An Unusual threat display of the African Elephant

Volume: XXII

Notes on the East African Porcupine

Volume: XXII

Bats in the roof

Volume: XXII

Estimation of large mammal numbers in the akagera national park and mutara hunting reserve, Rwanda

Deux méthodes ont été employées pour estimer les effectifs des grands mammifères du Parc National de l’ Akagera et du domaine de chasse du Mutara, qui couvrent respectivement 250 000 et 61 000 ha. D’une part, six comptages terrestres par Landrover de douze quadrats pris au hasard et couvrant 3,8 % de la superficie totale, et d’autre part, deux comptages par avion. Les deux méthodes donnent des résultats différents, les estima tions terrestres étant jusqu’à six fois supérieures. Cela peut être attribuable à la petitesse de l’échantillon, et au fait que certaines espèces ont une distribution aggrégative.Two methods were used to estimate large mammal numbers in the 250,000 ha Akagera National Park, and the 61,200 ha Mutara Hunting Reserve, Rwanda. Six monthly ground counts were made by Landrover, of twelve randomly chosen quadrats covering 3.8 % of the total area ; and two total air counts. The methods gave dif fering results, the ground estimates being up to about six times greater. This may have been attributable to contagious distribu tion of some of the species counted, and the small sampling fraction

Reframing Kurtz’s Painting: Colonial Legacies and Minority Rights in Ethnically Divided Societies

Minority rights constitute some of the most normatively and economically important human rights. Although the political science and legal literatures have proffered a number of constitutional and institutional design solutions to address the protection of minority rights, these solutions are characterized by a noticeable neglect of, and lack of sensitivity to, historical processes. This Article addresses that gap in the literature by developing a causal argument that explains diverging practices of minority rights protections as functions of colonial governments’ variegated institutional practices with respect to particular ethnic groups. Specifically, this Article argues that in instances where colonial governments politicize and institutionalize ethnic hegemony in the pre-independence period, an institutional legacy is created that leads to lower levels of minority rights protections. Conversely, a uniform treatment and depoliticization of ethnicity prior to independence ultimately minimizes ethnic cleavages post-independence and consequently causes higher levels of minority rights protections. Through a highly structured comparative historical analysis of Botswana and Ghana, this Article builds on a new and exciting research agenda that focuses on the role of long-term historio-structural and institutional influences on human rights performance and makes important empirical contributions by eschewing traditional methodologies that focus on single case studies that are largely descriptive in their analyses. Ultimately, this Article highlights both the strength of a historical approach to understanding current variations in minority rights protections and the varied institutional responses within a specific colonial government

Roadless wilderness area determines forest elephant movements in the Congo Basin

A dramatic expansion of road building is underway in the Congo Basin fuelled by private enterprise, international aid, and government aspirations. Among the great wilderness areas on earth, the Congo Basin is outstanding for its high biodiversity, particularly mobile megafauna including forest elephants (Loxodonta africana cyclotis). The abundance of many mammal species in the Basin increases with distance from roads due to hunting pressure, but the impacts of road proliferation on the movements of individuals are unknown. We investigated the ranging behaviour of forest elephants in relation to roads and roadless wilderness by fitting GPS telemetry collars onto a sample of 28 forest elephants living in six priority conservation areas. We show that the size of roadless wilderness is a strong determinant of home range size in this species. Though our study sites included the largest wilderness areas in central African forests, none of 4 home range metrics we calculated, including core area, tended toward an asymptote with increasing wilderness size, suggesting that uninhibited ranging in forest elephants no longer exists. Furthermore we show that roads outside protected areas which are not protected from hunting are a formidable barrier to movement while roads inside protected areas are not. Only 1 elephant from our sample crossed an unprotected road. During crossings her mean speed increased 14-fold compared to normal movements. Forest elephants are increasingly confined and constrained by roads across the Congo Basin which is reducing effective habitat availability and isolating populations, significantly threatening long term conservation efforts. If the current road development trajectory continues, forest wildernesses and the forest elephants they contain will collapse