A Q&A with Anthony Climpson OBE, tourism manager of the New Forest

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Canoeing in the New Forest

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Exploring beyond the New Forest National Park

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Conservation volunteering in the New Forest

Strawberry mountain

I loved Chelsea Flower Show last year so was keen to go along when the Bermuda Department of Tourism invited me. Last year, most of my favourite gardens were big show gardens outdoors, but this year I made more time for the exhibitors inside the floral marquee, and found lots of interesting smaller gardens. Here’s the 10 I liked best overall this year (in no particular order):

1. The tunnel of clematis of all different shades of purple and white, created by Raymond Evison and his Guernsey Clematis team

2. A huge mountain covered in nothing but strawberries that gave off the most delicious smell – but had a strict no-picking policy

3. An intricate display of flowers tucked into every crevice of an old, gnarled tree, making it look a bit like a maypole

Tree decked in flowers

4. The Bermuda garden, which was styled around a giant stone shaped like a polo – the ‘moonstone’ which Bermudians have in their gardens to bring good luck, and often used in wedding ceremonies

5. The Tourism Malaysia garden, again created by TV-gardener James Wong, but this year inspired by the pool-gardens of urban houses in Malaysia. Malaysia deservedly took home a gold award again this year

6. The incredible jockey’s jackets crafted out of flowers by entrants in the RHS Young Chelsea Florist of the Year competition

7. The Principality of Monaco’s chic, architecture-led garden with swimming pool and decking. As I left the show at 8pm I was mesmerised by the robot pool cleaner

Jockey's jackets

8. Sri Lanka’s beautiful orchid garden. Sri Lanka also pulled off a rather impressive list of celebrity drop-ins: Bill Bailey, JLS, Rick Stein, Jane Asher and Helen Mirren

9. The exciting B&Q garden with real goldfish and a striking vertical garden, promoting  techniques for maximising urban space to grow fresh produce

10. The controversial Failte Island ‘sky garden’ (the one that was lifted into the air by a crane every so often). I didn’t get chance to see it aloft but I loved the dense grasses and foliage of the garden, and let’s face it, it would be super-cool to dine in a ‘hanging Eden’.

White-fronted Bee-eater

Leading on from my first blog on South Africa, here are the birding highlights of my recent trip with Eco Training. The Mukaleke concession has some of the best bird life in the whole Kruger National Park, and I was lucky enough to see and learn about all of the following (click each image for a larger pic):

Blacksmith Lapwing - which makes a noise like the chinking of a hammer on metal

Yellow-billed Hornbill - with a beautiful, large, curved yellow bill. The female closes herself up inside a tree trunk to lay and hatch her eggs, and they use millipede toxins to keep predators away

Cape Turtle Dove – which chirps “work harrrrrder” in the morning. In the afternoon, it sounds more like “drink laaaaager”, just around sundowner time….

Red-eyed Dove – which sings “I AM a red-eyed dove”

Kingfisher

Oxpeckers – these hang around rhino and buffalo so are useful to follow/avoid as appropriate

Yellow-billed Hornbill

Lesser Honey Guide – which  sings “Victor”

African Palm Swift – which sticks its eggs to tree. It can’t turn the eggs like a bird in a normal nest would (to make sure yolk doesn’t touch the side of the shell), but the wind blowing does the job instead

Little Bee-eater

White-fronted Bee-eater - the term ‘white-fronted’ doesn’t do this one justice; it’s absolutely stunning

Swainson’s Spurfowl – quite chicken-esque with a bright red
ring around the eye

Mosque Swallow

European Swallow

Swainson's Spurfowl

Barn Owl

European Storks – we saw a huge flock getting ready to fly back to Europe

Pin-tailed Whyder – with a long clumsy tail that made him look ridiculously clumsy in flight

Splendid Starling – heaps prettier than the one we see in Britain

Vultures

Hoopoe

Lilac-breasted Roller and the European roller – two of my favourites

African Hawk Eagle - which has lovely feathery legwarmers

European Roller

Orange-breasted Bush Shrike

Grey Goaway Bird – which has a crazy, fluffy mohawk

Grey-headed Parrot

Nightjars - a right pain in the arse. They jump in front of the Landrover’s headlamps at night and mean you have to crawl along so you don’t hurt them

South Africa Tourism: www.southafrica.net
Eco Training: www.ecotraining.za

Splendid Starling

European Storks

Tawny Eagle

It has three camps in South Africa, but what makes the camp I visited at Makuleke special is that it’s within a unique part of Kruger that has been given back to the tribe which originally owned the land.

