Last year was a bad one for the Yangtze river dolphin. Down to their last 100
in the mid1990s, the baiji officially went the way of the dodo in December
2006. It’s hard to say what finally did for them - if overfishing didn’t,
then ship collisions, toxic pollution and dam-building probably did.
One thing’s for sure: they’re gone.
It would be nice to say the baiji’s fate is an isolated horror story, but it’s
not. From coral reefs to cloud forests, icecaps to islands, the threat of
extinction looms large. For once, though, tourism can help. Nobody’s
pretending you’re doing much good if you fly all the way to Australia just
to see the Barrier Reef — a return flight to Oz generates half the CO2 the
average Brits get through in a year, so you’re bleaching the corals even as
you travel to see them.
But from tigers in India to gorillas in Africa, the world is full of places
where tourist dollars can act as a force for good, persuading locals there’s
more long-term money in protection than poaching, a better future in species
survival than slash-and-burn.
Here — with details of how you can see them without accelerating their demise
— are 10 wonders facing an uncertain future.
All prices are per person, based on two sharing. Flights, where included, are
on scheduled airlines from London. Contact the operator for regional
departures
TIGERS, India
Once lording it from eastern Turkey to Bali and Java, the world’s largest cat
now hides in isolated pockets of forest and mangrove in India, Southeast
Asia, Sumatra and eastern Siberia, with about 20 or 30 in China that will
probably be extinct by the time you’ve finished your cornflakes. Almost 95%
of them have disappeared in the past 100 years. Only about 5,000 to 7,000
are still alive today.
India has the highest population of tigers, but even here, prospects are grim.
Under Indira Gandhi, Project Tiger saw their numbers rise from 2,000 to
4,300, but experts warn there may only be about 1,200 Bengal tigers left
today — far fewer than the official figure of 4,000. “I think we are living
with the last tigers of India,” says Valmik Thapar, the country’s best-known
tiger champion. He accuses the Indian government of lacking the political
will to stop poachers, who can get up to £10,000 for a tiger skin and £3,000
for a kilogram of tiger bones, used in traditional Chinese medicine to
dispel wind and strengthen sinews.
Tigers are also a victim of their own own iconic allure, attracting visitors
in the sort of overenthusiastic hordes that would — and, indeed, has in
Ranthambore, where populations are in sharp decline — put paid to any sane
tiger’s love life.
Our advice? Visit www.toftiger.org
, a directory of tour operators who have signed up to a Travel Operators for
Tigers (Toft) code of conduct, covering all aspects of tiger tourism from
ensuring mahouts don’t drive their elephants too close to making sure
accommodation is in environmentally friendly lodges.
How to see them: Discovery Initiatives (01285 643333, www.discoveryinitiatives.co.uk
) has a 13-night tiger study tour in Panna and Bandavgarh reserves from
£3,195, and a 20-night India big cats tour in search of tigers, leopards and
snow leopards from £5,995. Both prices include British Airways flights to
Delhi, all transfers and game-viewing activities, with up to £900 per group
going to tiger conservation.
GORILLAS, Rwanda Take a primate with a 70lb-a-day bamboo habit; stir in
loggers, oil extractors and mineral miners who have already cleared about
85% of Africa’s tropical rainforest; sprinkle in corrupt officials who don’t
enforce logging bans; top it all off with a black-market trade that
“harvests” an estimated 1m-3.4m tons of forest bushmeat every year. What
you’ve got is a recipe for gorilla extinction that puts the planet’s biggest
primate firmly near the top of the WWF list of endangered species.
Things are even worse for the mountain gorillas that inhabit the Great Lakes
region of Rwanda, Uganda and Burundi, an area so war-torn that
conservationists find it virtually impossible to carry out their work. Only
about 650 mountain gorillas remain: anyone who has trekked into the forest
to watch in awe as a 500lb silverback mingles with his troop will tell you
what a spectacular tragedy that is. Permits aren’t cheap, and the price goes
up in June, but £210 is a small price to pay for the 24-hour armed guard
each gorilla group receives — and might just persuade governments to halt
the logging.
