ARTICLES

June 2003 - National Geographic News

Nick Baker went along with eco-warriors on an armed hunt for Cambodia's poachers—and finds a more complex story than he bargained for.

You went to Cambodia to investigate poaching and illegal lumbering in that country—a situation that's being battled in some places with almost military tactics. What's going on there and how bad is the problem?
Cambodia is one of the few places in Southeast Asia that still has a large amount of forest cover. Historically, of course, the country has had a quite rocky past. But when the Khmer Rouge were in power, people weren't going into the forest. The forests received some of the best protection in the world because people were too scared to go into them. With the Khmer Rouge gone the forests opened up and people turned to them to try to survive.

When people are so desperate you can't blame them. If someone took away all of what you own, really everything, what would you do? 
You'd do what they are doing—you'd go into the woods. I walked into this assignment thinking that I would, as usual, be strictly an ardent defender of conservation. But I ended up feeling very sad for the people. I want the two to coexist. For the fist time in my life, I really can't see an answer.

You visited markets there and could see the fruits of the wildlife trade, animals and animal products, for sale. Is that really the problem, or is deeper? 
It's an unknown. Nobody knows what's really going on, the real extent of what's going on. Trading in all wildlife is illegal in Cambodia. People have been stamping down on the trade in wildlife, but it goes on as it always has. These animals are not always the kind of animals we love. Frogs for example are not a species that will provoke an outcry, like monkeys.

But the wildlife we see in the small local markets is not the major problem. Deforestation is the major problem and it's compounding all of the wildlife issues. The raids we did (with the nongovernment organization WildAid) generally had to do with logging. We didn't find a lot of the animal trade—which has been driven underground somewhat.

You went on military-style raids with WildAid, an NGO that's taking the fight to poachers. What impressions did you get of their efforts? 
We did travel with WildAid, and we also spoke to some poachers. The conclusion we came to is that the paramilitary style of these eco-warriors results really in just a tiny, tiny number of patrols in a tiny piece of one national park. It's taken three to four years for them to get to the current state and that state is really pretty useless. In some sense it's like people playing soldiers with a justification for it. I mean, they are doing something, and a lot of what they do is very good, but I'm not sure how effective it can be.

Have you ever been in a combat situation? These poacher patrols are armed and the people they encounter can be heavily armed as well. 
Combat? (laughs) I'm a naturalist. I grew up in a nice quiet naturalist way, you know, chasing bugs around the patio. The next thing I know I get a call from National Geographic and I'm running around in a forest with lots of guys with automatic weapons. It was very uncomfortable because I'm not a gun person. I can see this thing escalating into an arms race; that's how they start. People arm themselves to fight poachers and the poachers up the ante, and it goes on. Before you know it people will be dying out here again over a different issue.

WildAid is largely funded by Western money. What kind of effort is the Cambodian government making? 
Well, environmental issues aren't too high up on the Cambodian government's list at the moment. They're not high on anyone's list really; look at America and the UK for example. How can we expect the Cambodians to give a damn? It's very easy to superimpose Western ideals on a country that's really struggling and shackled with a massive debt. I don't believe you can do it. Yes, the government has to wake up and see the problem or by the time they get the rest of it sorted out there will be nothing left. But I don't know how you can make them do it.

The trade animals you saw captured live, injured by snares, were just in terrible shape. How tough is it for you as a naturalist to see them in these conditions? 
I'm a realistic naturalist. I find it patronizing when you see people like myself out there telling people what should or should not happen in areas where things have been going on for a long time. Animal welfare is a different issue from animal conservation. In a country with no refrigeration, they transport animals alive to keep them fresh. For example, they move these ducks around on little motorbikes with like 150 live ducks hanging off the back of the bike, banging off the exhaust and the like. When you see that, especially in a country where the people have done such horrific things to each other, you see that the issue of suffering, animal or human, is so much part of their life. To tell them that's wrong, well, you couldn't do it.

How effective can any deterrents be, armed or otherwise, if people are in such desperate straits? 
These people are kind of reinventing themselves. Many of these people have no forest experience. It's like you and me saying "What have we got here that will help us somehow survive until next week?" That's what they are doing… They've got nothing else.

WildAid is a very hardcore group. When they catch poachers they take all of their kit, all of their gear, and make them fingerprint a document that promises they won't do it again. Well, we talked to the poachers and they say, "this makes our life miserable." They take their equipment and a single chainsaw might cost years of income. It might be all they have and it hurts and it makes it very tough on them.

But still, these people are caught multiple times. They may know the reasons why they mustn't do this, but then come the next week there's no food or the kids are sick. Where do they go? No matter how you threaten someone, when they are at that level of desperation they have to keep doing it.

