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I have been hired by a coffee farmer on the edge of the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in Tanzania to give advice on the endless battle between commercial farming and nature conservation. The NCA comprises the famous caldera itself plus the indigenous forest surrounding it. Sadly, I have long lost interest in the crater. In October 2001, just after 9/11, I took a client there on safari and we had the place to ourselves. Today over a million people a year visit the crater:

Chocolate has never been more expensive to buy in the UK. Readers from further afield will also notice steep rises in the price of their favourite confectionery. The increases are bigger than you imagine because chocolate manufacturers are fond of shrinkflation. That 200g bar of Cadbury Dairy Milk, the UK’s favourite, is now 180g. The sharp rise in the cost of chocolate has caught the attention of the press, but for reasons that are less to do with the fabled “cost of living

I have seen many mammals in Africa from aarvarks to zorillas but the ones that interest me the most are the ones I’ve never (or hardly ever) seen.  Some of the ‘Big Five’ bore me, particularly cheetahs and lions. Cheetahs should not be on the list: they are small (around 50kg), are killed by big cats and are, apart from their speed, utterly defenceless and harmless. When surrounded, you can catch them by the tail and all they do is try and pull away from you. But they are gre

In September 2021 I wrote a couple of articles for Only Connect* looking at the arguments for and against hunting by rich Westerners in Africa. In the first I mentioned that I had been encouraged to do so by a friend:   A few days later I got a call from another old Africa hand. He had just left Zambia for the UK after forty-three years of work there – cattle-ranching, fish-farming, pig-rearing, and game-farming. He had also been a volunteer game guard. I had first met him

"Excuse me, Sir" asked the controller of the baggage scanner at the airport as he viewed a large mass of something opaque, "What are you carrying in your luggage?" "Soil", I replied.  "What are you doing in Rwanda?" "I am the dendrologist for Victory." That tends to be a conversation stopper so he shrugged and went back to his screen. In fact, I had tree seedlings in bags of soil in my suitcase for reasons which I shall explain...