Edward Pollard

 

Lope National Park, Gabon, October 2008

Sleeping the first night in an abandoned shipping container was strange enough, but this place was downright spooky.  The cottages were being swallowed up by the undergrowth, and one was never certain which floorboard in the bar would give way next.  Exploring further it felt like we were in a creepy scene from a movie.  The camp was abandoned but everything remained in place, mosquito nets over the decomposing beds, a faded postcard pinned to a notice board and a bright orange wheelbarrow on its side in what could have been the car park.  This may once have been the centre piece of the EU's attempt to bring tourists to Lope National Park but now it is just a playground for Black Colobus and Sun-tailed Guenon.

The EU invested hundreds of thousands of Euros in this tourism development.  They built a spectacular lodge, maintained roads, and trained guides.  The place is incredible.  It is surrounded by lush rainforest on all sides, the embodiment of the deep jungle.  There are elephants, and gorillas and spectacular birds.  A couple of weeks earlier in another part of Lope I saw a thrilling spectacle.  The single most amazing thing I saw in my three weeks in Gabon.  Mandrills are well known for the male's spectacular colouration, especially the bright blue arse.  But what is less well known is that they form huge social groups, some of the largest non-human primate congregations.  Hundreds of them forage together.  In Lope it is uniquely possible to witness this as a couple of groups venture out from the forest into thin corridors of woodland that run along valleys in a savannah.  This concentrates them into areas where they are easier to find.  WCS has put radio collars on a few individuals making it even easier to track them down.

We spent an hour or so tracking them from hilltops, before striking out across the savannah to find them in the forest.  At first we saw some trees shaking on the forest edge, heard a couple of alarm calls, and I caught a glimpse of one that confirmed that I was actually looking at Mandrill and not one of the other 6 species of primate here.  The guides took us around a little, and we ducked into the forest.  Before we knew it were here on the edge of the mob.  I focused my binoculars on one, and got a good clear look.  But gradually I realised there was much more going on.  There was another Mandrill below the first one, then another and another.  A little further down, on the ground on the other side of a small gully there were more and more.  They were streaming past, dozens of them running full kilter. Hundreds of them were passing through.  It was not like any other primate I have seen.  They weren't in a group, they were a herd.  They moved like herd of zebra, too fast to see clearly, too fast to count. As lanky bipedal primates we struggled through the undergrowth to get in front of the crowd.  We failed, and in a blur they were gone.  On a headlong dash to the big forest.  Apparently the only way to count them is to set up a video camera at a gap and film them as they run past it.  Later one has to go back and watch it in slow motion, pausing the film to make sure you've got them all.  One time they counted over 1,200 Mandrills in one group.  It was an extraordinary sight, one that I consider myself lucky to have witnessed.

And yet after a few years the EU project closed up shop and walked away from their tourism venture.  They did not even bother to clear the rooms and remove anything valuable.  And what amazes me is that nobody has come in since and cleared the place out.  Something like that in Asia would have been stripped of fittings and anything else valuable within weeks.  This has just stood empty for 4 years, being consumed slowly by the forest.  It turns out that after all the investment, nobody visited.  And so, more than usual with these dispatches, I will now editorialise.  They committed an error that one sees time and again.  One that in the wise words of a sappy film I call "build it and they will come".  Somebody saw the forest and thought this place is amazing, and it's full of gorillas, surely all we need to do is build a really nice lodge that people would come and visit, and the park will be saved.  They go to see the gorillas in Rwanda after all.  But nobody did come, and somebody hadn't really done their market research.  There really needs to be a hook, something to get people there: huge herds of wildebeest, or Tigers in the grass.  Yes, people go to Rwanda and Uganda to see the gorillas.  But those are the Gorillas in the Mist, they are the gorillas that hugged David Attenborough, and importantly there is a very high chance of encountering them.  Who knows there are Lowland Gorillas too, who has heard of Gabon?  There is a small market for seeing them, but people already go to Congo or CAR where chances are you will see the gorillas.  Turns out although there are plenty of gorillas in Gabon, it is actually damned hard to see them (I heard one, once).  There needs to be ready market to tap into.  Central Africa is well off the tourist trail, and it would need a lot of good publicity to even get people to think about going there, let alone to go to some remote forest where there is a good chance of seeing nothing.  I do think there is a market of people who want to just see some nice forest, but it is not a big market and I suspect it has been cornered by Costa Rica and Malaysia.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not against ecotourism as a strategy to help conservation.  We are using here in Cambodia.  But it needs to be thought about.  Here we are focusing on a small specialist market that we understand. Low volume, low input, but with a high margin: birdwatchers.  And even then they do not just go to any old bit of forest that looks nice and has lots of pretty birds, they go to specific places and after specific birds, and they pretty much will see them.  Nobody will come to your beautiful forest and lovely lodge if they have not heard of the country it is in and there is nothing to see.  A lodge is built but nobody comes.  Worthy development professionals scratch their heads and wonder.  As they move on to their next placement in Peru, or Mali their great plan turns to spectacular folly.

