Kruger Park Times

KrugerPark eTimes

Medicinal Plants Need New Treatment

Vegetation around the world is on the move

Rhino poachers arrested, convicted

photo: Wild Ginger, by Katy Johnson, Sanhu

July 2010 - e6

Desk Notes

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InsideVietnamese citizen jailed for po session of rhino horn 3Five poaching suspects arrested in Kruger 3Buffalo kills hiker in Mountain Zebra National Park 4Princess Takamado explores South Africa’s bird life 4Medicinal plants need revised care plan 5Camdeboo National Park to Develop Bushcamp and Campsite 6African penguin on endangered list 6World fails to meet biodiversity loss targets 7Minister to chair WEF tourism council 8Wildlife trade regulation needed more than ever 8Flower power makes tropics wetter 9Which comes first: Water or energy? 10Catalogue of Life 2010 launched 11Pledge your support for the planet’s plants 11SA shines at regional World Travel Awards ceremony 12Politics is a key factor in biodiversity 13Spot the fake greenie 13Vegetation around the world is on the move 15Declaration signed to protect country’s grasslands 15Bills smaller to cope better with cold 16Rain affects sex ratio of African buffalo 16Archaeological research at Gaza Gray outpost of Steinaecker’s Horse in Kruger National Park 17Fish nets join mosquito nets against malaria 17Miss SA Earth hopefuls visit Kruger 18SA’s population almost at 50 million mark 18

The Kruger Park e-Times is published regularly to keep you updated on conservation, science, sustainable development and tourism issues in and around South Africa’s national parks, transfrontier parks and other environmetal hotspots across the globe.

Send your comments and contributions to: krugerparktimes@vectorbb co.za. Please clarify copyright of ALL content with us. Previous issues at www.krugerparktimesonline.com

Rhino poaching update

There is no respite in the onslaught on South Africa’s rhinos. Several ar-rests have been made and, notably, a Vietnamese citizen has been convict-ed and sentenced to 10 years in jail.

While these successes are encour-aging, authorities are facing a highly organised and sophisticated enemy, with tentacles reaching across several borders. The challenge is in getting to the head of the snake.

South African National Parks (SANParks) confirmed on Wednes-day, 28 July that the total figure for rhinos poached in the country since January this year, is 152. This figure encompasses the latest number of rhino poached in provincial parks and private reserves as well.

The Kruger National Park (KNP) alone has lost one black rhino and 65 white rhinos to poachers since Janu-ary. The Provincial Parks suffered a loss of three black rhinos and 42 white rhinos while private game own-ers lost one black rhino and 40 white rhinos.

SANParks confirmed that they also add rhino calves that are found dead as a result of their mothers being poached, to the total figure as it has a high probability of death when left alone. This is considered poaching at a secondary level.

The estimated population of white rhinos for the country as a whole at 2009 was 19 409, while the black rhi-no population figures were at 1 678.

“Perhaps it is no longer appropriate to refer to this spate of illegal killing of rhinos as poaching given the levels of sophistication, violence, precision and the money behind it. We are deal-ing with unprecedented high levels of organised crime which the Police and all security agencies are helping to defeat,” said Dr David Mabunda, chief executive of SANParks. “We have worked hard as a country, to bring this species back from the brink of extinction and we will continue to defend it even if we become the last man standing,” added Dr Mabunda.


Vietnamese citizen jailed for possession

of rhino horn

A Vietnamese citizen, Xuan Hoang, has been sentenced to 10 years in jail, with no option of a fine. Magistrate Prince Man-yathi convicted Hoang on seven counts of illegal possession of rhino horn in terms of the National Environmental Management: Biodiversity Act, 10 of 2004 as well as for fraud in terms of the Criminal Procedures Act 51 of 1977.

The police arrested him at O.R. Tambo International Airport on the 29th of March 2010, whilst in possession of 16 kilograms of rhino horn, representing four poached rhino and worth approximately R900 000.00. The South African Revenue Ser-vice officers assisting the Organised Crime Unit (HAWKS) as well as the Environmen-tal Management Inspectors (EMIs) of the Gauteng Department of Agriculture and Rural Development (GDARD) during the investigation of the case, believe that the street value was probably closer to R2 mil-lion.

Magistrate Manyathi said that he wanted to send a strong message to Vietnam with this sentence, as fines did not seem to be a deterrent to them.

He also stressed the fact that Xuan Ho-ang had travelled to South Africa specifical-ly to commit a crime with self-enrichment as motivation without taking the effect of the damage into consideration.

This ten year penalty for possession of rhino horn sets a new precedent in the war against rhino poachers. In a previous case in the Bloemfontein Regional Court in 2009 a Vietnamese Citizen was convicted for the illegal possession of four rhino horns, but the penalty handed down was a R50 000.00 fine or 12 months imprisonment and a fur-ther two years suspended for five years.

These penalties are not a hindrance to poachers against the value of the horn on the black market and often the accused will be back to commit the same crimes.

The Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT)

applauded the conviction. According to the EWT statement Vietnamese nationals have been involved in legal hunts of White Rhino as a means of acquiring rhino horn legally, when, in 2003, the first hunt took place and the horns were legally exported to Vietnam. Since then they have hunted sev-eral hundred white rhino with the assistance of a number of unscrupulous South African hunting outfitters and professional hunters.

A number of illegal hunts were also de-tected and during July 2006 a South African hunting outfitter and his wife were arrested for their part in the illegal hunting of four white rhino in the Limpopo province.

A taxidermist from Mosselbay, who orga-nized the hunt on behalf of a kingpin in the Vietnamese smuggling syndicate, was also arrested in December 2003 and charged together with the hunting outfitter and his wife for illegal hunting and fraud. While un-der arrest and formally charged for illegal activities with rhino hunting and smuggling in Limpopo, the same outfitter was found guilty of illegal possession of two rhino horns in the Free State during 2007.

He was sentenced to R20, 000 or two years and the R180, 000 cash found in his vehicle at the time of arrest as well as the two rhino horns were forfeited to the State.

He was again apprehended for illegal possession and conveyance of four rhino horns in the Western Cape during 2009 where he entered into a plea agreement and was sentenced to a R50, 000 fine. This is a prime example of the ineffectiveness of inadequate sentences as a deterrent against serious environmental crime.

On national level, South Africa’s min-ister of environmental and water affairs, Buyelwa Sonjica, established a National Wildlife Crime Reaction Unit, which is an amalgamation of members of the Environ-mental Management Inspectorate (EMIs), the HAWKS, the National Prosecuting Au-thority (NPA) and the Endangered Wildlife Trust’s Rhino Security Project.

They are mandated by the Minister of Environmental Affairs to focus on eradicat-ing wildlife crimes and more specifically the rhino poaching syndicates.

The task facing the newly established National Wildlife Crime Reaction Unit is a daunting one. Organised Environmental Crimes present many complications such as the use of silenced weapons, dart guns and lately helicopters for their poaching of rhi-no, but also in the past for removing cycads from their natural state.

The EWT’s Rhino Security Project is as-sisting private landowners to combat the threats from organised crime syndicates by establishing a functional communications

early warning network, and establishing links with Aviation Clubs to assist with find-ing the helicopter pilots participating

Five poaching suspects arrested in Kruger

The South African National Parks (SAN-Parks) Environmental Crime Investigation (ECI) team and rangers arrested four sus-pected poachers in the Kruger National Park (KNP) on Saturday, 10 July 2010.

