranchers. This trouble is also a boon, and Ben wants to join in the KAZA park plan to offer these rare animals official protection. "We want any future fence around the KAZA to encircle us too," he explains, sitting on his sunny front porch next to a swimming pool that serves elephants as much as it does the guests to his lodge.

"The chiefs are behind the plan, and the local people have already contacted us. If possible, some other farmers in the area are also keen to have their farms included. Of course not everyone feels this way, but we can be part of this if the park planners are interested, its been a dream of mine for some time." This forward thinking man's love for elephants and nature is legend.


The notorious "elephant pool" at Elephant Sands in Botswana.

A small injury from an angry and confused female elephant has done nothing to deter him. Earlier this year a baby elephant fell into his swimming pool. The mother jumped in after it, but the pool was too small for her to turn around. In the resulting chaos, Ben jumped into the pool and helped the baby elephant to safety at considerable risk to his own life. The mother made it out but not before damaging the pool and getting very worked up. Later in the evening she came to the bar, cornered Ben, and charged him -lifting him up off the ground with the force of her impact and sending him flying across the bar floor. Only the solid roof of the structure prevented her from trampling him. In response, Ben widened the pool and made big elephant-sized steps for the beasts to safely get out. He also grudgingly made a small fence around the bar area to protect clients from what he calls "the possibility of future confusion". He does not regret the attack, and feels that people and elephants can get along with mutual respect and understanding. He blames himself for not making sure his trunked guests were as catered for as him two legged ones.

From my journal:

Today is a rest day here at Elephant Sands. Last night over dinner a lone bull elephant came down to the waterhole next to our table and slaked his thirst noisily as we enjoyed the cook's best fare. The cook, named Lazarus, came to check on us and made sure we had everything we need. Thirty years ago there were few elephants here, he told us, but now there are more elephants than ever. The Botswana government's official protection has been a shining example for conservation throughout the continent, and shows that like Lazarus' namesake, ecosystems like this one can be brought back from the dead.


Megan Izen, working with the project as an intern from the City University of New York (CUNY) on her first African assignment. The top of the truck is a safe place for star gazing and escaping from predators.

The Furniture...Er -I mean the FUTURE of Journalism

Watch and listen to the angriest climate scientists you ever heard. This is the power of multimedia, make your point, make it well, and use everything you can to make it work.

In the background glow of all the information, propaganda, and the incessant rain of data, sometimes there are a few items that stand out. This week I have been doing some web surfing, looking for a few multimedia projects that really make me proud of my colleagues.

This nascent medium is all the rage now, and here in Johannesburg I am working with Megan Izen, a student of multimedia from CUNY, the City University of New York. This school's journalism course no longer offers separate degrees in print or television. Everything is taught together, and they are getting recognition and support from early web adopters like the New York Times and Time Magazine.


LinkTV.org and the UK's Ecologist Film Unit investigate the hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania. A shattering look unveiling the human and environmental cost of unregulated natural gas exploration and production.

So what is multimedia and what can it do? I started working with this medium about five years ago, merging television and film production with my photojournalism. It is essentially anything that delivers dynamic online content that is not the pure written word or a still photo or a TV broadcast. It could be slide shows with voice over, or a short film, or an interactive graphic, or really...anything! It's possibilities and permutations are endless. It has become the catch phrase for everything newsy that the web can do that TV and print could not, and it is in demand.

There are some drawbacks however. At the moment, great multimedia pieces are difficult and time-consuming to produce. They require a great crossover of skills. They often try to be too many things at once, and hence do not often succeed at being great at any one thing. Most newspapers look at them like attractive but uncomfortable pieces of furniture on their sites, good for keeping up with the Jones' but unsure how to use them, and not at all interested in paying for the time and energy needed to produce them well.

It is probably not news to any of the readers of this blog that there is a crisis of cash in journalism. So the greatest news, and most costly, delivery potential of the web comes along at a time when the resources to pay for it are at their most limited. So often multimedia pieces are labors of love, and like many labors, most would qualify as acts of desperation.


