AFRICA our HOME - LIVING WITH WILDLIFE by Tusk Trust

AFRICA

Our Home LIVING WITH WILDLIFE Revised Edition

LIVING WITH WILDLIFE

Feathers in our hats, skins on our backs, poisons for our arrows, shells to eat from, horns to drink from, furs to sleep on! Animals name us, they prance and prowl through our poetry, live in our legends, brighten and frighten our children’s stories. We eat their flesh, their eggs, their honey, drink their milk and blood. This chapter deals with how we can live alongside the many wild animals in Africa. The terror and nuisance of large, dangerous predators, marauding baboons, crop-raiding elephants, poisonous snakes and many other wildlife nightmares cannot be overstated. But there are many win-win solutions, ways of living safely happily and prosperously alongside wildlife. Wildlife is valuable to humans in so many ways: half of all our medicines and all of our food comes directly from plants and animals. We depend on them for shelter, warmth, money, food, medicine. Wildlife inspires our music, art and science. Wildlife is the living source of practical, financial, psychological and spiritual well-being for human-kind. Our landscapes, ecosystems and ecosystem services all depend on wildlife.

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WE SHOULD DO WHAT WE CAN TO PROTECT THAT WHICH FEEDS, CLOTHES AND INSPIRES US.

ANIMALS NEED HOMES

Seeing things from an animal’s point of view can be hard when you are struggling to keep your family fed and well. It is worth remembering that animals have similar struggles. Many care for their young the same way we do. African wild dogs are tender with their babies. Sisters and brothers nurture each other, babysitting, teaching and feeding their younger siblings. Elephants live in sisterhoods, led by a female elder, traveling great distances following the rains. Each year they follow traditional paths, across countries, borders and forests. They show emotions, even love, toward their family members and appear to mourn when one of them dies. Life has become more and more difficult for these animals. As they move they find humans have built a village or chopped down a forest along the route where for millions of years their ancestors have been making their annual passage, the migration. Animals do not mean to cause us trouble. They are simply living the only way they know. Elephants do not enter crops because they want to do harm, but simply because they are hungry or curious, or lost in a place that used to be wild land. Lost because the space available for them is becoming ever smaller. Your farm or garden once was wilderness. Habitats (homes for animals) become converted to make way for houses, roads, factories, towns, even cities. If too much land is converted, animals will have nowhere to live. In Africa more than 180 animal species have gone extinct in the last 600 years. The dodo, the quagga, the bluebuck and the Cape Verde giant skink are no more and will never be again. Africa is 30 million square kilometres in size – very big! Only a small proportion +/-12% – is ‘protected’. Protected means that it has been set aside for use in a way which does not destroy the wildlife living there. Although to humans who live on their boundaries, parks and reserves seem enormous, they are not enough space to allow many of Africa’s most fascinating species such as lions and elephants to survive.

NOT ENOUGH SPACE “The greatest threat to Africa’s elephants is loss of range brought about by human population growth and expansion onto elephant range.” Cynthia Moss, Director, Amboseli Elephant Research Project, Kenya.

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August October

Kenya July

Serengeti National Park June

Tanzania

December - May

THE WILDEBEEST MIGRATION 11

HOW MANY LIONS ARE ENOUGH?

Population genetics There are many reasons to keep animals in their habitats, their natural homes, living wild lives, free-range - there are ecological, moral, spiritual, economic, legal and other reasons that will become clear as you explore the PACE pack. This section explains one of the reasons why we need to have lots of animals, something called population genetics. Genetics deals with genes. Genes are parcels of information that describe exactly who and what you are – whether you are a human, lion, cabbage, beetle, wasp, or mongoose. Genes are like a recipe card describing whether you have a long nose or a short nose, big ears or small ears, curly or straight hair. They also carry information about the character, health and vigour of an individual. All animals carry their genes – their construction instructions - in every tiny cell of their body. When animals reproduce, genes from each biological parent (the mother and father), combine to create a new set of genes that is unique to each of their offspring. Siblings will have similar sets of genes, but not exactly the same. Each individual has its own set of genes, a unique combination made up of some from the father and some from the mother. As the young animal grows, its body follows the instructions in the genes. Genes are either dominant or recessive. For example, the gene for blue eyes is recessive, and the gene for brown eyes is dominant. If one parent has blue eyes, and the other has brown, the baby nearly always has brown eyes because that is the dominant gene. It all depends which genes from the parents came together to produce the baby and whether the brown-eyed parent had any blueeyed ancestors. Some genes carry unfortunate diseases. Sickle cell anaemia and cystic fibrosis are two examples. These diseases only show up if both of the parents carry that particular gene (it is recessive) and the baby receives both of them. The more animals in a population, the stronger and more varied the ‘gene pool’, and the less likely two disease-carrying recessive genes are to meet. If two closely related individuals breed, it is more likely that recessive genes will meet.

