FIFA gives the Spix's the boot

Social media gives us access to a plethora of communiqué & usually filtered in favour of channeled interests. In my case that means globally imperiled species, avian or otherwise. Some of the material is well-researched & written well-enough to impart a telling message. Agenda-driven bias, unadulterated drivel, financial slant, predilections & prejudice make up the balance.

Too much nasty tends to fog our intellectual frailties & therein lies the rub. We become immune to plight particularly if the issue is indirect or geographically removed. Notwithstanding, ours is a connected web of truths.

Extinction symbol

Growing up on a family diet of club & country I always enjoy the unpublished drama / enigma that is the World Cup behind the media-curtain. It adds hot-sauce to what is, without doubt, the world's premier sporting spectacle. Hot-sauce is also camouflage for substance.

Fox's 3D computer-animated musical, Rio, a favourite in most homes, tells the story of the world's last male Blue Macaw & his subsequent introduction to a Rio-based lady friend. It's a nice enough story and he & she fall in love and so on. Only the Blue Macaw or more accurately Spix's (or Little Blue) Macaw is, in fact, critically endangered and quite possibly extinct in the wild. The animated message is clear enough even though the constructive aspects are eventually lost in translation if not trumped by the entertainment value of the ensuing adventure. That raises some concerns.

Take the 2014 FIFA World Cup™, for example, or more specifically its official mascot, Fuleco. Fuleco the armadillo loves to sing & dance which is fair enough. He's Brazilian after-all & apart from his raunchy act with scantily-clad women, an animated joy for children. Fuleco represents the Three-banded Armadillo, quintessentially Brazilian as are Fuleco's samba- exhortations it seems.  

The Three-banded Armadillo is a son of the Caatinga (White Forest) woodlands, also the natural habitat for Spix's Macaw. The Caatinga, in turn, is one of six (6) eco-regions (ie: in Brazil) & covers 850,000 km² or approximately 10% of the country. This area is poorly represented in Brazil's Conservation Network. Only 1% of the Caatinga is formally protected with a further 6% declared a 'Sustainable Use Conservation Area'. Endemism levels vary from about 10% in birds to 60%, give or take, for fish. The Caatinga is also home to 15 000 000 of the poorest peoples in Brazil who are still largely dependent on forest & agricultural activity for income. Unfettered access has & continues to contribute to the unsustainable exploitation of the natural resources.

By the time fieldwork was initiated to locate Spix's Macaw, some thirty years ago, it was too late. At that time just 15 or so captive Spix's were formally recorded. Only a single male bird was located in the wild. In the mid-nineties His Excellency Sheikh Saud bin Muhammed bin Ali Al-Thani of Qatar bought most of the remaining captive collections & under his exacting standards the subsequent breeding program proved successful. In 2012 the Brazilian government established NEST which now formally houses the Spix's formerly homed in various conservation organisations, elsewhere. Descended from the original 7 wild-caught birds some 90-odd captive Spix's are extant today. The Spix's, if not free at last, are at least home at last.

The Three-banded Armadillo or the colloquial tatu-bola, 'ball armadillo', hence the FIFA Fuleco connection, has suffered a precipitous decline in the last decade so much so that's it's currently listed on IUCN's red list. In 2012 the Caatinga Association launched a national campaign to propose the tatu-bola as the official 2014 FIFA World Cup™ mascot. The campaign highlighted not only the plight of tatu-bola, represented by Fuleco, the most popular World Cup mascot of all time, but also of the Caatinga itself.

What of Brazil's people? The media reports a collective dislike for FIFA and more specifically, nation-wide protests, some violent, against the subsequent spend to comply with the associated staging-requirements. Given the unprecedented social unrest, particularly during last year's preparatory 2013 FIFA Confederations Cup, most would agree that Brazil's peoples haven't wholly embraced the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ with open arms.

Those same Brazilians (9 in 10) insist that the 2014 FIFA World Cup™ should be, at the very least, environmentally friendly; the Copa Verde - the greenest World Cup ever. Although 6 of the stadiums are LEED-certified [Leadership in Energy & Environmental Design] ie: a best-in-class green building certification program; the long-term sustainability remains elusive. Brazil's investment in stadiums undeniably advances ecological technologies but does very little to ensure social justice & this, more than anything else, negates the Copa Verde as a simple contradiction in terms. Dispossession of land, particularly from its first peoples ie: Brazil's indigenous tribes, of which 1400-odd tribes are believed to have become extinct since 1500, is the lasting legacy. The farce that is indigenous land destroyed to build ecologically-certified stadiums is trite. Equally farcical, defying logic really, are FIFA's subsequent efforts to promote the environment through it's Green Goal program - largely premised on zero-emissions. The event's carbon-footprint, as a whole, is not inconsequential..

Where then does that leave Spix's Macaw & our tatu-bola? Nowhere really.

