Bigi Jallow of Sotokoi village in Kombo East yesterday appeared before magistrate Kumba Sillah-Camara of the Bundung Magistrates' Court for receiving and slaughtering stolen animals.

Bigi was charged with two counts of receiving and slaughtering two bulls and cows in Sukuta but had denied any wrongdoing.

The case resumes May 28.

"I killed a baboon after they tried to force me from the 'lagadera' [stream in Somali]," he said, holding out his bandaged arm. "They were thirsty and wanted water just like my goats. The well is the only one with water."

At another well, four girls abandoned their water containers after thirsty baboons attacked them. The next day, five goats were killed by the creatures while two herders sustained serious injuries following an attack by a lion.

A month after the rains were expected to start, northern Kenya is still gripped by drought conditions. Water pans, boreholes and wells have all dried up, creating problems for the pastoralist communities of the region.

"We are in the middle of a very serious crisis," said Hussein Ali from Sericho, a remote trading centre along the Isiolo and Garissa district boarder. "We are faced with the problem of water, pasture and now wild animals have worsened our situation."

Like domestic livestock, the wild animals have also been affected by scarcity of water. Local residents of Isiolo and Garissa say the situation has forced the animals to struggle for the little available water with humans.

At least 20 people, they say, have sustained injuries in the past month from animal attacks, while one pastoralist and a number of livestock have been killed by lions at wells.

Apart from protecting water wells, Ali said, local people in the affected areas had also resorted to killing the animals whenever they could catch them.

"Girls and women who were entrusted with fetching water have also been advised not to visit the wells alone," he added.

Yussuf Dogo from the Friends Of Nomads International organisation said some residents had sought water and pasture in nearby protected game reserves.

The area, which suffered a severe drought two years ago, is expected to receive some rain soon. According to the Famine Early Warning Systems Network (FEWS Net), moderate amounts of rainfall are expected to alleviate the long-term dryness that has affected many areas of northern Kenya.

In a 10-16 April assessment, FEWS Net said significantly below-normal October-December rain had led to reduced crop yields, poor pasture and insufficient water resources in parts of Kenya, as well as poor soil conditions.

In the old days, animals lived together in the bush.  They shared everything and held regular meetings to settle their quarrels.

Then in one year there was a famine, there were no yams, no plantains, and no maize.  The men in the village hunted more animals and took them to town.  More animals were killed.  The people in the town didn’t have any yams, plantains or maize, so they ate more meat. Soon the animals became afraid.“Who will be next to die?’’,  they asked each other! So they called for a meeting.

I have an idea, said Mr Fox at the meeting, when the hunters go to the town to sell the animals, they leave their guns in their houses.  We can go into their houses, collect their guns and throw them into the river or even attack them said the cat.

All the animals agreed to the plan, but the dog was afraid of one of the hunters.  He ran to the hunters and told them about the animals’ plan. The hunter informed all the other men and they decided to carry their guns with them when they went to the town.When the hunters had gone, the animals went into the houses, but they didn’t find any guns.

Who told the hunters to take their guns with them?  They decided to consult the oracle.  The oracle said it was the dog.  They said that he could not live in the bush with them. Since then,  dogs became a companion of the hunter.

Acute water shortage has gripped a number of villages in Upper River Region, making life unbearable for the villagers.

The affected villages include Sandu Crowo, Mamadi Ceesay, Merto, and Makka-Ceesay.
Local wells cannot satisfy the increasing demand for water in the villages. Apparently, the wells run out of water easily due to high domestic consumption.

According to the natives of Sandu Crowo, cattle rearing has been paralysed, thus threatening livestock farming in the area.

Bakary Tamba, a native of the area, said most of the villages have only one main well, which is not enough to supply the required quantity of water for both the people and the animals.

According to him, the wells have grown old and villagers are forced to tie ropes to horses to draw out water from the wells at depths of more than 200 meters. “Those without horse find it difficult to access water”, he explained.

He lamented that without the animals, it will be even more difficult for them to access water.

Cherno Danso, a herdsman at Sandu Crowo, said water shortage continues to affect their farming.

“Now that we are entering the dry season, we are preparing to migrate with our cattle to the Tambasansang and Dimbandoudou areas in the same region, where water is available,” he told the Daily Observer.