The suspects were found in possession of two freshly chopped rhino horns, an AK 47 assault and a Mosin Nagant bolt action rifles (both with ammunition) and an axe.

In the course of the operation, rang-ers found a newly killed rhino carcass with horns already chopped off. The four sus-pected poachers were found immediately after near the Manyeleti Dam and arrested on the spot.

The four suspects, who are all of Mozam-bican origin, admitted to having camped in the park overnight. It is suspected that they may be linked to other poaching incidents in the park.

Dr David Mabunda, Chief Executive Of-ficer of SANParks, made a further request to members of the public to continue assist-ing authorities by reporting any suspicious behaviour.

“It is unfortunate that we could not save this young rhino female in time but are convinced that with the added pressure we are putting in protecting our resources the poachers are feeling the pressure and we will prevail”, said Dr Mabunda.

Another suspect was arrested on Monday, July 12.

The suspect was found after the rangers heard a suspicious shot being fired in the park and traced the origin.

The suspect had a hunting rifle in his pos-session. At the time of reporting no dead animal had been found in the vicinity.

Sending a strong warning, Dr David Mabunda, Chief Executive Officer of SAN-Parks said “poachers and their rich bosses sitting in air-conditioned luxury homes in the leafy suburbs of our metropolitan cit-ies must know we are after them”. ‘We will hunt them in the bushes, in the cities, air-ports and internationally”.

SANParks and the South African con-servation fraternity continues to request the support and cooperation of all mem-bers of society in identifying and report-ing suspicious behaviour that could lead to the apprehension and conviction of these criminals.

Newsclips

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Buffalo kills hiker in Mountain Zebra National Park

Four hikers were attacked by a buf-falo bull on a hiking trail in Mountain Zebra National Park (MZNP) earlier this month (July 2010). All four hikers were injured in the attack and one of the party, Johan Schmidt died at the scene of the accident.

The buffalo attacked the group at about 11:15 shortly after they started walking on the Imbila Hiking Trail.

The other three hikers, Marie Schmidt, wife of the deceased, and Sam and Marianne Sieberhagen, were transported to Cradock Hospi-tal after receiving attention from park staff and paramedics at the scene.

Park rangers followed the spoor of the lone buffalo bull from the scene of the accident but were unable to lo-cate the animal.

Rangers suspect the buffalo’s un-usually aggressive behaviour may in-dicate that it is sick or injured.

Hiking trails had been closed un-til further notice. South African Na-tional Parks (SANParks) will conduct an investigation into the incident and following this, determine whether hiking trails in the Park will be re-opened.

Black rhino moved to Tanzania

South African National Parks (SANParks) facilitated the transloca-tion of five black rhino, Diceros Bicor-nis Michaeli, Tanzania’s Grumeti in the Serengeti National Park.

This was the first batch of 32 that will eventually end up in Tanzania.

The five animals were transported by air on a Lockhead Hercules C130 from Thaba Tholo, a private nature reserve in Limpopo, South Africa.

About 20 years ago, eight of these eastern Diceros Bicornis Michaeli spe-cies, which is not indigenous in South Africa, were imported to the country and kept at the Addo Elephant Na-tional Park, and then sold to Thaba Tholo.

Japan’s princess Takamado recently visited several important bird sites in South Africa. The princess has been the honorary president of BirdLife

International since 2004.Her first stop was at the Marievale Bird

Sanctuary and Suikerbosrand Nature Re-serve. She was accompanied by Mark An-derson, executive director and Peter Sul-livan, chairman of BirdLife South Africa.

Marievale, an international Ramsar site and an Important Bird Area, is threatened by polluted mine water which is being dis-charged into the Blesbokspruit from the Au-rora Mine.

In his presentation during the visit, Stan Madden, who has since 1948 been actively involved in the monitoring of waterbirds at Marievale and has campaigned for its conservation, highlighted the severe threats to Marievale which have resulted in this wetland being mlisted on the Montreaux Record (a list of Ramsar sites which have undergone a serious deterioration in eco-logical character).

At Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve, also an Important Bird Area, princess Takama-do joined Dr Craig Whittington-Jones and his team who were conducting an African Grass-owl survey.

Princess Takamado explores South Africa’s bird life

Mark Anderson, executive direc-tor, BirdLife South Africa, Peter Sul-livan, chairman, BirdLife South Africa and Her Imperial Highness Prin-cess Takamado at Suikerbosrand Nature Reserve.

Below: Dr Precious Moloi-Motsepe, pa-tron, BirdLife South Africa, and Her Imperial Highness Princess Takamado at the gala dinner in Johannesburg.


About 15 000 species of medicinal plants are globally threatened from, amongst others, loss of habitat, overexploitation, inva-

sive species and pollution. Medicinal plants provide income and healthcare to thou-sands of people around the world. Great-er numbers of people rely on traditional medicine, mostly based on herbs, for their primary healthcare than ‘conventional’ or western medicine.

To conserve this valuable natural re-source, IUCN, Plantlife International and TRAFFIC are calling for governments to endorse a revised and updated Global Strat-egy for Plant Conservation, which aims to halt the continuing loss of the world’s plant diversity.

“Medicinal plants secure the livelihood and healthcare of thousands. They are also the key to the conservation of whole habi-tats which underpin healthy resilient eco-systems, and which can help combat serious problems we face such as soil erosion and flooding, as well as mitigate the effects of climate change,” says Jane Smart, Director, IUCN Biodiversity Conservation Group.

Around 80 percent of people in Africa use traditional medicine for primary health-care. 323,000 households in Nepal alone are involved in the collection of wild me-dicinal plants to sell for their livelihoods.

Addressing issues such as site manage-ment, rights over resources, encouraging cultivation, developing local resource cen-tres, collecting information on medicinal plant markets and improving terms with traders are all key to stopping more plants becoming threatened with extinction under

criteria for the IUCN Red List of Threat-ened Species™.

“The key to conserving medicinal plants lies in involving indigenous and local com-munities because they are the ones who know and value plant resources the most,“ says Roland Melisch, Global Programme Co-ordinator, TRAFFIC.

“Medicinal plants are highly valued by

communities all over the world. It is es-sential in the next decade that we work to-wards sustainable collection of this valuable resource, not only for nature conservation but for the well-being and livelihoods of in-digenous local communities who depend on those resources’ says Elizabeth Radford, In-ternational Programme Manager, Plantlife International.

Medicinal plants need revised care plan

The marula tree, Sclerocarya birrea, is one of South Africa’s most utilised plants. The fruit is used for the brewing of beer and juice, as well as jelly and jam.The seed contains edible nuts, from which oil can be pressed to be used as a preservative. Bark, root and leave decoc-tions are used to treat dys-entry and diabetes. Furniture is produced from the wood. Photo: Lynette Strauss

Newsclips


Camdeboo National Park to Develop Bushcamp and Campsite

South African National Parks

(SANParks) hopes to open a news bushcamp in the Camdeboo National Park in the Eastern Cape by the end of 2010. Construction has already started and plans include four to six safari-style tents on fixed wooden decks at the park’s existing Ganna-lapa facility. The tents, which will accommodate two people each, will be provisioned with rustic furnishings including beds and bedding.

