Our house is
set in a leafy 20m x 20m garden that hosts several notable animals of which four are definitely
worth mentioning. Firstly, we have the bush-babies. They live in the roof and
the best thing about them is their regularity - you can set your watch by them -
at 11:30 pm you will hear them scamper out and into the garden. They then cackle and
gambol through the tree-tops before venturing back at 4 am. Secondly, we have
the eagles. These are not regular visitors but this week we had a pair and
their young child in the tree-tops. They are huge, elegant creatures whose
unfortunate effect is to scare off all other birds. Thirdly, we have the (quite
large) fruit bat who hangs out under our rafters by the verandah and swoops
away at dusk. Finally, and my favorite, is the small bird who is seen and not
heard as, during the early mornings and late evening, s/he answers your whistles
with a direct copy!
But these four
aren’t enough to warrant a topic by themselves. On the way to Mwanza, I’ve
spent the weekend in Ngorogoro and the Serengeti. During the two days we saw
everything there is to see – elephants and rhino, elands and dikdik, lions and
leopard. We traveled through temperate forest and open savannah. As we crossed
the midriff of the Serengeti there were thousands and thousands of wilderbeast
and zebra, and other animals – a scale of which I had never totally
comprehended. The Serengeti and the animals its holds are in immense
proportions, and during the migration no doubt swell even further.
This talk of
animals brings me to the point of this weeks blog. Tanzania has an amazing
diversity of animal and plant life, from the well-traveled safari route to the
chimpanzees in Ngombe stream to the crocodiles of Ruaha and amongst its other tens of national parks. Its really impressive to see that a country that is, in terms of its
GDP, one of the poorer in the world cares prioritises spending its scant resources
in looking after these. It’s done this in a way that the west, when it
developed, did not: Bar a few localized spots, where in England has retained
its original flora and fauna? Arguably there is self interest involved, but
with the huge number and size of its parks, there are those that clearly aren’t
out there to purely make money, and I am sure other profitable uses could be
found for the land.
So, in a world
where we are starting to realise the true value of biodiversity I am incredibly
impressed that Tanzania devotes such large sections of its country to
protecting it, and I hope that other countries can realise the benefits that it
has beyond the country’s borders. Finally, a caveat for Tanzania, the good work
it does is most impressive and far outweighs, to my mind, its ecological
challenges. But they are also there, it definitely has a problem dealing with
waste sustainably and, in common with other developing countries, there is a
need to grow in a carbon neutral way. But this does not detract from its good work
that remains, as I say, the most impressive.
A final, and unrelated
note, on Mwanza where I am now based for the coming week. What a strange city.
It sits on the south-east corner of Lake Victoria and is Tanzania’s second
largest city (fighting it out with Arusha) and the main trade port with Uganda.
The most striking things is that it is made up of these huge 50-100m high rocky
outcrops with giant boulders, sometimes teetering, over peoples houses. A rock
climbers paradise, but I can’t imagine that it makes the easiest place to build
a home.
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