Can the ‘Blessed One' Rajagobal kick off a new tradition?
'When a learned person dies, a library burns down,' said Nasir, quoting the proverb widely attributed to Amadou Hampate Ba, one of the major intellectual and literary figures of twentieth-century Africa.
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The Star
3 days ago
- The Star
South Africa marks World Elephant Day with renewed conservation pledge
CAPE TOWN, Aug. 12 (Xinhua) -- South Africa celebrated World Elephant Day on Tuesday with a renewed commitment to elephant conservation through high-level dialogue involving key stakeholders. World Elephant Day is celebrated annually on Aug. 12. This year's commemoration, themed "Matriarchs' and Memories," coincided with the Southern African Elephant Indaba, hosted by the Department of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment in KwaZulu-Natal, home to the country's second-largest elephant population. "Our elephants are a national treasure, a keystone species, an integral part of our heritage," said Deputy Minister of Forestry, Fisheries, and the Environment Narend Singh in a statement. According to the statement, South Africa is home to about 44,000 African savanna elephants, with numbers continuing to grow -- a major conservation success compared to declines seen in other countries. Over the past four decades, elephants have expanded their range, with most living in protected areas such as Kruger National Park, Mapungubwe National Park, and Tembe Elephant Park. An additional 89 smaller, fenced reserves also host elephant populations, while about 6,000 elephants are privately or community-owned, said Singh. However, Singh noted that success brings challenges. "As elephant numbers and ranges expand, encounters between people and elephants have increased, particularly in rural communities living near protected areas," he said. "Human-elephant conflict can result in crop losses, damage to infrastructure, and in some cases, injury or loss of human life." The deputy minister stressed the need for innovative solutions to promote coexistence, such as improved land-use planning, early-warning systems, community-based monitoring, and benefit-sharing initiatives that recognize the costs of living alongside elephants. He also said that conservation efforts must address threats such as habitat loss, climate change, and human-wildlife conflict through a whole systems approach that values community voices, scientific expertise, indigenous knowledge, and partnerships. "It is therefore imperative for South Africa to harness collaboration, co-learning, and co-working so that our collective wisdom, capacity, and actions bring forth a flourishing world and thriving life," he said.
The Sun
4 days ago
- The Sun
Remembering our gentle giants
IT happened just after dawn. On May 11, as the mist hung low over the East–West Highway in Gerik, a five-year-old elephant calf stepped out from the forest beside his mother. To him, the road was not a threat; it was simply another clearing between trees, a quiet path between safety and river, between yesterday and tomorrow. But he never made it to tomorrow. Moments later, the calf – still innocent in his gait, tethered to his mother's shadow – was struck by a 10-tonne lorry. The massive truck crushed his small body. Shrouded in the dim dawn, he had emerged at the only crossing he knew. He did not survive. But it was what happened next that left the nation weeping – a tragedy that pierced the hearts of Malaysians. His mother, wholly undone by grief, refused to abandon her child. She stood vigil beside the wreckage, her trunk curling around the lorry's chassis. She screamed an anguished, guttural cry no one who heard it will ever forget. For over five hours, she remained – nudging him, mourning him and loving him. In that moment, the image of her maternal agony shattered whatever barriers may have existed between our species and theirs. The grief was universal and the love unmistakable. It was also, tragically, not the first time. The day the world listens World Elephant Day, observed every Aug 12, was not founded as a celebration but as a warning. It emerged in 2012 from a global realisation that without an urgent, coordinated action, we will lose one of Earth's most intelligent and emotionally complex creatures. Canadian filmmaker Patricia Sims, in partnership with Thailand's Elephant Reintroduction Foundation, launched the day to draw the world's gaze towards the plight of African and Asian elephants, whose populations have been devastated by habitat loss, poaching, human conflict and neglect. Since then, World Elephant Day has become a rallying point for governments, conservationists, educators and ordinary citizens – uniting them in efforts to raise awareness, foster empathy and inspire tangible solutions to ensure these gentle giants not only survive but thrive. However, in Malaysia, the call is far more urgent. It is no longer simply about awareness; it is also about reckoning. We are not merely witnesses to the elephants' decline; we are complicit in it. With every road we carve through their habitat, every forest we clear in the name of progress and every silence we keep in the face of their suffering, we edge closer to a world without them. That is not a world we should accept. When elephants fall Since 2020, at least eight elephants have been killed on Malaysian roads. In just the first six months of this year alone, three more have fallen, each one a tragic emblem of our fractured landscapes and the forests we continue to erase. Highways, like the Gerik-Jeli stretch, now slice through what were once ancient migratory paths, passed down through generations of matriarchs, routes as old as the forest itself. What were once safe, silent trails for mothers and calves have become battlegrounds of survival. The jungle no longer shelters and the roads are unforgiving. Our elephants, the gentle architects of the wild, are being driven to the brink. Their homes are shrinking, their ancient corridors erased and their young are left broken beneath tyres and steel. Every time one dies, a mother mourns, a herd slows and a memory is scorched into the soil because elephants do not forget and neither should we. We often speak of elephants in hushed reverence, and rightfully so. They are among the most intelligent creatures on earth, capable of abstract thought, empathy, tool use and grief. They mourn their dead, they recognise themselves in mirrors, they console distressed family members and never ever forget cruelty or kindness. Their hearts beat with compassion and their minds map memories that span landscapes and lifetimes. When a calf dies, a herd grieves. When