A short animated movie that appeals to the linguistic back flips English is capable of while enthralling with it's slow unraveling of modern arguments against science.

A five minute news piece for television ten years ago might cost as much as ten to fifteen thousand dollars to produce, and make the producers even more than that. A more complex multimedia piece today of the same length will very luckily be bought, after being produced for nothing, for about 500 dollars, maybe a thousand in the best case scenario. So when I say desperation, I mean it.

These are a smattering of commentary in the case of the great piece by the angry scientists or the cartoon about scientific discourse, but my piece at the end and the story about fracking are indeed journalism of the kind we will hopefully see more of.

When you look through these pieces remember they are short little pieces of people working in the best way with a new medium. They are my own choice of the new vanguard, forging a new system of communication at a time when most journalists and producers are staggering around like victims of a bomb blast.

So while many of our colleagues are wondering what happened and where did their careers go, some of us are trying to pick up the pieces and soldier on by using all their little bits, any way we can.


And my own piece (since this blog is also about shameless self-promotion)
Africa is known for sunshine, AIDS, famine, war and...a new fully electric automobile?

Planning to Save Civilisation?

The highly polluted waterway between two oil refineries flows directly into the ocean 10km south of Durban. To the right is the SAPREF refinery. Mondi Paper operates next to the two refineries. Between the three pollution both in the air and water has seriously affected the health of many nearby residents.


Durban, South Africa. I made a television program last year about how high-tech their dump is, you can watch that here. However, their regulatory infrastructure for emissions and industrial waste is poor at best, and maybe criminal at worst. With the capability the city has shown at their landfills, it is surprising that they are unable to enforce laws on pollution. If a city like Durban cannot change it’s dirty habits, what chance do the other developed and developing countries of the world have? The world's politicians and activists are coming here to debate just that.

This story I shot with the LA Times shows how children and babies living near the Sasol, Petro SA and Mondi plants south of the city have debilitating heart and lung problems. The sea is so polluted that hazard levels for industrial and chemical wastes exist for fifty miles south of the city. Perhaps it is fitting that the world will gather through this smokey-stinky veil in five-month’s time to discuss how we are going to save the planet.

So how are we?
I am getting excerpts from World On The Edge on my email. It’s a fascinating read by futurist and thinker Lester Brown. I just ordered the whole book, and look forward to getting in to it. This is a man that has continually mapped a changing plan for the continuation of our species, and the chances we have of making it. Far from being a “chicken little” running around shouting that the sky is falling, Brown is a level-headed realist with some great numbers and ideas about how we can make our lives easier, cleaner, more healthy and save the planet all at the same time.

His Plan B series is worth checking out if you, like me, sometimes wonder how we will fix everything that we need to. It really is a Plan B, and that is very important. My brother made shirts this year from some signs I photographed, and it says There Is No Planet B. Well thankfully there is a Plan B, and Brown’s most pressing arguments and plans really provide a snapshot of where we are in the current climate and pollution crisis and where we need to be going, with tangible things we can do to get us there.

So where are we and how are we getting there?
It is vital that governments work now on the beginnings of an agreement to ratify at the Durban Climate Conference in November to December this year. Right now the framework of a new binding agreement to reduce pollutive greenhouse gases should be taking shape, one that takes the place of the Kyoto Protocol. However, large utility companies in both the US and Europe are helping to stymie progress, hoping to keep a business-as-usual approach to regulation and reduction. Some of them wield great power within the committees and discussions taking place at a mid to high political level and the South African press reports that they are using that power to prevent early drafting of real emissions targets that can be met.

There is also much posturing by China, vilified in Copenhagen for their obstinate stance on emissions reductions, and evidence that they will use their new-found friends in Africa (where they have been investing heavily) to help push for a weak deal, or no deal at all. That this would hurt the countries of southern Africa the most seems irrelevant within the political arena..

