Category: Africa

“Warfare Among Prehistoric Hunter-Gatherers”

(p. A7) The scene was a lagoon on the shore of Lake Turkana in Kenya. The time about 10,000 years ago. One group of hunter-gatherers attacked and slaughtered another, leaving the dead with crushed skulls, embedded arrow or spear points, and other devastating wounds.
The dead, said the scientists who reported the discovery Wednesday [January 20, 2016] in the journal Nature, seem to have been scattered in no apparent order, and eventually covered and preserved by sediment from the lake. Of 12 relatively complete skeletons, 10 showed unmistakable signs of violent death, the scientists said. Partial remains of at least 15 other people were found at the site and are thought to have died in the same attack.
The bones at the lake, in northern Kenya, tell a tale of ferocity. One man was hit twice in the head by arrows or small spears and in the knee by a club. A woman, pregnant with a 6- to 9-month-old fetus, was killed by a blow to the head, the fetal skeleton preserved in her abdomen. The position of her hands and feet suggest that she may have been tied up before she was killed.
Violence has always been part of human behavior, but the origins of war are hotly debated. Some experts see it as deeply rooted in evolution, pointing to violent confrontations among groups of chimpanzees as clues to an ancestral predilection. Others emphasize the influence of complex and hierarchical human societies, and agricultural surpluses to be raided.
. . .
Marta Mirazon Lahr and Robert A. Foley, of Cambridge University and the Turkana Basin Institute in Nairobi, Kenya, and a team of other scientists, concluded in Nature that the find represented warfare among prehistoric hunter-gatherers.
Luke A. Glowacki, a postdoctoral researcher in human evolutionary biology at Harvard University not involved with the discovery, agreed. “There’s no other find like it,” he said.
With Richard Wrangham, a professor of biological anthropology at Harvard, Dr. Glowacki has traced the evolutionary roots of human warfare in chimpanzee behavior. And, he said, this find “shows warfare occurred before the invention of agriculture.”

For the full story, see:
JAMES GORMAN. “Prehistoric Massacre Hints at War Among Hunter-Gatherers.” The New York Times (Thurs., JAN. 21, 2016): A7.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed date, added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date JAN. 20, 2016, and has the title “Prehistoric Massacre Hints at War Among Hunter-Gatherers.”)

The Nature article mentioned above, is:
Lahr, M. Mirazón, F. Rivera, R. K. Power, A. Mounier, B. Copsey, F. Crivellaro, J. E. Edung, J. M. Maillo Fernandez, C. Kiarie, J. Lawrence, A. Leakey, E. Mbua, H. Miller, A. Muigai, D. M. Mukhongo, A. Van Baelen, R. Wood, J. L. Schwenninger, R. Grün, H. Achyuthan, A. Wilshaw, and R. A. Foley. “Inter-Group Violence among Early Holocene Hunter-Gatherers of West Turkana, Kenya.” Nature 529, no. 7586 (Jan. 21, 2016): 394-98.

Elephant Poaching Boosts Lion Population

(p. A7) In Mozambique, the number of people living inside the country’s gigantic Niassa Reserve grew to around 35,000 in 2012 from about 21,000 in 2001, and those people are increasingly clashing with the park’s lions–catching them in snares or hunting them when they attack livestock, said Alastair Nelson, the country director for New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society. In a strange sense of how out-of-whack the area has become, the park’s lion population has risen because of a jump in elephant poaching for ivory that has created a multitude of carcasses for the lions to feed on, Mr. Nelson said.”

For the full story, see:
HEIDI VOGT. “Humans, Lions Struggle to Co-Exist.” The Wall Street Journal (Sat., Aug. 8, 2015): A7.
(Note: the online version of the article has the date Aug. 7, 2015, and has the title “Human-Population Boom Remains Largest Threat to Africa’s Lions in Wake of Cecil’s Killing.”)

