Wild Travel is the top UK magazine for wildlife travel and conservation, covering the world’s best wildlife watching experiences, wildlife destination guides, field guides to individual species, wildlife photography workshops, kit reviews, expert travel advice and the latest wildlife and conservation news. Find out more at their website www.wildlifeextra.com.
Here are some features I've written for Wild Travel:
Vanishing Act - India's Wild Tigers, Feb 2013
At Your Service - The Kenya Wildlife Service, Oct 2012
Jurassic Parks - Europe's last Wilderness Areas, June 2012
Here are some features I've written for Wild Travel:
Vanishing Act - India's Wild Tigers, Feb 2013
At Your Service - The Kenya Wildlife Service, Oct 2012
Jurassic Parks - Europe's last Wilderness Areas, June 2012
Vanishing Act - India's Wild Tigers
They might be the largest of the big cats and a fearsome predator, but in the not too distant future there’s a growing possibility that tigers will only exist in zoos. Although there is little historically accurate data of the world’s tiger population, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) say numbers have crashed by over 97% since the turn of the 20th century – down from perhaps 100,000 to the current estimate of fewer than 3,200 individuals.
Tigers have always been considered a special animal that enjoys an almost mythical status. People have revered them, feared them and hunted them as status symbols. Their skins have been valued as decorative items for wall and floor coverings, their body parts as charms, souvenirs and curios and for use in traditional Asian medicines.
Up until the 1930s it was hunting for sport that probably caused the greatest decline in tiger numbers. More powerful and increasingly efficient guns made it easier to kill them and in many places tigers were regarded as dangerous pests that needed to be exterminated.
Between 1940 and the late 1980s human population expansion and habitat loss became the greatest threat as people moved into the tigers’ traditional habitat, logging, grazing and cultivating once uninhabited forest.
Today, regulations and controls are helping to preserve the last remaining tiger reserves and although habitat loss and ecological degradation is still a major issue, it’s the rise of ruthless and seemingly unstoppable poachers that are the tiger’s biggest threat, thanks to the demand for tiger bone and body parts in traditional medicines, funded by the new wealth of the Chinese super rich.
Tigers have always been considered a special animal that enjoys an almost mythical status. People have revered them, feared them and hunted them as status symbols. Their skins have been valued as decorative items for wall and floor coverings, their body parts as charms, souvenirs and curios and for use in traditional Asian medicines.
Up until the 1930s it was hunting for sport that probably caused the greatest decline in tiger numbers. More powerful and increasingly efficient guns made it easier to kill them and in many places tigers were regarded as dangerous pests that needed to be exterminated.
Between 1940 and the late 1980s human population expansion and habitat loss became the greatest threat as people moved into the tigers’ traditional habitat, logging, grazing and cultivating once uninhabited forest.
Today, regulations and controls are helping to preserve the last remaining tiger reserves and although habitat loss and ecological degradation is still a major issue, it’s the rise of ruthless and seemingly unstoppable poachers that are the tiger’s biggest threat, thanks to the demand for tiger bone and body parts in traditional medicines, funded by the new wealth of the Chinese super rich.
Wild Travel, February 2013
At Your Service - the Kenya Wildlife Service
Kenya is a treasure trove of habitats and wildlife and along with neighbouring Tanzania is considered by many to be the Cradle of Mankind, yet every year there is a fight to preserve the natural heritage of East Africa.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is the lead agent playing a key role in managing and conserving the country’s wildlife and its protected areas for the Kenyan people and the rest of the world. It employs 4,300 people and 3,000 of them are employed in the armed protection wing tasked with stemming the rising tide of poaching.
KWS has a broad remit often in partnership with other stakeholders and working in 59 protected areas including national parks, marine parks and other protected reserves. There main areas of work include:
1. The detection and prevention of wildlife crimes is an escalating problem that increasingly consumes more of their resources.
2. Running specific research and conservation programmes with species and habitats that are in particular danger. There are forest and wetland conservation programmes, as well as specific elephant and rhino projects to help them recover from poaching.
3. Their Training Institute has been running since 1985, where they train their own rangers, assistant wardens and fisheries officers. There are also courses for outside students in ecology and tourism as well as support programmes for less well-developed countries in protecting their wildlife.
