Michael Crichton - wish you were here.

The last episode of ER airing in UK this week brings to mind its creator Michael Crichton, who died early and unexpectedly late last year and - surprisingly perhaps - I want to recognise him as a conservation leader. I can hear the howls of electronic protest. In the latter years of his life, Crichton stirred up a hornet's nest with vocal challenges to what he saw as flawed science - see some of the reactions to his life and work on Science Blogs immediately after his death from cancer. But Crichton's success as a writer came from a thorough understanding of scientific process, combined with an ability to challenge preconception and an intuitive take on human behaviour. He listened , explored, observed - then projected ideas forwards or backwards in time, and drew us in to his speculation about what might change and how we might react.

My personal recollection of Michael Crichton derives from his exploration of the fringes of medical science as documented in "Travels". He was travelling to overcome writers block and it seemed to work as a host of bestsellers followed. One was "Congo", but his encounter with mountain gorillas in the Virunga volcanoes was 180 degrees away from the paddle-swinging grey gorillas of that book and subsequent film. We found them high up above Lake Ngezi, amidst the luxuriant greenery covering the slopes of Visoke volcano. The group was resting, belching, peering at the 6' 9" charmer in their midst, who sank down automatically to their level. He was fascinated, trying out the vocalisations, spotting the different characters, drinking in the moment. He didn't forget either. Some years later, when gorillas were surrounded by war and disturbance, he pitched in behind the IGCP in Virunga and the gorilla organisation at Tshiaberimu.

I find myself wanting to know how he would have reacted as the evidence mounts for what we are doing to our planet and what future scenarios we might anticipate or prepare for. I would have liked him to write a guest post for Future Earth, and wish he was here to ask.

Douglas, Darwin and Doubt.

What did Charles Darwin and Douglas Adams share, apart from bushy eyebrows and endless foreheads? Doubt. Questing, relentless minds, restless, voyaging natures, and legacies for humankind from their struggles for meaningful existence.

Today, May 25th, is "Towel Day" in annual memory of Douglas Adams (a towel was his recommended 'must have' for a Hitchhiker travelling the Galaxy). Douglas hit something in the global psyche with his Hitchhiker's guide, but it is for his travels closer to home that I remember him. When writing "Last Chance to See" with Mark Carwardine, Monsieur Adams bumped in to Zaire (as was) on a plane full of missionaries, whose niceness made him "want to bite them", and who were discussing their rhino horn or ivory trophies. Douglas was affected by his time with Mountain Gorillas and continued to support their conservation:

"I watched the gorilla's eyes again, wise and knowing eyes, and wondered about this business of trying to teach apes language. Our language. Why? there are many members of our own species who live in and with the forest and know it and understand it. We don't listen to them. What is there to suggest we would listen to anything an ape could tell us?"

It was indeed Adams' Last Chance to See, but Mark Carwardine teamed up with Adams' friend Stephen Fry to give the rest of us (and celluloid posterity) a second chance (where they could find it) later this year - stay tuned and hitch up that towel for Mr. Adams today.

Is the earth moving?

A tremor of concern and excitment shimmied along my spine with the prospect of an imminent erruption where my heart still lies in eastern DRC. This is not the Heart of Darkness for me - it is the land of bubbling friendship, glistening turquoise lakes and staggering sunsets. The area around and between the romantically-sounding Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo volcanoes sees a breakthrough erruption every few years. Nyiragongo is like an upturned bucket full of a particularly fluid melt - when it breaks through the bucket empties rapidly and previous erruptions have devastated the lakeside town of Goma.

Signs of pending erruption? Of course the wildlife on the flanks of the volcano picks up the early warnings and starts to move - but with this fast-flowing lava, not quite early enough to act as the miners' canary. There are chimps in the forested older lava aroud Tongo (separated from the mountain gorillas across the road in the older, dormant Virunga volcano range straddling the borders between Rwanda, DRC and Uganda). There are local stories of chimps screaming and rushing for safety before previous erruptions. And what do the humans do? Those with knowledge and limited options sensibly prepare for flight. Those competing for the Darwin award pack a tent and prepare to hike up to see the erruption at close quarters.

"My" erruption happened around my birthday and was a memorable treat. The hike up to near the venting summit was exhausting and we pitched our tents on unforgiving old lava, but when little blobs of the molten stuff started burning holes in the canvas during the night we somehow found the energy to move. We were not alone - and with other happy, foolish, volcanic voyeurs
we gathered together to search - fruitlessly - for the couple that had disappeared as aerial detritus descended on the area destroying vegetation and building up a lethal substrate. They emerged from the forest 2 days later, miles away, dehydrated and facing a search/recovery bill. The sights however were staggering and the earth certainly moved for me - the colours, the force, the uncontrollable beauty. But when my boots started to melt I turned tail for Goma and a dip in lake Kivu.

