As Kerryn Morrison, ICF’s African Crane Conservation Program Manager, and I drove across the border from Uganda, I was thrilled to experience Rwanda for the first time. Rwanda is the 20th Africa country I have worked in for ICF, and I take joy in learning about the unique cultural, political, and ecological characteristics of each country I visit. Rwanda is no exception.
ICF President Dr. Rich Beilfuss recently returned from a three-week field visit to advance ICF’s Africa Program in three important “crane countries” — Uganda, Rwanda, and Zambia. Following are his field notes from Uganda, detailing the community-based efforts to protect the remaining Grey Crowned Cranes and their habitats in this country.
CeCe Carter Sieffert, a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin (UW)-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies, and her husband Mark Sieffert are in Guizhou Province, China this fall as part of a new UW/ICF partnership at Cao Hai, a critical wintering area for over 400 Black-necked cranes in southwestern China. Following is a summary of their experiences at Cao Hai.
We often say that anyone can contribute to crane conservation. I found a new dimension to that truth on my recent visits to farms in the Wakkerstroom and Chrissiesmeer grasslands of South Africa. I had come not to see cranes, but to peer into pens of sheep and cattle. Amongst the livestock, I had to look closely for the dark noses and floppy ears of my new “colleagues” – the dogs of the indigenous breed African Maluti, originally from the Lesotho highlands, and the paler Anatolian Sheepdogs from Turkey.