In Africa Lions “Are Objects of Terror”

(p. A17) Winston-Salem, N.C. — MY mind was absorbed by the biochemistry of gene editing when the text messages and Facebook posts distracted me.
So sorry about Cecil.
Did Cecil live near your place in Zimbabwe?
Cecil who? I wondered. When I turned on the news and discovered that the messages were about a lion killed by an American dentist, the village boy inside me instinctively cheered: One lion fewer to menace families like mine.
My excitement was doused when I realized that the lion killer was being painted as the villain. I faced the starkest cultural contradiction I’d experienced during my five years studying in the United States.
Did all those Americans signing petitions understand that lions actually kill people? That all the talk about Cecil being “beloved” or a “local favorite” was media hype? Did Jimmy Kimmel choke up because Cecil was murdered or because he confused him with Simba from “The Lion King”?
In my village in Zimbabwe, surrounded by wildlife conservation areas, no lion has ever been beloved, or granted an affectionate nickname. They are objects of terror.
. . .
We Zimbabweans are left shaking our heads, wondering why Americans care more about African animals than about African people.
. . .
. . . please, don’t offer me condolences about Cecil unless you’re also willing to offer me condolences for villagers killed or left hungry by his brethren, by political violence, or by hunger.

For the full commentary, see:
GOODWELL NZOU. “In Zimbabwe, We Don’t Cry for Lions.” The New York Times (Weds., AUG. 5, 2015): A17.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date AUG. 4, 2015,)

Without Property Rights “No One Is Safe”

(p. 1) BINDURA, Zimbabwe — Dozens of angry young men jumped off a truck in front of Agrippah Mutambara’s gate, shouting obscenities and threatening to seize his 530-acre farm in the name of Zimbabwe’s president. They tried to scale the fence, scattering only when he raised and cocked his gun.
Zimbabwe made international headlines when it started seizing white-owned farms in 2000. But Mr. Mutambara is not a white farmer. Far from it, he is a hero of this country’s war of liberation who served as Zimbabwe’s ambassador to three nations over two decades.
But when he defected from President Robert Mugabe’s party to join the opposition a few months ago, he immediately put his farm at risk.
“When it was happening to the whites, we thought we were redressing colonial wrongs,” said Mr. Mutambara, 64, who got his farm after it had been seized from a white farmer. “But now we realize it’s also coming back to us. It’s also haunting us.”
. . .
(p. 10) “No one is safe,” said Temba Mliswa, 44, who was the chairman of the party’s chapter in Mashonaland West Province before his expulsion from the party in 2014.
Mr. Mliswa got a 2,000-acre farm belonging to a white Zimbabwean in 2005. When he took possession, Mr. Mliswa said, police officers beat the white farmer and his workers.
But last year, Mr. Mliswa said, hundreds of youths sent by the party invaded the farm again, destroying property and beating his workers. They eventually left, but one of Mr. Mugabe’s ministers recently held a rally in which he threatened to take Mr. Mliswa’s farm unless he stopped criticizing the president’s party.
“They use the land to control you,” Mr. Mliswa said.
. . .
Mr. Mliswa said he had received his farm when his uncle headed the lands ministry. Once considered Mr. Mugabe’s right-hand man, the uncle was also expelled from the governing party in 2014 and now risks losing his farm, too, Mr. Mliswa said.
“There was blood spilt on my farm, there was violence, which I really, really, really, really regret,” he said of the seizure of his farm from its white owner in 2005. “I apologize profusely, but it was because of the system I was involved in. I belonged to a party whose culture is violence.”

For the full story, see:
NORIMITSU ONISHI. “‘No One Is Safe’: Zimbabwe Threatens to Seize Farms of Party Defectors.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., AUG. 28, 2016): 1 & 12.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 24, [sic] 2016, and has the title “‘No One Is Safe’: Zimbabwe Threatens to Seize Farms of Party Defectors.”)

Ministry of Justice Bus Unjustly Cuts Ahead of 99 Vehicles in Nigerian Gas Line

(p. A1) LAGOS, Nigeria — Young men became entangled in a swirl of flying fists. Gas station workers swatted away boys hoping to fill their plastic cans. A mother with a sleeping baby in her minivan was chased off, rightly accused of jumping the line. A driver eager to get ahead crashed into several cars, the sound of crunching metal barely registering amid the noise.
Nigerians were getting used to days like this.
But then came the ultimate insult to everyone waiting at the Oando mega gas station: A bus marked Ministry of Justice rolled up to a pump, leapfrogging no fewer than 99 vehicles. “Service With Integrity” was painted on its door. A gas station supervisor who calls herself Madame No Nonsense stepped aside to let it fuel up before anyone else. The crowd howled at the injustice.
Plummeting oil prices have set off an economic unraveling in Nigeria, one of the world’s top oil producers, and the collective anger of a fed-up nation was pouring out.
. . .
(p. A8) President Muhammadu Buhari is urging patience, noting that when he took office last year he inherited a corruption-plagued mess.
. . .
. . . the government says the supply is getting better. It has finally fired up Nigeria’s three rickety oil refineries, and the wait in Lagos improved drastically last week. Eventually, officials say, Nigeria will make all of its own gasoline.