So how imminent is imminent? An image of the monitoring station outside my house on the road out of Goma comes to mind. A monitoring station posing as a decaying behive surrounded by a hopeful fence that was regularly raided by local impoverished opportunists for the wire of which it was constructed. Fairly regularly its keeper would wobble up the lava road on his Japanese-funded bicycle and change the paper on the seisomograph, carrying the precious recordings back for careful analysis in mission control. Mission control had a dusty desk, an open bottle of Fanta, a kettle in the corner with a circular net carefully placed over the open tin of condensed milk sustaining the recorder and occasional visitors. Presumably the 2009 equivalent is digital and streamlined - someone please send me an update. Meanwhile, I leave you with this (accurate!) gem:

"The eruption could be tomorrow, or the day after — or at any other time," said Dieudonne Wafula, the head of Goma's Volcanological Observatory.

So, watch and wait then.

Body language bonanza

The Europe summits have provided a host of photo ops and what rich seams they provide for miners of body language.

This is my favourite, from the Independent today. The annointed, the boss and the wanabe. Anyone who has spent time studying non-human primates will have seen something similar in multi-male groups in their own habitats.

We are not so very different. Professor Filipo Aureli's research group has recently demonstrated that consolation between members of a chimpanzee group reduces stress and is not simply a technique for deflecting aggression. This is indicative of empathy, usually thought to be a uniquely human characteristic. On April 1st (naturally) a BBC report looked into calls by Aureli and others for the Great Apes to be re-classified as hominids and the suggestion that this should be exposed to public debate by the Linnean Society. Dr. Sandy Knapp, Chair of the Linnean Society Committe was asked for her opinion. "What makes us the same is more interesting than what makes us different" she said.

Is that an empathetic arm President Obama, or a confirmation of dominance, or a "thank you for the troops my friend"?

Who is with me that a mountain gorilla would be able to read its intent in a heartbeat?.





(Thanks to Aveling Artworks for permission to use this contemplative illustration).

Death by palm oil

Elephants from the "Conservation Response Units" are called upon by farmers in the Indonesian island of Sumatra, when their crops are being raided by wild elephants from nearby forest. The captive ones patrol the forest edge and warn the raiders away. Sounds apocryphal but I've seen it working - and the balance between conserved forests and local agriculture is maintained.

Enter the commercial oil palm companies - even one that should know better, a subsidiary of the UK-registered company Anglo Eastern Plantations that is a member of the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil. Not only is the company clearing protected lowland rainforest illegally in an area that has not been zoned for conversion to agriculture, but it has built a road through an elephant sanctuary. This opens up general access and last Tuesday two of the elephants were shot.

Something to ponder as you eat your ice-cream, spreads and other goodies loaded with palm oil - also recently shown to be suspect in terms of saturated fats. There are some sustainable plantations and some efforts by the food industry to comply. Good, balanced, recent info is supplied by Mongabay and the Rainforest Action Network. But basically the uncontrolled expansion of plantations across the globe is destroying biodiverse forests and peatlands, ecosystem services, orang utans, elephants and more. Leaves a rather bad taste in your mouth, don't you think?

Malice of forethought?

Motherly monkeys and aggressive apes in the news again this week. Why are researchers still surprised when they find that other primates have complex minds and even more complex behaviours?

Much is being made of zoo chimp Santino demonstrating an ability to plan and prepare - collecting and fashioning stones to later hurl at visitors. This thoughtful planning for a future state is apparently "human-like" - "Forward planning like this is supposed to be uniquely human; it implies a consciousness that is very special, that you can close your eyes and see this inner world" says cognitive scientist Mathias Osvath.

Sitting under fruiting figs in tropical forests you can't help but wonder whether modern-day humans could move deliberately through tropical forest in a straight line for many kilometres to arrive at a fruit-bearing tree at the exact moment in a multi-year cycle that it comes through with forage. Hmm. I'd suggest you tap into the inner world of a superior ape to achieve this feat.

And if you want to avoid attacks on the way, take a baby primate for a spot of agonistic buffering. I would also recommend this technique if you are moving across border posts with far too many landrover spare parts.

Sad postscript for Santino - maybe he qualifies for a version of the Darwin award as this behaviour has taken him out of the gene pool:

"They have castrated the poor guy. They hope that his hormone levels will decrease and that will make him less prone to throw stones. He's already getting fatter and he likes to play much more now than before. Being agitated isn't good for him," said Osvath.

Travis - ty

"Police said they had no idea why Travis attacked the woman as she got out of her car to visit Ms Herold".

Didn't they? Didn't they? A beating heart, a big brain and 15 years of frustration is why. All boiling up within a body battered by the years of munchies and medications administered by his American owner. It says something for his tolerance that he waited so long. As Franz de Waal, author of "Chimpanzee Politics" explains, this is normal behaviour expressed in an abnormal situation. Chimps, even overweight ones, also have twice the muscle density of humans - which means they are not bouyant enough to swim, but will always beat a human in unarmed combat, even muscle-bound wrestlers.

Fortunately, out of this sad, sad tale might come some sense. Legislators are marshalling their arguments to prevent people keeping "dangerous exotic pets" in U.S. States. All aimed at protecting humans - will it also protect voice-less sentient beings like the Great Apes from stupid, dangerous humans too?

R.I.P Travis.