Cambodia is not alone is it? This is a growing problem in lots of developing countries?
It's not the first time I've seen it, but it's the most extreme example I've seen of this kind of thing. I'm off to the Congo next week and that part of the Africa has the same problems. In fact there is much more organized and scary deforestation going on there, where they are really destroying the forested belt of central Africa.

It's a difficult dilemma, any solutions come to mind? 
Not really. It's a very complicated issue with lots of interlocking threads. You've got to make up your own mind. I came away confused and with questions that I never expected to have. I also came away a bit depressed and without a lot of hope about this situation improving.

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April 2003 

As the RWS kicks off this spring for its 18th series, Nick Baker, who co-presents with Michaela Strachan and Elis Hewitt, reveals the highs and lows of working with animals.

Describe the Really Wild Show in under 10 words.
The bizness, bringing wildlife into your front room.

Tell us one secret that we don't already know about you.
When I was younger I had a crush on Michaela but, having said that, name me a male who grew up in the Eighties that didn't!

Moat embarrassing broadcast moment ever?
Having a giant otter grab my wedding tackle in its jawa after it had whipped off my swimming trunks!

Which animals do you currently have in your home?
Twenty-six large constrictor snakes, a matamata (turtle), snapping turtle, alligator snapping turtle, 80-plus tarantulas, scorpions, an axolotl (salamander), African clawed frogs, both regular and dwarf, hissing cockroaches and three medicinal leeches!”

Which animals are you frightened of?
Only humans!

Why humans?
They can be so short-sighted and destructive to each other and our own habitat.

Have you overcome any fear of animals?
Yes, except cameramen – they can be a little scary sometimes! Seriously though, I do not have any fears, but I do have a healthy respect for many creatures; it’s a totally different thing, although it doesn’t mean you are never in a scary situation.

When did you first become interested in wildlife?
I’ve been into anything that creeps, crawls and flies since I was big enough to say the word ant!

Favourite animal from this series?
Basking shark! Favourite moment with wildlife ever and all in the water off the south coast of Britain!

Best moment from filming?
The basking shark was totally mindblowing as an experience, closely followed by kayaking with killer whales.

Worst moment from filming?
The schedule can be gruelling and sometimes I would like more time to enjoy the moment, rather than have to relive it when I finally see the recordings… not really believing that what I’m seeing is me!

Hardest journey during the series?
Walking 10 miles across semi-arid desert in search of black rhinos in Namibia. The film crew, despite having to trek with all their heavy kit, didn’t grumble once.

Any moments that went a bit wrong?
We never did get a good close shot of a proboscis monkey! They were all over the place, posing in the trees and then, when we wanted to film them, they were nowhere to be seen.We also got stuck in the mud in the mangrove swamp, trying to track them down
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May 2002 - BBC Wildlife Magazine

Nick Baker in Brazil - Tales from the Bush: Nick's trip to the Pantanal was going according to plan - until, that is, he saw the very beast that the Really Wild Show had come to film.

You don't have to be an expert on jaguars to know that getting even a glimpse of this big, yellow, spotty cat is a very, very special moment. For a start, even where they are common, they are rare. They need huge territories to meet their huge demand for food, and so inevitably, they're pretty thinly spread. In addition, their eyesight, hearing and sense of smell are all better than ours, their disruptively patterned coat is brillant camourflage and they are very nervous of humans because of our history of turning them into rugs and soft furnishings.

So when my Really Wild Show producer Lucy Bowden enthusiastically informed me that we were going to the Pantanal to film jaguars, I was instantly sceptical. My lack of confidence was further embellished by the time scale. To achieve this task, that even a 'blue chip' camera crew would find daunting, we had, not a year, not a month, not even a week but just three short days.

"Not a cat's chance in hell," was probably what our Brazilian tracker, a field naturalist who has walked Pantanal's flooded landscape every day fort he padt 35 years, told us (I'm  not certain, my Portuguese is not what it was). He had only ever seen a jaguar twice, and even then it was a quick eyeful as the famously spotted backside melted off into the undergrowth.

I tried not to look pleased when, with reality dawning on her, Lucy began to accept that we would have to find an ending to the story that did not involve actually filming a jaguar. It's not that I didn't want to see one - of course I did, I've been trying to see one in the wild for years - but deep in my heart, I knew that we wouldn't.

We spent the next couple of days making a story about jaguars which was based on the assumption that we wouldn't see one. Then, on the last day, word got to us that some jaguar footprints had been seen a little way upriver. It wasn't an actual jaguar , but it was, at least, evidence that they were here, somewher, in this landscape.

To understand just how remarkable the next couple of hours weer, you need to visualise the craft that we had hired. The floating equivalent of a knackered doubledecker bus, it was 50-foot, flat bottomed, squared hulled, top-heavy eyesore powered by a juddering, deafening, diesel engine that continually belched black smoke. In this boat, we weren't going to creep up on anything unnoticed, let alone a jaguar.