For the full story, see:
DIONNE SEARCEY. “Anger Overflows in Nigeria as Economy Dives.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., MAY 10, 2016): A1 & A8.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date MAY 9, 2016, and has the title “Anger Overflows in Nigeria as Economy Dives.”)

Iowa State Students Go Bananas to Save (or Harm?) African Children

(p. A11) Student activists at Iowa State University are up in arms after researchers offered to pay them almost a thousand bucks to eat some genetically modified banana. The bananas, created by an Australian scientist, contain high levels of beta carotene, which converts to vitamin A when eaten.
. . .
“Those students are acting out of ignorance,” Jerome Kubiriba, the head of the National Banana Research Program in Uganda, tells me. “It’s one thing to read about malnutrition; it’s another to have a child who is constantly falling sick yet, due to limited resources, the child cannot get immediate and constant medical care. If they knew the truth about the need for vitamin A and other nutrients for children in Uganda and Africa, they’d get a change of heart.”

For the full commentary, see:
JULIE KELLY. “Anti-GMO Students Bruise a Superbanana.” The Wall Street Journal (Tues., March 15, 2016): A11.
(Note: ellipsis added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 14, 2016.)

President Kenyatta Burns Ivory, Raising Its Price, and Increasing the Incentive for Poachers to Kill Elephants

If President Kenyatta wants to save elephants, instead of burning ivory, he should sell it on the open market, moving the supply curve to the right, and lowering the price of ivory. A lower price of ivory would reduce the incentive for poachers to kill elephants.

(p. 10) NAIROBI, Kenya — What do you do when you have more than $100 million worth of ivory sitting around, just collecting dust?
You burn it, of course.
That is what Kenya did on Saturday, when President Uhuru Kenyatta lit a huge pyre of elephant tusks as a way to show the world that Kenya is serious about ending the illegal ivory trade, which is threatening to push wild elephants to extinction.
“No one, and I repeat, no one, has any business in trading in ivory, for this trade means death — the death of our elephants and the death of our natural heritage,” Mr. Kenyatta said.

For the full story, see:
ELLEN BARRY. “A Year Later, Nepal Is Trapped in the Shambles of a Devastating Quake.” The New York Times, First Section (Sun., May 1, 2016): 10.
(Note: ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the story has the date APRIL 30, 2016, and has the title “A Year After Earthquake, Nepal’s Recovery Is Just Beginning.”)

Zimbabwe Government Would Rather Starve Citizens than Allow GMO Food

(p. A15) Chikombedzi, Zimbabwe
My country’s government would rather see people starve than let them eat genetically modified food.
That’s the only conclusion to draw from the announcement in February that Zimbabwe will reject any food aid that includes a genetically-modified-organism ingredient–such as grains, corn and other crops made more vigorous or fruitful through GMO breeding. The ban comes just as Zimbabweans are suffering from our worst drought in two decades and up to three million people need emergency relief.
“The position of the government is very clear,” said Joseph Made, the minister of agriculture. “We do not accept GMO as we are protecting the environment from the grain point of view.”
In other words, my country–which can’t feed itself–will refuse what millions around the world eat safely every day in their breakfasts, lunches and dinners as a conventional source of calories. It doesn’t matter whether the aid arrives as food for people or feed for animals. Our customs inspectors will make sure that no food with GMOs reaches a single hungry mouth.

For the full commentary, see:
NYASHA MUDUKUTI. “We May Starve, but at Least We’ll Be GMO-Free; Unlike the Europeans we copied, Zimbabwe can’t afford such an unscientific ideological luxury.” The Wall Street Journal (Fri., March 11, 2016): A15.
(Note: italics in original.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary has the date March 10, 2016.)