“It is not our wish to leave but we are forced by the situation,” he added.
Musa Ceesay and Alhagie Fatty of the same area, expressed similar concerns.

 Both men appealed to the government, NGOs and humanitarian organisations to come to their rescue.

Camouflage can make it extremely difficult to spot an animal in it’s natural habitat. That can be rather dangerous if you happen to be travelling through areas where dangerous animals are known to reside. For the animals themselves, however, the gift of camouflage is an essential element in their survival. It conceals the animal from it’s predators while, at the same time, making the animal itself a stealthy predator. It is able to inconspicuously hunt down and pounce upon it’s hapless prey. It achieves this by confusing the vision of other creatures as it blends into the natural surroundings. Many of such animals also have an uncanny ability to remain motionless for extended periods of time, adding to the impression that they are a part of the backdrop. Let’s take a look at some of the amazing camouflage provided by the appearance of some animals of the wild.

The zebra’s coat is a striking design. The pattern of contrasting shapes and forms that make up the distinctive stripes on the coat of the zebra serve to break up the shape of the animal into irregular shapes and patterns. When looking from a distance the eye has difficulty in fitting a broken color form into one solid form. Rather it will have a tendency to view the light patches between the dark stripes as the patches of light visible between grass and trees. So it is possible for the zebra to merge into the grasslands and become invisible to untrained observer.

Another trick of the camouflager is countershading. This occurs when the coloration of the upper parts of an animal is darker than it’s undersides. Hence the effect of sunlight is counteracted. The normal casting of a shadow on the ground is distorted and the animal is not given away by its shadow.

Some animals merge with their background by the use of just a single color. The polar bear merging into the snows of the Arctic are an example of this, as are the grasshopper and the parakeet.
 
Among the insect world, a common form of camouflage is mimicry. Here an insect will becomes a part of the surrounding environment, mimicking its behaviour. Stick insects, for instance, become parts of a tree. Leaf insects so closely resemble the greeny leaves of a tree, with their shape, markings and movements that other insects have been so deceived that they have actually nibbled on the insect.

In the water, too, there are creatures who excel in the area of camouflage. The stone fish, for example, looks like nothing more than a large underwater stone. The Australian sea dragon resembles a bunch of tangled seaweed. The Scorpion blends into the rocky coral environment it inhabits. The flounder is able to change it’s markings to suit it’s backdrop

The most amazing example of camouflage, however, must be credited to the creature who actually changes identity, the chameleon. Chameleons can change color at will to match their surroundings. As the animal’s eyes record the colors in its immediate environment, certain nerves send messages to hormones which react by sending pigment bearing cells called chromatophores to change their concentration, distribution and position. This allows the creature to actually change color as it wills.

Man has drawn much inspiration from the natural world of the animal kingdom when it comes to camouflage. His uses for the ability to blend in with his background have, though, been far more sinister. In jungle warfare he attempts to become one with the dense forest in order to surprise and attack his enemy. The use of camouflage as a weapon of war dates back to the time of the Greeks in the 12th Century, B.C.E. It was then that they are said to have filled a massive wooden horse with Greek soldiers and placed it outside the city of Troy, ostensibly as a gift to that city. After it had been hauled inside the city walls, however, the Greek soldiers emptied out, under the cover of darkness and opened the gates, allowing the city to be captured.

Since then a body of systemized knowledge about camouflage has been built up. Camouflage now includes military installations that are made to appear non-existent to enemy radar. Yet, no matter how hard man tries, he will never match the natural beauty and skill of the camouflage on display in the animal world.

There are many ways on how animals try to transmit information from one animal to the other. There are four main forms they commonly use.

Animals try to send information from one animal to another. This form of transmitting messages gives an influence on the one who received the message. The animals make use of communication in their everyday lives while doing their daily activities.

The first form of animal communication is by showing visual acts. It is done in various ways depending on the animal's physical structure and behavior.These includes changes in facial expressions, body shapes, color and movement. These are easy to do and doesn't require complex acts. A most common example is a firefly who produces light during nightime to attract mates. Another one is when a cobra expands the skin on its neck as a sign of attack.

