Latest News - July 2020
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July is always the coldest month of the year in this stretch of the world, and winter has arrived with a vengeance in Johannesburg. The nights are cold, with temperatures often dropping to below freezing, but the daylight hours are still fairly barmy, with no wind and plenty of sunshine. This part of the country really does have a fantastic climate!
In stark contrast, the weather in the Cape Town area can be most unpleasant at this time of the year, and residents are forced to live with cold, wet and windy conditions. The Cape has received an above average rainfall so far this season, and the good news is that the dam levels are way up on the equivalent 2019 numbers. This means that the water restrictions that were being enforced a couple of years ago are a thing of the past for now, which is great for the flood of visitors that are expected to arrive as soon as the COVID-19 flight bans are lifted. |
All of us at Close Encounters are really missing our wildlife “fix”, and we cannot wait to get back to the bushveld and its animals. Life is slowly returning to a form of normality, and the lodges and game parks will soon be open again with minimal restrictions. For now, many people have resorted to watching live streamed video feeds from some of the private game reserves, which have provided some very interesting sightings. But nothing takes the place of the real thing, and the bush really has to be experienced with all of the senses, not just sight and sound!
The number of followers on our Facebook page continues to increase steadily, and we have more than doubled our subscribers in the last six months or so. Our posts receive in excess of 10,000 views every month, and it is gratifying to see that the hard work which we have put in to bring you interesting inserts has not been in vain. There are a number of new series starting from today, and we are sure that you are going to enjoy the amazing pictures, quizzes and videos that will be appearing over the next few months.
Although it did seem, a couple of weeks ago, that the coronavirus pandemic was leveling off, there has been a recent spike in the numbers again. The USA continues to bear the brunt of the plague, with more than a third of all worldwide active cases centered in that country. South Africa has not been spared – new cases continue to be discovered at an alarming rate, and numbers are currently escalating exponentially. But fortunately there have been relatively few deaths, a phenomenon which is difficult to explain. Some experts have attributed this to the standard BCG vaccination, which was widely used in the country during the 1950s and 1960s, and which has been administered automatically to all babies born since 1973. But this is all just speculation, and we need to trust that a bespoke vaccine will be released soon.
In the meantime, try to keep your chin up and search for the light at the end of the tunnel. All of us look forward to that joyous day when we can welcome you back to this beautiful country once again!
Mike Leicester
Editor
The number of followers on our Facebook page continues to increase steadily, and we have more than doubled our subscribers in the last six months or so. Our posts receive in excess of 10,000 views every month, and it is gratifying to see that the hard work which we have put in to bring you interesting inserts has not been in vain. There are a number of new series starting from today, and we are sure that you are going to enjoy the amazing pictures, quizzes and videos that will be appearing over the next few months.
Although it did seem, a couple of weeks ago, that the coronavirus pandemic was leveling off, there has been a recent spike in the numbers again. The USA continues to bear the brunt of the plague, with more than a third of all worldwide active cases centered in that country. South Africa has not been spared – new cases continue to be discovered at an alarming rate, and numbers are currently escalating exponentially. But fortunately there have been relatively few deaths, a phenomenon which is difficult to explain. Some experts have attributed this to the standard BCG vaccination, which was widely used in the country during the 1950s and 1960s, and which has been administered automatically to all babies born since 1973. But this is all just speculation, and we need to trust that a bespoke vaccine will be released soon.
In the meantime, try to keep your chin up and search for the light at the end of the tunnel. All of us look forward to that joyous day when we can welcome you back to this beautiful country once again!
Mike Leicester
Editor
Upcoming tours
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South African Spirit
September 24 - October 8 2021 (14 nights) Only 6 spots open! The trip starts off with a tour to Soweto, then moves on to the incredible Walkers River Camp in the Timbavati, where the group will spend 5 nights at this game viewing paradise. This is followed by 3 days of fun and adventure on the Panorama Route, and then 4 more days in the magnificent city of Cape Town. Grab this opportunity to get one of the spots before they are all taken. You will not be disappointed! Click here to see the detailed itinerary. |
Focus on conservation
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Tropical rainforest losses
The amount of pristine tropical rainforest lost across the globe increased last year, as the equivalent of a football pitch disappeared every six seconds, a satellite-based analysis has found. Nearly 12m hectares of tree cover was lost across the tropics, including nearly 4m hectares of dense, old rainforest that held significant stores of carbon and had been home to a vast array of wildlife, according to data from the University of Maryland. Beyond the tropics, Australia’s devastating bushfires led to a sixfold increase in tree cover loss across the continent in 2019 compared with the previous year. Rod Taylor, from the World Resources Institute, part of the Global Forest Watch network that released the analysis, said as the unprecedented fires continued into 2020, this was only a partial picture of the area affected in the southern fire season. |
While Australia’s eucalyptus trees are generally well adapted to respond to fire, Taylor said this year’s blazes burned more intensely, having followed a severe drought, and spread rapidly due to high winds. The fires killed 33 people directly, an estimated 445 more through smoke inhalation, and hundreds of millions of animals.