4. Community Wildlife programmes are outreach strategies to highlight the importance and value of native wildlife to local people and actively promote community participation in wildlife conservation outside protected areas.
5. The Veterinary Services works to ensure that healthy breeding populations are maintained throughout the country and assists the relocation of animals straying into inhabited area.
Few visitors get to see the struggle that goes on behind the scenes to maintain and protect Kenyan’s magnificent wildlife and poaching is the number one problem. In June 2012 KWS sniffer dogs detected 745 kilogram’s of tusks at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, hidden in six crates labelled vehicle spares. However, this shocking haul is just the tip of the iceberg. Poaching has escalated with wildlife numbers down 70% in Tsavo and elephant numbers tumbling from 45,000 pre-1970 to 12,500 in 2012.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is the lead agent playing a key role in managing and conserving the country’s wildlife and its protected areas for the Kenyan people and the rest of the world. It employs 4,300 people and 3,000 of them are employed in the armed protection wing tasked with stemming the rising tide of poaching.
KWS has a broad remit often in partnership with other stakeholders and working in 59 protected areas including national parks, marine parks and other protected reserves. There main areas of work include:
1. The detection and prevention of wildlife crimes is an escalating problem that increasingly consumes more of their resources.
2. Running specific research and conservation programmes with species and habitats that are in particular danger. There are forest and wetland conservation programmes, as well as specific elephant and rhino projects to help them recover from poaching.
3. Their Training Institute has been running since 1985, where they train their own rangers, assistant wardens and fisheries officers. There are also courses for outside students in ecology and tourism as well as support programmes for less well-developed countries in protecting their wildlife.
4. Community Wildlife programmes are outreach strategies to highlight the importance and value of native wildlife to local people and actively promote community participation in wildlife conservation outside protected areas.
5. The Veterinary Services works to ensure that healthy breeding populations are maintained throughout the country and assists the relocation of animals straying into inhabited area.
Few visitors get to see the struggle that goes on behind the scenes to maintain and protect Kenyan’s magnificent wildlife and poaching is the number one problem. In June 2012 KWS sniffer dogs detected 745 kilogram’s of tusks at Jomo Kenyatta Airport in Nairobi, hidden in six crates labelled vehicle spares. However, this shocking haul is just the tip of the iceberg. Poaching has escalated with wildlife numbers down 70% in Tsavo and elephant numbers tumbling from 45,000 pre-1970 to 12,500 in 2012.
Wild Travel, October 2012
Jurassic Parks - Europes Wilderness Areas
‘Wilderness’ usually conjures up images of far away, Borneo, the Amazon or perhaps northern Siberia - places where nature is king, natural processes and wildlife thrive and human interference is minimal.
But Europe isn’t all culture, history and beaches; it’s also a landscape that’s been shaped and changed beyond recognition. 3-4,000 years ago most of Britain and Europe were covered with forest, as impenetrable as the Amazon is today – it was the ‘great wild wood’ of folklore and fairy tales.
There’s not much of the wild wood left but there are still some genuine wilderness areas if you know where to look. PAN Parks (Protected Area Network) is a Europe-wide wilderness conservation organisation founded in 1997, by WWF Netherlands and Dutch tourism company Molecaten, to help protect the last remaining true wilderness areas of Europe.
National parks are commonplace but in overcrowded Europe they’re invariably popular recreation areas with good access infrastructure and support services. Britain has fifteen stunningly beautiful national parks but none meet the strict PAN Parks criteria of true wilderness because their landscape has been shaped and moulded for centuries.
But Europe isn’t all culture, history and beaches; it’s also a landscape that’s been shaped and changed beyond recognition. 3-4,000 years ago most of Britain and Europe were covered with forest, as impenetrable as the Amazon is today – it was the ‘great wild wood’ of folklore and fairy tales.
There’s not much of the wild wood left but there are still some genuine wilderness areas if you know where to look. PAN Parks (Protected Area Network) is a Europe-wide wilderness conservation organisation founded in 1997, by WWF Netherlands and Dutch tourism company Molecaten, to help protect the last remaining true wilderness areas of Europe.
National parks are commonplace but in overcrowded Europe they’re invariably popular recreation areas with good access infrastructure and support services. Britain has fifteen stunningly beautiful national parks but none meet the strict PAN Parks criteria of true wilderness because their landscape has been shaped and moulded for centuries.