In 1969, the Makuleke people were forcibly removed from the land under the apartheid system, and it was only in 1994 that they made a successful claim to have the land (which by then formed part of Kruger) returned to them. I had the opportunity to visit the Makuleke people in the town just outside the park where they now live, and heard firsthand about the difficult decisions the tribe has had to make, and the challenges it currently faces.

When the land was returned in ‘94, the Makuleke considered selling the land for mining or for cattle-farming, but were thankfully persuaded by Eco Training and NGOs that the land should continue being used for conservation and eco-tourism. Three different safari camps within the Makuleke concession now pay the tribe a rental fee for the land, and also employ local people.

Tribal leaders said that the decision to go with conservation had been the right one, but admitted it has been far from easy.

Lemson Maluleke, operating officer for the Makuleke marketing board, told us that Makuleke’s remote location makes it a difficult sell from a tourism point, and that the three camps are not generating as much revenue as expected. Crucially – the tribe feels it must consider hunting on the land again:

“Initially, after engaging with the concessionaires, we decided that hunting was not compatible with the conservation aims. But we haven’t been able to generate the same revenue, so we do want to explore the issue of hunting again,” he explained.

Since the Mukaleke people have the rights to the land, they are entitled to hunt if they wish, despite it being illegal elsewhere in Kruger National Park. Lemson insisted that the hunting would be done in a sustainable manner, only during certain weeks in certain zones.

But conservationists are concerned that even limited, regulated hunting cannot sit alongside the park’s conservation aims, particularly when Kruger has such a problem with illegal poaching.

On the other hand, with 20,000 mouths to feed, I can well understand the Makuleke’s desire to make best use of the resources available to them. Whether they hunt themselves, or grant hunting permits for controversial biltong-hunting, it would prove very profitable.

Thinking back to the marine reserve I visited in the Caribbean last month, what I found so inspiring about the project in Jamaica was the level of buy-in that the scheme had from the local community. The campaign was led by a local fisherman and had the community’s full support. At Mukaleke, on the other hand, the conservation is driven by outside parties, and I’d question how engaged the community really is.

It’s hard to see how tourism alone will be able to generate the kind of revenue the tribe says it needs, without allowing further camps to be built.

The tribe’s leaders have now begun a study to determine just how feasible it is for them to rely on the income from conservation and ecotourism in future years: I hope the results prove positive enough that the Makuleke can fully commit to conservation for the long-term.

• South Africa Tourism: www.southafrica.net

• Eco Training: www.ecotraining.co.za

More destructive fishing methods and growing unemployment have led to greater and greater pressure upon Jamaica’s fish stocks, and it is now the most over-fished country in the entire Caribbean. In 2009, the Jamaican government agreed to create nine marine sanctuaries around the country, where fishing would be banned so stocks could regenerate.

With the financial support of Virgin Holidays, The Travel Foundation the Sandals Foundation and Bluefields Bay Villas, the Bluefields Bay Fishermen’s Friendly Society has been able to manufacture marker-buoys which will clearly demarcate this 3,000-hectare reserve.

The next step will be to raise the cash for a boat and crew-member to patrol the sanctuary and enforce the no-fishing policy. Luckily, president of the society Wolde Kristos has the support of almost the entire Bluefields fishing community, which means the project is much more likely to succeed than if the sanctuary had been imposed without local support.

Dr Owen Day, of not-for-proft organisation Caribsave, says that a film made  in 2009 has played a key role in educating Jamaican people on and changing their attitudes about the fishing crisis. In Massa God Fish Can Done, the Nature Conservancy took 10 Jamaican fishermen to Belize to show the level of regeneration that has been achieved at Belize’s Hol Chan, which became Belize’s first marine reserve in 1987. You can watch it here:

I already had an understanding of how dynamite fishing, spear-fishing, and use of finer nets can affect fish populations, but I was interested to hear the impact that the fashion for serving fish with heads and tails on can have: “Plate-sized fish are juvenile fish,” says Howard Bromfield of the Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries. “Snappers that would be 20-inches long are now being caught at 8-inches. That’s still a juvenile. Fishermen are robbing themselves of bigger fish, heavier weight, more money.”

