TRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - New RAFT for surfers

Bangkok, Thailand, 24th December 2010—RAFT the five-year Responsible Asia Forestry and Trade Program, funded by USAID to promote improved forest management and bring transparency to the timber trade in Asia, has launched a new website:www.responsibleasia.org.

TRAFFIC is one of seven RAFT implementing partners; others include IUCN, WWF’s Global Forest& Trade Network (GFTN), RECOFTC– The Center for People and Forests, the Tropical Forest Foundation (TFF) and The Forest Trust (TFT), while the overall program is managed by The Nature Conservancy (TNC).

RAFT is helping to improve forest management and trade, linking policy and corporate practices in the Asia-Pacific region, and works with government, industry, inter-governmental organizations, and research institutions, among others.

RAFT works in Cambodia, China, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Thailand and Viet Nam.

The new website provides information on RAFT, plus background information on RAFT implementing partners and a resource area where technical guides for improved forest and supply chain management, as well as briefs and reports on key forestry and trade issues, including legality, REDD+ and options for regional collaboration to support legal and sustainable trade, can be downloaded.

So, to keep up with the latest developments in the Asia-Pacific forestry sector, your first stop should be the new RAFT website, atwww.responsibleasia.org.

 

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TRAFFIC - Wildlife Trade News - Kalwerbossie features as IUCN threatened species of the day

Pelargonium sidoides, which features as IUCN's threatened species of the day is at risk of over-harvesting because it is very slow growingCambridge, UK, 28th December 2010—Kalwerbossie, better known by its scientific name,Pelargonium sidoides,features today on theIUCN Red List websiteof threatened animal and plant species.

P. sidoidesis endemic to and used traditionally in Lesotho and South Africa to treat colic, diarrhoea and other digestive disorders.

However, it is notoriously slow-growing and scientists and governments in importing countries raised concern over the sustainability of theP. sidoidessupplies because of the large quantities apparently traded.

In 2003, TRAFFIC conducted an assessment of the sustainability of the harvest and found that although trade did not imminently threatenP. sidoides, the species was under potential longer term threat owing to the very slow re-growth of root material left in the ground by harvesters and the danger of complete root removal as a result of unmanaged follow-up harvesting.

But subsequent work revealed an unregulated and undocumentedP. sidoidesindustry in Lesotho, while other sources reported illegal harvesting of the species from protected areas within South Africa. This led to TRAFFIC being asked to facilitate collaboration between government regulators in South Africa and Lesotho and other stakeholders to ensure sustainability of wild sourcedP. sidoidesas well as the livelihoods of local people and industries dependent upon supplies.

Harvesting ofP. sidoidessubsequently featured ina project on the implementation of FairWild Standard guidelines, the results of which were written up inWild for a Cure: Ground-truthing a standard for sustainable management of wild plants in the field.

“We are delighted IUCN has chosen to featurePelargonium sidoidesas its threatened species of the day, today,” said Anastasia Timoshyna, TRAFFIC’s Medicinal Plant Programme Co-ordinator.

“It is a species that featured several times in the access and benefit sharing {ABS} discussions at last October’s meeting of the Convention of Biological Diversity, and TRAFFIC welcomes the resulting‘Nagoya Protocol on ABS’, which willprovide the much needed international regulatory framework to stop biopiracy of wild plant resources such asPelargonium sidoides.”

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HAPPY NEW YEAR–Elephants of Botswana

We would all like to take this opportunity, as the refreshing rain fallshere in the Okavango Delta, to wish you all the very best for 2011 and thank you for your support in 2010

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A request for photos…–Elephants of Botswana

A recent blog of mine was followed by a comment asking for photos. Unfortunately I don’t have any photos of‘the rain’- but here are some results of it…

Baby impalas

Flame lillies

Charlie

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Merry Christmas–Elephants of Botswana

Thanks for all your support in 2010 and we hope that 2011 is good to you all.

Best wishes

Kate and the EFA team

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First Delta leopard–Elephants of Botswana

Yesterday was a packed day for Mphoeng and me. It started early with the monthly road survey, for which we had resigned ourselves only to be able to drive the dry parts, as the flood is still high and some of the crossings are pretty precarious (see a post from a month ago with a video link- pictures paint a thousand words!!) This idea went out of the window when Joseph, one of the guides, said he was going to join us for the survey, as he was very keen to investigate that side and see where is drive-able now. So investigate we did. Amazingly we didn’t get stuck, although we came pretty close on a couple of occasions. There is a lot of water still, and it’s certainly not good for the vehicles to be crossing channels like that every day. However, it was great to get that side again and I look forward to a time when those routes can become part of our daily traversing.

Kudus

In the afternoon we were out again to put the infrasound recording collars on the captive herd for a night time recording session. We met the herd in the bush, and between there and the boma saw Pula and Nandipa again with a young wild bull, and left the boma to return to camp just as the sun was setting. There was several of the Seba staff also at the boma in need of a lift, so we all piled onto the vehicle and with lots of chatting and laughing headed back to camp. Not long before camp, just beyond the airstrip, Mphoeng stopped the car and pointed at a Leadwood some 80m or so into the bush, and sprawled on one of its horizontal branches was a young female leopard. I had been warned about Mphoeng’s leopard eyes, and it was a fantastic spot. We approached slowly as she lay watching us, legs either side of the branch below her. She lay looking at us for a while before moving down into the fork of the tree, and then into the bush and away. Beautiful. The journey from there to camp was practically silent and if anyone else on the vehicle was feeling anything like me, I sat with that quiet and content glow that few things can instil in me like a leopard sighting.
Charlie

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Bridget gets her fruit–Elephants of Botswana

On an afternoon research drive we are headed for the airstrip. On the way we came across to young males between the ages of 10 and 15 years who were standing side by side gently rubbing heads together. Unfortunately they were a little skittish, being so young, and soon moved off into the thicker vegetation. They crossed the ro

Bridget shaking a palm tree

ad in front of us, and with the lovely light will able to get some good measurements and photographs of their footprints. Male elephants continue to grow throughout their lives, and it has been found in Asian and African elephants that the size of their feet is related to their height. So by measuring their feet we get a good idea of age. It is said that the footprint of an elephant is very individual, much like a human fingerprint and so we are starting to take photographs of the footprint to add to their ID files.

Once we had done that, we carried on with our route. Near airstrip we spotted an elephant shaking palm trees, I immediately concluded that it was a male elephant. As we got nearer to the individual I started questioning my decision as he looked remarkably like a female; with an angular forehead and breasts! But why was she alone? And did I really see her shaking the tree from the distance? With binoculars and camera at the ready I started to figure out the mystery. It was a female, and it was a female I know. It was Bridget, a dominant female of the B herd; in fact I thought she was the matriarch. We stood on top of the vehicle and had a good look around any other elephants, there were none to be seen or heard. As I pondered on why she was away from the rest of the herd, she did something I have never seen before. She successfully shook a palm tree and got some nuts down. In the eight years I have been researching elephants in the Okavango Delta I’ve only ever seen an adult female trying to shake palm trees once before, and she was unsuccessful. So here was Bridget proving my conclusion wrong that female elephants can shake palm trees and get nuts down.

The palm nuts are seemingly a really important resource for the Male elephants of the Okavango Delta, as they spend a lot of time during the months of July and August (when they’re in fruit), shaking the palm trees. Until today I thought it was a resource that only males were able to harvest; how wrong I was!!

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