Some animals communicate by means of sound. They send sound vibrations to others to transmit messages to them. These vibrations could easily pass underwater and even on heavily-vegetated places. An example is when a whale produces certain pitches of sound to show the range of its territory and also for mating. Insects are not good listeners so they can hear sound waves from another insect by using their antennae. An example is when a cricket rubs its front legs against each other to warn an opponent and also by chirping faster to attract a female.

Other animals send information by actually touching another animal's body. This form is called tactile communication. An example is when a chimpanzee tries to clean another chimpanzee's body in order to enhance their bond and also to show association with others of its kind. Tactile communication has a limited range of transmission since it is only used when one animal touches another one's body.

The last form is through chemical or hormone transmission. One animal sends a message even just from its sweat, urine or other glands and it travels either through air or water. The receiving animal either senses it by taste or smell. An example is when a female giraffe urinates and the male smells its urine to determine its fertility.

In principle, the 81mm of rain that drenched the mud walled houses and bone dry fields in this town on 26 July should not have posed a major problem.

“Eighty-one millimetres isn’t really that much,” said local Mali Red Cross volunteer Bacari Keita. “With good drainage it should not cause major flooding.”

Instead a wall of water flooded the town’s rutted muddy streets, carrying away mud houses, domestic animals and belongings.

Around 12,600 people were made homeless.

Some simple plans for preparedness and prevention had been drawn up. If only they had been implemented the tragedy could have been avoided, local officials said.

What happened

The first houses to be washed away in Bla were those recently built in parts of the town that had were previously used to channel rainwater.

But Bla has not had heavy rains and flooding since 1987 and the town’s population has swelled. Many poor people who cannot afford to buy land have built on communal spaces, including on land previously reserved for channelling water.

Bla is at the bottom of a gradually descending valley. Inhabitants have stripped the valley’s sides bare of trees and shrubs so that as rain water rolls down it is able to gather momentum.

On that fateful day in July, a wall of water rushed into the town, crashing through walls and flooding the town’s wells.

When the flood waters finally receded some days later, it was clear that the worst of the flood damage had happened in areas without tarmac roads.

What to do

For Keita, the Mali Red Cross volunteer, the solution is clear. Convince people not to build more houses in places historically prone to flooding.

“The town has already identified new sites where people can move to,” he said. The problem is that people are unwilling to think long term, he added.

“The flood victims are already starting to rebuild on the same sites where they were flooded out,” he said. “It is inevitable that sooner or later flooding will happen there again.”

The town’s mayor Brahima Sanogo told IRIN that he had a more ambitious project to build a trench around the village. “We need to build defences against floods,” he said, “including better drains on the national highway”.

Sanogo blamed the federal government for not implementing the proposal. “It’s all been planned out but the government has not yet agreed to it,” he said.

He also told IRIN of plans to replant shrubs and trees on the slopes of the valley around the town and implementing rules to stop locals from cutting them down.

He could not explain why that plan had not been implement.

For Mamary Sidibe, head of social and economic development for Bla’s local government, “The problems here are caused by poor leadership.”

He said there is simply no emergency planning. “We need to have a plan to evacuate the city but we don’t, even though we know floods come here regularly.”

At the moment the local school is the only place for people to go to, he said. “There has to be other designated places as well.”

Gland, Switzerland – Scientists have discovered 11 new species of animals and plants in a remote area in central Vietnam, WWF said today.

The species were found in the Thua Thien Hue Province — a region known as the Green Corridor. They include two butterflies and a snake, as well as five orchids and three other plants, all of which are exclusive to tropical forests in Vietnam’s Annamites Mountain Range.

Ten other plant species, including four orchids, are still under examination but also appear to be new species.

“You only discover so many new species in very special places, and the Green Corridor is one of them,” said Chris Dickinson, WWF’s Chief Technical Adviser in the area.

“Several large mammal species were discovered in the 1990s in the same forests, which means that these latest discoveries could be just the tip of the iceberg.”

Rainforest discoveries
The rainforests of the Central Annamites likely existed as continuous undisturbed forest cover for thousands of years, and, as a result, offer unique habitats for many species, WWF says.