“The Bushcamp will provide visi-tors with a rustic nature experience,” said Park Manager, Peter Burdett.

The existing facilities at Ganna-lapa, including a kitchen/bar, toilet block and braai area will be available for communal use by the residents of the bushcamp.

A second phase of the plan will see the development of ten to twelve camping sites with a communal ab-lution block in the Acacia woodland area adjacent to Gannalapa.

According to Burdett, the use of the Gannalapa facility by local peo-ple for group functions has declined over the past period. In contrast, the demand for camping areas managed by SANParks has increased by about 20 percent and Camdeboo National Park regularly receives enquiries from visitors for camping and caravanning facilities.

Traditionally Camdeboo National Park – which surrounds the town of Graaff-Reinet - has not offered visi-tors accommodation facilities due to the large variety of accommoda-tion on offer in the town. Burdett stressed that the planned bushcamp and campsite would complement the range of facilities available to visitors and is not expected to compete with established business interests in town.

“SANParks has the full support of the Graaff-Reinet Tourism Associa-tion for this project, after detailed dis-cussions were held,” said Burdett. He hopes the Bushcamp will be complete by the end of August 2010.

African penguins have been slid-ing towards extinction since in-dustrial fishing started around the Cape. The last four years

have seen a population crash, leading Bird-Life

International to change their conserva-tion status to ‘Endangered’.

Each year BirdLife International revis-es the Red List for the bird species of the world. On May 26 they announced that the African penguin has gone from vulnerable to endangered. This assessment is based on rigorous criteria; for the penguin, the pop-ulation has crashed by more than 50 per-cent in the past 30 years, signalling a strong warning to conservationists.

BirdLife International report that recent data have revealed that the African penguin is undergoing a very rapid population de-cline, probably as a result of commercial fisheries and shifts in prey populations. Worryingly, the assessment notes that this trend shows no sign of reversing, and im-mediate conservation action is required to prevent further declines.

In 1956, the first full census of the spe-cies was conducted, and about 150 000 pairs were counted. These were the birds that had survived more than a century of sustained persecu-tion, principally from egg collecting and guano scraping. In 2009, after another decrease (the global popula-tion fell another 10 percent from the 2008 count), there were only 26 000 pairs. Those numbers represent a loss of more than 80 percent of the pairs in just over 50 years, equivalent to around 90 birds a week, every week since 1956!

“The colonies around our coast have shrunk to dangerously small numbers.” said Dr

Ross Wanless, seabird division man-ager for BirdLife South Africa. “Now the colonies are very vulnerable to small-scale events, such as bad weath-er, seal predation or seagulls taking eggs. In a large, healthy population these events were trivial. Now, they have potentially serious consequences. We’re almost at the point of manag-ing individual birds,” he continued.

Dr Rob Crawford, chief scientist

for Marine and Coastal Management, the government department responsible for monitoring and protecting seabirds, has worked on the African Penguins for more than 30 years. He said “While it’s difficult to prove exactly what has caused the de-creases, all the indications are that the pen-guins are struggling to find enough sardines and anchovies. A huge amount is done to protect penguins from other threats, but the decreases have continued unabated.”

Earlier this year, research lead by Dr Lorien Pichegru, from the Percy FitzPatrick

Institute at the University of Cape Town, reported on preliminary results from a study on the impacts of closing fishing ar-eas around key penguin breeding islands. Their study suggests that preventing fish-ing directly around the penguin islands may well provide benefits to the penguins. Marine and Coastal Management has com-missioned a team to consider how closures could be implemented to benefit the pen-guins while minimising the impacts on the fishing industry and fisher’s livelihoods.

Photo: Ben Parer, Stock Exchange

African penguin on endangered list


The Global Biodiversity Outlook is published every four years and is the product of close collabo-ration between the Secretariat

of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the United Nations Environ-ment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre.

The third edition (GBO-3), released in May this year and available for download at http://gbo3.cbd.int, demonstrates that the target set by world governments in 2002, “to achieve by 2010 a significant reduc-tion of the current rate of biodiversity loss at the global, regional and national level,” has not been met. The consequences will be severe if we do not quickly correct this state of affairs. The services and goods that nature provides such as the food we eat, the water we drink and the air that we breathe, will be lost if the current rate of biodiver-sity loss continues, with drastic impacts on livelihoods, human health, economies and our way of life.

GBO-3 will be a key to discussions by world leaders and heads of state at a spe-cial high level segment of the United Na-tions General Assembly on 22 September 2010. It will also most likely form the basis for discussions on the strategic plan being considered for the next decade of the CBD, to be agreed at the 10th meeting of the Con-ference of Parties to the CBD in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010.

Some sobering facts on biodi-versity loss as extracted from the GBO-3:

• On average, assessed species risk are moving closer to extinction. Am-phibians face the greatest risk, while corals are deteriorating most rapidly in status. Nearly a quarter of plants are threatened with extinction.

• The wild vertebrate population fell by an average of 31 percent globally between 1970 and 2006.

• Farmland bird populations in Eu-rope have declined by on average 50 percent since 1980.

• Of the 1 200 waterbird populations with known trends, 44 percent are in decline.

• While significant progress has been made in slowing the rate of loss for tropical forests and mangroves in some regions, freshwater wetlands,

sea ice habitats, salt marshes, coral reefs, seagrass beds and shell-fish reefs are all show-ing serious declines in extent and integrity.

• Crop and livestock ge-netic diversity in agri-cultural systems is still declining.

• By 1985 between 56 and 65 percent of in-land water systems suit-able for use in intensive agriculture in Europe and North America had been drained. Fig-ures for Asia and South America were 27 per-cent and 6 percent re-spectively.

• 73 percent of marshes in northern Greece have been drained since 1930.

• 60 percent of the origi-nal wetland area of Spain has been lost.

• Iraq’s Mesopotamian marshes lost more than 90 percent of their origi-nal extent between the 1970s and 2002, following a massive and sys-tematic drainage project. Following the fall of the former Iraqi regime in 2003 many drainage structures have been dismantled, and the marshes were reflooded to approximately 58 percent of their former extent by the end of 2006, with a significant recov-ery of marsh vegetation.

• About 80 percent of the world ma-rine fish stocks for which assessment information is available are fully ex-ploited or overexploited.

The economic value of biodiversity:• The southern Africa tourism indus-

try was estimated to be worth US$ 3.6 billion in 2000. This is mostly through wildlife viewing, and shows the importance of protecting areas capable of sustaining wildlife.

• Insects that carry pollen between crops are worth an estimated US$ 200 billion per year to the global food economy. Yet these insects are

threatened by pesticides, habitat loss and invasive species, amongst others.

• Water catchment services to New Zealand’s Otago region provided by tussock grass habitats in the 22 000 hectare Te Papanui Conservation Park are valued at more than US$95 million, based on the cost of provid-ing water by other means.

• The Muthurajawela Marsh, a coastal wetland located in a densely popu-lated area of Northern Sri Lanka, is estimated to be worth US$150 per hectare for its services related to agriculture, fishing and firewood, US$1,907 per hectare for prevent-ing flood damage, and US$654 per hectare for industrial and domestic waste-water treatment.

• Southern Africa’s Okavango Delta generates about US$32 million per year to local households in Botswana through use of its natural resources, sales and income from the tourism industry.

