Author: Allan Ligare

Allan Ligare read Environmental Science at Makerere University, Uganda from 2005 to 2008. He is a trained Disaster manager and Conflict assessment and resolution expert. having undergone an intensive hands-on course at the Kenya Red Cross Society (KRCS) and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP). He has undertaken tasks with great organizations in Humanitarian work, Banking and Oil and Gas industries. He has a passion for nature and the beautiful human modifications that make it better. He loves reading, writing and thinking; then writing some more.
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Vain Deaths

That a president of a developing country that has to depend on donor funds to meet their yearly budget, personally sets natures resources worth billions ablaze is very ironic. I can even call it sad. A resource that has a readily available market, that caused the death of thousands of our wildlife, should never be wasted that way again.

President Kibaki sets ivory on fire
President Kibaki sets ivory on fire

Does it not matter at all that an elephant, or a rhino was murdered somewhere in cold blood, for one to have mercilessly cut off their tusks with the intention of enriching themselves by selling them in the Asian black market? According to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, about 36,500 elephants are killed in Africa alone every year by a set of serial killers we have christened poachers. A little of the ivory acquired by this heinous act is intercepted at the airports, and is ‘confiscated’. Part of it kept as exhibit for the prosecution of the persons found with it. What we see later in our country is a huge stack of ivory worth billions of shillings ceremoniously being burned by the president, in the presence of other very influential learned people of excellent economic and environmental knowledge.

Billions up in flames
Billions up in flames

How I sincerely wish that things were a little different. I wish that once such cargo is intercepted, it is not confiscated but stored. That the offender be not remanded for months on end before prosecution and trial, but to be convicted within shortest time possible. Let it be known that such cases shall not be amongst those that will drag in the courts forever. There should be no freeing poachers or illegal ivory traders on bond, unless under very special circumstances that will require very convincing backup. Punishment for such offenders should not be less than ten years behind bars.

 

Most important though is the stored ivory. It doesn’t change anything by burning them, does it? Bad cannot be paid by worse if our aim is to see positive progress. By burning, the dead elephants and rhinos from which these tusks were removed will have died in vain. If we really care to reduce, and even stop poaching, it would be of better sense to honor their deaths by protecting their surviving kin. We could go ahead and legally sell the ivory by a process of international bidding and selling them to the buyer attaching highest value to them. The sums acquired from the sale can then be used to improve measures being put to protect wildlife, like research, securing park perimeters, hiring more rangers and equipping them to effectively deal with poachers. This way, there truly will be progress in curbing poaching, and the shame of burning billions when we desperately need them will be no more.

Burning will not stop poaching, I dare say. There should be no pride in burning ivory.

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Olivia, the 7year Old Zoologist

Seven year Old Olivia Binfield stands before thousands to send a message with Lucy, her snake coiled around her little neck. She thinks she wants to become a zoologist when she grows up; but she doesn’t have to wait that long; she is one of the best zoologists already, and the best poet too.

Olivia and her Lucy on the stage

Watch her as she tells you why she thinks “man’s such a fool.” Olivia asks that you may listen to her “passion, although it may not be in fashion.” She is the voice of all the endangered animal species.

 

 

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Gullies of Poverty; Baringo and Kerio valleys

Soil erosion, environmental degradation, desertification, climate change all sound synonymous. But are they? Not really, but they are all parasites that feed almost the same way.

Exposed roots due to extensive erosion
Exposed roots due to extensive erosion

I’ll let pictures speak for Baringo and Elgeyo Marakwet counties. Degradation there, and particularly soil erosion, is at massive scales. The rills have turned into death traps for livestock and the larger gullies highways for the nutrient rich top soil that ends up in the Kerio River and the Lake Kamnarok. Poverty level continues to rise in Kerio Valley.

Deep gullies are highways to the Rivers and Lakes
Deep gullies are highways to the Rivers and Lakes

 

 

The results? Siltation and the subsequent effects. As we speak the lake is becoming smaller, and a less favorite spot for the wildlife (elephants especially) that loved to quench their thirst there for fear of getting stuck in the muddy shores.

 

High siltation in Kerio River
High siltation in Kerio River

Is hope really lost here? Is this place damaged beyond repair? Really? The degradation has been going on for years, but no one seems to notice. I see people run to rehabilitate other places that aren’t really bad and I’m left wondering why they keep neglecting this. UNCCD has it’s focus on prevention of land degradation and desertification. World Agroforestry Center is a close partner. We have the Vetiver Network in our midst. The UNEP headquarters is in our city? Let us pool resources and convert this place into one breathtaking sight of nature.