 

Loango National Park. Gabon. October 2008

We had to dodge the boat.  We had to swerve to the left so as to avoid hitting the rather worse for wear vessel.  And we were in a plane.  I still haven't figured out why we were flying so low, some say it is to ride the winds over the waves like an albatross, others say it was to avoid radar.  Personally I think it was just for fun.  Not sure all of us passengers thought it was fun though.  It could have been considered an adrenalin rush, or alternatively downright terrifying.  I glanced up to the cockpit, the pilot didn't look like he was panicking so I assumed he knew we were 30m above the Atlantic and I looked back out the window at the most amazing beach in the world.

A couple of days ago my regular travelling companion Audrey and I had crossed the savannah of Gabon's Loango Lagoon National Park.  The car was aimed for a gap in the trees.  Beyond the trees lay the ocean.  We stopped at the edge of the beach.  The ocean roared up the shore in front of us.  The air thick with salt spray.  The beach stretched away north and south of us, soon enveloped in the haze.  Fifty meters or so down the beach a group of buffalo looked up.  We had disturbed their perambulations on the strand.  They were forest buffalos.  Cousins of more familiar hulking buffalo of Africa's plains, these are much smaller, with slender horns.  They are a rich russet with large tufted ears that stick out at jaunty angles.  Like many of the animals of central Africa's forest they were somewhat mythical.

15 years ago whilst beating a hasty retreat from Uganda I had identified Gabon as a place I had to visit.  It had forest elephants, buffalo, Giant Hog, and above all primates, lots of primates.  But it was a fantasy, nobody goes to the forests of central Africa, and certainly nobody sees the elephants or buffalos.  It turns out I was wrong.  With time and patience, or probably more accurately money and contacts one can get to see these amazing animals.  All I had done was travel half-way around the world, by tuk-tuk, taxis, four planes, a train and a boat, and had an ex-boss and old university mate line everything up for me.  It could not have been easier....

The buffalo moved away slowly, passed a small lagoon and vanished into the forest.  The scene was primordial, and this is possibly the only place in Africa where one can still witness it.  The beach became famous about seven years ago when a series of stories appeared in National Geographic.  WCSer Mike Fey had spent months walking through the forests of Congo and Gabon, and had emerged somewhere near here.  The Nat Geo pieces were accompanied with incredible photos of elephant, buffalo and antelope on the beach, with gorillas sunbathing in the background.  Most famous were the Hippos playing in the surf, something that has been seen nowhere else (and turns out to be seen very rarely here too, just don't tell the tourists).  Humpback whales calf offshore, and every year Leatherback Turtles haul themselves out to lay they their eggs in the sand.  It is perhaps not surprising that the area is sometimes referred to as the wildest beach in the world.  I first saw the stories about the so called Megatransect when I was in West Kalimantan.  I looked at them with envy and thought "I want to go there".  I wonder if Mike Fey looked at Cheryl and Tim's pieces about Gunung Palung around then and thought the same.  Somehow I doubt it.

But being the wildest beach does not make it pristine.  It is still at the whim of the currents, and exploring further any illusions of idyll were dashed.  The littoral was strewn with a dramatic array of flotsam: flip-flops, fishing buoys, the largest light-bulb that I have ever seen in my life - I swear it was bigger than my head, it had to have come from a giant's headlamp, and water bottles.  Lots and lots of plastic water bottles.  The ocean had brought them here from all over.  Some were locals, others from as far afield as Canada or Thailand.  Plastic water bottles are one of my pet-peeves.  They are the scourge of the seas.  If you take anything away from my missives, indeed if you have even made it this far, think about whether it really is necessary to use all those bottles.  In the developed world drink tap water, that's what it is there for.  When travelling, or living in areas where the water is not to be trusted (Wales for example), carry a water bottle and fill it at trusted sources.  Ask tour operators to use 1.5 lt bottles at least, and not the wasteful 0.5 lt ones.  You're going to need more than 500ml of water in a day of exploring Angkor Wat after all.

Anyway, rant over.  A little later Audrey and I were sitting in the campsite drinking wine and watching the sun set.  Nightjars were hawking for insects overhead, and a small group of Red River Hogs scurried across the savannah below us.  As dusk settled the first stars came out.  A particularly bright one was visible just above the horizon.  Something wasn't quite right about it however.  As I focused my binoculars on it the last vestiges of untouched African wilderness dropped away.  It was the gas flare of one of Shell's offshore rigs.

This was the first bit of ‘travelogue’ that I tried to write.  Just out of curiosity I have included it here to see if my style has changed.  If I ever had any that is.  It was originally written for my school alum magazine, such an august publication.

 

Rufiji Delta, Tanzania, Jan – Mar 1993

Frontier is an organisation which was set up five years ago to give volunteers the chance to be involved in scientific projects in the third world.  I was lucky enough to be involved in an expedition to Tanzania in early 1993 and it was an experience I shall certainly never forget.