Monitoring

Wolde and Dr Day both insist upon the importance of being able to monitor the sanctuary’s progress over the coming years. “Governments around the Caribbean are starting to realise that sanctuaries are a solution, but we need success stories. Bluefields Bay could be a great success story,” says Owen.

Conservation volunteering bodies like Coral Cay Conservation may come and carry out scuba surveys, but Owen is investigating some exciting video technology being developed by Edinburgh University. The Fish4knowledge programme uses algorithms to log the size and identify the species of fish which swim past the camera lens: far more effective than recording by the naked eye.

The fishermen at Bluefields are also taking a resourceful approach to the lionfish problem, which is acute here as in many other parts of the Caribbean. The invasive lionfish was introduced accidentally in 1992 and is wiping out reef fish throughout the region. At Bluefields, the lionfish are being caught and sold to a local resort to be served as part of an educational dining experience.  “The fishermen get paid for the fish, and to remove the poisonous spines and prepare the fish. Then I give the guests a talk about the lionfish crisis; the guests are always fascinated, and the fish actually tastes quite good,” says Patrick Marti, a Peace Corps volunteer who’s spent two years at Bluefields Bay.

Wolde Kristos’s vision for the sanctuary includes the creation of tourism-related jobs within the sanctuary, such as snorkelling tours, diving, and glass-bottomed boats. He’s even considering an underwater sculpture park, like those that have been so successful in Grenada and Cancun. But in true Wolde style, he plans to put a different spin on the idea by creating a ‘reggae theme park’, with statues of famous faces from Jamaica’s musical heritage. And instead of bringing in an international sculptor, he would look to use local artists and manufacturers – another way of supporting the local community and helping to ensure their support for the marine sanctuary project.

“There are various stakeholders in what we do,” he explains. “Tourism is one stakeholder, the general community is another. We have to find a mechanism for everyone to benefit – but it’s not a dream. We are making it work.”

Experts from the Born Free Foundation and other bodies met in London following the International Tiger Forum in St Petersburg in November. It was interesting to hear their take on the outcome of the international forum, and how we must now proceed if we’re to stand a chance of saving the 3,200 tigers remaining in the wild.

Debbie Banks, head of the tiger campaign at the Environmental Investigation Agency, said the summit had had some degree of success in that £208m has been pledged by world leaders to tackle tiger poaching in countries like Nepal, India and Bhutan.

But she said that what is needed now is increased police presence, covert operations and improved customs so that more information on the smuggling of illegal tiger products can be gathered. “It needs to be intelligence-led, not money-led,” she argued. “Many governments have focussed too much on celebrated, isolated, seizures of tiger skins and bones – within their own locality. Information is not shared cross-border, and the possibility of integrated efforts is lost,” she explained.

She added that China must now show that it really is committed to tackling the problem in its own country. “If the Chinese president is serious, then he will now send advocates to the army, engage the anti-corruption bureau, have meetings with the police and launch a media campaign,” she said. “If the government of China can spend $31 million on the Olympics, it can take the right action here too if it really wants to,” she added.

Steve Trent of innovative campaigning body Wild Aid, argued that reducing demand for tiger products is the most important factor. I was fascinated to hear about Wild Aid’s recent advertising campaign in China which used well-known celebrities like Jackie Chan to hit home the message that “when the buying stops, the killing stops”.

He argued against the idea of farming tigers in captivity for their body parts (some people have suggested this as a way of meeting demand without taking tigers from the wild). “Tiger farms stimulate demand for tiger products; it’s saying that you can make some money from this. So we need to kill off demand,” he said. With up to 10,000 tigers now held in farms, circuses and attractions around the world, I agree with Steve that any tiger held in captivity sends the wrong message.

But it wasn’t all doom and gloom at the conference: Will Travers of the Born Free Foundation sounded a cautious note of optimism about our potential to save the species from extinction. He drew an interesting parallel between the plight of the elephant in Kenya in the 1980s and that of the tiger in Asia. “Since the Kenyan government burned its ivory stockpile in 1989, the number of elephants in Kenya has doubled. We can turn things around,” he said.

Let’s hope so.