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In a large gene pool, disease carrying genes are diluted and the animals remain strong. This is why large numbers of any species are needed to keep populations healthy. When only a small number of animals survive, generation by generation the offspring get weaker and weaker. Genetics is an intriguing subject. If you learn about genetics it will help you understand and perhaps find a job in animal and plant breeding, crop science, horticulture, public health, disease control, conservation and much more.

Genes are carried in every cell of the body

COMING UP The next section will introduce people who are finding ways to live alongside some of Africa’s most troublesome wildlife.

BABOONS IN OUR WELLS, ELEPHANTS IN OUR MAIZE, AND MICE IN OUR GRAINSTORES

There are many ways to protect your crops from primates like monkey, chimpanzee and gorilla - moats, hedges, thorn fences, electric fences, dogs, flashing lights and noise making devices are examples. In Rwanda and Uganda, some National Parks are surrounded by tea plantations. Chimpanzees do not like eating tea, so they stay away. The tea also provides good income for farmers. Baboons, as many people know, are not life’s most congenial neighbours. One of the PACE films LIVING WITH BABOONS is about a village in Tanzania where baboons were running riot. They stole fruit, bananas, cassava and potatoes, drank water from the wells, and stole clothes. Near to the school was a big rocky hill, where the baboons liked to live. Men would burn the forest to drive away the baboons, but baboons move quickly. The students studied the baboons, and noticed that they could escape the flames, and then, without any natural food left on the hill, they would return, hungrier than ever, back into the farmer’s fields and homes. The fires damaged all the other wildlife and caused unpleasant smoke and potential danger.

DID YOU KNOW? • A study in Tanzania showed that very often, it is not the wild creatures but other people’s domestic animals that are raiding crops. • Rats and mice cause more economic loss than primates - so it’s worth dealing with the rodents first.

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With the permission of the elders, a group from the school visited shambas, talking with the people about how burning did not help. The people were very open to the idea of conservation, for in Tanzania many large national parks protect animals and bring in tourists. The people began a project to plant seedlings on the hill, magusu, suruji, matango (cucumber), cashew, and various types of cactus to provide the baboons and other animals with fruit, nuts and leaves to eat. The baboons did not need to leave the hill to find food. People stopped the burning and the vegetation began to regrow. Birds and small animals have returned, and the baboons no longer bother the farmers. The students have become baboon ‘guardians’. They enthusiastically sign up to plant trees or patrol the hill looking for burning. By being good neighbours to the baboons, they have made the baboons into good neighbours themselves! Watch the film Living with Baboons

Plant a chilli to save your crops! Elephants have very big feet, big trunks and huge appetites. They can destroy a season’s hard, back-breaking work, our livelihood and food just by going for a walk, or collecting a snack. Many farmers feel helpless against such huge trespassers, many feel the only solution is to kill them, but problems with elephants are not so insurmountable. People have discovered that elephants do not like to eat the hot and spicy chilli plant. If it is planted around crops, used to make an eye-watering grease for the fence, or mixed with dung and burned...elephants will keep away. You can watch a film about people in Zambia who use chilli - Elephant chilli pepper project. There are many other types of fence including bee fences which keep troublesome wildlife away.