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THE GREEN STORE CHALLENGE FELLOWSHIP

WHAT’S THE CHALLENGE ABOUT?

The goal of this DO School Challenge is for the selected Fellows to create a Green Store prototype in ten weeks.
This prototype must be sustainable in terms of materials, construction, energy, operation and other aspects and will be realized in Germany. It should be scalable to H&M stores worldwide, be economically beneficial and make the idea of sustainability tangible for customers and employees.

 

By answering to the Challenge, you will have learned hands-on how to turn an idea into action during the ten-week Incubation Phase. This process is supported by participation in Challenge Lab, a course which offers the knowledge, skills, and tools necessary to successfully solve the Challenge.

Successful candidates may come from, but are not restricted to the fields of engineering, architecture, fashion and design, as well as environmental activism, retail and human resource management.

 

While solving the Challenge, you work on turning your own venture idea into a viable social venture plan which will be ready for implementation during the following ten-month Implementation Phase.

WHAT’S THE PROGRAM ABOUT?

The DO School offers offers a unique one-year fellowship program for emerging social entrepreneurs who look for training, mentoring and empowerment to start their own ventures. Selected Fellows receive a full scholarship covering the tuition fee for the year.

From September 2013 to January 2014 the DO School invites applications from motivated individuals aged 18 to 28 from around the world to participate in the DO School Green Store Challenge. Successful applicants will show exceptional motivation to contribute to solving the Challenge and developing and starting their own social venture.

Selected Fellows will spend the first ten weeks of their one-year program on the DO School campus in Hamburg from April to June 2014, and the following ten months in their home countries implementing their own ventures.

THE DO SCHOOL

The DO School is an innovative educational institution. We offer a unique one-year program enabling talented emerging social entrepreneurs to launch their own innovative and sustainable ventures. The program allows its participants – our Fellows – to learn from passionate peers, engage with current leaders and experts, and create change by implementing their social start-ups in their home countries.

Learn more about the DO School here.

WEBSITE

Please click here to find out more about the Green Store Challenge  on our website and to apply!

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Sacred gifts not purchased with money

Understand the richness of gifts that cannot be purchased with money. Chief Seattle said it this way;

“The President in Washington sends word that he wishes to buy our land. But how can you buy or sell the sky? The land? The idea is strange to us. If we do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every meadow, every humming insect. All are holy in the memory and experience of my people.

We know the sap which courses through the trees as we know the blood that courses through our veins. We are part of the earth and it is part of us. The perfumed flowers are our sisters. The bear, the deer, the great eagle, these are our brothers. The rocky crests, the dew in the meadow, the body heat of the pony, and man all belong to the same family. The shining water that moves in the streams and rivers is not just water, but the blood of our ancestors.

If we sell you our land, you must remember that it is sacred. Each glossy reflection in the clear waters of the lakes tells of events and memories in the life of my people. The water’s murmur is the voice of my father’s father. The rivers are our brothers. They quench our thirst. They carry our canoes and feed our children. So you must give the rivers the kindness that you would give any brother.

If we sell you our land, remember that the air is precious to us, that the air shares its spirit with all the life that it supports. The wind that gave our grandfather his first breath also receives his last sigh. The wind also gives our children the spirit of life. So if we sell our land, you must keep it apart and sacred, as a place where man can go to taste the wind that is sweetened by the meadow flowers.

Will you teach your children what we have taught our children? That the earth is our mother? What befalls the earth befalls all the sons of the earth.

This we know: the earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the earth. All things are connected like the blood that unites us all. Man did not weave the web of life; he is merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.

One thing we know: our God is also your God. The earth is precious to him and to harm the earth is to heap contempt on its creator.

Your destiny is a mystery to us. What will happen when the buffalo are all slaughtered? The wild horses tamed? What will happen when the secret corners of the forest are heavy with the scent of many men and the view of the ripe hills is blotted by talking wires? Where will the thicket be? Gone! Where will the eagle be? Gone! And what is it to say goodbye to the swift pony and the hunt? The end of living and the beginning of survival. When the last Red Man has vanished with this wilderness, and his memory is only the shadow of a cloud moving across the prairie, will these shores and forests still be here? Will there be any of the spirit of my people left?

We love this earth as a newborn loves its mother’s heartbeat. So, if we sell you our land, love it as we have loved it. Care for it, as we have cared for it. Hold in your mind the memory of the land, as it is when you receive it. Preserve the land for all children, and love it, as God loves us. As we are part of the land, you too are part of the land. This earth is precious to us. It is also precious to you. One thing we know there is only one God. No man be he Red Man or White Man can be apart. We are brothers after all.”