Conservation has to pay

I (Matt) woke up early this morning in Mombasa Kenya – at a hotel on the beach. I was there for the West Indian Ocean Marine Science Association bi-annual meeting. (good stuff trust me). I decided to go for a walk on the beach.  It was high tide and I met an old man who was picking up trash on the beach.  He greeted me and walked along side me.  His English was impeccable and I realized quickly he had a wealth of information about this beach – so I decided to walk and talk with him as he picked up plastic trash. I asked him why he was picking up plastic bottle caps, bags and other plastic trash and he said “if we use so much plastic we will become plastic”.  “Rich people buy food in plastic and it all ends up here on the beach. It’s not nice. It is ruining our environment.”

Jina langu Eunus. (My name is Eunus) He wore only a pair of black shorts. no shirt, no shoes. As we walked he pointed out all the fancy beach houses – one owned by former President Moi, one owned by current president Kibaki, one owned by the Aga Kahn, others owned by less notorious rich people.  He showed me shells, eggs, talked about the river that flowed across the beach and he even talked to me about fishing gear – what was legal, what was not, and how much abuse of the system there was.  He described how the number of fish caught per fishing effort had decreased since he was a boy. Turns out he is a fisherman as well.  This guy was the beach history book. 

It was a beautiful beach and Eunus was a steward – an unintentional conservationist.  A guy who cared passionately about this coast because his family depended on it’s fish for survival.

So why was he picking up the trash?  Did he care that much? I asked him if he was getting paid to pick up the trash and he said, “No, I can sell the plastic in town for a little money.” 

I am fascinated by the economics of conservation – it has to pay to work.  Trying to change attitudes is not enough – it has to bring benefit. The conservation activities that create or are supported by business will endure and will show results.  Take my friend Eunus – he is an entrepreneur.  He is a conservationist. He is a fisherman.  He is a plastics recycler entrepreneur conservationist fisherman.  And sure, he believes picking up plastic is the right thing to do for the health of the beach.  But would he do it everyday if he did not get a small cash payment for his plastic treasure?

The back roads of Tanzania

As always Lisa’s blog is great.  But I want to add a bit of detail about this road trip we took.  We explored Tanzania on the back roads – roads that many tanzanians have never travelled – and certainly roads that tourists never get to see.  While the roads were rocky, sandy and hampered speed and efficiency, they offered a glimpse of village life and what it means to be remote and poor in Tanzania.
 
Boats being carved from mahogony trees, kids getting water at the well, Datoga and maasai herders, people planting crops – while it was a dash board glimpse – it was a great back stage tour of this massive country.  In a few places kids screamed and yelled and came running toward the car as if they had not seen a car for months.  During the most remote part of our trip we saw about 12 cars in 4 hours. Our avg speed was about 30km an hour in places.  Anderson came up with a saying that “everyone is busy in the village” and they would describe what people were doing as we passed.  We didn’t watch a single movie on these back roads – probably because it was too bumpy  - but I like to think it was because the kids actually enjoyed seeing rural village life. 

This is not a road trip you want to do every year, but certainly one of the better road trips I have ever taken.

Selous Game Reserve and Dad’s Visit

Stats:  3 adults, 3 children, 1 Landcruiser, 1 week, and >1200 miles/2000 km and 41 hours of driving (excluding safari time).  What an adventure!

We started out leaving Arusha on our way to Morogoro where we’d spend the night at lovely Mbuyuni Farm.  Dinner and breakfast served on the veranda, a pool, and gorgeous views.  A great way to relax after 11 1/2 hours in the car (over 6 hours on dirt roads)!

The drive from Morogoro to our lodge in the Selous was all a dirt roads through very remote villages…this was another big day with 9 hours in the car.  Finally we could relax a little bit at Jimbiza lodge where we stayed for 3 nights.  The location was perfect – overlooking the Rufiji River, listening to hippos all night long.  The staff wasn’t the most impressive or helpful that we’ve come across, but the price was right, and the vervet monkey getting into David and Joey’s tent and stealing David’s toothbrush might have made it worth it anyway.

The Selous was great.  We did a river cruise one day and a game drive in their safari vehicle another day.  We saw most major animals (giraffe, kudu, bushbuck, waterbuck, impala, lion, hippos, crocs, zebra, elephants, warthog…), but the birds were amazing.  The Selous is one area that is known to have wild dogs, and we were optimistic about seeing them, but didn’t end up being so lucky.  The hippos were also a highlight.  Not only seeing so many (including one out of water), but just to sleep on the river and hear them bellowing all night was so much fun. 

 

It wouldn’t be a true African adventure without at least one mishap.  Our safari vehicle’s drive shaft disconnected as we were on our way home for lunch.  But, since we were late for lunch (2 hours) and the kids were hungry we had a little snack.  Due to that snack, Tierney is now lucky enough to be one of the few 7 year olds that have lost a tooth in the Selous (as far as we know, she could be the only one).  We were a little worried that the tooth fairy wouldn’t be able to find us, but she pulled through and made it all the way there. 

 

From the Selous, our original plan was to go back to Morogoro, but somewhere around hour 6 on the way down we decided to implement an ‘each road once’ policy.  We were without any cell or email contact while in the Selous, so that was a problem to tackle once we were back in range.  The updated plan was to head to Dar Es Salaam and stay in a ‘real’ hotel and have a nice dinner out.  As soon as we got back into cell phone range we learned that Matt’s preferred hotel was fully booked.  At this point we were 5+ hours into the day and took a family vote about finding another (random/expensive) hotel or push on another 5+ hours to the beach.  It was unanimous and we went on the the beach.  Another long day (11.5 hours), but we made it to the beach and it was well worth it because then we had 2 full days/3 nights at the beach…enough time to do a snorkel trip.  What a great way to end an epic week. 

We stayed at Emayani Beach Lodge for the two nights while in Pangani.  Great time reading by the pool and on the porch of the banda when it got too hot.  A great snorkel trip to Maziwe Island.  The kids did a great job snorkeling and loved looking at the clown fish, eels, starfish, etc.  Great practice for our trip to Mafia Island over New Year’s to see the whale sharks.  Anderson also did some more work on his swim (and jump) skills sans water wings.  Go little man!

One more 9 hour day and we were back in Arusha for Dad’s final day in Tanzania.  We had a great trip and I think Dad had as much, if not more, fun than we did.

Thanks for coming, Dad.  It was great to have you here with us.

More pictures:

(you can click on album to take you to Picasa to see captions…for some reason they overtake the photo when I try to put them here)