The Cape Bird Club

Birding challenge to BirdLife SA members  –  November 2007

Huge challenges face our country. How do only 4 million personal taxpayers finance social grants for 25 million? Can crime be curbed? How much housing can the state provide? How can 2010 be leveraged for a lasting legacy?  Health, education, transport?

Below these important priorities is a second stratum of troubles and opportunities. Inside this second level lie the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) some good, some bad; some powerful, some ineffective. Donors who venture into here know there be dragons and there be angels. Telling them apart is not as easy as it may seem.In this not-for-profit sector, there are cries for funding for children, for the elderly, for the conventionally sick and for those with AIDS or TB, for education, for animals of all sorts and for conservation.

Inside the conservation and animal nest lie birds, a sub -sub-sector of nature’s vast world and of South Africa’s particular challenges.

This country’s birds are particularly wonderful. They are easily accessible, we have the best bird books in the world, we have trained guides, Africa is the only continent never to have lost a species (in human lifetime). Looking after our birds is an array of NGOs. They range from the World Wildlife Fund – South Africa (WWF-SA) and big bird clubs, to tiny organisations looking after a single wetland or habitat, like the Friends of Nylsvley, currently trying to stop illegal development near the Nylsvley conservancy.

Then there are the companies who give much to preserve avian life like Sasol, Sappi, Mondi, Mazda Wildlife Fund, Meropa, Vodacom – and many others. Plus governmental agencies from Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk’s Conservation arm through SA National Parks, provincial parks and down to local government parks like Johannesburg’s City Parks, who do a fine job on the ground. While they all work together, this plethora of organisations, they also all compete for space, for credit and for funds.

So the politics is quite sharp. I spent many years in Parliament reporting on professional politicians’ shenanigans, so can brag of an in-depth knowledge of politicians, the tricks they get up to, their monster egos and the consternation subtle shifts in power can cause, with its concomitant delight for a few. Yet this experience only roughly prepared me for the politics I now experience in this conservation world – all of it understandable, for every organisation wants to b e recognized for the work it does, and certainly salaries are not competitive with the commercial world, so reward comes from recognition.

Recently the Southern KwaZulu Natal Birding Route was inaugurated. I stood fuming at a speech because BirdLife South Africa was unmentioned. Do understand that I had done absolutely nothing myself to help create this route, but as the BirdLife South Africa representative I wanted my organisation to get recognition, and became increasingly upset as it did not get it. 
Frankly, it was unclear precisely how much recognition it deserved, for the cash had come from other sources, as had much of the work. Despite lacking this knowledge, I saw fit to get quite irritable. Yet I am merely an outsider allocating a small part of my free time to chairing the NGO’s meetings.

So I perfectly understand how important these things must be to those who work in the sector, compete for funds, seek public recognition and fervently believe their own organisation worked hardest.

Given that very long introduction, BirdLife South Africa is charged with looking after our country’s extraordinary diversity of birds and their habitats, a sub-group of a sub-group as you may have gathered by now. The 34 people who work fulltime for BirdLife South Africa do it for birds, for people and for habitats, to protect them all. There is little financial reward but enormous satisfaction in saving a species or a wetland or opening it up to people for their enjoyment without compromising integrity. You will understand then, that the idea of having R70 million in a slush fund as “a token of appreciation” is utterly obscene to these people, and indeed to the whole NGO community. Specially if that cash is to be shared between three individuals, who were allegedly just doing the job for which they are employed: get funds for soccer. It beggars belief.

Half that amount would rescue BirdLife South Africa from the waste of precious energy squandered by having highly trained ornithologists run the treadmill of fund raising each year. And at which, I may add, they generally suck.

For only R35 million, BirdLife South Africa would not have to fundraise for a decade, and could live off the interest or dividends. For only half the cash given by ABSA and others to soccer’s notorious three administrators, we could protect all 935 species in SA, jack up our Important Bird Areas (IBAs), do the second Bird Atlasing Project, collect and destroy the illegal and dangerous poisons used by farmers that incidentally and accidentally kill birds, build bird hides, do scientific research, pay for graduate studies, fund objections to illegal development, save endangered species, invite all the journalists coming to 2010 to go birding for a day – oh, and so much, much more.

For just half! Where are our priorities as a country?

Instead, the experts at BirdLife South Africa will have to keep raising funds. They must do this to pay our staff, to train guides, to educate children (we reached 800 000 this year), plant cashews and yellowwoods to save the endangered Cape parrot, fund a scientific study of Ground Hornbills, fight evil and wicked developers who are destroying important wetlands at a rapid rate, alert authorities to birds in trouble, help our BirdLife partners in the rest of Africa, keep databases of important waders and other species to help world conservation monitor changes in global weather patterns, run bird fairs, answer the public’s endless questions about birds, etc.

We will do it, of course, but we need help. So this is an appeal: buy a swallow!

Where the new international airport will be built near Durban at uShaka or la Mercy or Mount Moreland (choose your own name) there have been up to 3 million swallows recorded roosting. We are selling them at R1 each.

BirdLife South Africa hit the panic button when it seemed the swallows who brave a long flight to get here every summer would be shredded by the big jets taking off and landing – they are directly below the flight path. But it now seems the swallows will be okay.
With remarkable help from the airports company, ACSA, special radar showed us how the swallows take off and land in waves. The waves are generally under the flight path, and only take about ten minutes in the morning and ten minutes again in the afternoon.

It is a remarkable thing to watch. We will have a special ceremony to welcome them on Sunday November 11 at the site.You are invited, and so is your family.

When the airport opens in a few years’ time, pilots waiting to take off or land will be informed when the swallow waves are happening, and BirdLife SA will monitor things closely.

But do buy a swallow, or ten, or more. Perhaps you can get a company to buy a few thousand. Not all the cash will go to save swallows, but it will help BirdLife South Africa to do all the things listed above.

And if you do buy some swallows, BirdLife’s Conservation Manager Neil Smith will send you a certificate, saying you are the proud owner of some wild Barn Swallows, beautiful, fast-flying remarkable birds whose tiny brains allow them to fly from Siberia to Durban and find the same nest each year, a feat the big 747s find difficult with all their navigational equipment.

I know we will not get R70 million for the swallows, but we hope to raise R3-million. None of that money will go to individuals – not a cent of it – it will go towards preserving our fantastic birds.

To buy some swallows at only R1 each, please contact Pam Barrett at secretary@birdlife.org.sa or Neil Smith at conservation@birdlife.org.sa or phone 0861 BIRDER.

Peter Sullivan is Chairman of BirdLife South Africa and Group Editor-in-Chief of Independent Newspapers, South Africa.

BLSA banking details: First National Bank
Branch: Randburg
Branch Code: 254005

Account Name: BirdLife South Africa
Account Number: 62067506281
Type of Account: Current

Please fax confirmation of your donation deposit to (011) 789 5188, (or email to the above email addresses) with reference to “swallows” and the numbers of Barn swallows bought. Thank you.

Regards
Peter Sullivan
Chairman