How to see them: Rainbow Tours (020 7226 1004, www.rainbowtours.co.uk
) has nine days in Rwanda, from £2,485, including two days of
gorilla-tracking in Volcanoes National Park — home to three active
volcanoes, 200 bird species and about 325 mountain gorillas — as well as
days in Nyungwe National Park and a boat trip on Lake Kivu. The price
includes all meals, permits, transfers and Kenya Airways flights via Nairobi
to Kigali.
WHALE SHARKS, Seychelles
The first time I saw a whale shark, it was all I could do not to swallow my
snorkel. Monstrously large — 9 tons and 30ft is an awful lot of fish — they
are a staggering sight as you hang there in the isolating blue, telling
yourself they’re one of the gentlest creatures in the sea.
Sadly, 9 tons and 30ft is an awful lot of fish to Asia’s fishermen, too,
especially when it swims so invitingly slowly and close to the surface of
the sea. Fetching about £4 per pound, “tofu shark”, as it is known in the
Far East, usually ends up on restaurant tables in Taiwan and Malaysia,
although a whale-shark fin hit the headlines in 1999 when it was sold in a
Beijing fish market for a staggering £11,000.
It’s hard to say how many of them survive — monitoring their numbers is
virtually impossible as they trawl the oceans hoovering plankton — but
according to the UN’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre, illegal
targeting and accidental capture of whale sharks puts them severely under
threat. If ever a species could act as an icon of marine conservation, it’s
the whale shark, heart-stopping yet harmless, and rare yet dependably
present in certain lucky spots, such as the Seychelles, where the Marine
Conservation Society of Seychelles (MCSS) uses microlight spotters to help
guarantee an encounter. How to see them: Divequest (01254 826322, www.divequest.co.uk
) has seven nights in Mahé for £1,926, B&B, including six
two-tank morning dives, and six afternoons snorkelling with an MCSS
whale-shark tagging expedition, whose work this trip supports. The price
includes Air Seychelles flights to Mahé and transfers.
GREAT BARRIER REEF, Australia
Global warming has always been the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef,
with scientists predicting that the 1,400-mile wonder — the largest living
structure on the planet — could be functionally dead by 2050. Now, however,
the reef — home to more than 1,500 species of fish and six of the planet’s
seven marine turtle species — is fighting a war on two fronts.
The other enemy is Queensland’s farmers, with fertiliser runoff from farms
along the coast almost certain to trigger an explosion in the numbers of
crown-of-thorns starfish, which thrive on farm waste and gorge on the tiny
polyps that make up the reef. With a single starfish able to clear six
metres of coral a year, WWF marine expert Simon Walmsley warns of dire
consequences if fertiliser runoff and coral bleaching continue unchecked.
“You could kiss goodbye to a third of the world’s soft corals,” he says.
How to see it: flying to Australia just to see the reef is
environmental heresy. Unlike the tigers and gorillas, you would be doing the
coral a greater service by staying at home and tuning in the next time
Attenborough goes Down Under. If you can’t go through life without going to
Oz, don’t nip down there for a week. Do a once-in-a-lifetime pilgrimage that
knocks off the best of the place in one go. Bridge & Wickers (020 7483
6555, www.bridgeandwickers.co.uk
), for example, has 28 nights in Oz from £5,520, visiting the Barrier Reef
(five nights), Perth, Broome, Darwin, Kakadu, Alice Springs, Adelaide,
Melbourne and Sydney. The price includes some meals, reef excursions, a
camping safari in Kakadu, the Ghan railway from Darwin to Adelaide,
transfers and Qantas flights into Perth and out of Cairns.
If you’ve got 12 weeks, £3,750 and cast-iron buttocks, Ozbus (020 8641 1443, www.oz-bus.com
) is the polyp-friendlier way to get to Australia, though you’ll still need
to take — and pay for — a flight from East Timor to Darwin.
LEMURS, Madagascar
Cut adrift 300 miles off Mozambique, Madagascar has been marooned for more
than 160m years, quietly evolving an abundance of species found nowhere else
on the planet. All of its lemurs, 80% of its flowering plants, 90% of its
245 reptiles are only to be found here — it’s not for nothing that the whole
of the island was declared one of Conservation International’s 34
biodiversity hot spots (places covering less than 3% of the earth’s land
surface yet containing more than 40% of all endemics). Conservationists call
Madagascar the “hottest of the hot spots”.