This is all to be expected. But true courage and the possibilities of a deal are never to be completely discounted. The talks are happening this year in South Africa, a place where dreams do seem to come true sometimes. Trevor Manuel ran the National Reserve Bank and the Tax system of the country, and helped mediate the end of apartheid for the ANC. He is deemed by many to be the best man for the job of making sure that the Durban Conference is a success. He has his work cut out for him.

South Africa as flag bearer?
South Africa is not leading from the front on climate change. If the west was hoping that South Africa would adopt a hard line in favor of strong action to reduce carbon emissions, they may be in for a surprise. In the last week South Africa ended the green tariff subsidy for power that is generated without emissions, nipping a promising incentive for green energy in the bud.


Thembeka Duba, 20 She lives next to the Sappi Paper mill, about 40 km south of Durban, and blames the mill for her Asthma, where she is standing is just 500 Meters from her front door, with the paper mill in the background.

The country also seems intent on nuclear power, ignoring all the bad news out of Japan and forging ahead with plans for a second nuclear power station in the country. They are also planning on building lots of new coal-fired power stations, one of the main greenhouse gas culprits. These actions are the antithesis of the original draft of the Kyoto Protocol, which sought to provide incentives to developing countries like South Africa to evolve along a lower-carbon path, reliant and successful in implementing the new power technologies of the future.

Tit For Tat
However, there is a game that could be getting played here. If South Africa plans all these coal fired power stations, and then does not build them, they can get emissions credits from not building them. The new systems and more importantly the companies that build the green technology alternatives would be financed by the first world’s carbon markets. South African companies, doubtless some of them owned by government and the people in government, would get free or very cheap alternative energy infrastructure. This could be a sort of blackmail that the South Africans and other countries (most obviously China again) will use to leverage out money from developed nations to pay for new clean electrical infrastructure, and also stop themselves from having to reduce their own carbon emissions.

There is also a large component of any new climate agreement that sees billions of dollars in support for countries like South Africa to "adapt" to climate change. South Africa sits in a group of countries that have the least capital and the most exposure to the catastrophes associated with climate events.


Rennee Smith, 26 stands defiantly in front of the Engen Oil Refinery in South Durban, a few blocks from her apartment where she lives with her mother and her young son Kyrone. She blames the refinery for the failure of Kyrone's lungs when he was just 6 weeks old.

Just Posturing?
It could also not be some sort of posturing or plan. Scarily the country may just be that behind and fail to see how great being a renewable energy leader in the world could be. In World On The Edge and his other books, Lester Brown tracks how investing in clean energy technology can boost a country's GDP and bring long term growth through both intellectual and regular capital inflows.

Drop into this mix my earlier blog post about "Fracking The Karoo", a new plan to extract coal bed methane from the last virgin area of the country and that in two years radioactive mine water polluted with heavy metals may reach ground level in the entire city of Johannesburg, then perhaps this land of promise is not the best place to host a meeting of this kind.

At least the delegates who attend will not be able to avert their gaze from the polluted haze of Durban every day. Maybe that will help focus their intent on the task at hand.


A view from one hotel where delegates to the next UNFCCC Conference (COP17) will stay. Pretty to look at but you would not want to swim here: Chromium, zinc, lithium, lead, arsenic, and e coli levels 1000 times the WHO standard, these are just a some of the stew of pollutants flowing into the Durban seafront.

Chemicals Be Gone: A Sustainable Answer To A Changing Climate

Daniel Kampani's field with his compost heap and his maize stalks protecting the soils where another crop will grow with the coming rains.


“With conservation agriculture, we need less rain”. Says Daniel Kampani, 48, who is farming in the hills west of Lilongwe, Malawi. He has been using fertilizer and planting his small plot next to his one bedroom house for ten years, and each year only managed to get about three hundred pounds of maize from it. Two years ago he stopped using the expensive fertilizer and started mulching the field, using last year’s maize stalks and other plant compost as fertilizer. He lay the fertilizer right across the field, sheltering it from the sun and rain. This year he managed to harvest seven hundred pounds of maize from that plot. Because of this technique, the field also needs less moisture, something that is becoming harder and harder to find.


