Washing day for the Rangers

The veranda of the new eco-houses

The new uniforms bought with Elephant Appeal money 

Four days out of communication and 70km in search of ivory hunters

I have just heard from Dominik after over 4 days.  Apparently he had sent a number of texts but they didn't wind their way through the ether.  He has been in pursuit of poachers hot on their heals with 6 others, 2 Mareja rangers and 4 from the Park.  Trekking in heavy rain over 70 km through dense bush.  The poachers were about 3 hours ahead of them carrying ivory from one or two animals just killed in Mareja.  Finally they arrived in Muacu and searched the village.  They found some AKM ammunition, endless snares, leg irons and approximately 400 m of wire stolen from the Park's elephant fencing, now used to make more snares, but not the Poachers...they had got away.

Christmas eve ... 75 shots heralded christmas day

The park ranger at the mountain post ran to Mareja when the fire went on and on.  Dominik and two rangers (perhaps unsurprisingly the rest would not come) quickly set off in the gathering dusk to the mountain and fired warning shots over the canopy, a rather futile attempt to scare when the damage had already been done.  Dominik says he then heard hacking as the ivory was removed.  It is surprisingly hard to locate sound in the dense forest and now night had fallen.

Christmas day revealed this body, a lone teenaged bull and after much searching another old kill of a decaring mother and baby, all ivory removed. 

It turns out this male was the shy teenager I had watched half hidden by large trees down by the big river.  My first sighting of an elephant in the wild.  He allowed us to quietly observe him eating before eventually becoming wary, flapping his large ears and disappearing.  He was about 18 years old.

There have been a steady stream of poaching attacks over the last 2 years, taking between 1-3 animals at a time and across the wider national park it is estimated that the population may have been reduced by as much as 30-40%.  

It is a huge task patrolling nearly 40,000 hectares of forest at Mareja with a team of only 10 local rangers, and safeguarding these magnificent  beasts against the horrifying force of poaching.  I just hope that every animal killed brings us nearer to radical action. It seems that that action has to come quickly and with huge international will - they say our largest land mammal has only 10 years left at this rate of persecution, what a sad world that will be.

A shrieking night-flyer from Shaun via new phone

What an excitement!  Shaun is visiting Mareja, he is an amateur but very expert lepidopterist with a particular interest in hawkmoths.  He does a day/night job as a fireman and spends spare time collecting and developing his specialism.  He saw an advert I placed in the oxford natural history museum for researchers, keen to develop our biodiversity inventory.  Well he went for two weeks with light-traps, pins and boxes in hand.

Coming out of the dry season and being on the edge of the rains we were not sure what sort of life would emerge for him into his light-traps.  Anyway all in all it seems to have been a successful trip and my fear that Dominik would divert Shaun with other jobs, noticing his practical capable ways - was slightly realised.  (D using his new phone sent me photos of Shaun helping him to prop up a huge crumbling column in the main house.) But imagine my delight when one evening I get a phonecall, in fact the night before Shaun left - and I hear shrieking in the background.  Soon the sound is married with a picture. Look at this beauty! A death's-head hawkmoth, with the extraordinary skull marking, who when alarmed admits a high-pitched call.

(We have had really poor comms in Mareja until recently and it has been markedly improved by a new service provider and Dominik's propulsion into new technology with an iphone type ...I must add 'type' as our frugal approach meant that he got an imitation lower grade make, which unsurprisingly doesn't work that well.)

Words from Dominik: when I arrived back..

... in Mocambique in November last year I decided to walk from the coast to Mareja in an attempt to gain a clearer picture of what is happening 'on the ground', as the saying goes. It is a dense 2-3 day trek.  Sure enough it did not take an hour before we (my guide, the Witchdoctor Unkahili, and I) stumbled on newly opened farm land within the Park, freshly cut logs, tractor spoor and bamboo operations. Further into the bush and no sign of game of any sort. Unkahili spotted some bamboo cutters and caused a stir. One of them came pacing past me and disappeared out of sight in our direction of travel sure enough he was going to warn  poachers further up the path. Shortly afterwards I lost my guide completely, he just vanished with our water supply and mangoes in his pack and I ended up with a pound of salt, dry food and virtually nothing to drink.

A few more hours and I reached the Mareja boundary in the form of a dry river. On the other side the first elephant spoor. A largish animal alone. I continued and came across fresh human tracks, three or four men in pursuit of the same animal. I carried on and the elephant spoor kept reappearing, in and out of thick thorn bush. The poachers had been trying to follow the same prints. Another 3km and I decided to rest for the night gathering dropplets of water from vines and catching about a cup full during the night from light rain.

The next day the story became clear. The elephant was a cow with a brand new calf. She had been hiding the calf during the day, running in circles to throw the hunters off her track. At night she would rejoin her calf and travel some distance before repeating the same procedure. At about 6 am, an hour and a half into my travels, I caught her wind. She was near but completely silent. I carried on trusting in the fact that she will recognise me. If not personally then from hear sake. The sun was up and the heat unbearable. I lost my direction and was now walking simply due west. There she was again now traveling in front of me with her calf in the same direction. I followed her track, possibly the only way I was going to get through these thorny thickets. Miniature poo balls no bigger then my fist. It occurred to me that I was now between the hunter and the prey. Armed with only a lady sized can of pepper spray, out of water and slowly out of steam. Months in the rich fields of Europe had made me fat and lazy. I thought much about my wife and child and found that these thoughts stiffened my resolve to protect the cow and calf in front of me, probably less then a few hundred meters away.  Non the less I was getting weak and the relentless sun was scorching me, drying my throat and turning every step into an ordeal. Tiredness was making me careless and my legs were being cut deeply by thorns.