• The total economic output of ac-tivities associated with the delta is estimated at more than US$145 million, or some 2.6 percent of Bo-tswana’s gross national product. Photo: Lynette Strauss

World fails to meet biodiversity loss targets


Newsclips

Minister to chair WEF tourism council

South Africa’s tourism minis-ter Marthinus van Schalkwyk has been appointed to chair the World Economic Forum (WEF)’s Tourism Council until next year.

According to the government’s Bua News, Van Schalkwyk, who has been part of the South African delegation to Davos for the past two years, was invited by executive chairman Profes-sor Klaus Schwab, to chair the Avia-tion, Travel and Tourism Industry Agenda Council.

The minister said he was honoured to be part of the council, adding that it plays a vital role in facilitating de-bate and to advise the WEF and the international community on emerg-ing issues in his portfolio.

The key challenge, he said, was to break out of the silo mentality that still exists in some quarters. He re-garded the tourism and aviation sec-tors as interdependent.

“The two sectors share many chal-lenges, barriers and opportunities ... Pertinent issues currently on the global agenda are firstly how trav-el, tourism and aviation can play a leadership role in the transition to a greener economy and secondly how these sectors can contribute to an eq-uitable global trade expansion,” van Schalkwyk said.

The councils, such as the one van Schalkwyk will chair, are fully inte-grated into the WEF Community.

They are also integrated into the Global Agenda Partnership, which brings together the world’s foremost experts in an ongoing and collabora-tive process to address global, region-al and industry challenges.

Specifically, they monitor key trends, identify global risks, map in-terrelationships and address knowl-edge gaps.

From medicine to musical instru-ments and from fashion and beau-ty products to delicacies, wildlife items in trade must be properly

regulated to ensure the continued survival of animals and plants in the wild.

This is the main message from the Con-vention on International Trade in Endan-gered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which celebrated its 35th anni-versary on 1 July 2010.

“While not a single one of some 34,000 CITES-listed species has become extinct as a result of international trade until now, growing pressures on biological resources make regulating global wildlife trade even more relevant today than it was in 1975 when countries brought this unprecedented global treaty into force”, said CITES Sec-retary-General John Scanlon.

Global wildlife trade has increased significantly since 1975. CITES Trade Database, which reg-isters legal trade in wildlife, holds over 10 million records of trade, with an average of 850,000 permits to trade in a CITES-list-ed species issued an-nually by the Conven-tion’s member States.

CITES-listed spe-cies that are traded in significant volumes include species as di-verse as orchids, croc-odiles and sea shells. More recently, CITES has been used to ad-dress the precarious situation of marine and timber species, such as the great white shark and mahogany.

The Web-based CITES Trade Data Dashboards, unveiled on the occasion of this anniversary, use the trade data from the annual reports of the Parties to provide an instant overview of

the magnitude of wildlife trade per country and per species group, such as mammals, birds or fish.

For instance, the Dashboard provides a way to see general trends, such as “trade volume over time”; “top 10 trading part-ners”, “top 5 items” and “trade by source (e.g. wild or captive breeding)”.

“The International Year of Biodiversity offers an opportunity to both reflect upon the past successes and mobilize efforts to address current and future challenges. CITES has a proven track record in man-aging wildlife trade internationally.

Its ongoing relevance and ability to adapt to changing circumstances are essential to the conservation and sustainable use of wildlife,” concluded Scanlon.

Photo: Katy Johnson, Sanhu

Wildlife trade regulation needed more than ever


The world is a cooler, wetter place be-cause of flowering plants, according to new climate simulation results published in the June 2010 journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B. The effect is especially pronounced in the Amazon basin, where replacing flowering plants with non-flower-ing varieties would result in an 80 percent decrease in the area covered by ever-wet rainforest.

The simulations demonstrate the im-portance of flowering-plant physiology to climate regulation in ever-wet rainforest, regions where the dry season is short or non-existent, and where biodiversity is greatest.

“The vein density of leaves within the flowering plants is much, much higher than all other plants,” said the study’s lead au-thor, C. Kevin Boyce, Associate Professor in Geophysical Sciences at the University of Chicago. “That actually matters physi-ologically for both taking in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere for photosynthesis and also the loss of water, which is transpiration. The two necessarily go together. You can’t take in CO2 without losing water.”

This higher vein density in the leaves means that flowering plants are highly effi-cient at transpiring water from the soil back into the sky, where it can return to earth as rain.

“That whole recycling process is depen-dent upon transpiration, and transpira-tion would have been much, much lower in the absence of flowering plants,” Boyce said. “We can know that because no leaves throughout the fossil record approach the vein densities seen in flowering plant leaves.”

For most of biological history there were no flowering plants—known scientifically as angiosperms. They evolved about 120 mil-lion years ago, during the Cretaceous Pe-

riod, and took another 20 million years to become prevalent. Flowering species were latecomers to the world of vascular plants, a group that includes ferns, club mosses and confers. But angiosperms now enjoy a posi-tion of world domination among plants.

“They’re basically everywhere and every-thing, unless you’re talking about high alti-tudes and very high latitudes,” Boyce said.

Dinosaurs walked the Earth when flower-ing plants evolved, and various studies have attempted to link the dinosaurs’ extinction or at least their evolutionary paths to flow-ering plant evolution. “Those efforts are always very fuzzy, and none have gained much traction,” Boyce said.

Boyce and Lee are, nevertheless, working toward simulating the climatic impact of flowering plant evolution in the prehistoric world. But simulating the Cretaceous Earth would be a complex undertaking because the planet was warmer, the continents sat in different alignments and carbon- dioxide concentrations were different.

“The world now is really very different from the world 120 million years ago,” Boyce said.

Building the Supercom-puter Simulation

So as a first step, Boyce and co-author with Jung-Eun Lee, Postdoctoral Scholar in Geophysical Sciences at UChicago, ex-amined the role of flowering plants in the modern world. Lee, an atmospheric scien-tist, adapted the National Center for At-mospheric Research Community Climate Model for the study.

Driven by more than one million lines of code, the simulations computed air motion

over the entire globe at a resolution of 300 square kilometers. Lee ran the simulations on a supercomputer at the National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center in Berkeley, Calif.

“The motion of air is dependent on tem-perature distribution, and the temperature distribution is dependent on how heat is dis-tributed,” Lee said. “Evapo-transpiration is very important to solve this equation. That’s why we have plants in the model.”

The simulations showed the importance of flowering plants to water recycling. Rain falls, plants drink it up and pass most of it out of their leaves and back into the sky.

In the simulations, replacing flowering plants with non-flowering plants in eastern North America reduced rainfall by up to 40 percent. The same replacement in the Am-azon basin delayed onset of the monsoon from October 26 to January 10.

“Rainforest deforestation has long been shown to have a somewhat similar effect,” Boyce said. Transpiration drops along with loss of rainforest, “and you actually lose rainfall because of it.”

Studies in recent decades have suggested a link between the diversity of organisms of all types, flowering plants included, to the abundance or rainfall and the vastness of tropical forests. Flowering plants, it seems, foster and perpetuate their own diversity, and simultaneously bolster the diversity of animals and other plants generally. Indeed, multiple lineages of plants and animals flourished shortly after flowering plants be-gan dominating tropical ecosystems.

The climate-altering physiology of flow-ering plants might partly explain this phe-nomenon, Boyce said. “There would have been rainforests before flowering plants existed, but they would have been much smaller,” he said.