In June 1992 I was sitting in a small hut up a deserted valley in the Lake District, with the wind howling outside and the horizontal rain pounding against the window, when it suddenly occurred to me that my gap year could get a little depressing if I continued working for the RSPB.

As soon as I got home I started looking for some ideas and received some information from Frontier.  As I glanced through their details certain words caught my attention, “East Africa”, “desert island”, “Indian Ocean” and I realised that this was the thing for me.  After a trip to Iceland, courtesy of BCS and Dr Tim Stott, and my A-level results, I applied, was interviewed and accepted.  What then followed was four months hard work and silly sponsored activities – needed in order to raise the £2,500 costs.  This was interspersed with visits to the doctor so that he could inject me with lots of diseases and tell me that I would get malaria.

On 24th January 1993 I went to Heathrow, met my fellow volunteers for the first time and tried to look relaxed.  After a 22 hour flight (via Oman!) we arrived in Dar es Salaam, capital of Tanzania, 600 miles south of the equator, and very hot.  Two days later, and many more warnings about malaria, ten of us boarded an old Chinese built bus and headed for the Rufiji river.

At the same time other volunteers were heading for tropical forests in northern Tanzania, Uganda and Viet Nam as well as the coral reefs of Tanzania’s Mafia Island.  During our two days in Dar we were briefed on what we were to do and why.  We were going to study part of the 500 square mile tidal mangrove swamp that covers the delta of the Rufiji river.  This would involve living on a palm fringed beach on the Indian Ocean, eating fresh fish and prawns, but also unfortunately meant working long days in muddy, humid, mosquito infested swamps.  We were to survey the delta as part of a long term project to determine erosion patterns, tree species density and tide levels and times.  The delta holds the largest mangrove forest in East Africa and as such is an important wilderness that needs conserving.  The forest is also an important spawning ground for many economically important fish and site of a growing prawn industry.  The wood available is also a valuable resource and the delta is still home to many thousands of subsistence farmers who rely on the river for their life.  The data we were collecting was being used by the Tanzanian government to draw up a management plan for the area, in an attempt to balance out all the competing interests while still keeping the area a viable resource.

Finally, after nearly 10 hours travel we go to the river where we met the local malaria researchers who told us about the nearly 100% occurrence of malaria in the local population, as well as 30% of the adult population who have HIV/AIDS.  So with this happy news we loaded our boat with all our paraphernalia, much to the amusement of the locals who did enjoy watching us struggle as we carried our equipment through inter-tidal mud to the boat.  As we departed we looked back at the mainland and the last semblance of civilisation as we moved slowly in the maze of creeks that the Colonial Germans had called “Green Hell”.

After all the build up we were all very relieved when we saw our camp.  When I say “relieved” I think gob smacked is probably a better phrase.  It was beautiful; a long empty golden beach fringed with tall palm trees swaying in the warm ocean breeze.  Nestled under these was our camp, which consisted of 9 small huts built entirely of mangrove wood and palm fronds.  All we needed to do was argue about who had the conch.

After two days of acclimatisation it was time to get to work.  To start with this was basic training on the equipment and the techniques we were to use.  Paul, the scientific co-ordinator, then felt that we could be let loose on the mangrove.  At this point I feel I ought to mention that only one other member of our group had any experience with any of the methods we used, and the only thing you need to have in order to go on a Frontier project is £2,500, and the strength of character to put up with a few hardships.  My group consisted of a 35 year old civil engineer, seven graduates in subjects ranging from English to electrical engineering, and 2 ‘gappies’ (myself included).  The first part of the part of the work involved splitting into two groups to survey 8 transects on two islands.  This involved measuring the ground level and mud depth taking soil samples and counting trees at 10m intervals for 1 km through the forest.  Due to the tidal nature of the forest this had to be done at low tide, and was hot, muddy work, which combined with the swarms of mosquitoes (malaria free thankfully), was frequently very uncomfortable.  This didn’t last long however and the other nine weeks were spent lying on the beach a lot, and every so often taking readings from a tide pole or a theodolite.

When not working life was even more relaxing and we took it in turns to do camp duty.  This meant making the bread (baked in a hole in the ground) and doing the cooking for the whole group.  The food was very basic and every meal was generally rice and vegetables with prawns, fish and chicken every so often, all of this being cooked over an open fire.

Towards the end of the project we had 2 hectic days and nights when we investigated various aspects of the river over a 24 hour period.  Once this was finished and the data compiled it was unfortunately time for us to leave what we had come regard as home.  In the end this had to be done sharpish as the rains had come early and the roads might soon be impassable.

Once back in Dar I had my first wash in fresh water for 3 months (we’d been washing in the sea), went out for a proper meal and some beer, and then started to sort out my travel plans.

In the end I travelled around for another three months taking in Mt Kilimanjaro, the Ngorrongorro crater and the Serengeti, Victoria Falls, Lake Malawi, Ugandan gorillas and chimps, and the wonders of Nairobi’s back streets.  Ultimately I had to leave, even though I didn’t want to and returned to another wonderful summer of English weather and English cricket.