Daniel Kampani with his wife Clara. The two stand in front of their first big peanut harvest, which is going to bring in enough money to buy more pigs and send their children to school. In the past their tobacco crop barely gave them enough cash to buy basic foods they could not grow.

A farmer like Daniel understands all too well the effects of a changing climate. “We are doing this because of climate change”, he says as he stands next to his wife, Clara who helps farm their land, “here we have had less and less rainfall every year, and when it does come, it rains very hard, but for a shorter time.”

Daniel and Clara are part of a new trend in Malawi. They are members of NASFAM, the National Smallholder Farmers’ Association. This group is seeking to change old habits among the roughly seven million smallholder farmers in this country of thirteen million people. 85% of all the farmers in the country are subsistence farmers, that means they eat pretty much everything they produce. There is only one short growing season, from December to March and after smallholders consume their produce, they struggle to get through what some call the “hunger season”. This is the three months when the rains have come but the new food has not been harvested yet.

The country is small and has a limited amount of land, and that means Malawian farmers must make the most of it. But deeply ingrained agricultural habits have led to severe soil depletion. The people here believe that if they burn their fields in the long dry winter it will ensure a healthy crop, but this is far from the truth. Not only do the active fires throughout the country contribute to bad health and the release of noxious greenhouse gases, but the technique depletes the soils, kills healthy earthworms, and reduces crop yields dramatically. So why would people here do this?


Bumper harvests like this peanut harvest have been made possible through sustainable agricultural practices spread through NASFAM with support by Irish Aid in Malawi.

“They do not have the information that we do”, explains Daniel, “we are trying to get everyone in this area to stop this, but it is hard, it is a traditional thing. We must return humous to the soil, we must make it healthy again.” NASFAM has grouped together small farmers and gotten them to support each other in this new green revolution. As a group the farmers help each other and trade know-how. NASFAM has also helped them to diversify into peanut production, getting small buying stations out into rural areas where they can get a fair price for their produce, without having to truck it to town.

The peanuts replace tobacco as the smallholders’ cash crop, and are a great change for a diet that was very protein and vitamin poor. Legumes like peanuts help replenish nitrogen in the soil after years of maize and tobacco production and their shells make excellent fertilizer.

Irish Aid, the assistance arm of the Irish government, actively assists NASFAM with half a million euros to keep their outreach programs running. Networks of volunteers like Daniel and Clara help spread the conservation agriculture message into remote rural areas. In just a few years they have managed to lift about twenty percent of the farmers in the area out of subsistence farming and into the cash economy.

Deforestation in Malawi is acute, only eight percent of the trees are still standing, and many experts agree that the loss of forest cover contributes to local climate changes. Farmers like Daniel know this all too well, “We also need to plant trees. We need them for fuel, we need them for shade, we need them for fruit, some of them our animals can eat the leaves of in the dry season... they assist in so many ways.”

Daniel now has money to raise pigs, food in his granary, and sells his peanuts on the international fair trade market. He no longer has to worry if he will make it through the hungry season.

By planting trees, making his harvest more climate change proof, and increasing soil productivity, farmers like Daniel are uplifting poor countries and making a positive contribution to our planet. They can also teach the rest of us a few things about sustainable agriculture in a warming world at a time when agribusinesses have trying to convince everyone that the only way to combat climate change is through their fertilizers, chemicals and pesticides.

In Malawi and the rest of southern Africa there is an urgent need for projects of this type. As poor countries cry out in international forums for financing to adapt to the climate change wrought by the rich western world, it is programs like this that should be held up as an example for everyone to follow. But while countries like Ireland and the United States struggle to keep their own economies afloat, small inputs like the one keeping NASFAM running are in danger of disappearing. That would be a crisis for Malawi, and a great loss to our collective ability to adapt to the changing world around us.


Something to sing about: A women's farming group from NASFAM get together to share peanut growing secrets and support each other's new conservation farming practices.