Flower power makes tropics wetter


Finding water to create new energy requires an investment of old en-ergy, researchers say. “No matter what kind of energy you want to

create, from biofuels to nuclear to fossil fuel extraction and processing, you need water.”

It’s a classic case of the chicken and the egg, but researchers believe solving it will trigger a revolution in sustainable energy.

“To get energy, you need water, and to get water where you want it, you need energy,” says John Gasper, strategic area manager of the environmental assessment division at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory.

“There are opportunities within both cy-cles for basic science and the development of new technology to improve efficiency and bring us closer to energy independence.”

Gasper coordinates Argonne’s work on an environmental and economic concept known as the Energy-Water Nexus (EWN).

Finding water to create new energy para-doxically requires an investment of old en-ergy.

Three percent of energy nationwide is used for the transportation and condition-ing of water. In some arid parts of the US, like California, it’s significantly more.

Researchers focus on discovering and processing previously unusable sources of water—one with the most potential can be found deep underground in oil and coal mines.

While mines don’t seem like the most likely source of water, they may significantly help to reduce the demand for freshwater from heavily taxed rivers and reservoirs.

“If you are a com-pany that needs water, and you can’t get it out of a river or out of a well, you are go-ing to have to get cre-ative to find new ways to get it,” says John Veil, manager of Ar-gonne’s Water Policy Program.

“If you have to move water or clean the water, the cost goes up.”

Over time, ground-water can seep into the mine, where it be-comes contaminated with the natural met-als and other poison-ous compounds.

Underground hard coal mines—espe-cially those in an-thracite-rich regions like central Pennsyl-vania—often contain huge cavities that can get easily filled up with groundwater. Sometimes the water is fairly clean and can be easily filtered for impurities, but often the water is so con-taminated that it can create significant en-vironmental hazards.

Argonne, in con-

junction with DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory, has spent much of the past three years trying to find ways to recycle contaminated or polluted water for several different uses—most notably the cooling of power plants.

“We hope that this water stays in the mines as part of the natural groundwater,” Veil says, “but sometimes so much of it ac-cumulates that it overflows into the surface water streams, polluting them with acid and iron. We’ve been working on finding a way to put that water to good use while simul-taneously relieving the burden on the envi-ronment.”

In the initial study, Veil found six power plants located in Pennsylvania coal country that had either already introduced impaired water as a cooling source or had the poten-tial to benefit from doing so.

In the most interesting case, a large nu-clear plant near Philadelphia had been tak-ing immense quantities of water from the Schuylkill River for cooling.

At times of drought, the river stood so low that there was not enough water avail-able to cool the plant, so its operators had to obtain it through a complicated and expen-sive transfer process. Desperate to bring down costs, the power company “did some homework,” according to Veil.

“The power company identified an up-stream coal mine that was special because it that it had a lot of water that was clean enough that it didn’t need treatment before it could be discharged into the environ-ment,” he explains.

“So the power and mining companies agreed to withdraw a certain amount of water from the mine, place it in the river, and use it to supplement the river flow, es-sentially using nature as the transfer mecha-nism.”

Argonne’s quest to quench the thirst of other water-needy energy suppliers may not involve ultramodern technology or avant-garde experimental techniques, but Veil predicts the results will be truly transforma-tive.

“The work we’re doing is going to en-courage power companies and other energy sources that require water to look more closely at water supplies that they might not have considered previously,” Veil says.

“When there aren’t any more supplies of fresh water, we’re generating new methods and new opportunities that will bring us closer to a fully sustainable energy future.”

photo: Lynette Strauss

Which comes first: Water or energy?


A catalogue detailing 1.25 million species of organisms across the world released a special edition to mark the International Year

of Biodiversity.The Catalogue of Life Special 2010 Edi-

tion is the most complete and integrated species list known to man. It has 77 databas-es feeding into an inventory of 1,257,735 species of plants, animals, fungi and micro-organisms associated with 2,369,683 names.

The Catalogue is recognised by the CBD and its latest developments are funded by the EC e-Infrastructures Programme (4D4Life project). The programme involves 82 partner organisations across the globe and is led by Professor Frank Bisby of the School of Biological Sciences at the Univer-

sity of Reading, UK.

This new edi-tion encompasses more groups of organisms and has enhanced user functions and display fea-tures, allowing for easier access and searching of species names, relationships and additional in-formation. The catalogue is a free electronic resource used by thousands of re-searchers, profes-sionals, projects and portals world-

wide and its website (www.catalogueoflife.org) receives 40 million hits a year.

Case studiesGhost orchid, Dendrophylax lindenii There are over 26,801 known species of

orchid in the world. The Catalogue of Life names every one. Orchids can be found globally, even above the Arctic Circle.

Vanilla is an orchid. Orchids have devel-oped highly specialised pollination systems and thus the chances of being pollinated are often scarce.

Many orchids are rare and threatened – like this stunning . (Sector supplied and maintained in the Catalogue by Royal Bo-tanical Gardens Kew)

Ichneumon There are an astonishing 42,372 known

species of Ichneumonoidea wasps in one of the largest databases in the Catalogue of Life. They are solitary insects, closely relat-ed to ants and bees. Various are used suc-cessfully as biological control agents in con-trolling pests such as flies or beetles. (Sector supplied and maintained in the Catalogue by the Taxapad system of Dicky Yu)

Hummingbird, Mellisuga helenae There are 21,397 known bird species in

the Catalogue of Life. This includes the smallest bird in the world, the male bee ), which is about the size of a large bee. The female bee hummingbird builds a nest that is only about 1 inch in diameter. In this nest she lays her eggs, which are smaller than coffee beans. (Sector supplied and main-tained in the Catalogue by ITIS)

Dragonfly The catalogue holds 5,747 species of

Odonata – dragonflies and damselflies. From fossil records we know that these amazing insects were flying some 300 million years ago, before even dinosaurs roamed the earth.

The prehistoric “giant dragonflies” had wingspans of more than 75 cm (2.5 ft). (Sector supplied and maintained in the Catalogue by Jan van Tol at NCB Natura-lis, Leiden)

The Catalogue of Life is co-ordinated by the international Species 2000 organisation based at University of Reading, UK and the Integrated Taxonomic information Sys-tem (ITIS) based in Washington DC.

Photo: Stock exchange, Palmer W Cook

Catalogue of Life 2010 launched

On 14 June at the 4th Global Botanic Gardens Congress, Botanic Gardens Conserva-tion International (BGCI)

launched a new on-line campaign ‘Plants for the Planet’ to generate public support for plant conservation.

“Our aim is to gather signatures from people around the world in order to en-sure that governments adopt the updated Global Strategy for Plant Conservation at the next Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

Support for the campaign will help us to

send a strong message to the Conference that countries must act now to halt plant extinction,” says Suzanne Sharrock of BGCI.

“The website www.planstfortheplanet.com is now live and we invite you to pledge your support.”

Pledge your support for the planet’s plants


South Africa swept the board at the World Travel Awards Africa and Indian Ocean Gala Ceremony in Johannesburg on Wednesday 7 July,

attended by 1200 senior industry leaders.It was a night of elation – and some dis-

appointment – as the travel and tourism industry’s ‘great and good’ watched South Africa take the spotlight, winning many of the region’s overall categories.

