The world is a mask that hides the real world.
Thatâs what everybody suspects, though the world we see wonât let us dwell on it long.
The world has ways - more masks - of getting our attention.
The suspicion sneaks in now and again, between the cracks of everyday existenceâ¦the bird song dips, rises, dips, trails off into blue sky silence before the note that would reveal the shape of a melody that, somehow, would tie everything together, on the verge of unmasking the hidden armature that frames this sky, this tree, this bird, this quivering green leaf, jewels in a crown.â¦
As the song dies, the secret withdraws.
The tree is a mask.
The sky is a mask.
The quivering green leaf is a mask.
The song is a mask.
The singing bird is a mask.
Saturday, May 28, 2005
elephant refugees
It's a Jungle Out There!
Ivory Coast's elephants seek peace abroad
by Loucoumane Coulibaly, 25 May 2005
ABIDJAN (Reuters) - Terrified by war and hounded by poachers, many of Ivory Coast's remaining elephants have packed their trunks and trundled off to more peaceful neighbors.
"Elephant populations have gone to Mali, Burkina Faso and Ghana since the outbreak of war. Wildlife officials in those countries have told us so," said Denis Amani Kouame, head of wildlife at Ivory Coast's agriculture ministry.
"Elephants don't like violence. They like tranquillity. They must have been the victims of abuse and have left the northern regions for neighboring countries," Kouame told Reuters. Elephants were widely distributed throughout West Africa for centuries but populations collapsed in the early 20th century after intensive hunting during the colonial period.
Ivory Coast was once one of the largest sources of West African ivory. But as forests were slashed to make way for cocoa and coffee plantations and hunting continued apace, elephant populations became fragmented and dwindled dramatically.
Kouame said there were about 3,000 elephants left when civil war broke out in September 2002 after a failed attempt by rebels to oust President Laurent Gbagbo but that it was hard to get a clear picture of how many were left.
Even before the war, which has cut the world's top cocoa grower in two, some African elephant experts said populations in Ivory Coast might already be far lower.
In a 2002 report, the African Elephant Database put definite sightings at 63 and said dung counts and other clues suggested there could be up to 666 in the West African country, which is slightly larger than Italy.
"Elephants are in danger in Ivory Coast. How can you comprehend that there might be no elephants left in a country called Ivory Coast?" said Kouame.
A tusked elephant head is the main feature on Ivory Coast's coat of arms and its soccer team is known as The Elephants.
Besides being hunted for their tusks, elephants are also prized in Ivory Coast for their meat.
The two main national parks with elephants in Ivory Coast are Comoe in the northern rebel-held zone near Ghana and Burkina Faso and Tai, in government-controlled territory near Liberia.
The government has come up with a program to boost elephant numbers in Ivory Coast over the coming decade which it estimates will cost 14 billion CFA francs ($27 million).
According to the plan, 48 protected elephant sites will be set up once the country is reunited and efforts to stamp out poaching and trade in ivory will be strengthened. Thirty of the sites will be in areas now under rebel control.