ACTION SHEETS - 2: Introduction to Human Wildlife Conflict, 3: Monitoring Human Wildlife Conflict, 4: Reducing Crop-raiding by Elephants, 5: Chilli Planting Guide, 6: Protecting against Primates

Watch the film Living with Elephants

PREDATORS

Predators are Africa’s most controversial characters, fierce and scary and if large, capable of killing our livestock and even us humans. A carnivore needs to have many, many prey animals in their territory - 10,000kg of prey, such as grazing impala, duiker or birds may sustain only 90kg of predator. The king of predators, an adult male lion, can weigh 250kg. A female predator must find enough food to feed herself and her young. For that she needs space, and space is the one thing many wild animals do not have. It is being taken over by us for our own use.

Big dog saves big cat Cheetahs are startlingly beautiful, the world’s fastest land animal, a big cat that can run at 60 miles an hour. Like lion, giraffe and elephant, they are one of the animals for which Africa is famous and which tourists love to see. Cheetahs are rare - only 7,100 remained living in the wild in 2018. They have lived on this planet for four million years, and in Africa for over a million. Cheetahs normally prey on wild animals, but sometimes, with decreasing natural habitat they will prey on cattle, causing farmers to retaliate by trapping and killing them. Unfortunately, cheetahs are blamed for more crimes than they commit - in one study of 98 animals caught, only six (3%) were shown to have been taking livestock.

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In Namibia farmers discovered that they can live alongside cheetah using some simple livestock husbandry techniques. They use Anatolian Shepherd dogs - a breed from Turkey, in Europe, where they have been used for around 6,000 years to protect livestock. The dogs work in a vast open area, alone, without human masters. They are very big dogs. The puppies bond with the herd and instinctively protect it. They bark and posture to scare predators away. In Africa puppies are introduced slowly to their job and to the dangers of the bush. Herders check their dog for ticks, illness or injury each day. A well-trained, well-cared-for Anatolian Shepherd is an imposing barrier against all predators including baboons, jackals, caracals, leopards as well as cheetahs and even humans. The farmers have no need to shoot the cheetahs. These magnificent animals are safe and so are the livestock.

CHEETAH FACTFILE • In Namibia 20% of the cheetah population live on commercial ranch land. • In the last 25 years the world population of cheetahs has halved. • The scientific name for a cheetah is Acinonyx jubatus. • What local names do you know for cheetahs?

ACTION SHEET - 7: Protecting Livestock from Predators

Watch the film Living with Predators

PROTECT YOUR LIVESTOCK

Most livestock that is killed by wildlife is caught when it is left outside of its protective boma at night. At night livestock needs protection. A bad boma is worse than no boma because once predators get into a boma they can kill all the animals inside. Build a solid, thorny boma to save your animals’ lives, or adapt your traditional boma to make it stronger and completely predator proof. Be sure the thorns face outwards, ring the boma with wire fence and put a metal door made from an old drum. Husbandry is how we care for and look after our animals. Loss of livestock to small predators such as mongoose, genets, rats, fosa and foxes can be prevented by using good animal husbandry - housing and guarding livestock to protect it. Chickens can be protected by building a simple animal house raised up off the ground that closes securely. It can be built with local materials (mud, woven plants, wood and some clever thinking). It doesn’t have to cost money. Larger predators can kill hoofed animals so if your animals graze during the day put them into a secure boma at night. The boma must be strong enough to keep the cattle, goats or sheep inside and the predators outside. If your animals are grazed at night then ensure that adults are on guard to defend them - this is not a job for children. Having fewer animals that are carefully looked after can be more profitable than having many animals that cannot be watched over effectively.

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FROM HUNT TO HARVEST

Bushmeat, or hunting and eating wild animals, has always been central to human life, all over the world. Now, too many people hunting too few animals has, in many places, left the forest silent and empty. There can be no profit and no enjoyment of meat or of wildlife that is gone. Hunting ‘sustainably’ is very difficult as it can be impossible to know how many people are creeping into the forest or savannah from the other side, while we hunt near our home. What we thought was an endless resource suddenly turns out to be the very last duiker, warthog or chimpanzee. In Zambia, people handed over their guns voluntarily. Why would they do that? They began to realise that they had to travel further and further to find wildlife when once they could hunt very close to home. Travelling fifty kilometres to hunt a few dik-dik was not proving profitable or enjoyable. The men decided to change things.With funding from a charity (the Wildlife Conservation Society’s COMACO project), they organised for anyone who handed in a gun to receive maize to support their family, as compensation.