There were awards too for travel com-panies, organisations and destinations in Botswana, Cape Verde, Cameroon, Egypt, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Moroc-co, Mozambique, Namibia, Nigeria, Tuni-sia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The biggest applause of the night though was saved for Dr. Aupindi Tobie Aupindi, managing director of the fast-expanding Namibia Wildlife Resorts, named Africa’s prestigious Tourism Personality of the Year.

Dr Aupindi, currently gearing up to cel-ebrate the Etosha National Park Centenary, a significant milestone in conservation, has been described as “inspiring the next gen-eration of Namibian Leaders”.

South African Airways was voted Africa’s Leading Airline and 1Time Airline, the

budget carrier from Johannesburg, operat-ing low cost flights to airports within South Africa and Zanzibar took the titles of both Africa’s Leading Low-Cost Airline and Af-rica’s Leading Online Tour Operator.

The Hilton Durban took Africa’s Lead-ing Business Hotel; the elegant five-star decadence of The Palazzo Montecasino in Johannesburg won the title Africa’s Leading Casino Resort; and Cape Town walked off with Africa’s Leading Destination.

The internationally renowned Sun City Resort, South Africa won Africa’s Leading Family Resort while Starwood Hotels and Resorts took the title of Africa’s Leading Hotel Group. Arabella Western Cape Hotel and Spa at Hermanus, South Africa, took Africa’s Leading Luxury Hotel and The Westin Grand Cape Town Arabella Quays, South Africa, triumphed as Africa’s Leading Meetings and Conference Hotel; Sandton Sun, one of Johannesburg’s top landmarks was Africa’s Leading Convention Hotel.

Kenya’s luxury getaway resort of Diani Reef Beach and Spa in Mombasa was Af-rica’s Leading Beach Resort and Egypt’s Sharm El Sheikh beat the competition as Africa’s Leading Beach Destination.

The Sheraton Miramar Resort El Gouna Hughada in Egypt took Africa’s Leading Beach Hotel. Morocco’s Palmeraie Golf Palace was voted Africa’s Leading Golf Re-sort.

Thousands VotedThe winners were selected with the help

of thousands of industry professionals worldwide who have been voting online.

Graham E. Cooke, Founder and Presi-dent of World Travel Awards said that in addition to the prestige for their respective companies and destinations, the winners gain considerable commercial benefit from their deserved success.

“Because of their global reach and repu-tation, World Travel Awards are unique and regularly referred to as the ‘Oscars’ of travel and tourism”, said Cooke.

The awards, established 17 years ago, are committed to raising the standards of customer service and overall business per-formance throughout the international in-dustry.

“Customer care and professionalism of African tourism has come a long way in the

years since the World Travel Awards was first started”, added Cooke.

“What is so encour-aging for Africa is that unlike much of the world, the region has determinedly bucked the trend, notably with the sub-Saharan desti-nations which are doing particularly well.”

Winners of the re-gional ceremony will now go on to compete in World Travel Awards 2010 final in London, immediately before World Travel Market on Sunday 7 Novem-ber.

Cape Town was crowned Africa’s Leading Destination.Photo: stock ex-change, Wynand van Niekerk

SA shines at regional World Travel Awards ceremony


Politics influence biodiversity. Po-litical decisions directly impact on man’s interaction with the envi-ronment, through policies ranging

from agriculture to infrastructure.These decisions also influence many rel-

evant socio-economic processes underlying human activities, writes an international team of scientists in the “Atlas of Biodiver-sity Risk”, the first of its kind to be pub-lished.

The Atlas combines the key results of the major European research project ALARM (68 partner organisations in 35 countries in Europe and other continents) with some core outputs of numerous other research networks.

In total, 366 authors from more than 180 institutions in 43 countries contribut-ed to the 280-page Atlas. The publication was presented at the Green Week confer-ence June 2010 in Brussels, to which the European Commission invited around

4,000 participants.The new “Atlas of Biodiversity Risk” is

the first of its kind to summarise the major factors leading to the loss of biodiversity on a European and global level.

The main risks are caused by global cli-mate and land use change and environmen-tal pollution.

The loss of pollinators and the impact of biological invasions are particularly relevant factors, which are given special attention. The impact and consequences of biodiver-sity loss are described with a strong focus on socio-economic factors and their effects on society.

“In all these efforts, it must remain clear that no single policy measure will rescue biodiversity - there is no silver bullet.

Instead, a systematic review of all policy fields is necessary to incorporate biodiver-sity,” says Dr. Josef Settele of the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ), who heads the atlas publication team. “Re-

search results should therefore be used to continuously update programs and develop policies for the long term.”

The `Atlas of Biodiversity Risk´ makes use of three different scenarios for the forecast of effects and the elaboration of potential mitigation options: a) the growth applied strategy (GRAS), b) a Business-As-Might-Be-Usual scenario (BAMBU) and c) a Sustainable European Development Goal (SEDG).

“It is important to understand that scenarios are not predictions,” says Dr. Joachim H. Spangenberg of SERI (Sustain-able Europe Research Institute) Germany, who headed the socio-economic part of the ALARM project. “Scenarios provide a set of reasonable assumptions to help one’s thinking about possible futures and the im-pact of current decisions on future devel-opment. They illustrate what could be the consequences of human decisions.”

photos: Pieter and Lynette Strauss

Politics is a key factor in biodiversity

Want to spot a fake greenie? Watch their body language, next time they claim to care about the environment.

This is according to a new book by Pro-fessor Geoff Beattie, from The University of Manchester, who says mismatches be-tween gestures and speech is key to identify ‘green fakers’, regardless of what they actu-ally say.

His research - for the University’s Sus-tainable Consumption Institute - used video recordings to examine the gestures and speech of people with differing views on the environment while they talked about carbon labelling, global warming and their lifestyles. By examining their gestures, each speaker revealed a fascinating connection between what they were saying and what they actually believed.

In his book, Why Aren’t We Saving The Planet? A Psychologist’s Perspective , launched on June 9, Professor Beattie urged society’s leaders to pursue, understand and change the implicit attitudes which make us buy green products in supermarkets.

For the book, Professor Beattie also exam-ined video footage of former British prime minister Tony Blair and reality show, Big Brother, housemates Adele Roberts and Les Dennis to spot the difference between what they said and what they actually believed.

Professor Beattie, who is head of the Uni-versity’s School of Psychological Sciences, has been resident psychologist on all 10 Big Brother series on British television.

He said: “This material shows for the first time a behaviour clash between what peo-ple espouse openly and explicitly on green attitudes and what they hold unconsciously

and implicitly.“Explicitly, people may want to save the

planet and appear green, but implicitly they may care a good deal less.

“Given it is these implicit attitudes that direct and control much of our behaviour in supermarkets and elsewhere, these are the attitudes that we have to pursue and un-derstand and change.

“While speech can be consciously edited and controlled, gestures are difficult, if not impossible, to edit or control in real time, and so the true thoughts and feelings of the speaker may become manifest in the ges-ture.

”This research shows there are ‘green fak-ers’ out there, who say one thing but believe another. We need to work on the hearts and minds of such individuals to produce atti-tude change.”

Spot the fake greenie



And climate change is the culprit, according to a new analysis of global vegetation shifts led by a University of California, Berke-

ley, ecologist in collaboration with research-ers from the U.S. Department of Agricul-ture Forest Service.