The new snake species, called the white-lipped keelback, tends to live by streams where it catches frogs and other small animals. It has a beautiful yellow-white stripe that sweeps along its head and red dots cover its body. It can reach about 80 centimetres in length.

The butterfly species are among eight discovered in the province since 1996. One is a skipper — a butterfly with quick, darting flight habits — from the genus Zela, the other is a new genus in the subfamily of Satyrinae.

Three of the new orchid species are entirely leafless, which is rare for orchids. They contain no chlorophyll and live on decaying matter, like many fungal species. The other new plants include an aspidistra, which produces a flower that is nearly black. Aspidistra-relatives plants are used as houseplants and are able to withstand very low light conditions. And a newly discovered species of arum has beautiful yellow flowers. Arum plants have funnel-shaped leaves surrounding the flowers.

Species at risk
According to WWF, all these species are at risk from illegal logging, hunting, unsustainable extraction of natural resources and conflicting development interests. However, the Thua Thien Hue Province authorities — in particular the Forest Protection Department — have committed to conserve and sustainably manage these valuable forests.

“The area is extremely important for conservation and the province wants to protect the forests and their environmental services, as well as contribute to sustainable development,” said Hoang Ngoc Khanh, Director of Thua Thien Hue Provincial Forest Protection Department.

Recent surveys have shown that many threatened species are found in the Green Corridor, including 15 reptiles and amphibians and six bird species. The area is also home to Vietnam’s greatest number of white-cheeked crested gibbons, one of the world’s most endangered primates. The Green Corridor is believed to be the best location in Vietnam to conserve the saola, a unique type of wild cattle only discovered by scientists in 1992.

According to WWF, forests in the Annamites also help preserve critical environmental services, such as water supplies for thousand of people who depend on the region’s rivers. They also provide non-timber forest resources for local ethnic minority groups who earn more than half of their income from these products.

END NOTES:

• The new species were discovered between 2005 and 2006.

• The Green Corridor is one of the last remaining lowland wet evergreen forests, and supports significant populations of threatened species. The area also includes some of the longest remaining stretches of lowland river with intact forest habitat in Vietnam, which feed into the Perfume River.

• The Green Corridor project is a four-year initiative that started in June 2004, implemented by the WWF Greater Mekong Programme and Thua Thien Hue Provincial Forest Protection Department. The project receives funding from the World Bank/Global Environmental Facility, WWF, Thua Thien Hue Provincial People’s Committee, and SNV - the Dutch Development Organization. The aim of the project is to protect and maintain the biodiversity rich forests of the Green Corridor. In addition, funds have been provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service, under the Multinational Species Conservation Fund and the Concannon Foundation, for primate surveys and conservation work.

Ebrahima Jawara Demba, Station Officer of Brikama Police Station and the first prosecution witness on Tuesday, testified in the on-going trespass trial, involving Duta Drammeh and thirteen other youths of Pirang Village, before Magistrate EF Mbai of the Brikama Magistrates’ Court.

The fourteen were accused of unlawfully entering the farm of one MG Field and sowing corn in the same farm, which was already planted with animal-feeding on July 28th this year.

In his testimony, SO Ebrima Jawara Demba told the court that, he recognised all the accused persons. He said on the day of the incident, he received a telephone call from the Western Region Governor, while at Brikama Police Station, informing him that there was a group of people in Pirang who have entered the land of Mr Gipsa, planted with some grasses for the feeding of his animals.

According to him, these fourteen people went there and planted corn on the farm.

“I then left with the O/C of Brikama Police Station and the Western Region Governor to see the place,” he explained.

“On our arrival at the farm, we arrested them and brought them to Brikama Police Station, and their statements were taken from them,” he concluded.

Lawyer Borry Touray, the Defence Counsel appealed for the case to be adjourned in the interest of justice as it was his first appearance in the case and he has not yet taken any instructions from the accused persons.

In his reaction to Defence Counsel Touray’s appeal, Magistrate M’Bai told the court that the accused persons are not under custody and that it is their civil rights to hire the service of a Counsel before the trial. He then adjourned the case to Wednesday September 12th, for continuation.

Police Prosecutor 1320 Bojang, stood in for ASP Camara in representing the IGP.