Image courtesy Kathmandu Post
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It was fantastic to watch the dawn expose the Annapurna Himalaya this morning, I love these mountains and now that we are hopefully in for a few weeks of less haze they will show themselves more and more, maybe a type of reward for what has been a difficult time here in Nepal. As well as that, it's been really pleasing to see tourists trickle in. There's a bit of a spring in the step for the locals, not just the business the tourists provide but that it's a showing Nepal has not been forgotten.
These are simple truths. The shift in protest action on the Terai has meant more fuel and other goods are getting through to different parts of the nation, making life a little easier. It is more than coincidence this has happened at the time of tourist season, a lot of behind the scenes political jostling taking place. It's going to take a long time for Nepal to repair, that's a fact, the truth... but today the sun is shining, the mountains are clear, there is guarded optimism at least.
Pragati Shahi's piece in the Kathmandu Post yesterday - POACHING STILL A MAJOR THREAT TO TIGERS - is telling (hopefully many of you would have read it linked from our twitter feed @WildTigerNews). Pragati is establishing herself as a wildlife journalist who researches well, this article another example. This news had already been out there many weeks and of course among the conservation community is a discussion hotbed. There is a lot more to the story of course as anti-poaching strategy is stepped up and geneticists find more evidence of the extent of the problem.
Of course there are facts that are stupid to make public, for example the details of advanced technology being put in place to combat poaching as well as newly formed strategies. There is as well the complicated issue of people losing face because of the problem. In a country like Nepal where there is a system of social divide intertwined with religion there is a lot more scope for different versions of the "truth" and the unfortunate fact that corruption is rampant is tied to that. Coming from a culture myself where there is a pragmatic arse kicking if you step out of line, I find myself often caught between two worlds. I guess the New Zealand brutal in your face honesty is perhaps why we do so well on the rugby field, if you get smashed in a bone breaking tackle there is no sympathy only a "you held onto the ball too long bro, you got greedy"... usually followed by howls of laughter. It's the Kiwi way.
There are times though when that pragmatic approach means not making facts public is the best option in terms of safety, not just for oneself but for those close to you in the working environment. That's different, that's the nature of the beast and sometimes it is just sensible to bide time before exposing truths. There will always be those twisting facts along with a type of tactical blackmail. The amount of times I've seen fund raising tactics using emotional chord pulling, blatantly ignoring the truth, well it's a lot, a bloody lot. What surprises me though is the amount of people who buy into it. I've been using social media for WildTiger just over four years now, yes a late starter, and it has been an eye opener while getting to grips with the "virtual reality" that has been created. While I use Facebook (just an example) as an ongoing blog platform specifically I sometimes check out the medium further and I shake my head at some of the viciousness involved over issues which have strayed so far from the truth in their telling.
Yes, we live in the age of information but perhaps it's more the age of misinformation.
In a few days I venture back into those mountains I saw this morning. I'll eventually get to the place where for a time I lived with a leopard. It's a place where the rawness of nature can be brutal, where there is no getting away from the message it delivers. It needs a lot of work to understand the inner workings of the message, a combination of science, passion and dedication but at least honesty can be unfolded.
There's a great line spoken by Jack Nicholson in the movie A FEW GOOD MEN. Under intense questioning he delivers "You want the truth? You can't handle the truth!"...
There's no doubt the truth can hurt. There's also no doubt that there are issues that have to remain on a "need to know basis"... but for true conservationists to do their work effectively there has to be the ability the handle the truth effectively. I guess time will tell if that happens or not but many species and our own existence depend on it...