Trophy Hunting Preserves Endangered Species

(p. A1) Despite intensifying calls to ban or restrict trophy hunting in Africa after the killing of a lion named Cecil in Zimbabwe, most conservation groups, wildlife (p. A8) management experts and African governments support the practice as a way to maintain wildlife. Hunting, they contend, is part of a complex economy that has so far proven to be the most effective method of conservation, not only in Africa but around the world as well.
While hunting is banned in government parks here in South Africa, animals inside their boundaries are routinely sold to game ranches when their populations are considered excessive, generating money to maintain habitats and fight poachers.
And because trophy hunting is legal in private game reserves, the animals end up fetching higher prices than they would in being killed for food or other reasons, conservationists contend. Lion hunts, one of the most lucrative forms of trophy hunting, bring in between $24,000 and $71,000 per outing on average across Africa, according to a 2012 study. In southern Africa, the emergence of a regulated trophy hunting industry on private game ranches in the 1960s helped restore vast stretches of degraded habitats and revive certain species, like the southern white rhinoceros, which had been hunted almost to extinction, conservationists say.
A similar shift occurred in the United States decades earlier when the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937 allocated the proceeds from hunting to bring back lands and animals, they argue.
“There’s only two places on the earth where wildlife at a large scale has actually increased in the 20th century, and those are North America and southern Africa,” said Rosie Cooney, a zoologist who is the chairwoman of the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Sustainable Use and Livelihoods Specialist Group. “Both of those models of conservation were built around hunting.”

For the full story, see:
NORIMITSU ONISHI. “Outcry for Cecil the Lion Could Undercut Conservation Efforts.” The New York Times (Tues., AUG. 11, 2015): A1 & A8.
(Note: the online version of the story has the date AUG. 10, 2015.)

Hungry Suffer Due to G.M.O. Bans by Europe’s “Coalition of the Ignorant”

(p. 6) CALL it the “Coalition of the Ignorant.” By the first week of October [2015], 17 European countries — including Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands and Poland — had used new European Union rules to announce bans on the cultivation of genetically modified crops.
. . .
I have spent time with malnourished children in Tanzania whose families were going hungry because cassava crops were wiped out by brown-streak disease. That was particularly painful because in neighboring Uganda I had recently visited trial plots of genetically modified cassava that demonstrated complete resistance to the virus. The faces of the hungry children come to mind every time I hear European politicians boast about their country’s G.M.O. ban and demand that the rest of the world follow suit — as Scotland’s minister did in August.
Thanks to Europe’s Coalition of the Ignorant, we are witnessing a historic injustice perpetrated by the well fed on the food insecure. Europe’s stance, if taken up internationally, risks marginalizing a critically important technology that we must surely employ if humanity is to feed itself sustainably in an increasingly difficult and challenging future. I can only hope that the Continent’s policy makers come to their senses before it is too late.

For the full commentary, see:
MARK LYNAS. “With G.M.O. Policies, Europe Turns Against Science.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., OCT. 25, 2015): 6.
(Note: ellipsis, and bracketed year, added.)
(Note: the online version of the commentary was updated on OCT. 24, 2015, and has the title “With G.M.O. Policies, Europe Turns Against Science.”)

Top-Down Aid “Hasn’t Worked in Africa”

(p. 2) John Mackey is the co-founder and co-chief executive officer of Whole Foods Market, the nation’s largest chain of natural foods supermarkets.
READING . . .
. . . “The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty,” by Nina Munk. Sachs is an economist and I’m sure he doesn’t like the book because it points out that his top-down aid type of approach hasn’t worked in Africa. A more bottom-up approach through entrepreneurship and boot strapping seems to be more effective, which is the approach we take at our Whole Planet Foundation.

For the full interview, see:
KATE MURPHY, interviewer. “Download; John Mackey.” The New York Times, SundayReview Section (Sun., NOV. 23, 2014): 2.
(Note: bold in original; ellipses added.)
(Note: the online version of the interview has the date NOV. 22, 2014.)

The book praised in the interview is:
Munk, Nina. The Idealist: Jeffrey Sachs and the Quest to End Poverty. New York: Doubleday, 2013.