Katima, Namibia

Greetings Everyone:

I'm temporarily moving my office to Katima, Namibia today. Greenwell, my colleague, has been up in the Northeast setting wildlife hunting quotas in the conservancies based on all the recent game count data collected by the government and various other groups.

To get everyone geographically situated here is a zoomed in section of Namibia of where I'll be:



Source: http://www.orusovo.com/nammap/images/caprivi.JPG

The Caprivi strip is known to be one of the worst HIV infected areas in the world. I've heard figures stating 43% of this region is HIV positive and its actually been decreasing recently. That sounds like good news, but its only decreasing because people are dying from this horrible sickness.

Malaria is also a problem and I'm most likely going to start taking my pills to prevent this disease while always wearing long sleeve shirts. My pills make me sunburn so I've been neglecting to take them in warm sunny Namibia. And there are "elephants on every corner" and lots of "smelly water buffalo" along with crocs! eeekk!!!

I honestly believe you can't work in conservation in Namibia without addressing HIV and malaria too, so this will no doubt be an eye opening experience for me. The same applies for the Northern Great Plains when you consider the reservations and the diabetes and other health problems that are rampant.

A very powerful speaker and strong community leader, Janet Matota of IRDNC-Caprivi, presented to a Windhoek group a couple of months back about the current HIV situation and the work of conservancies and craft sales improving lives in the area. I have some great HD video of her speech, but again I'll have to post it when I return to the states. Speaking of internet...

There is no telling how much access I'll have to internet up there to update people through twitter and such, but no worries if I don't post early next week. I'm just working hard and seeing another amazing part of Namibia 8D in case you're worried!

Back to the truck situation... I don't know what happened, but the truck Green drove up broke down and he needs another one to drive around to the conservancies and set quotas. So, I was elected by the office to drive him a new truck and I'll fly back to Windhoek on the 29th of this month. Flights only leave this area every Monday and Friday.

I'm hoping to travel around some with Greenwell and learn more about the quota process and just see the conservancies up there, while crunching away on the commercial conservancy data I helped collect. Seeing is believing with how Namibia's conservancy system works. Dave Ward, from IRDNC, told me to take a nice weekend trip to Victoria Falls in Botswana and that means I can travel through Zimbabwe and Zambia in the process.

I'll also be able to see my friend Erica, who is also from the states, and is heading up the WWF Zambia office right now. It will be really nice to see her again and catch up.

Also, there is a secret I'm keeping and when I return on the 29th, the next morning I'm leaving with my colleague Helge to the NW communal conservancies in Damaraland [where my Namibia heart rests] to work on a special project request I REALLY hope works out so I can tell the blogger world more.

My travel and life experiences are sure tallying up quickly!

I need to go pack and hit the road!

Be well!

Cheers,

Aaron

Great News!!!

Greetings Everyone:

What a great surprise today! I just walked into the office from doing an economic survey and found some amazing news coming from Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Grassland Foundation, was just awarded the "Travel-Leisure" 2009 Global Vision Award for Wildlife Tourism. As quoted from the Grassland Foundation's newsletter,

"Travel + Leisure recently announced the winners of their 2009 Global Vision Awards. These awards are given each year to the "latest and best efforts at cultural preservation, environmental conservation, and community-building through tourism." The 17 winners of this years awards include efforts both big and small, private and not for profit, and are both global and local in reach.

The Grassland Foundation was given the award for its work with the Northern Great Plains Program of the World Wildlife Fund in sending conservationists and ranchers from the Northern Great Plains to Namibia to study wildlife and land management practices. Dr. Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize winning economist at Columbia University, and member of the awards committee, commented that: "The Northern Great Plains project is an impressive example of America learning from best practices abroad."

If you would like to hear more about the work, the award, ect. please contact my friend/colleague Jill Francke at Grassland Foundation in Lincoln, NE. jill@grasslandfoundation.org

Congratulations Grassland Foundation!!! [Their link is also listed at the bottom of my blog]

Link to the award: http://www.travelandleisure.com/articles/2009-global-vision-awards/2/?comments_page=1

.........

One of the highlights of my experiences over here in Namibia was participating with the Northern Great Plains group sponsored by WWF NGP and seeing how my ranch neighbors the Switzers [Calamus Outfitters -see link at bottom of bog] and others including myself can learn from the Namibian tourism model. Sadly, due to WWF Namibia work and travel conflicts I couldn't go everywhere with the group, but the recap session at the end was enlightening for all.

Many of you probably know the Switzer's ranch borders my ranch in Loup County and we're working on an innovative cross property natural resource management plan that incorporates ecotourism into the process among the neighbors on the Gracie Creek watershed. The model we're currently working on with many other groups is based off of parts of the Namibia conservation model.

When I came home for my sister's wedding in August, the two ranches sat down and had a "halftime" meeting I'd call it to talk about grants the ranches are applying for and what we as the landowners want to do with all these new ideas. [I previously blogged about this] I look forward to coming back to Nebraska and finishing up some previous work with Grassland and keep making the rubber hit the road in both grad school and back home on the ranch.

Congrats again to Grassland! Thanks for reading!

Cheers,

Aaron