A Dream for a Better World

Rhino, with height from 1.5m to 2m and weight up to 1.5tons to 3.5tons, is a kind of big mammal animal. It seems very heavy but the speed can be up to 40km/h when it runs. It is said that rhino, with 5000 years’ history, is one of the animals which can live the longest time among all animals. At first, there were kinds of rhinos scattering at many places. After long-time natural selection and survival competition, 18700 survive and 17500 are wild ones.
Black rhino and black rhino are the two rhinos in Africa. Actually, the black rhino is not black and the white rhino, whose skin around mouth is white, is also not white. According to the estimation from the International Rhino Foundation, there are 11670 odd white rhinos in the south part of Africa and the number of rhinos which mainly live in the south part of Sudan and northeast part of Zaire is just 30. The white rhinos could be found in the north west of Uganda at first but they have become extinction due to continuous wars and hunting. As for black rhinos, there were about 65000 living in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, South Africa etc during 1960s. But in the 1980s, no more than 20000 black rhinos could be found. The International Rhino Foundation estimated that the number of African black rhinos was no more than 3100. Many wildlife biologists claimed that African rhinos, especially black rhinos were become extinct.
During the past 30 years, African rhinos have decreased too many. They were killed by human beings not because of natural death or kills between themselves. On the one hand, people have cut a large number of trees so rhinos do not have enough space for survival. On the other hand, people hunt rhinos at random. In the past, people wanted to get the skin and meat of rhinos but nowadays, people prefer the ivory of rhinos because it is priceless. A doctor from Kenya said that from the beginning of the 20th century to 1975, the wholesale price of the ivory increased by 20 times. From the year 1976 to 1979, the wholesale price increased by 20 times again and it was 675$ per kg and the retail price was up to 8707$ in Southeast Asia. At present, ivory of rhinos are forbidden to sell so the price goes up too much. It is said that it can be sold by 30000$ per kg in black market of Middle East. Due to the high price and profit, many people in Africa or other countries take risks to hunt rhinos. African rhinos, especially black rhinos are easily killed because of their poor eyesight. From 1970 to 1980, 90% black rhinos were killed in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania.
As for rhinos hunting, many countries have formulated laws to punish hunters severely. For example, Swaziland legislation stimulated that the hunter would be put into prison for 5 years as well as much penalty. Many other countries also start to set up trans-national zoos to protect rhinos together. To some extent, rhinos have been protected but the news of rhinos hunting is heard occasionally. Therefore, struggling with rhino hunters should never stop.

China is pushing for legal permission to trade in ivory, amid concerns from environmental groups that approval could put serious pressure on elephant populations.  As a meeting of the UN’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) starts in Geneva, China is seeking approval as a trading partner, allowing it to buy into a 100-ton stockpile of ivory in Africa which Botswana, Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe are authorized to sell.  However, environmentalists say China’s ivory trade is not regulated well enough and approval could allow illegal ivory into the supply chain, increasing demand and therefore increasing threats to elephants.

Many people focus on South America, and Brazil in particular, as the major culprits of deforestation. But Africa is losing forest land just as quickly and mainly due to the desperation of the poverty stricken population. Coal is lighter, cheaper and easier to produce than other forms of fuel. 80% of fuel is still coal based in Africa, which leads to a huge amount of legal and illegal logging to supply the demand for fuel. And people will continue to log the forests until the find an alternative cheap fuel and income.

Most of the worlds food come from only small percentage of ariable land. And in places like Africa, the farmers working these lands get very in return for trying to feed the world. A couple of days ago the BBC listed a report warning that if more investment is not put into educating and training the worlds farmers than very soon an epidemic of hung.er will emcompass much of the developing world. The report suggested if we don´t reward the custodians of the land, more workers will head to urbanized areas leading to further problems with the world food supply

They once called it the grain basket of Africa, now it suffering a major hunger crisis, and why? Because of a government that refuses to accept its own failings. Zimbabwe has a starving population because the farms are not being worked properly, the inflation has made the price of food too expensive, and most of the population is unemployed. And all this has only happened in the past few years. How much longer are the people supposed to starve and suffer before we step in and do something? How many people need to die of hunger in a country that could be giving food to other hungry nations?

Sure we all hear about how war, famine and diseases destroys countries, but one thing that ruins a country just as badly is corruption. When I was in Nigeria, a common phrase I was told was – “Even the dirt is corrupt here!”. The corruption was so bad that it infected the entire country. And this is my issue with corruption, when our leaders, our role models are taking “backhanders” and ignoring their responsibilities – how are the rest of country expected to be any better? I know last year they started trying to root out the corrupted officials, but the damage will take years to correct the current cultural attitudes

Aids prevention begins with better education about the risks and issues involved. But when we are misinformed about a subject as important as aids prevention, things can only go from bad to worse. As in the case of South Africa, the Health Minister once said that the cure for aids was eating “garlic and beetroot”. This is outrageous misinformation, from a governing body no less! And now, the next expected President in the ANC party, Mr Jacob Zuma has sexual relations with an aids infected girl – and his response? “I took a shower”. More needs to be expected from a government of a country suffering an aids epidemic.