Category: conservation

Earth – Healing The Rift: A Musical Performance For The Earth

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Above: Njemps tribesmen light a ceremonial fire in front of a statue of Buddha at Laikipia Nature Conservancy

From the archives 2007 March

Our Earth, the only living planet in the galaxy of millions has never received so much attention as it is now.  That it is in dire straits goes without saying.  Climate change and global warming are the topics of debate amongst the environmentalists, industrialists, scientists, artists and anyone concerned about our welfare on Earth.  It is after all, like l said, the only planet supporting life.

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On the edge of the Great Rift Valley, the cradle of human kind, is Ol Ari Nyiro, Laikipia Nature Conservancy, a 100,000-acre of wild country full of gorges and canyons, bush and arid land, water filled dams to support the last of the wild.  The Conservancy has been described as ‘the most botaniocally diverse non-forested area in East Africa’ (TP Young 1989).  It is home to an indigenous population of black rhinos where Kuki Gallmann established the first rhino sanctuary in Kenya when poachers had almost wiped out more than 95% of the country’s black rhino population by the early 1990s.  It is also home to most of the African plethora of wildlife from lions and elephants to the tiny dung beetle and migratory birds like the Ethiopian swallows. Continue reading “Earth – Healing The Rift: A Musical Performance For The Earth” →

A ‘Selfie’ with Wildlife

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Above: Cruel taste – a sloth dressed in pink bow with a tourist. Wath the horrendous clip below on how the sloths are captured and put in sacks to be sold in the tourist trade

Published in The East African Nation media December 16, 2017

There’s a right way and the wrong way of doing it…as the recent case of two tourists trampled to death trying to get too close to an elephant … all for a ‘selfie’.

Selfies with wild animals have proliferated over the last two years on social platforms like Instagram, Facebook and Twitter driving the suffering and exploitation for some of the world’s most iconic animals across the world, reads a new report titled Wildlife Selfies launched in Nairobi by the World Animal Protection whose loge reads – Protect animals globally.

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There’s a right way and the wrong way of doing it

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Brackenhurst Conference Centre and Botanic Gardens in Tigoni, 25-km northwest of Nairobi Copyright Rupi Mangat

Brackenhurst Botanic Garden

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Above: Brackenhurst Conference Centre and Botanic Gardens in Tigoni, 25-km northwest of Nairobi Copyright Rupi Mangat

Published: Saturday magazine, Nation media 28 October 2017

Lilac burst of an Acanth (400 species in Kenya). This is a South African Hypoestes, Copyright Rupi Mangat
Lilac burst of an Acanth (400 species in Kenya). This is a South African Hypoestes, Copyright Rupi Mangat

It’s popping with colour under the canvas of a gorgeous blue sky. Orange aloes in bloom attract an array of colourful sunbirds – Variable, Tacazze, Golden-winged and more. An African goshawk vanishes into the canopy of a tree and many more keep the birders glued skyward.

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DeCOALanize

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Kenya’s choice for the worst option for energy – coal

Above: The 19th century Friday Mosque in Shella on Lami Island – copyright Rupi Mangat

Published The East African/Nation media – 12-19 May 2017

It’s a sweltering April afternoon. We’re inside the ‘box’, a term used by the locals in Kwasasi in Lamu county. The ‘box’ is a 900-acre tract of bushland scattered with centuries-old baobab trees and abandoned farms. It’s now marked with cemented beacons.

Fishers meeting at Kwasasi about the proposed coal plant in Lamu – 21 km north of Lamu on the mainlnd – copyright Maya Mangat

Few Kenyans beyond Kwasasi have ever heard of it because it is so remote – yet it is the proposed site for Lamu Coal Plant – something that will irrevocably change the face of the Lamu Archipelago in the Indian Ocean – forever and beyond repair.

Cemented beacon on the ground inside the ‘BOX’ 900 acres for the proposed plant- copyright Rupi Mangat
Inside the ‘BOX’ 900 acres for the proposed plant – deserted now by the community that lived inside it – this is a pen for goats and their droppings colected on the ground are used as manure copyright Rupi Mangat
At Kwasasi – Save Lamu – a coalition of more then 36 local Community-based organizations fighting to stop the coal plant – copyright Rupi Mangat

On the right hand side of the murram road, we’re outside the ‘box’ with a community of Bajuni fishers and small-scale farmers meeting with a team from Save Lamu, a CBO registered in 2012.

At Kwasasi - Save Lamu - a coalition of more then 36 local Community-based organizations fighting to stop the coal plant - copyright Maya Mangat
At Kwasasi – Save Lamu – a coalition of more then 36 local Community-based organizations fighting to stop the coal plant – copyright Rupi Mangat

Continue reading “DeCOALanize” →

Forest fern in Gatamaiyu forest lining the forest path - copyright Rupi Mangat

Chasing Waterfalls at Gatamaiyu Forest

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A forest of the Kikuyu Escarpment

Published Saturday magazine, Nation newspaper 13 May 2017

A walk in the Gatamaiyu forest – – copyright Rupi Mangat
Fragrant lily by forest office – – copyright Rupi Mangat
Forest fern in Gatamaiyu forest lining the forest path – copyright Rupi Mangat

Along the path in the forest that rhymes with mutamaiyu or the African olive tree or the Olea europaea (African variety) someone signals to the left and a whole bunch of humans vanish into the evergreen forest that’s part of the larger Kereita forest – a place of the warriors – on the Kikuyu escarpment.

Following the markings on the GPS the group’s looking for a stunner – the Bar-tailed trogan which l have seen at eye-level in the forests of Mount Kenya. It’s not a bird that you ordinarily find flying around – although if we did, the world would be more colourful.

A walk in the Gatamaiyu forest - - copyright Rupi Mangat
A walk in the Gatamaiyu forest – – copyright Rupi Mangat

“Gatamaiyu forest is an IBA,” tells the doyenne of all birds, the amazing Fleur Ng’weno. “It was listed as an Important Bird Area because it has a wide variety of forest highland birds and also because the Abbot’s starling is found here.”

Continue reading “Chasing Waterfalls at Gatamaiyu Forest” →