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Then they were given information and support to start up new enterprises, like conservation farming, bee-keeping, fish farming and carpentry. A special area around the forest was set up, to allow trees to grow. This provided a long term and sustainable harvest of seeds, firewood and fruit. Crops like cotton and tobacco had damaged the soil. So people were encouraged to plant soya beans, cassava and ground nuts. Over ten thousand farmers now do so. In similar projects in West and Central Africa people have begun to farm cane rats and chickens. Projects like these can stop a desperate situation by ending people’s dependency on wildlife, maybe stopping them from killing off the last of the wild animals in an area. However, it is very important that they are run alongside projects to protect wild lands. This is because historically, as people have developed agriculture, bush is cleared and lost forever. The best agricultural projects save some natural areas for wildlife, just like the sacred forests of old. Watch the film Conservation Tiling

Watch the film Bushmeat

Is it legal? There are international laws, and most countries also have their own laws against the killing of certain species, in certain areas or at certain times of the year. For example: killing chimpanzees anywhere; killing wildlife without a license in National Parks, hunting during breeding seasons, are all illegal. If you do break wildlife laws you can be fined and in some cases put in prison. If you do not agree with a law it may be better to try to change it by making representations to the authority that has made the law, rather than risking punishment. The wildlife law module has more information on this topic.

Is it causing extinction or extirpation? Throughout history humans have been too eager to kill and use animals. Extinction is forever. An animal which has gone extinct exists nowhere in the world. When an animal on which we depend becomes extinct it is a many-sided tragedy. Not only is the unique nature of that animal gone forever, but so too are the products it gave to humans. Extinction is forever. If a wild animal is used up locally, it is called extirpation. To hunt wildlife sustainably you must know the MAXIMUM SUSTAINABLE YIELD – the number that can be caught without causing the population to decline. To know this, you need answers to a lot of questions: • How many animals die naturally from starvation, predation, lack of water and other natural causes? • How many do you need to reproduce the population, and of what age and how many of each sex? • How many are left surplus after these things are considered? It is easy to understand these ‘population dynamics’ if you think of a herd of cattle or goats. Very often the farmer knows each animal by name, when they have young and of which sex. The cautious farmer would not dream of killing all his cows in one go, because the breeding herd would be gone. In the forest or bush, such information is hard to come by. You need to have an eye on the whole area, the animals there and those that come and go. Conservation biologists study these things.

Rapid reproducers versus carers: r and K selection Some animals reproduce very quickly, like rats, while others like gorillas or elephants have only one baby every few years. Some produce many ‘spare animals’ while others need almost every one to ensure they survive into the future. Primates are an example of animals which generally produce very few young, very slowly. Ecologists describe these two life-history strategies as belonging to r and K selected species. K-selected species look after their few babies very well (like humans) and generally live a long time. r-selected species have lots and lots of babies (like rabbits) and a shorter lifespan. With good information and control of hunting rates, it is possible to hunt r-selected species sustainably, whilst K-selected species are extremely easy to over-exploit.

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WATCH OUT! Nightmare snares Snares are illegal in many countries. They cause tremendous suffering and unnecessary death to wildlife. Wounded animals, with cut and damaged limbs die a slow and painful death. Snares are indiscriminate, so they may catch very rare animals as well as common ones. Snares in Hwange National Park in Zimbabwe were causing such an enormous problem for Painted Dogs. Almost all of the young animals born each year were killed and the species was dying out, that the Painted Dog Research Project designed a special collar to help prevent the dogs dying in snares.

TROPHY HUNTING

For millions of years humans have adorned themselves with the skins of animals and displayed the horns, tusk, tails, skins and sometimes whole animals in their homes and palaces. Courage, prowess as men and as husband has long been shown by killing fierce animals. Nowadays most of these animals are protected by law. In certain places some conservationists make the case that wildlife can benefit from wellregulated trophy hunting; a few animals are hunted, earning money to help conserve all the rest, and especially the habitat as well. However, in many cases trophy hunting is not well-regulated, and generally ‘hunting’ with a camera is more popular and acceptable in areas where this is possible. Tourists pay to watch the animals, their memories and photographs being the ‘trophy’.

