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Dead-rat Tree in Tarangire NP (soft HDR processed)
It is easy to ignore flora when visiting Tanzania, because of the numerous distractions from the spectacular carnivores and herbivores. Still I found this tree to be worth a moment of our time. It very likely is several hundreds of years old. Imagine what it has seen, not the few big cats that we see today and count as impressive, this tree was alive in times where there were hundreds of thousands of them.
''Adansonia digitata'' is the most widespread of the ''Adansonia'' species on the African continent, found in the hot, dry savannahs of sub-Saharan Africa. It also grows, having spread secondary to cultivation, in populated areas. English common names for the Baobab include dead-rat tree, monkey-bread tree, upside-down tree and cream of tartar tree.
comments (5)
Despite the decline in numbers in the last hundreds of years, at least in Tanzania I was slightly optimistic about conservation. Very large areas are declared protected, and seem reasonably managed, for what it's worth. And although not ideal, the commercial aspect is an incentive to keep protecting it.
While none of that it perfect, it is far better from what we saw in Madagascar. It has almost no effective conservation. The people are so poor that they have no choice but to plunder national resources. Eco tourism is severely underdeveloped, and the government is deeply corrupt. The people are so uneducated (as in zero education) that they cannot even grasp a concept like conservation. It is truly hopeless.
Compared to that hopelessness, I was optimistic about Tanzania. It doesn't take much though to destroy that optimism. To name an example, we learned that now that each of the few rhinos left is on 24/7 GPS protection, poachers are moving to a new market: that of Hippo tusks. Posted 11 years ago, modified 11 years ago
Whilst I agree that Madagascar is trailing far behind, I think you are being a little harsh although it was a few years ago that I was there, maybe things have degenerated. Most African governments are corrupt, including South Africa and education is limited in many of them.
An organization called Azafady is doing incredible work in Madagascar and at many of the reserves I visited the guides were conscious of the conservation issues. The island has recently become more accessible to tourists and locals are jumping on the bandwagon, eager to show off what a beautiful country they have. Yes, they are way way behind but at least they don't suffer so much from poaching and the growing trend of visiting countries to go on a killing spree. Trophy hunting is a major problem in my opinion.
Asia will always find a use for our endangered animals, elephants, rhinos, hippos, lion bones. When we have run out of these no doubt they will move on to monkeys for their toenails or something.
Posted 11 years ago
Maybe I was too harsh, but it is based on some disturbing signals. Posted 11 years ago