A FAMOUS GROUSE
TODAY is Heritage Day, and here at the Mahogany Ridge, we will burn meat, pour beer on our bare chests (to facilitate the tanning process) and shout at the women to lay off the papsakke and hurry up already with the salads.
We’re however not insensitive to what it is that we should celebrate today, and we may even take a short break from heated discussions on recent events, such as the turmoil in the universities, to reflect on our various cultures, traditions, diversities and what have you.
Our thoughts may even turn to Johannesburg, where the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora conference gets underway this weekend. Uppermost on the agenda at the 183-nation conference is the future of the African elephant — and a proposal to ban the international trade in ivory. Disappointingly, South Africa will vote against it.
In an impassioned speech in London on Thursday, the Duke of Cambridge told campaigners that he hoped that delegates would unite on the elephants.
“When I was born,” Prince William said, “there were one million elephants roaming Africa. By the time my daughter Charlotte was born last year, the numbers of savannah elephants had crashed to just 350 000. And at the current pace of illegal poaching, when Charlotte turns 25, the African elephant will be gone from the wild.”