ACTIVITIES Research, think about and discuss the pros and cons of consumptive and nonconsumptive tourism: Hunting safari vs photographic safari. Some issues to consider: What can be done when there are too many predators? Is it moral to kill for sport? Two perspectives to consider: People who are concerned about Animal Welfare see animals as ‘sentient’ creatures, capable of feelings similar to humans. They argue that we should try to do all we can to prevent animals from suffering at the hands of humans. Conservationists may be concerned about this too, but they worry mainly about killing too many animals or destroying ecosystems. They are mainly interested in preventing extinctions and allowing the world to function properly in all its brilliant ways.

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FUN FACTS • Gorillas are worth US $30 million a year to Uganda...alive! • In Kenya, a male lion in Amboseli National Park is worth US $515,000 a year in tourist income. • Tourism in Kenya has surpassed tea and coffee as a source of foreign expenditure.

CONSERVATION IS BURSTING WITH OPPORTUNITIES

Africa’s wildlife, landscapes and culture are famous all over the world, appreciated by people from all corners of the planet. This means that there are many opportunities for employment in conservation and for business that is environmentallyfriendly. Our future lies in preserving what’s good, and taking advantage of the opportunities therein.

Il N’gwesi Community Lodge Life is so different in different places, from cities to villages, and one country or continent to another. In the Il N’gwesi Maasai Cultural Village visitors come especially to experience and witness daily rural living, including livestock keeping, traditional hunting skills, rites, rituals and dances. A hunter even shows how the tribe used to use a donkey disguised as an oryx to sneak up on prey. The cultural village is owned and managed by the local people, so all the profits are put back into the community. Many new jobs have been created, as well as scholarships for secondary education, classrooms for schools, buildings for clinics. The tourism business is now an important source of income for this community. The cultural village is just one part of what they do. Il N’gwesi was one of the first community conservancies in Kenya. The conservancy manages community lands in ways that help both people and wildlife to thrive. It has successfully managed tourism and grasslands and used income from conservation to support the local people. The best and most successful conservation occurs when local people are involved and their livelihoods are based on conserving wildlife where it lives naturally. This is called in-situ conservation.

TOURISM FACTFILE • An average African private wildlife reserve employs forty people. • Elephant, rhino, buffalo, lion, cheetah and leopard are just some of the animals people travel to Kenya to see.

Watch the film Ecotourism - Il N’gwesi Community Lodge

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WORKING IN CONSERVATION

Conservation provides many opportunities for employment. You can read about some of the exciting jobs in the PACE Careers in Conservation module: Gladys in Uganda, who is a vet; Janet in Botswana who works as a ranger; Josia in Madagascar who is a researcher; Elizabeth in Kenya who is a sociologist.

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IVY'S CAREER

Ivy works for a conservation organisation in Kenya. She grew up in the Rift Valley region and studied Business and IT in Nairobi. Ivy says that whatever your skills and talents are, you can use them to help protect wildlife and its habitats. She was an intern in an advertising agency when she applied for a job as a marketing coordinator in conservation. She moved to communications and is now a programme coordinator. Her work includes organising events, arranging trips for film crews, collecting and writing stories about conservation projects for the internet.

Africa’s wildlife development

bringing

employment,

investment

and

The Big Life Foundation is a conservation NGO working in Eastern Kenya. It employs over 400 people from the local Maasai communities! Mokolodi Nature Reserve in Botswana provides employment for more than 80 people, most from local communities, ranging from office staff to shop assistants, cooks, cleaners, drivers, guides, as well as trained conservation biologists, animal carers, visitor guides, teachers and managers. In 2019 one conservancy in Kenya employed nearly 1,000 people. Government schools around Lewa conservancy have smart, interactive computer screens in classrooms, pupils have tablets and libraries and access to scholarships all investment to support their wildlife conservation. BOOKLET - PACE Careers in Conservation

GETTING STARTED Many people start their career in conservation at school, by joining the Wildlife or Environment Club. If there isn't one, you could be a founding member. PACE is full of ideas for club activities.

