To put this in perspective – the resident population of just Chamonix is approximately 10,000 inhabitants. The number of visitors fluctuates enormously during the tourist season, in Summer up to 100,000 visitors per day and in Winter around 60,000 . And let me tell you from personal experience that when you climb Mt Blanc you set off hours before sunrise with your head-torches, and it looks like a national highway with a night-time rush-hour with the number of climbers who had the same unique though as you!

Ok – lets head south a few thousand km to sunny South Africa whose Drakensberg mountains boasts the second highest waterfall in the world, the Tugela Falls, coming a close second to the Angel falls in Venezuela. Now, the entire Drakensberg, North, Central and all the South, has approximately 600,000 visitors per annum, and particularly when you venture there out of school holidays and avoid weekends you seldom see more humans than baboons! Contrast that with what you just read about Chamonix!!

And while we locals take this for granted it does represent a wonderful opportunity to attract the discerning and adventurous European traveller and improve the lot of Kwazulu Natal as the youngest sibling living off the hand-me-downs from the Cinderella destinations – Cape Town, KNP, Vic Falls etc

BTW – the Tugela Falls is far, FAR more accessible to the casual hiker than the Angel Falls

Instantly concerned I threw the barn door open and asked Van – “are you ok man – what are you doing?”

He blushed and answered: “Man my vrou and I was at the Doctor the udder day ‘cos… well things and not going so well wiff ours sex lifes. and the Doc says I must do something sexy to a tractor!”

Personally, as a ‘normal’ city being, I grew up enjoying all that culture and religion had to offer to my generation; however, I always felt a natural affinity with the elements, since I was little I collected stones, I found rock formations fascinating, I loved loosing myself looking deep into the horizon over the blue ocean, I used to take photographs of trees, and detailed close-ups of branches and leaves, I did not know why but feeling the wind on my face made me happy… Of course this connection with nature of mine was my secret, I couldn’t possibly share it with others because there were more important things in life to talk about, like the economic problems of the country, inflation rates out of control, social justice, and other serious matters…, precisely all those issues that society created to dominate over nature “in the name of human growth and development”. But in the process, our globalised human race is depleting the recourses, is destroying the land, is polluting the waters, is destabilising the ecosystems, in other words, is hurting the planet.

We have reached the point where our ‘advanced technology’ is going to obliterate the humanity that produced it in the first place! What are we leaving for the next generations? Should we just resign ourselves to destroy our world civilisation and hope for the re-birth of another human civilisation some day? Haven’t we learnt anything from past civilisations?

It is in this juncture where the ancient wisdom of the Sacred Andean Tradition (as well as all ancient indigenous traditions of the planet!) is bringing us, …arrogant, modern, global, human race, a wake-up call! The new generation of children come with a deep understanding of care and respect for Earth (knowledge they definitely did not learn from us) … it is the message of Mother Earth (Pachamama for the Andean peoples), a very clear message. We must reconnect with Nature, we must remember the sacredness of our relationship with creation, as part of divine creation, part of Nature.

Come to the understanding that it was society and its powers that forced the separation of the human being from Nature, with principles based on selfishness and greed, which created concepts like ‘private property’ and borders!! And in the process nature was outlawed; how could nature dare to connect all plant, animal and mineral kingdoms in one planet!

The existence of a collective plant consciousness was denied; the existence of a divine vital force powering a harmonic life cycle for all animal life on the planet was ignored; and the truth of minerals on Earth, that despite not being able to breath like plants and animals, they are alive and are able to record energy, was hidden.

And us, human beings also forgot that we are Nature, that we were created by the breath of God, we received the vital force of life, with a divine conscience and the knowledge that we have a place and a reason for being alive. We forgot that without the oxygen in the air (produced by the trees), without the warmth and light of the Sun, without the nutrients of food (produced by Earth) and without drinking water every day… we would not exist.

Our Andean ancestors had this truth in the forefront of their consciousness, they acknowledged our total interconnection with universal creation, they knew of the external universe – macrocosm – and the internal universe – microcosm; they did not need telescopes and microscopes to see and understand these levels of existence because they were naturally connected to Creator’s Consciousness.

So now, thankfully, this ancient wisdom, which has been kept and nurtured for hundreds of years in the Andean communities, is becoming present again in our midst, and the message is being understood all over the planet (and in the same way as Nature, this ancient natural wisdom does not know of cultural differences, languages, philosophies, or borders). At present, there are Andean masters that were not born in the Andes, there are priests of the Sacred Andean Tradition in Africa, Europe, and North America, doing the work of reconnecting the sacred energies of the world to help Pachamama restore her natural balance.

As we remember this ancient wisdom and we learn to integrate this knowledge in our consciousness, we will enable the creation of a balanced planet, the planet in harmony that Mother Earth deserves for her infinite love and patience with us!

The Sacred Andean Tradition teaches and helps us to remember how simple it is to live in balance and harmony. We learn to integrate creation (Nature) in all dimensional aspects and realities (that what we call real and that what we call virtual reality), always in spiral evolution, always in a dynamic way, always in reciprocity, always in unconditional love, always respecting all life, always in Unity.

