Getting It Right

I’ve posted steadily about our trip to southern Africa. It’s fun to write about! The region is a bottomless wellspring of inspiration.

That trip gave me something I don’t feel very often: hope.

We’ve spent months in Asia in natural habitats that are now being dammed, or mined, or paved in the name of progress. It’s all happening so quickly. We know we won’t recognize those places when we go back.

Laos. China is damming the Mekong River and neighbors to the south will be impacted (ie, all of them)
Borneo. Indonesia has moved the capitol city Jakarta from Java to Borneo, reducing the orangutan’s habitat even further
Sittwe, Burma. The junta is crushing all resistance; Uwe and I won’t be allowed to visit this region if we go back
northern Cambodia/Laos border. The rare Irrawaddy dolphin will go extinct if the water in the Mekong River is further reduced

But in southern Africa, in Botswana and Namibia, we were thrilled by the wildlife and the inhabitants. These countries spoke in growls and whistles and birdsong and hippo songs and human voices.

The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA) is the largest transnational conservation area in the world at 444.000 km2. It is  enormous, larger than Germany and Austria combined and nearly twice as large as the United Kingdom. The KAZA TFCA lies in the Kavango and Zambezi river basins where Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe converge. [1]

There are issues to deal with – the loss of domestic animals to predators. The way elephants eat or trample crops. The complicated cross-country agreements.  But, as their website states, “Local communities participate with enthusiasm in management of the TFCA through the Transboundary Natural Resources Managment Forum. The aim of this forum is to maximize skills and resources to promote sustainable land use, conservation of wildlife and landscapes, and rural development.”

I urge everyone to learn about this multinational effort to preserve the environment for the benefit of ALL inhabitants, whether winged, hooved, legged, or finned. FINALLY! A region of the world that’s getting it right!

NOTES: [1] https://www.kavangozambezi.org/  ©2024 Jadi Campbell. Photos ©2023 Uwe Hartmann. Uwe’s photos of our trips and his photography may be viewed at viewpics.de.

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

My books are Broken In: A Novel in Stories, Tsunami Cowboys,  Grounded and The Trail Back Out.

Tsunami Cowboys was longlisted for the 2019 ScreenCraft Cinematic Book Award. Broken In: A Novel in Stories was semifinalist for the international 2020 Hawk Mountain Short Story Collection Award from Hidden River Arts and Finalist for Greece’s 2021 Eyelands Book of the Year Award (Short Stories).

The Trail Back Out was the 2023 San Francisco Book Festival Winner for General Fiction, American Book Fest 2020 Best Book Award Finalist: Fiction Anthologies, Runner-Up for the 2021 Top Shelf Award, 2021 IAN Book of the Year Award Short Story Collection Finalist, and awarded a 2021 Wishing Shelf Red Ribbon. The title story The Trail Back Out was longlisted for the 2021 ScreenCraft Cinematic Short Story Award.

Click here for my author page to learn more about me and purchase my books.

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