But it is also known as the Red Island, a name reflecting the fact that only
about 10% of the original cover of vegetation now remains. Fifteen lemur
species have been seen off since man first landed here 2,000 years ago, and
with lemurs now confined to tiny islands of isolated forest that are
disappearing in Greater London-sized chunks every year, the prognosis for
the remaining 50 species is not good, especially the red-ruffed lemur, with
only a handful left in the wild.
How to see them: Earthwatch (01865 318831, www.earthwatch.org.uk
), a nonprofit charity that has sent more than 80,000 volunteers to work
with scientists all over the world, has 15 days in Madagascar for £1,395,
full-board, including 13 days working alongside Dr Pat Wright, the world’s
foremost sifaka authority, in Ranomafana National Park. Trailfinders (0845
058 5858, www.trailfinders.com
) has Air France flights via Paris to Antananarivo from £619.
PRIMEVAL FOREST, Poland
If ever a place perfectly illustrated the triangular tug-of-war between
economy, ecology and local interest groups, it’s the Rospuda Valley in
northeast Poland. In one corner, you’ve got eagles and wolves, beavers and
lynx, sheltering in the magnificent Augustow Forest, one of the last pockets
of primeval forest in Europe. In the second corner, you’ve got the Via
Baltica, a giant swath of motorway planned to run from Warsaw to Helsinki
via Rospuda, fanning the fires of Polish economic growth. Finally, there are
the inhabitants of Rospuda itself, understandably aghast at the thought of
HGVs lumbering through their town. They want a bypass. No prizes for
guessing where the bypass would go.
Fortunately, the European Court of Justice has recently halted construction on
the bypass until the full judgment is given. Unfortunately, however, the
builders are already on site, ready to rev up their diggers, unless
campaigners can secure permanent protection from the courts. In other words,
go now — or it may be too late for you to see Rospuda’s capercaillies and
corncrakes, musk orchids and wild boars.
How to see it: Ffestiniog Travel (01766 512400, www.festtravel.co.uk
) has sleeper returns to Warsaw via Brussels and Cologne from £235,
departing from London Waterloo at 12.40pm, arriving at 8.55am the next day.
From Warsaw, the eco-adventure travel specialist AwimAway (020 7430 1766, www.awimaway.com
) has six nights in Poland from £749, half-board, including two days in
Warsaw, Bialowieza and Augustow, city sightseeing, and four guided wildlife
walks.
WILDEBEEST MIGRATION, Tanzania
Poaching has long been the bête noire of East African wildlife
conservation, but the twin threats of global warming and intensive farming
now make it look toothless by comparison. Elephants are a serious concern,
as park and farm boundaries make it impossible for them to seek out better
vegetated areas once their own territories have dried up. But now,
scientists are also predicting a bleak future for the annual wildebeest
migration across Kenya and Tanzania, with more than 1m wildebeest facing
starvation if East Africa’s drought continues. Half a million have already
gone — unable to slake a thirst that requires more than 20 litres a day in
the hottest, driest months.
How to see it: Wildlife Worldwide (0845 130 6982, www.wildlifeworldwide.com
), which last year raised more than £50,000 for conservation, has a 10-day
Tanzania migration special from £3,150, including five nights in camps on
the Serengeti, two nights at the Ngorongoro Crater, most meals, all
game-viewing activities, transfers and flights to Kilimanjaro via Nairobi.
CLOUD FORESTS, Ecuador
Part of the tropical Andes region, stretching from Venezuela to northern
Chile, the cloud forests of Ecuador’s Choco bioregion provide
extraordinarily rich shelter to some of the most colourful and endangered
species on the planet, including the Andean cock-of-the-rock and spectacled
bear. One-sixth of all plant life is found in this region, which accounts
for less than 1% of the world’s land area, and it qualifies as another of
Conservation International’s biodiversity hot spots.
A promised land for birders — more than 380 species can be ticked off here —
the area also has 45 species of mammal, including coati-mundis and pumas.