LIVING CATHEDRALS

Each separate kind of animal and plant is called a species. A species is a whole, a unit of nature. Animals and plants of the same species breed with each other to make more of the same type. There may be thirty million species in the world, that’s 30,000,000! When scientists find them, they give them a name in Latin: for example, elephant is called Loxodonta africana and lion – Panthera leo. This one special name helps everybody, whatever their home language, to understand exactly which creature we mean when we talk about an animal or plant or a fungi or single-celled microbe. Each species within a habitat has a special way of living, a particular niche. For example, a lion is a predator, eating other species. Removing the lion from its natural habitat will cause its prey species to increase in numbers. Grazing and browsing animals may then eat too much grass and vegetation, and eventually destroy the ecosystem on which they depend. Elephants are another example of how animals within an ecosystem have many jobs and roles to play. Elephants are architects, breaking up the impenetrable forest, creating savannah, digging water holes in dry riverbeds and making mini-ponds in their footprints. They disperse seeds in their faeces, which are then buried by dung beetles to provide nutrients for the soil. Their paths are firebreaks and channels for rainwater. Ecosystems consist of many, many species all living in one place, working together, creating a living whole. Each species is like a piece inside a machine working to make it function correctly. Each species is like a reed in a basket. Remove one and the rest may fall apart. Look closer at the creatures that form the ecosystems upon which we depend: robot-makers will tell you that the most sophisticated and clever robot or computer is nowhere near as complex as an ant!

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Pollinators carry pollen between flowers. Without pollinators, flowering plants could not reproduce! Insects, mammals and birds, even reptiles perform this important dating service. It is a natural service which goes on unseen and too often unknown, but is absolutely crucial. One third of every mouthful of our food is pollinated by animals. If we lose pollinating animals, ecosystems and farming systems can fall apart. Fruit bats pollinate the majority of night blooming flowers including the African sausage tree and the baobab. Removing fruit bats may even cause famine. Some countries that attempted to exterminate their fruit bats had entire crops destroyed as a result. This is because fruit bats mainly eat over-ripe fruit. Once the over-ripe fruit started to accumulate, so did the fruit flies and other crop damaging insects. Fruit bats – not just a pretty face.

Throughout history, animals have inspired story telling and artistry. The world’s earliest artists, the rock painters, drew animals! Found at thousands of sites across Africa, these 20,000 year old pictures allow us to glimpse the passions of our ancestors. Why were they painted? Nobody knows! As messages to the Gods? As incantations to provide plentiful prey? For the pleasure of their creation? Across the continent, animals inspire traditional ceremonies and masquerades, where expert dancers imitate their movements to promote the fertility of land and community. Story-tellers still trade timeworn tales of mischievous monkeys, conceited chameleons and tortoise tricksters. Africa’s modern artists and craftsmen and women also focus on wildlife, take as their inspirations the bright, beautiful, mysterious, curious, extraordinary patterns, shapes, colours, sounds and smells of nature. One could argue that there is not a pattern or textile in this world that does not have its origin in nature. Nature motivates music makers. Think of the Bayaka pygmies of West Africa who play zither accompanied by birdsong from the rainforest, or the San people of Namibia whose music is based on animal sounds. Originally, all musical instruments were made from natural materials – wood, bone, skin, gourds, seed-pods. Many modern musicians are helping to

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awaken their audience to environmental awareness. For instance Youssou N’dour’s album Set sparked Senegalese youth to launch an urban clean-up campaign. Nature and religion are inextricably linked: the Garden of Eden; nature spirits of trees, rivers, mountain and skies in traditional African religions; the care and respect for all forms of life in Asian religions like Buddhism and Jainism. Whatever their religion or beliefs, most people agree that humans have a responsibility to protect nature: that we are the guardians, that all living things are connected, or that other creatures have an intrinsic, or spiritual value of their own. Natural surroundings make humans happy – scientists have shown that a beautiful view of nature can even help us recover from illness more quickly. Can you imagine a world without other creatures? A world where animals existed only in stories and not in the real world? Where giraffes were to be found only in history books? Animals are hugely important to our hearts and our minds and we need them to be truly happy.