“Whereas a normal fire might char the bark of a tree, this year’s fires turned many trees into charcoal sticks,” Taylor said. “Australia can expect more extreme fire seasons as fire risk increases due to climate change.”
The loss of trees in the tropics was the third worst recorded since data was first collected in 2002, trailing behind only 2016 and 2017. The heaviest reduction continues to be in Brazil, which accounted for more than a third of all humid tropical forest loss. Government data shows that deforestation for agriculture and other new land uses increased rapidly in the Brazilian Amazon over the past year.
The biggest surge in forest loss was in Bolivia, where fires led to an 80% greater reduction in tree cover than in any previous year on record. The institute said many of the fires were probably deliberately lit to clear farming land for planting and spread into forests due to strong winds and drought exacerbated by the climate crisis. It follows the Bolivian government making regulatory changes to encourage the expansion of agriculture.
Frances Seymour, a senior fellow with the institute, said the level of global forest loss was unacceptable and that it was clear what was needed to reverse the trend. “If governments put into place good policies and enforce the law, forest loss goes down,” she said. “But if governments relax restrictions on burning, or signal an intent to open up indigenous territories for commercial exploitation, forest loss goes up.”
Seymour said the international community could help address the problem by introducing economic or market incentives for protecting forests. She called for governments to embrace four steps; preventing forest burning; increasing monitoring and enforcement to stop breaches; providing the poor and hungry with alternatives to forest exploitation; and not reducing protections to aid the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Whereas a normal fire might char the bark of a tree, this year’s fires turned many trees into charcoal sticks,” Taylor said. “Australia can expect more extreme fire seasons as fire risk increases due to climate change.”
The loss of trees in the tropics was the third worst recorded since data was first collected in 2002, trailing behind only 2016 and 2017. The heaviest reduction continues to be in Brazil, which accounted for more than a third of all humid tropical forest loss. Government data shows that deforestation for agriculture and other new land uses increased rapidly in the Brazilian Amazon over the past year.
The biggest surge in forest loss was in Bolivia, where fires led to an 80% greater reduction in tree cover than in any previous year on record. The institute said many of the fires were probably deliberately lit to clear farming land for planting and spread into forests due to strong winds and drought exacerbated by the climate crisis. It follows the Bolivian government making regulatory changes to encourage the expansion of agriculture.
Frances Seymour, a senior fellow with the institute, said the level of global forest loss was unacceptable and that it was clear what was needed to reverse the trend. “If governments put into place good policies and enforce the law, forest loss goes down,” she said. “But if governments relax restrictions on burning, or signal an intent to open up indigenous territories for commercial exploitation, forest loss goes up.”
Seymour said the international community could help address the problem by introducing economic or market incentives for protecting forests. She called for governments to embrace four steps; preventing forest burning; increasing monitoring and enforcement to stop breaches; providing the poor and hungry with alternatives to forest exploitation; and not reducing protections to aid the economic recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic.
Shoreline snippets
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Cove Rock
About 7 miles south-west of the Buffalo River mouth near East London lies the unique sandstone headland of Cove Rock. A variety of seabirds live and breed here, including the endangered African Black Oystercatcher. The rock provides excellent whale-watching opportunities, and is an ideal fishing platform. But it is the historical significance of Cove Rock that draws both local and foreign visitors. Cove Rock is intimately linked to the human history of East London, and middens containing limpet and mussel shells and shards of pottery indicate that it was occupied in early times. Some of the earliest documented mentions of Cove Rock go back to 1687, when a group of survivors from the wrecked Dutch ship Stavenisse were rescued from here by the crew of the Centaur, a vessel built by another group of Stavenisse survivors along with the survivors of two wrecked English ships, the Good Hope and the Bonaventure. |
Cove Rock has also played an important role in Xhosa tradition, being regarded as a place of spiritual importance. Ancestral spirits are said to reside in the water, and it is believed that sick people can be healed by visiting the cove. It was at Cove Rock that the famous Xhosa warrior-prophet Makhanda (also known as Nxele) tried to call the ancestors from the sea to help the Xhosa nation drive away the white colonialists. But, according to Makhanda, the ancestors would only rise once he had jumped over an impossibly wide crack in the rock slab.