Year of...... the Gorilla

2009 has been declared by the UN and pals as the "Year of the gorilla" - and some hairy apes will be skating on thin ice at the Natural History Museum in London on January 15th, to launch the year to an unsuspecting public. Ho Ho Hoot.

Are gorillas in trouble? Yes.

Will the UN save them? No. Well..... if the multi-millions (check out the GRASP action plan - "Plan it for the Apes") they hope to attract to the UN Environment Fund were to be divided up amongst the beleagured champions on site, in their forested habitat, perhaps. The park authorities and NGOs working with them are the ones overcoming daily difficulty and using every cent, every penny, each yen to good effect. The UN agencies can certainly do their bit on the political and publicity front but need to learn a bit more about cost-effectiveness if the Ghost of Christmas Future is not to be a simian one.

What can Obama do for the Great Apes?

Finally, a U.S. President who is welcomed the world over, who has the intelligence, charisma and demeanour that mark out a leader, and who ......wait for it ..... understands what is happening to our environment.

The blogosphere is alive with this today, but my angle is this. After Obama has dealt with a crashing economy, restoring world relations and rebalancing the climate..... might he just be tempted to give a nod to his African and Asian heritage and the Great Apes that unite them? Now we just have to keep them alive until he can get round to it......!

Swamp(ed with) Gorillas?

In his breathtaking film Swamp Gorilla Bruce Davidson captures the fragility and (although I baulk at my own anthropomorphism) loneliness of swamp-living western lowland gorillas in central Africa. On the edge of survival, beset by waves of disease and destruction, I wondered when I saw early scenes from this fabulous film whether they might be the last comprehensive record of another ape to vanish from all but our screens.

Not so, it would seem - surveys led by by the Wildlife Conservation Society have confirmed local knowledge (and Steve Blake's work in the 90s) by rustling up another 125,000 or so lurking further from the madding crowd. Yay! Can we rest assured then for their future? Not so fast - their sources of conservation support are at risk from budget cuts in the US government. In that great democracy, I hope its citizens will rally in support of central african forests and their primate inhabitants. After all, its our future too.

Primates in peril

No laughing matter this, whatever the orang art featured here might indicate.

A report released today by the IUCN (World Conservation Union - howzat for a branding nightmare) revealed that 48% of the world's primates are in severe trouble. 303 of the 634 species are now listed as vulnerable, endangered or critically endangered on the IUCN threat risk scale.

The report is being picked up by the media but will the news be taken seriously by the primate responsible, the human kind? There are heros and advocates battling against the odds, and there are some good news missives from the front line. The cost of saving an orang utan has been (simplistically but interestingly) calculated as £568.48 - a better investment in the future than a year's car tax or an airline flight one might, equally simplistically, assume.

Corporate gorillas (2)

John Renesch in the current issue of The Ecologist provides "A systems view of corporate culture change" and illustrates his point by using 6 gorillas, a ladder, a hanging banana and a sprinkler system. The point is that cultural norms can become entrenched within human societies, even when they become dysfunctional and Renesch argues that economic growth might be one such norm that no longer has survival value. Unashamedly mixing metaphors, what would it take for us Corporate gorillas to change our spots? Understand and value complexity for a start - a Blindspot for some naked apes?







(If you value the real thing, support the owner of these pics - the International Gorilla Conservation Programme).

Corporate gorillas.

Mea culpa. I admit to a fascination with how groups of people interact, how teams work and how they become dysfunctional. Families too. In my defense, I can't help it - I've spent far too much time lolling around with apes... I mean "studying primates in the wild". Primatologists are warned about anthropomorphism, but not about the converse. I look around the room at a corporate meeting now and find myself picking out the characters....

.... ah, yes, there's the dominant silverback - quite a young one, not yet confident in his role and chest-beating for self assurance;
.... oh and there's the glossy young blackback looking to challenge. Pant-hooting with no real reason or resonance.
.... watch out for that experienced female - the others are looking to her for guidance, a real pivot point for action, we'll have to convince her to move up the mountain first;
.... there's the young adult who has been picked on and marginalised. She'll be transferring to another group before long. She's watching, knows where all the best foodplants are and is full of emotional intelligence, we just don't have access to it - how can we draw out her contribution and get the others to listen?
.... and there has to be a young rascal, jumping all over everyone and making them laugh. We'll book him to plan the break-out session.

Yes, many types of talents needed for groups to gel and societies to function. Ignoring that can lead to management mayhem - whether you are a corporate captain striving for success in the urban jungle or an itinerant ape eking out a living on the forested volcanic slopes of central Africa.

Just watch out for ethologists - keep an eye on them as they are keeping both eyes on you.

Gorilla tactics

Mountain gorillas are fortunate to have Eugene Rutagarama on their side, helping forge partnerships for conservation of gorillas in the Virunga volcanoes that transcend the warring factions and shifting politics of eastern central Africa.

Recognise his inspiring leadership and vote for him as a CNN hero – you will be helping mountain gorillas too.

http://www.cnn.com/heroes

Voting began November 12 and closes November 26.