At about 11am I came across my main east-west track through Mareja. A massive relief but also a daunting yard stick. Another 15km to go! I would have to stop soon and spend the rest of the day gathering water. At dusk I continued, exhausted and overheated: 3 or 4 km then sit, sleep for 10mins then on towards Mareja and to the waterhole, some 3km from the house. Surprisingly I made it and the closer I came the more intense the signs of elephants and their fresh sent. There must be at least 40 animals here I thought. My heart lifted, they are here because its the safest place they know. I headed for the water. Some 200m to go and in the star light I could see a dark turreted wall to my left. Now I wondered how best to negotiate this? I grunted and talked to them with my dried out throat, they did not move an inch. I carried on and got to the water, took off my clothes and submerged myself all the way to my chin. It felt divine and it wasn’t till half an hour later I realised that the water wreaked of animal poo and urine. I had already drunk a fair amount of it through my quadrupled up shirt. Floating in the pee feeling blissful watching the stars my thoughts returned to the ellies and at that very moment an enormous trumpeting sound came from the other side. I had totally overlooked another herd of animals to my rear and they were now towering above me, obviously getting nervous and thirsty. I hurried out of the puddle, apologised, grabbed my clothes and full bottle and made off. The turreted wall I’d passed earlier had disappeared and the road was clear.

After less then a km I was overmanned by tiredness but feeling cool and relaxed I perched myself on my pack and fell fast asleep. An hour or so later I was rudely awoken by the very close roar of a lion. Somewhere between the herd and my position. Whoops. They would not be able to help me if Caramo (Makua for Lion) was to decide to diversify his diet. I got up and made the remaining 3km in good time. There was much surprise at my arrival and the rangers stealthily surrounded my position pointing all they had at me - two rifles, a bow and arrow, two spears and a bunch of catanas (pangas). I did not sleep for hours, my belly bursting with no less then 5litres of fresh, crystal clear water and my heart dancing with the memory of what had just happened. Yet I could not talk to anyone about it.

Where to begin? Summer 2012

I have neglected my blog entirely over the summer, dropped it just like that!  For those who are in a small way interested, very sorry.  But it has been a summer of intense activity - here and there.  I have had a baby so was not able to be there.  So through adverts and a large amount of serendipity and other strange factors a fantastic team was pulled together.  Cody Can DO, Iris The Brave, Pete The Anti-Poacher, Kim The Adventurous, held the reins and looked after the project with their energy and spirit.  And of course the support of the community and particularly Antonio's cooking. 

Cody has been managing Mareja with the help of his girlfriend Kim, Iris undertaking biodiversity research and doing everything else in between and Pete running an intense anti-poaching drive.  The detail makes fascinating reading...like the time Iris had to use her researchers fishing rod to capture a large snake outside her room (luckily not poisonous.)  They have coped with many bush-like moments mainly revolving around car troubles...the wish for reliable functioning vehicles gets ever deeper and more profound.

But it is all overshadowed by what is now an all out elephant massacre.  You will have read the press no doubt but this devastating wave of poaching has hit every corner.  The reports come in weekly of yet more killings and Dominik now doubts that the remaining herd is viable at all, with possibly only young left without milk or any learned understanding of the surroundings. 

So much more to say. But for now must thank the fabulous summer team for a great deal, and I hope to add more of their thoughts, happenings and photos.

Ivory glitters like gold against the rain

After a lull in my will to BLOG - like a log that gets lodged in the stream, there has been a slow build up of momentum and now a dam of information has formed.  Here an overview...

Dominik returned nearly 2 months ago to Mareja to discover all sorts of inexplicable happenings.  As he put it, the community were in a state of 'confusion'.  Confusion no doubt fuelled by poachers hovering around and lodging in the neighbouring communities offering ready cash for ivory.  It is hard to imagine the power for confusion this generates....particularly in the rainy season when there are no tourists, little activity on the reserve and so the benefits of these large land mammals with glittering gold tusks alive wanes, and dead they assume a whole new meaning.

So I have received a rash of reports from Dominik via text (always confusing, wrongly spelt and requiring much interpretation!)  Within the wider, surrounding national park he estimates from reports that 40-50 elephants were killed last year and about 15 so far in 2012.  The poachers have been kept at bay within Mareja until now - he has sent me 4 different alarm texts of shots heard at some of our most precious and remote watering holes.  But only yesterday Dominik found a young male elephant dead near our beautiful Mareja mountain. 

The chilling part of this new episode is that all reports have been received when Dominik is OFF the reserve, momentarily in Pemba to refuel...so the inevitable question arises.  Are members of the Mareja community informants, who give the poachers access and information when the coast is clear? 

It seemed that the Head Ranger tried hard to prevent Dominik tracking the young dead male, taking him around the site...so operating in such climes the answer to this question is probably YES.  That is the hardest part - who can you trust?  But you cannot estimate the value of money in such areas - indeed it readily corrupts world over.  And of course the hardest part of all...can you blame them?

The blame really lies at the feet of those that trade and buy ivory - the power of their actions leaves ripples so deep and devastating. 


My first elephant encounter at Mareja.  A young shy male as you can see hiding from us!
This was the animal found dead this week.

On a personal level Dominik described this recent killing like 'someone coming into my house and killing my dogs'.  On a global scale the conservation impact is immense, by removing elephants, a conservation flagship species, you upset the whole ecosystem leading to the erosion of the few wild and biodiverse areas left on our planet.  In this case coastal forest arguably one of the rarest of global biodiversity hotspots.


Dominik is now wracked with anxiety - does he take the hard line, fire those implicated or somehow buy their allegiance...but in reality how do you monitor and implement this? The Head Ranger has worked at Mareja for nearly 10 years, helping to develop the community project, he is a resident and knows the ins and outs of its bush and project better than anyone.  What to do?