FUN FACTS • There are approximately 11,000 bird species in the world (13% are currently threatened with extinction). • 2,500 bird species have been recorded in Africa, and 1,800 are only found in Africa, nowhere else in the world. • Many birds fly from Europe to Africa and back each year to breed or feed away from harsh weather. They fly with no passports or maps, across international borders, over seas, thousands of miles. • Such journeys are known as migrations. • Birds migrate from places where food is scarce to where there is enough. • Conserving migrant birds involves looking after the many different places they use along their way.

LIVING WITH WILDLIFE ACTIVITIES

Change your perspective We humans experience the world through the five senses - sight, smell, touch, taste, hearing. These activities help you imagine what it would be like to be another animal – one that experiences the world in a different way, because of the way they live and interact with the environment. Bats fly at night, when eyes are useless. They have developed a way of using their ears to fly with extraordinary accuracy. Animals like warthogs, rhinoceros, and pangolins have poor eyesight, and rely on their excellent senses of smell and hearing to find their way around.

ACTIVITY 1 Smell trail The participants have to imagine that they are an animal which relies almost entirely on smell to find its way around and now needs to find its way home. Such animals usually keep to very regular pathways. Using their sense of smell, can they choose the right pathway? What you need: • Smelly harmless substance eg. crushed garlic, citronella, clove or lemon oil • Short pieces of string or wool The activity leader should set out the trail in advance, and needs to find a place where they can make a trail with several possible branches along the route. Soak some of the pieces of string to make them smell. At places where the route could branch, tie the smelly string on the right path home, and the odourless string on the wrong path. You could also put pictures and information about local wildlife along the way.

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ACTIVITY 2

Blindfold trail Ask the teacher to set out a trail for the class, or split into several groups and design trails for each other. Make sure everyone doing the activity knows what to expect, as walking through a strange place without sight could be scary for young children. What you need: A blindfold (e.g. a scarf) A long piece of rope 1. Choose a safe place for the trail, and secure the rope along a trail at varying heights so that it leads past a variety of obstacles and different textures and smells. 2. Everyone works in pairs. One person is blindfolded, and the other is the guide. The pairs start off along the trail separately, so they are not rushed or bumping into other pairs. 3. The blindfolded person lightly holds the rope and uses this as a guide to the route. The guide holds the other hand or walks close by. The guide can make suggestions like “feel the bark here” or “smell the plants beside you now.”

ACTIVITY 3 Bat games One player is a bat, and one, two or three others are moths. If there are lots of people, then you will probably have to take turns, and some can stand around the outside in a circle. The ‘bat’ is blindfolded, and like a real bat, is hunting for tasty ‘moths’ by sonar or echo location. In the game, they do this by shouting ‘bat’ and waiting for the echo from the ‘moths’. Every time the moths hear the bat say ‘bat’, they must shout ‘moth’ in reply. The people in the circle need to be quiet during the game. See if the ‘bat’ realises that the best way to catch moths is to produce a continuous stream of sound, like a real bat does! Then they will get more echo’s back from the moth and catch them more effectively.

SOURCE: Environmental Education Activities for Primary Schools, International Centre for Conservation Education, UNESCO-UNEP International Environmental Education Programme

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ACTIVITY 4 Animal Poetry You may find pretending to be a bat or a snuffling warthog an inspirational experience! Pick an animal and spend some time alone outside imagining where it lives, and how other plants and animals, including people, must look to it. When you’ve finished, write a short poem about your animal. If you prefer to work in a group, everyone can think of the same animal and then contribute one word to a group poem to be put together by the activity leader. Discussion topic If you had to choose between two very comfortable, safe places to live— one with, and one without, wildlife—which one would you choose and why? SOURCE: Oxbow Park Naturalization Project, Ottawa, Canada

POEM

Message to the Naked Ones I see you, naked Ones out of my big, brown, sad eyes I see you with your spindly limbs, lack of fur clever fingers thin necks big heads. I see you and I am puzzled. I see your pain and your confusion and I wonder. I wonder how you forgot that the ground, the grass, the earth longs for the touch of your naked feet, how the rain loves to caress your skin, how the wind enjoys playing with your hair. I am Mountain Gorilla and I am on my way out. Farewell naked Ones you may soon be the last primates left. Extract from a poem from the Council of All Beings