In a paper published in the June 2010 journal Global Ecology and Biogeography, researchers present evidence that over the past century, vegetation has been gradually moving toward the poles and up mountain slopes, where temperatures are cooler, as well as toward the equator, where rainfall is greater.

Moreover, an estimated one-tenth to one-half of the land mass on earth will be high-ly vulnerable to climate-related vegetation shifts by the end of this century, depending upon how effectively humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the study.

The results came from a meta-analysis of hundreds of field studies and a spatial anal-ysis of observed 20th century climate and projected 21st century vegetation.

The meta-analysis identified field studies that examined long-term vegetation shifts in which climate, rather than impacts from local human activity such as deforestation, was the dominant influence.

The researchers found 15 cases of biome shifts since the 18th century that are attrib-utable to changes in temperature and pre-cipitation.

“This is the first global view of observed biome shifts due to climate change,” said the study’s lead author Patrick Gonzalez, a

visiting scholar at the Center for Forestry at UC Berkeley’s College of Natural Resourc-es. “It’s not just a case of one or two plant species moving to another area.

To change the biome of an ecosystem, a whole suite of plants must change.”

The researchers calculated that from 1901 to 2002, mean temperatures signifi-cantly increased on 76 percent of global land, with the greatest warming in boreal, or subarctic, regions.

The most substantial biome shifts oc-curred where temperature or rainfall changed by one-half to two standard devia-tions from 20th century mean values.

Some examples of biome shifts that oc-curred include woodlands giving way to grasslands in the African Sahel, and shrub-lands encroaching onto tundra in the Arc-tic.

“The dieback of trees and shrubs in the Sahel leaves less wood for houses and cook-ing, while the contraction of Arctic tundra reduces habitat for caribou and other wild-life,” said Gonzalez, who has served as a lead author on reports of the Intergovern-mental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“Globally, vegetation shifts are disrupt-ing ecosystems, reducing habitat for endan-gered species, and altering the forests that supply water and other services to many people.”

To identify the areas most vulnerable to future vegetation shifts, the researchers combined statistical analyses of observed climate data from the 20th century with models of vegetation change in the 21st century.

Based upon nine different combinations of IPCC greenhouse gas emissions sce-narios and climate models, the researchers divided the world’s land into five classes – from very high to very low – of vulnerability to biome shifts.

“Scientists had not quantified this risk before,” said Gonzalez. “We developed a simple classification system that natural resource management agencies can use to identify regions in greatest need of atten-tion and planning.

We have worked with the U.S.D.A. Forest Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser-vice to explore the application of our results to adaptation of natural resource manage-ment.”

Gonzalez said that because of limited re-sources, it may be prudent to focus on pro-tecting areas of greater resilience to ecologi-cal changes so that they can serve as refuges for plants and animals.

“It is also useful to identify places of high-er vulnerability, because agencies will need to consider adaptation measures for vulner-able ecosystems,” he said.

“Some shifts in vegetation could increase fuel for wildfires, for example, so prescribed burning may be necessary to reduce the risk of catastrophic fires.”

“Approximately one billion people now live in areas that are highly to very highly vulnerable to future vegetation shifts,” said Gonzalez.

“Ecosystems provide important services to people, so we must reduce the emissions that cause climate change, then adapt to major changes that might occur.”

Vegetation around the world is on the move

Buyelwa Sonjica, Minister of Water and Environmental Affairs and eight MECs responsible for envi-ronmental affairs from Gauteng,

North West, Eastern Cape, Mpumalanga, Limpopo, Northern Cape, Free State, Kwa-zulu-Natal and the Western Cape signed the Grasslands Declaration committing Government to the conservation of grass-lands Biodiversity in July 2010.

The Declaration is an effort to collabo-rate efforts in pursuit of biodiversity targets and objectives in securing and sustaining the ecosystem services of the grasslands biome. The Declaration also intends to

involve a wide range of interested and af-fected parties, including local communities and resource users, in the management and conservation of biodiversity in the grass-lands biome.

The South African grasslands biome is the second largest biome in South Africa, covering an area of 339 237 km² and it oc-curs in eight of South Africa’s nine prov-inces. The grasslands biome is one of the most threatened biomes in South Africa, with 30% irreversibly transformed and only 1.9% of the biodiversity target for the bi-ome formally conserved.

Sonjica said, “Several of South Africa’s

priority river catchments occur in the grass-lands biome, including the Thukela River catchment.

Good management of South Africa’s mountain grasslands will result in more wa-ter released back into the river catchment system in the form of 12, 8 cubic meters of water in winter riverflows. In rand value, this equates to between R18 million and R88, 7 million per annum.”

The Grasslands Programme is man-aged through the South African Na-tional Biodiversity Institute (SANBI) in collaboration with the Department of Environmental Affairs.

Declaration signed to protect country’s grasslands


By examining bill sizes of a diverse range of bird species around the world, research-ers at the University of Mel-

bourne, Australia and Brock Univer-sity, Canada.

have found that birds with larger bills tend to be found in hot environ-ments, whilst birds in colder environ-ments have evolved smaller bills.

The study led by Dr Matt Symonds of the department of zoology at the University of Melbourne and Dr Glenn Tattersall of the department of biological sciences at Brock Universi-ty provides evidence that maintaining body temperature in a bird’s natural environment may have shaped the evolution of bird bills.

The size and shape of these distinc-tive structures are usually explained by their role in feeding and mate at-traction. However, previous research shows bird bills have a third, less ap-preciated function, as organs of heat ex-change.

Dr Glenn Tattersall says we know, from our thermal imaging studies that birds like toucans and geese can lose a large amount of their body heat through their bills.

“Unlike humans they don’t sweat but can use their bills to help reduce their body tem-perature if they overheat.”

“We then wondered whether this func-tion had evolutionary consequences, and sought to compare bill sizes across a whole range of species,” says Dr Tattersall.

The 214 species examined comprised diverse groups including toucans, African barbets and tinkerbirds, Australian parrots, grass finches, Canadian gamebirds, pen-

guins, gulls and terns.“Across all species, there were strong links

between bill length and both latitude, alti-tude and environmental temperature,” Dr Matt Symonds says. “Species that have to deal with colder temperatures have smaller bills.”

“This suggests that there is an evolution-ary connection between the size of the birds’ bills and their role in heat manage-ment,” he says.

Although it’s possible that large bills have evolved to help shed heat loads and prevent overheating in hot climates, we think it’s more likely that cold temperatures impose a constraint on the size of bird beaks,” Dr Tattersall says.

“It simply might be too much of a liabil-ity to carry around a big radiator of heat energy in a cold environment.”

The research validates a 133-year-old ecological theory called Allen’s rule, which predicts that animal appendages like limbs, ears, and tails are smaller in cold climates in order to minimize heat loss.

Dr Symonds says Allen’s rule has never been tested with this large a group of ani-mals and was more anecdotal.

“This is the first rigorous study of its kind to test this theory and to show that bird bills have evolved in this manner.”

The paper is published online in the Au-gust 2010 edition of the journal American Naturalist.

Bills smaller to cope better with cold

The amount of rain affects whether more male African buffalo, than female buffalo, are born in Kruger National Park, scientists said.

Data collected from more than 200 buf-falo calves and 3,000 fetuses showed an in-creased proportion of male African buffa-lo were born during the rainy season, said researchers from Wageningen University, The Netherlands.