a matriarch falls, generations lose a teacher. To watch an elephant mourn is to witness a soul in sorrow. More than just majestic Elephants are not just sentient beings; they are keystone species. Without them, forests wither. Their migration patterns aerate soil, propagate seeds and shape entire ecosystems. Their dung nourishes beetles, fungi and flora. Their trunks clear paths through thickets, allowing light to reach the forest floor and new life to bloom. Remove elephants from the equation and the forest begins to falter. Biodiversity diminishes, rivers lose their rhythm and the delicate balance of nature starts to unravel. Their extinction would not merely be a loss of majesty; it would be a collapse of function, systems and life as we know it. We are not without hope but hope must be made a policy. In the wake of the Gerik tragedy, voices rose, civil society demanded action and conservationists called for wildlife crossings, overpasses and underpasses. Experts urged the implementation of speed limits and sensor-triggered signage in high-risk zones. There are efforts underway by NGOs, wildlife departments and international partners but they are not enough unless every highway, plantation, township and policymaker commit to coexistence. The mother in Gerik stood her ground for her son. Will we stand ours? Final plea As we mark World Elephant Day today, let us do more than share pictures or quote statistics. Let us remember that somewhere, deep within the Belum-Temengor rainforest, a mother elephant still roams, her calf buried in her memory. Let us recall that elephants are not icons; they are individuals – beings of thought, sorrow and joy. Let us finally understand that every time we lose an elephant, we lose a part of ourselves – our compassion, ecology and heritage. The next time a calf steps onto a road, let him not meet a lorry but a bridge built by empathy. Comments: letters@
The Star
5 days ago
- The Star
Meet the activist who fought for Sierra Leone's first World Heritage site
Activist Tommy Garnett's decades of work paid off when Sierra Leone's Tiwai island – a lush forest home to one of the world's highest concentrations of primates – landed a spot last month on the United Nations cultural agency's World Heritage list. The 66-year-old and the conservation group he founded are the reason Tiwai, which was nearly destroyed during Sierra Leone's 1991-2002 civil war, still exists. "I feel very happy, relieved, hopeful," the environmentalist said from the verdant island. The Gola-Tiwai complex, which also includes the nearby Gola Rainforest National Park, will be Sierra Leone's first Unesco site. Unesco director general Audrey Azoulay called Gola-Tiwai "a jewel of biodiversity, a sanctuary for rare species and a model of community management." The wildlife and fauna in the two areas have been imperilled for years by threats such as deforestation. A fisherman punts a pirogue using a push pole on the Moa River near Tiwai Island. Together with his NGO, Garnett has restored the environmental integrity of the Gola-Tiwai complex, which was nearly destroyed. Tiwai island, located in the Moa river, measures just 12 square kilometres (4.5 square miles) and has 11 species of primates – including the endangered western chimpanzee, the king colobus monkey and the Diana monkey. In 1992, Garnett, who has dedicated his life to environmental projects in west Africa, created the Environmental Foundation for Africa (EFA). In the early 2000s, he started working to save Tiwai. Today, the wildlife sanctuary is a gleaming success story for Sierra Leone. Even as the country descended into civil war or was ravaged by Ebola in 2014, Garnett was able to stave off deforestation, poaching and other threats. Garnett at the entrance of Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary located on Tiwai Island. He has dedicated his life to environmental protection projects in West Africa, especially in Sierra Leone and Liberia. — Photos: SAIDU BAH/AFP Raising the alarm As well its primates, Tiwai has animals such as the pygmy hippopotamus and the critically endangered African forest elephant. While Gola is the largest expanse of tropical rainforest in Sierra Leone, Tiwai, located to the south, serves as a centre for biodiversity research and a destination for ecotourism. In order to achieve this for Tiwai, EFA had to convince local communities to abandon certain activities to protect the forest. The tourism revenue in turn helps provide jobs, training and technical agricultural assistance. During the civil war, the island's wildlife was almost decimated, but Garnett, his NGO and donors brought it back from the brink. The centre's structures had become dilapidated, the ground covered in empty rifle cartridges and people began logging trees, Garnett said. "We raised the alarm that this place was going," he said. The environmentalist quickly found funding for reconstruction and raising awareness among local communities. An aerial view of Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary on Tiwai Island. Last month, this complex became a World Heritage Site. Country is grateful Since then, Garnett and his group have safeguarded the haven despite an onslaught of Ebola, Covid-19 and disastrous weather. "Our lives and livelihoods and cultures and traditions are so inextricably linked to the forest that if the forest dies, a big part of us dies with it," he said. An avid cyclist and yoga enthusiast, Garnett's warm, welcoming approach has easily won him allies. "One of my first experiences in life was having a forest as backyard and recognizing the richness of it," he said. Garnett was born in 1959 in the rural district of Kono in the country's east, and lived there until age 18. After studying agriculture and development economics abroad, he returned home in the 1990s to reconnect with his family and help Sierra Leone during the war. The Tiwai Island Wildlife Sanctuary in Sierra Leone. He began working in environmental protection after witnessing the conflict's destruction and its reliance on mineral resources and mining, particularly diamonds. For 30 years, he and foundation colleagues have travelled the country confronting traffickers and conducting community meetings. Over the past 20 years, EFA has planted more than two million trees in deforested areas across Sierra Leone, Garnett said, including 500,000 between 2020 and 2023. The country's environment minister, Jiwoh Abdulai said he was "really excited and thrilled" about Unesco's decision, adding that Garnett gave him a lot of "hope and optimism". His contributions preserving nature are something "that the entire country is grateful for", he said. – AFP