On the appointed day, many people assembled on the beach to watch him jump, but Makhanda just sat staring at the gap. Later that afternoon the people grew impatient and demanded that he make the leap, but Makhanda continued to just sit there, deep into the night, without saying a word.
On the appointed day, many people assembled on the beach to watch him jump, but Makhanda just sat staring at the gap. Later that afternoon the people grew impatient and demanded that he make the leap, but Makhanda continued to just sit there, deep into the night, without saying a word.
Folklore & legends
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The stone circles of Mpumalanga
A large section of the Mpumalanga province in South Africa is covered with approximately 30,000 circular stone structures, linked by ancient roads and what appears to be agricultural terraces. Many people on the ground write off the stone walls as corrals, and some experts view them to be of little historical importance. But with the advent of Google Earth’s satellite imagery, the huge scale of the network has become apparent. What the sites reveal, and the questions that they raise, is simply astounding. Ruins in the hills around Machadodorp and Waterval Boven suggest a continuous settlement larger than Johannesburg (South Africa's biggest city). Due to the construction of roads and agricultural activity, the network is far from intact, but good examples are clearly visible on Google Earth and Google Maps (see picture). What challenges the corral assumption is that these circular structures are continuous, with no entrances. If livestock or people were to have moved in and out, they would have had to scale walls that are 6 to 9 feet tall, constructed of loose stone. |
History does not record the existence of the estimated million-strong population that it would have taken to build a network like this, nor for what purpose it would have been constructed. So if these are not corrals, what are they?
A number of theories have been postulated, some of these extremely radical, by various experts and academics. Many of these structures, including the site known as “Adam’s Calendar” near Kaapsehoop, have been dated to be anywhere between 75,000 and 200,000 years old. Could there have been a lost civilization living in this area so long ago? There is a wealth of information available on the internet, and some basic research will turn up a number of interesting articles. What you make of them is up to you, but there is one indisputable fact - the stone circles do exist.
A number of theories have been postulated, some of these extremely radical, by various experts and academics. Many of these structures, including the site known as “Adam’s Calendar” near Kaapsehoop, have been dated to be anywhere between 75,000 and 200,000 years old. Could there have been a lost civilization living in this area so long ago? There is a wealth of information available on the internet, and some basic research will turn up a number of interesting articles. What you make of them is up to you, but there is one indisputable fact - the stone circles do exist.
Creature corner
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The Mountain Zebra is native to southwestern Angola, Namibia, and South Africa. There is some debate about the taxonomy of this animal – some scientists maintain that there is only one species, others insist that there are two species, and yet a third group opts for two sub-species (the Cape Mountain Zebra and the Hartmann’s Mountain Zebra).
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Feather feature
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Common Name: Pied Kingfisher
Binomial Name: Ceryle rudis Status: Common resident Red List Status: Least Concern The Pied Kingfisher is widely distributed across Africa and Asia. It is estimated to be one of the three most numerous kingfishers in the world; the other two are the Common Kingfisher and Collared Kingfisher. It is a noisy bird, making it hard to miss. |
Did you know?
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The biggest gem-quality diamond ever found was unearthed at the Premier Mine in Cullinan, South Africa, on 26 January 1905. It weighed in at an incredible 3,106.75 carats. It was cut into 96 small gems and 9 large gems, including the Cullinan I (also known as the Great Star of Africa), a 530.4 carat stone. The Cullinan I is set in the Sovereign’s Sceptre with Cross (the staff at the bottom of the picture), an important part of the British Crown Jewels.
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Words of wisdom
"Why is it you can never hope to describe the emotion Africa creates? You are lifted. Out of whatever pit, unbound from whatever tie, released from whatever fear. You are lifted, and you see it all from above."
Francesca Marciano
Francesca Marciano