We se off upriver, terrorising every living thing within earshot, and filmed the footprints and an 'ending' to the film. It was as we were making our way back that the cry of "jaguar" went up. There was a short, heavily pregnant pause and then all hell broke loose and all thought about being quiet went out of the window as we shouted to the skipper, "There it is! Stop, stop!"

The cat, a male, stood calmly at the water's edge as if he were watching the world's worst carnival float by. We were going too fast, and even when the engines had been cut, our momentum took us well past the point where the jaguar was standing. As the wash of the bow-wave crashed ar out bemused jaguar's feet, the driver executed the most painful, gear-mashing, 101-point turn I've ever witnessed and we went back. Incredibly, as we made a second pass, the jaguar was still there (and looking even more bemused than before). For the second time, we careered past, and the exercise was repeated yet again, with the cat in the same place. It was only on the fourth pass that he appeared to have vanished.

Our skipper, now a jaguar expert, pointed out that jaguars like water and are good swimmers. Feeling positive that we had already pushed our luck too far, I foolishly broke one of my own personal rules - never, ever voice your certainty about what a wild animal is about to do next.

Sure enough, just as I had uttered the lines, "If that cat so much as puts its big toes in the river, let alone swims across it while we are messing about in this boat, I will take up needlecraft," the jaguar immersed itself in the cool, muddy waters and started to paddle its way over to the other side. And I have to say - I never realised that blanket-stitch was quite so intricate.

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February 2000 - BBC Wildlife Magazine

South Africa: Nick Baker is a naturalist and television presenter who has travelled widely while making programmes such as The Really Wild Show and Nick's Quest. South Africa is one of the locations he's chosen to visit as a tourist.

Call me lazy, but I figure if you don't have to trek miles at a huge discomfort to yourself, why do it? Don't get me wrong, I'm well up for being a bit 'rufty tufty' in order to achieve a goal, especially if there is a stonking wildlife experience to be had at the end of it, but...

This thought was playing on my mind as the 50-tonne leviathan breached for the fifth time in as many minutes. It had been a bad morning - the only seat in the restaurant was facing the sun, the snoek was off the menu, and I'd left the appropriate lens for my camera five minutes away from the sea-front restaurant in which I was seated. Never mind. I was going swimming with a great white shark in the afternoon.

It's because of these two marine superstars - the southern right whale and the great white - that the most southern tip of Africa will always be a special place for me. The first time I saw a whale was here, seconds after I had stepped out of the minibus at the world's whale-watching capital, Hermanus. Seconds later, I had seen another and then another, until I lost count. If you go during whale-watching season, leave plenty of spare time, because they are addictive - a stroll before breakfast can result in a search party being sent out for you several hours of sea-gazing later.

The great white shark-watching is the best in the world. From Gansbaii (a fishing town a little further east of Hermanus), you can be at Dyer Island within half an hour and, though there are no guarantees, this is simply the best place I know where you can see fish with a sports-car-like appeal. Just go out on the boat and watch the sharks coming in, and it will make your year. But if you have your diving qualifications, don a snorkel and mask and get into a cage, when Carcharadon carcharias turns up, it will change your life. Leave behind your fears - and any macho tendencies - and reflect on the great white's stunning physique, polished to perfection by millions of years of evolution.

The sharks are here because of the rich marine life, all 10,000 species of it. Here off the continental shelf, the turbulent teal waters of the Atlantic and Indian oceans kiss. Nutrient-rich, upwelling Antarctic water travels up the west coast, while the Agulhas Current brings down a tropical flavour, and somewhere between Cape Point and Cape Agulhas, they are shaken up into an oceanic cocktail. The high productivity is evident everywhere - huge rubbery masses of kelp washed up on the beaches, attracting swarms of sandhoppers and the birds that feed on them, including the elegant African black oystercatcher.

Stare into a rockpool, and it's like being a kid again: urchins of every colour feed among weird and wonderful molluscs. Other larger animals that any visitor must see are the sharks' favourite dish, the Cape fur seals. If you are pressed for time, a short walk from the shopping complex at the Prince Albert docks in Cape Town will get you your pinniped fix.

At Boulders Beach in Simon's Town, there are the jackass penguins that waddle about like monochromatic gnomes. Take a short ride south of Cape Town, and if you survive the rather hairy drive along what has to be the most spectacular stretch of road in the world at Chapman's Peak, you find yourself in the spectacular world of fynbos (pronounced 'fain boss' ).

This is part of the Cape Floral Kingdom, the smallest of the world's six floral kingdoms. Now it takes a lot to get me excited about plants, but these here knock your socks off, especially at peak flowering time in the spring, when the proteas and the pincushion bushes are at their least subtle. Running around this landscape of giant heathers, you will also see ostriches, bonteboks, baboons and, if you are lucky, a fly-past from the elegant national bird, the blue crane.