First-off, there is very little influence on national policy specific to the Caatinga, if any, as a result of the perceived successes arising from the 2014 FIFA World Cup™, Fuleco's domestic popularity or from FIFA's not-for-profit coffers. There are no irrevocable offers tabled from which the Caatinga's peoples will derive any meaningful financial benefit & certainly not from FIFA or from Brasilia. By implication the unsustainable harvest of indigenous habitat will continue unabated. Although the perpetual question posed of FIFA on whether the organisation owes the world anything other than a successful football tournament remains moot, we noted the social apathy of the indigenous people, particularly in Cuiabá. It's a sad indictment of the authorities & for us, at least, the abiding legacy. The most optimistic assessment of the social impact on these people is arbitrary at best & grossly unjust, at worst. We concede that 'FIFA will not take the stadiums home in their suitcases..'. Notwithstanding the political nuances, unprecedented allegations of corruption & the stew that is Brazil's social web and history, FIFA will, however, depart in mid-July & they will take with them the untried opportunity to make a real investment in the social & environmental fabric of a country considered globally incomparable in biodiversity. This is the abiding travesty. In fact it's a poke in the collective eye of green-grass football-fans, anywhere.

LBJs for breakfast

Thank you.  

There are few moments more rewarding than a simple thank you from the young people who share your life and who, by virtue of genetics, call you Dad. I'm lucky that way.

My three children, Amber (17), Michelle (15) and Sean (14), assisted by Alisha (?), consider it prudent to spoil me mushy-brown more often than I care to count and who am I to deny them the joy..? Sebastian Ethan Kirk, unashamedly late & due later this winter's season will undoubtedly add to the festivities as I grow older. I'm clearly a shameless glutton!

I recently found myself on the receiving end of a busload of chocolates & a few relaxing nights in the Ivory Tree section of Pilanesberg NP.

A brownish grey dash of lime

For those of you who haven't been to the Pilanesberg volcano it's about time you did, not for its rugged aesthetic appeal - there are prettier spots everywhere or for its game viewing - that too is surpassed elsewhere but because it exists as a living monument and proof sufficient that with some foresight & fortitude we can polish the pristine from the degraded wrongs of a commercial past and I, for one, love it for it's resilient character as a result.

At first glance Pilanesberg is clearly money-shopped. Look carefully and in certain spots trees find asymmetrical lines but, like the rabble in the back, also provides reams of unwritten canvas for a better future. Potential rather than output usually gets me warm & fuzzy. I won't dwell on the accommodation. We had more fun trying to recreate the Audi ad-campaign using moonlight, a candle and our old bush-banger than we did at the 5-star table & that's fine with me. It's the simple joys in life that abide longest even if we failed, somewhat spectacularly, at replicating Ogilvy & Mather's ad-campaign.

Launching Kirk, Kirk & Kirk's - Banger's & mash campaign

A familiar friend

Pilanesberg is, whichever way you cut it, a smudged sketch of the girl next door and like most pigtails, not exactly the prom-queen and yet interesting in an understated way.

The avian protagonists are equally understated and yet.. interesting; little-brown-jobs mostly & if the colour-collective is descriptive, then a tongue-in-cheek-like bag of song. It's free too if you know just where to scratch.

Chat to fellow-enthusiasts familiar with the Pilanesberg lark & most will say Pretoriae steals the show. Why? I cannot say unless perhaps in premature anticipation of a potential split from its geriatric-like, white-headed conspecific more readily found further west.

These winter-chilled LBJ-songsters are as vocally exuberant as the Spanish exit-queue at the Aeroporto Internacional de São Paulo. They're just not fun to talk to.

Finding these enthusiasts in a sea of brown, therefore, is more back-foot now than it is at summer's kick-off. Even so, armed with chilly sympathy & a tolerance for dust, spawned by the in-flight antics of the Big 5 brigade headed for the siting's board, LBJs are readily found.

Ramos - a chilly glare!

The sedentary SA's Botha - not a happy winter lark

These little browns are, in the word's of SoD's Forsythe himself - 'my favourites!' Song or scowl they're ultra-cool in the early sun & a gift. Unwrapping lark from chat is all the rage. Beats an old-boy's tie at lunchtime, any day!

Just a step to your right...

A leap of faith!

Cape Recife - Port Elizabeth

Bridled Tern habitat 

At the sentient core lurks a behavioral response to stimulus, learned or inherent and when condensed, a simple derivative of three emotive forces - Certainty. Uncertainty & Fear, real or imagined. It's a formula for lifelong confusion and misadventure. It's also why we venture into an uncertain world brimming with certainty and quite often, hamstrung by fear.

It's a simple recipe but, like most subjective taste-tests, the outcome is almost always dependent on the buds anticipating the spoon and that, my enlightened friends, is what makes life worth living!

This story is a tale of three. The first - the least impressive; the second - an affirmation that wisdom is NOT commensurate with grey and the last -a confirmation that a step into the abyss is not always a venture into the unknown.

Addo NP - peaceful

Bridled Tern had been reported from Port Elizabeth's (EC) Cape Recife. Certainty. Would it still be there when we got there? Unknown. Worth trying? Fear.

Behavioral response - offset the odds against the disappointment of another long-shot, take in Tsitsikamma NP and settle the matter of the little bridge over shallow water. We'd return home certain in the knowledge that we'd done the right thing...