Remarkably, it’s only 90 minutes’ drive from Quito.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that the usual army of loggers and
looters, slashers-and-burners, palm-oil planters and poachers is rapidly
wrecking Mother Nature’s gifts — 90% of the original forest has gone, and
the remaining 10% could seriously do with tourist TLC.
How to see it: Sunvil Latin America (020 8758 4774, www.sunvil.co.uk
) has 13 nights in Ecuador from £2,075, B&B, staying at Septimo
Paraiso lodge in the Choco bioregion for three nights, and also in the
Cotopaxi and Cajas national parks, with a day on the spectacular Devil’s
Nose railway from Riobamba. The price includes some lunches, all transfers,
guiding and flights to Quito via Miami with BA and American Airlines.
ORANG-UTANS, Indonesia and Malaysia
Sharing 97% of our own DNA, with a gaze so winsome and a hug so gentle, the
“man of the forest” is the obvious choice as poster boy of rainforest
conservation. Confined now to Sumatra and Borneo, orangutans live in some of
the most species-rich habitats on the planet, which means you’re also likely
to see monkeys, birds, frogs and insects in almost indecent abundance in
your quest to spot one of the gentle giants.
But you’ll have to go soon: in Indonesian Borneo, loggers and palm-oil
planters are clearing a Wales-sized chunk of forest every year, with 98% of
the Indonesian and Malaysian forest predicted to be gone by 2020. Not
content with destroying their habitat, planters even target orangutans
directly (orangutans love oil-palm shoots), paying hunters £8.30 for every
one killed. “We’re looking at the virtual extinction of the orangutan in 15
years or less,” says Raffaella Commitante of the Borneo Orangutan Survival
Foundation.
With palm oil present in more than 10% of all products on the supermarket
shelves — and increasingly seen as a biofuel solution to global warming —
it’s highly unlikely tourist dollars alone can stem the destructive tide,
but if ever it was worth flashing the plastic on a holiday that helps, it’s
here in Borneo. Now.
How to see them: Discovery Initiatives (01285 643333, www.discoveryinitiatives.co.uk
), has two remarkable orangutan trips. The first, costing from £2,825 and
raising £18,000 every year for orangutan conservation, is a 12-night study
trip in Kalimantan’s Tanjung Puting National Park, assisting field
scientists from the Orangutan Foundation UK. The second, costing £3,050, is
a nine-night trip to Danum Valley in Sabah, with five days of tree-climbing
training and a night in hammocks 180ft above the forest floor. Both prices
include flights with Malaysia Airlines to Kota Kinabalu via Kuala Lumpur,
all transfers, activities and most meals.
POLAR BEARS, Arctic
Again, the paradox of flying to see a species under threat from global warming
is too great. It’s stay-at-home time unless you’re prepared to Ranulph
Fiennes your way north with a sled.
If you insist, there are lighter ways to tread than just flying north for the
weekend. You can cruise all the way to Spitsbergen from the UK, with a few
days built in for dedicated wildlife safaris by Zodiac boat, but if what
you’re after is a serious wildlife trip around Spitsbergen itself, the only
realistic low-impact way to do it is by train to Oslo (and then on by air to
Spitsbergen), choosing an operator with a good record on emissions
offsetting. How to see them: GAP Adventures (0870 999 0144, www.gapadventures.com
) has a 10-day cruise from Edinburgh to Spitsbergen via Orkney, Shetland,
Norway’s fjordland, the Lofoten Islands and Bear Island from £1,882,
full-board, including all Zodiac excursions.
Naturetrek (01962 733051, www.naturetrek.co.uk
), which pays for the offsetting of all carbon emissions on flights used by
both clients and staff, has a 10-day Arctic voyage around Spitsbergen for
£3,350, including all meals, with a maximum group size of 49, a team of
seriously overqualified guides, and flights between Oslo and Longyearbyen.
To get to Oslo, DFDS Seaways (0870 252 0524, www.dfds.co.uk
) has crossings (27 hours) in a private berth from Newcastle to Bergen from
£66; from Bergen, it’s a spectacular seven-hour train ride to Oslo; from £33
return (00 47 815 00 888 — press 4 for an English-speaking operator; or see www.nsb.no
).
