| Lets
remember our African Anniversaries |
December
2004
|
|
| 20
years ago, Bob Geldoff recorded Band Aid and
the world was changed for a little while. It
helped change me and so this story starts…... |
4
years later in 1988, after a degree in
environmental science I was in Africa being
a tourist doing
an exciting African explorer expedition
with Exodus. I was an extreme tourist……. |
| After
6 months travel through 11 troubled countries,
I walked up the long hill at Rumangabo, Zaire
and entered what was to be my restaurant at
the end of the universe, it was a small hut
and I met two unlikely characters Douglas and
Mark with their laptops, My diary entry for
this reads…. |
| “ …shared
room with Douglas a novelist doing programme
for radio 4 with zoologist Mark who used to
work for WWF (show will include river dolphin,
mauritius kestrel, Rodriguez fruit bat going
to see kakapo and Amazonian manatee next).
Also met two interesting German lads travelling
from Sudan…” |
| It
was 1989 and Douglas was recording “last
chance to See” an adventure to see the
rarest wildlife living on earth at that time.
The Hut in question was the accommodation for
tourists visiting one of the friendly families
of mountain gorillas which live in the area
and the Douglas in question, was The Douglas
Adams, although I did not realise it at the
time. |
| That
night he told me their real reason for coming
to the then Zaire… to see the Northern
White Rhino…. a tremendously rare creature,
which was down to less than 30 animals. |
| “That’s
excellent” I said “We were there
only 2 weeks ago and had a fabulous time taking
an elephant safari and met an English woman
and her family who are helping protect them” |
| Thanks
to Jonathan, an American trailblazer, a motley
crew of Danish, Icelandic, British, New Zealand,
Australian and American people had descended
on this little known park in the heart (or
dead centre) of Africa. As part of our Exodus
Exploration we had read in French that this
park was enchantee (which I believe means hilly)
but I understood it to mean enchanted, and
in this it certainly was and still is. |
| Standing
between the known world and the oblivions of
the central African rainforest, and the great
Sudanese plains is the jewel which is Garamba
National Park. There is no greater park in
all of Africa and no greater people than those
who choose to live in this corner of the planet. |
| Why
because these people stand in the eye of a
hurricane preserving the greatest treasures
on earth and this isn’t just the animals
it includes the people. Of course this experience
changed me once again and when I returned to
the UK I moved to Shetland and started my Environmental
Company with yet more committed and talented
people from Greenpeace from Shetland and Scotland. |
| I
kept in touch with the park over the years
and in 1994 (Band Aid plus 10) I returned with
an environmentalist friend from the Scottish
Environmental Protection Agency. |
| Extreme
tourism calls for extreme measures and I had
met another lion of Africa in the name of David
Macallister a Zaire born Irish man who was
also committed to helping the area. He ran
the Central African part of the Christian Blind
Mission International, he offered to help this
crazy Shetland man to visit Garamba and investigate
extreme tourism as a business idea. |
| Of
course Christmas 1994 was not a great year
for the area, the Rwanda genocide was being
completed and Mobuto the president of Zaire
was losing control of his African jewels -
the gold fields which are to be found in Eastern
Zaire. |
| Only
missionaries remained holding together the
communities of Kivu through their traditional
networks, and the flights of the AMREF. Flying
via Arua and Aru and witnessing by air the
refugee camps near the mission station on the
Ugandan Sudan border (and meeting yet more
fabulous people) we entered not Zaire but the
newly created country of Kivu province. |
| This
was a none country at the time, no currency
and only natural laws, still it was safe and
we stayed in Nyankunde a mission and hospital
near Bunia. In order to help the mission I
took photos of the various Blind Mission projects,
eye operations and the use of Ivermectin in
river blindness treatment, we flew over the
gold mining camps and I saw the mercury mud
mining operations which were affecting the
Ituri rainforest. |
| Landing
near Faradje we met Steve and Debbie Woolcott
a real Swiss family Robinson there we stayed
in a solar powered housing complex and spent
Christmas with their children and travelled
up to Garamba together. |
| Kes
Smith and her family had left due to the impending
troubles and although we had a excellent visit
and took some beautiful photos and were safe
throughout our trip including a trip to see
the Okapi research station and returned to
the UK we also knew that the difficulties were
even beyond extreme tourists. |
| And
so till today the situation has been difficult
and I have been concentrating on developing
the tourism and environmental activities from
a base in the UK. |
| The
Green Tourism Business Scheme has built to
being the largest tourism ecolabel in the world,
we are founders of VISIT (Voluntary Initiative
for Sustainability in Tourism) and have friends
and supporters throughout the UK Europe and
in the World Tourism Organisation. So I am
trying to do my bit in the Global jigsaw and
now I can encourage our members to try and
support Africa through various payback initiatives. |
| Being
reminded of Garamba’s plight has really
hit home, the rhino numbers are now back at
the level they were when Kes first started
working, Nyankunde hospital was destroyed and
who knows how the Missionairies survived, but
although this is desperately disappointing
this HEART of africa has friends in many places
with more influence than ever before. |
| The
Sudanese rebels who are gaining their funding
by poaching ivory, bushmeat and rhino horn
are known through the problems in Dafur to
the whole world. Tony Blair who heads the Africa
Commission with Bob Geldoff is committed to
helping Africa and the forthcoming World Trade
meetings in Scotland will be held in one of
our green tourism hotels. All this provides
a great opportunity for positive action and
with the recent findings from Muana Loa on
the increasing problems of global warming action
is essential. |
| The
right people need to be aware of this story
and the responsibilities knowing about it brings
about. UK troops are used to stabilise Iraq
and if ever they needed a clear and positive
role to remind them of the value of defending
human rights and our natural treasures then
Garamba should be their goal. |
| The
world has moved full circle but many of us
(you included) have moved on and forward and
have more opportunities to make a difference
whether staying in accommodation in the UK
or visiting Africa. Let us never forget the
value and responsibility of Tourism. The most
expensive tourism trip ever undertaken was
mans journey to the moon and the vision that
gave us of our small and beautiful planet,
has fed the environmental movement since then. |
| As
a firm believer in the truth, honesty and accountability
let us not forget our various travels and the
heroes we meet and let that inspire us to greater
things, tourism changed my life and you should
let it change yours. |
| We
are all travellers in the wilderness of this
world and the best we can find in our travels
is an honest friend – Robert Louis Stevenson
1850-1894 |
Jon
Proctor, trees4africa.org, c/o Aspen House,
Dunkeld Road, Bankfoot, PH1 4AJ
Scotland. Email: jon.proctor@tiscali.co.uk |