Silvia Pratten

BUT, for a moment lets forget about rhino’s, or elephants, or even Africa for that matter:

Imagine that (for want of a better example) Citrus trees were endangered. And despite scientific proof to the contrary there are still lots of people like you and I that wrongly believe that large doses of Vit C can stave off colds and ‘flu. So Vit C (in this hypothetical situation) is very expensive and it’s trade has been curtailed or even banned in some countries. And this skyrocketing price causes illegal harvesting of the trees which are processed in large vats and their Vit C is extracted – and as a result the tree numbers are dwindling and soon will be extinct. A few astute businessmen know this and are paying silly prices and are hoarding Vit C because as soon as the trees are extinct they will be sitting on a gold mine. Yet we have a few conservation organisations that have collected lots of Vit C in strongrooms but keep it locked up because a Rich-country dominated organisation (them having squandered all their trees decades ago) have deemed illegal trade illegal.

All because a some people wrongly believe that large doses of Vit C will stave off colds and ‘flu

We need a multi-pronged approach to solve this problem and we need to ignore the west and come up with an African solution:

Anti poaching - the problem with this is as long as there are poor people in Africa there will be both an incentive and avenues for both subsistence and commercial poaching – rather like the poor fellow stealing a rabbit to feed his family and ending up banished to Australia – it’s a survival instinct combined with the opportunistic predatory human nature. Shooting poor people (as advocated by many of the white’s on the internet) who are poaching rhino horns for a few thousand rands will only turn the poor masses against conservation and against those who are trying to protect wild animals – “WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU RHINOS ARE MORE IMPORTANT THAN POOR AFRICANS – KILL THEM ALL!!” – Rather give them a TANGIBLE benefit that is of a higher and more sustainable value! Also – just think of the logistics and costs involved in protecting 20,000 rhino’s in South Africa. This will cost billions – not just millions! (BTW do the math – the poachers have harvested much less than 25% of the rhino’s annual population growth to date!) (note approx 21,000 rhino – both species – in South Africa in 2009 growing at 5% pa before poaching – approx 1,050 increase pa. poaching is heading towards 200-250 this year, so poaching (upper end) is 1.2% of the population or 24% of annual increment)

Summary: Anti-poaching as a sole solution will only keep the bunny huggers happy and stands a good chance of driving the animals towards extinction at a faster rate as it will simultaneously drive up horn values as populations begin to decline.

Education - yes – both at source and destination – now this is something we can work with – and it worked in Yemen during their oil boom but remember you are talking about peoples health – a commodity more valued by people than anything else, so this will not be an easy option – it will be time consuming and costly both in monetary terms and resources. but IT THE BEST LONG TERM SOLUTION. But what happens if we don’t have a long term – as in the case of the African rhino species

The driving force behind this acceleration in destruction is purely $$ a high value at retail – street level- and the fact that it is perceived to be a finite resource.

The same argument can be applied to the trade in illegal drugs – look at what is happening today in Mexico and with the S. American drug cartels. Look at what happened during Christian fundementalism-driven Prohibition in the 1920′s in the USA – lots of people died and Bugsy Malone and Al Capone made millions – and people still got drunk! Even look at the problem with Abalone poaching in South Africa – a state owned resource!

If we could bring that price down and legalise the trade we can control it from cradle to grave

We are sitting on a sustainable harvestable resource, with many millions in value in protected vaults and on live animals. The government of SA can easily lay claim to all rhino horns (both live and dead) For once lets put our emotions aside and realise that as a short term solution we NEED to tamper with the price mechanism wherever the horns are being sold. And in the process tell CITES to get lost – they have not saved anything and dictate to Africa generally (like the West) in a most patronising manner. And, as we’re doing this, lets use the bulk of our resources, both money and manpower for education through massive marketing and advertising schemes – use Asian celebrities if we need to and SHRINK the demand this way by applying a levy on sales (example cigarette sales paying for health warnings).

If you don’t change anything, then nothing changes. Madness can be defined as – doing the same thing and expecting the result to change. For close to 100 years we have tried to stop poaching – it did not work when Africa had 500 million people, why will it work now when it has close to 1 billion people. Facts are facts – Asian buyers are prepared to pay R19,000/kg for horn, hundreds of millions of Africans are starving – sounds like selling horn legally is the closest thing we have to a logical solution – irrespective of your emotional perspective. The trend is not in favour of more conventional logic (kill the poacher) being applied. It is not an accident that South Africa has the most rhino, the solution in South Africa has been private ownership and almost free trade in rhino within the country. Now lets extend the ONLY example of an increasing and financially valuable rhino population to global thinking. Quick and dirty estimates would value the rhino herd in South Africa at R2.1 to 2.5 billion. What is the real provable value of a live rhino in Kenya – you cannot tell me, neither can their neighbours – but the poacher can tell you its value – DEAD.