The data, collected between 1978 and 1998 suggests ejaculate volume, sperm motility and proportion of normal-shaped sperm decrease significantly during the dry season, when more females are born.

“Sex ratios were male-biased during wet periods and female-biased during dry periods, both seasonally and annually,” re-searcher Pim van Hooft wrote in a recent edition of BMC Evolutionary Biology.

Rain affects sex ratio of African buffalo


Fish nets join mosquito nets against malaria

New drugs to fight malaria may well lie at the bottom of the ocean, according to researchers studying over 2,500 samples from marine or-ganisms collected at depths of over 900 metres. They have already found 300 that contain substances that can kill the parasite.

“Healing powers for one of the world’s deadliest diseases may lie within sponges, sea worms and other underwater creatures,” said an inter-nal publication by the University of Central Florida (UCF) after a study of samples collected off the Florida coast in the United States with the help of the Harbor Branch Oceano-graphic Institute in Fort Pierce, Flor-ida.

“So far we have a hit rate of over 10 percent,” said Debopam Chakrab-arti, Professor of Molecular Biology and Microbiology at UCF, who is leading the research. He was “quite enthused by the promise of the proj-ect”, but warned that “early promise does not always materialize” into a usable drug.

Chakrabarti has spent over 20 years researching treatments for the mosquito-borne illness, and turned to the largely unexplored biological potential of the ocean because “[cur-rent] drugs are becoming increasing-ly less effective and [malaria] is still killing,” he told IRIN.

The UN World Health Organiza-tion has noted that about 3.3 billion people - half of the world’s popu-lation - are at risk of malaria, and around 1 million people worldwide are killed by it every year.

© IRIN. All rights reserved. http://www.irinnews.org

Newsclips

The first two weeks in August will once again see an archaeological excursion at one of the outposts of the Steinaecker’s Horse unit

in the Kruger National Park (KNP). For the first time it will be the site called the Gaza Gray outpost, close to Lower Sabie. The project is led by historical archaeologist, Dr. Anton van Vollenhoven. The project is undertaken by the research department of Archaetnos Archaeologists, of which he is one of the directors. Various students from different universities take part in the exca-vations every year.

The aim of the Archaetnos Research Department is to do archaeological and his-torical research. The Steinaecker’s Horse project is now running in its thirteenth year. The project is not funded by the South Af-rican National Parks (SANParks), but they assist in some of the logistical matters relat-ing to such research.

The Steinaecker’s Horse project was launched in 1997. The current phase will end with this year’s excavations, but it is foreseen that a next phase will start in 2011. The first phase concentrated on the most Northern outpost of the military unit, close to Letaba rest camp. After that the post at Sabi Bridge (Skukuza) and a camp at Ngot-so mouth were excavated.

The focus now shifts to the Gaza Gray site. This site is situated more or less 15 ki-lometer to the south of the Lower Sabie rest camp and the Sabie River.

Steinaecker’s Horse was a military unit who fought on the side of the British dur-ing the Anglo-Boer-War (1899 – 1902). The unit consisted of local inhabitants from the Lowveld-region, including the indigenous people who worked as soldiers, servants and chefs. The unit’s most important task was to ensure that the Boers did not make contact with Portuguese supporters in Mo-zambique, in order to arrange for food and war supplies.

Very little research has been done about the Anglo-Boer-War, from an archaeologi-cal perspective. This project highlights that period and creates the opportunity to do

research on the involvement of the indig-enous people during the war, an area that did not receive much attention during the past years from researchers. This is espe-cially true of the Gaza Gray outpost.

Apart from being a very large site it used to host the cattle of Gray and some local people before the War. During the War it was used by Steinaecker’s Horse to keep the cattle that they confiscated from local people and some of the farmers such as Abel Erasmus. As a result the site has many refuse middens in which cultural material is mixed with remains of cattle kraals. Some of these will be excavated during this year, but since this is a first year the site will also be explored to find any other possible re-mains.

The site is named after Edward George Gray who was a captain in the Steinaecker’s Horse unit. He was nicknamed Gaza as he used to work in Portuguese East Africa be-fore the War. He was in command of three outposts of Steinaecker’s Horse namely this one, the nearby one at Gomondwane and the one at Crocodile Bridge. After the War he became a game ranger in the Sabie game reserve (later Kruger Park).

It is trusted that it would be possible to determine aspects such as the life style of the unit and get an indication of what things they did to keep them busy apart from the regular war activities. This will be used in comparison with the information of the other sites that have been excavated in the past.

The unit also contributed to the founding of the Kruger National Park. The adjutant of Steinaecker’s Horse, major A Green-hill-Gardyne stated rules for the preserva-tion of wild life around Sabi Bridge. This document was used by major J Stevenson-Hamilton when he started working as first warden of the park. Quite a few of Stein-aecker’s Horse soldiers, such as Harry Wol-huter, became game rangers in the Kruger National Park.

Please contact Dr. Anton van Vollen-hoven, regarding the research at 083 291 6104 or [email protected]

Archaeological research at Gaza Gray outpost of Steinaecker’s Horse in Kruger National Park

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The finalists of the 2010 ‘Miss Earth South Africa in associa-tion with Consol’ spent a week at the Nkambeni Tented Lodge

outside of the Kruger National Park (KNP).Finalists divided their schedule between

photo shoots and hands on work at the My Acre of Africa venue in Kruger.

The girls also took part in an environ-mental and conservation workshops and team building exercises. After hundreds of entries from across the country poured in, 21 finalists from across SA have been chosen. Deborah Robertson is the Mpuma-langa representative for 2010. Deborah has also been actively involved in several aware-

ness campaigns and environmental initia-tives across Mpumalanga.

The 2010 ‘Miss Earth South Africa in association with Consol’ gala event will be hosted at Emperors Palace in Gauteng on the 11th of September.

You are invited to vote for your favourite finalist on www.missearthsa.co.za.

Miss SA earth hopefuls visit KrugerSeen here are Nondyebo Dzingwa and Lucinda Schoeman, with the learners attending the My Acre of Africa project.

South Africa’s population has in-creased by about 530 000 people to 49.99 million, according to Statis-tics South Africa’s Mid-Year Popu-

lation Estimates.According to the statement from the gov-

ernment’s Bua News, this year’s estimates are up from last year’s updated estimate of 49.46 million.

The estimates also show that 51 percent (about 25.66 million) of the South African population is female.

Black Africans at 39.68 million constitute

more than 79 percent of the total South African population while white people con-stitute 4.58 million, followed by coloured people at 4.42 million. The Indian/Asian population stands at 1.30 million.

Of the provinces, Gauteng was found to have the largest share of the country’s population at 11.19 million (22.4 percent). This was followed by KwaZulu-Natal at 21.3 percent. The Northern Cape, remains the province with the smallest amount of people. Nearly 31 percent of the population is aged younger than 15 with approximately

7.6 percent being 60-years-old and older.Of the people younger than 15, about

23 percent live in KwaZulu-Natal and 19.3 percent live in Gauteng.

Migration patterns estimates show that from 2006 to 2011 approximately 211 600 people have and will migrate from the East-ern Cape while the Limpopo province is es-timated to experience a net out migration of 140 000 people.

Gauteng and the Western Cape are ex-pected an inflow of migrants of about 364 400 and 94 600 respectively.

SA’s population closer to 50 million mark

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