Paul Butler, Rare SVP of Global Programs, and Dale Galvin, Rare COO, recently visited Mali to study the work of the nonprofit organization KickStart. This is Butler’s first report on their trip.

The fabled city of Timbuktu is not a myth – it does indeed exist – on the edge of the Sahara Desert. It is one of the poorest cities in one of the poorest countries on Earth – the Republic of Mali. The city and the country pretty much live up to their reputation as being at “the end of the world.” Bordering Algeria to the north, Niger to the east, Burkina Faso and the Côte d’Ivoire to the south, Guinea to the south-west, and Senegal and Mauritania to the west, Mali is nearly twice the size of Texas.

Rare’s COO, Dale Galvin, and I recently returned from the country where we met with conservation NGOs, local government officials, and representatives of KickStart. We found Mali to be a place of austere beauty, with some of the friendliest people we have ever met.

Mali is a country plagued by problems (desertification, deforestation, and water scarcity), yet it is also a place of enormous biodiversity. The first national park, Boucle de Baoulé, and seven faunal reserves were established during the 1950s in the south of the country, following promulgation of decrees during the French colonial rule. The three Ramsar sites, a biosphere reserve, and World Heritage site were established between 1982 and 1989.

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Paul Butler, senior VP, global programs, reports on his trip to Australia.

My first trip to Australia was several years ago. It is a spectacular continent. So empty of people, yet so full of life.  Australia is one of the biologically richest parts of the world. It has been recognized by the UN as one of 12 “mega-diverse” countries on earth and has more than twice the number of endemic species as other mega-diverse nations. Eighty-two percent of Australia’s mammals, 45 percent of its terrestrial birds, 85 percent of its flowering plants, 89 percent of its reptiles and 93 percent of its frogs are to be found nowhere else on the planet.  Australia also is home to some 400,000 indigenous Australians (Aborigines and Torres Straits Islanders) who were the first human inhabitants, arriving there some 40,000-70,000 years ago.

Sadly, this continent’s incredible diversity is under threat from clearing (for agriculture, development and mining), land conversion to pasture, invasive plants and animals, changed fire regimes, and increasing salinity, as well as fragmentation. Its indigenous population has fared poorly too. Diseases introduced by colonizing settlers, loss of land, massacres, and even the removal of children for “resettlement” decimated and fragmented the population. (Watch Phillip Noyce’s film Rabbit-Proof Fence)

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