As it turned out we dipped on the tern (as we did for our 800 Challenge & as we've done on countless other occasions); confirmed our suspicions that Addo National Park is indeed a peace park and suffered the ignominy of a cracked windshield whilst cruising on Distronic Plus with proximity control. Clearly we were too close..

Natural spa - freedom

The tern thus discarded, perhaps for the more deserving, we made our way westwards to what is, for me at least, the jewel in South Africa's crown; Storm's River.

The Kirks - a sleep pile

Here the seas are as wild as anywhere I've seen & having spent three memorable years (a gap year...) covering the corners of this fine rock, it's fair comment I think. The air is moss-fresh, the natural forest hauntingly green and the seas above which White-necked Raven and tern whirl, wholly untamed. Black Oystercatchers bound from rock to rock seemingly in offhand pursuit of the many Hyrax (dassies) which call these jagged rocks home.

The Storms River suspension bridge

On a different note a brief comment on the newly renovated restaurant complex. The Cattle Baron is exceptional and kudos to Sanparks, Tourvest & the staff on site for their achievement. If this is the quality of service that Sanparks is going to deliver across its portfolio then WOO bloody HOO! Now complain you bast..s!

The weird & the wonderful

If the first part of this adventure was a miss, the second was a mega-slam of a different kind and as these things go I found myself the butt of the hit, as always. If the 'cling-to-anything-solid' uproarious laughter from the busload of foreign tourists is anything to judge these things by, then they too enjoyed the show.

The story starts slowly enough - 'get a picture of the sea. Leave the long lens in the house and take the spanking-new wide-angle. Take the new camera body too. That way you can take it all in...'

Storms River - Part 1 'Innocent intent'

Armed thusly with a small country's annual GDP clutched to my bosom & slightly less so perched atop my winners' hat, I bestrode the shore looking to immortalise the lucky wave.

Behind (far behind) the family watched. These pictures are theirs not mine..

Storms River - Part 2 'Last Rights'

When gazing through the viewfinder & through a wide-angle lens, one may miscalculate the proximity of the subject in view. As a seasoned 'get-much-closer-Pro' I take my craft quite seriously. Of their own volition and by enforced habit, the ten little piggies, attached to the end of my feet as these things normally are, scrabbled the rest of me closer to the break.

With Proximity Control consigned to the sissy-basket I edged even closer, well past the yawn of sanity.

I vaguely remember hearing the seventh whisper sweet nothings as it reared overhead. Click!

I recall a distant shore-based warning - 'damn fool' or something similar. Click!           Gotcha...

Storms River - Part 3 'Coronation'

I remember, quite vividly as it turns out, the freshly scrubbed rocks and startled fish, pretty little things, as I thundered by, cartwheeling merrily along the sea-bottom. Fortunately I swallowed enough of the sea, as I made my way southwards, to cushion the impact of a happy assortment of barnacles, muscles, sea-shells and other lethal debris which accompanied me on my way.

Overwhelmed, as you can get with the beauty of things, whilst in spiral towards the back-break, I thought it prudent, fair play if you will, to donate my winners' hat, designer glasses, three kilos of skin, scalp and nail and most of my pride to the grateful dead in Jones' Locker.

Storms River - Part 4 'The Aftermath'

Surfacing sometime later that afternoon, alongside a cavorting pod of Southern Right Whale, I recall concluding that the best lens for the job might have been a macro...

If revenge is a dish best served cold, then there is a satiating serving in Part 3 of this tale. Exit Dad - enter kids: - the insignificant matter of a little bridge.

Bloukrans Bridge - 216 meters of terminal truth

Whilst doing the backward triple along the seafloor it transpired that my son had drowned the rest of the cackling clan with unbridled screams of joy.

Double, double toil & trouble: Fire burn, and cauldron bubble..

Stir the pot, add the world's highest bungee bridge, sprinkle in surprise; a pinch of debut vertigo and viola - the makings of revenge!

Two hims & a her 

I confess a history & a love for heady-heights not encoded in the DNA of my son. My daughter, in turn, leaps, flies, abseils, glides and dives with the best of them. His face, on debut, haunts my happy dreams to this day.

Look Mom - no hands

Bloukrans Bridge, 216m above a hard-landing & a short scream down below, is the world's highest bungee-bridge. At 14, Sean [my son] was fair game, chronologically at least, at last. This then his debut jump and what better way to whet the appetite than a leap of faith over the abyss of demons past.

Father / Son - flight hurrahs & a good-bye

Of mice & men!

There is an emotive purity, hammered heart, harnessed to a knotted band of rubber, glass-eyed above the yaw. As time goes on the adrenaline is less on tap than it might once have been but I saw it in his eyes; a conquered terror - release; a bursting pride and a jump to freedom. True class, not in the jump, for nobody is defined by an event but in the conquering of an imagined fear & the realisation that uncertainty is a figment of inexperience, nothing more.

WTF?

A parting shot if you don't mind?

Jeffreys Bay plays host to the world's most radical right break surf; you might even call it mecca. It's also the place of my youth and with it the molding of a son of Africa. Who then decided to erect a gaggle of wind-driven turbines & indiscreetly so from skyline to skyline? If that's progress I'm a bag of hot-air!