I read with great interest this week a story about a study done in an African community. Elephants for years had stayed away from an area - and residents couldn’t determine the reason. It was determined, later, the elephants had concluded it was a “no-trespass” zone because years before, land mines had been placed during one of their many war periods.
A resulting study confirmed that finding. Materials from which landmines are built were placed in several areas. Scientists placed all sorts of materials and chemicals with the landmines, to determine if they could camouflage them from the elephants’ sharp sense of smell.
Didn’t work. The elephants still stayed away from the cannisters.
We’ve learned over the years about the intense family relationships elephants have had, to the point of revisiting and grieving over the bones of long-dead relatives.
Reminds me of several wonderful occasions our journalism group had on a visit to a game reserve in Botswana. The waterway was a regular stop for a family (mothers, sisters and baby elephants) as they swooped into the water, drank their fill and watched the kids frolic.
Then, in a half hour, they were back into the brush to feed.
We watched in amazement at the bonding between these animals. They were more than animals. They were an extension of the animal kingdom into our human spaces.
It was the highlight of a three-week visit to the region.
That they have been able to safeguard their family members from man’s bombs shouldn’t be a shock.
I’d like to do an interview with them. I think we’d learn a lot.
Empty Cuban Fields
We’ve read many stories about the potential merging of US-Cuban interests since President Obama suggested a few months ago we should open diplomatic relations.
The two nations remain far apart in ideology and practice, but a most-recent story about the Cargill folk becoming interested in agricultural expansion in the island country peeked my interest most of all.
Seven years ago, on a second visit to Cuba, our press group took a daylong bus trip from Havana to the south-central part of the country.
Among the stops was the infamous Bay of Pigs site. Nothing, really, to talk about there.
But what amazed me was the landscape of fallow, unused agricultural lands, laid to waste by the mismanagement of the Cuban government.
As far as we travelled, an area perhaps stretching from Sherburne County to Brainerd laid listless in the sun. No people. No crops. No greenery. Occasionally a rundown sugar processing factory long out of use.
These lands were in use before Castro.
Now, they are bare.
We saw one 1930’s style Russian tractor being used to pull a roadside mower that day.
I’m sure the Cargill people are paying attention.
Many things are going to have to change before American interests get a chance to settle on Cuba.
Human rights issues. Transparency, the “now” term.
But I’ll wager the trump card will be the American dollar and what it can mean to our investors.
And what it would mean to a nation of 11 million people drunken with 60 years of socialism. Perhaps they are ready to come out of their ether.
