In Search of the Pangolin
The Accidental Eco-tourist
Australians, Satyajit Das and Jade Novakovic are the authors of In Search of the Pangolin - first published by New Holland in 2006. Das and Jade's many eco-adventures are highlighted in the book - but not as you would usually see in a "travelogue" this book is different and their story of travel and observations of the people, places and wildlife is underpinned by a desire to save the wild places and overlaid with humour, perceptive insights into our human interactions and a bit of philosophy thrown in.
I met Das and Jade in Sydney, Australia for the first time, during a recent trip to the east coast, sharing dinner and swapping "best moments in Africa" stories. Here Das and Jade respond to my questions with their usual candor and humour. I invite you too, to go In Search of the Pangolin in your own life.
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Das and Jade, how does a financial trader from the fast and furious world of derivatives trading, and an organisational psychologist end up writing a book like “In Search of the Pangolin”?
Das: My work world is inhabited by “animals” of a different kind – aggressive, ferocious traders intent of winning and making money. It seems almost natural to be interested in wildlife, in that sense. I also think that we are all fairly complex beings and can contain a diversity of interests.
Jade: It is pleasant to get away to something that is so different to everyday life. My grandfather was a vet and I have always loved animals. It seemed natural to incorporate it into travel. Also as a psychologist I am interested in the behaviour of all “animals”.
How did the book come about?
Das: In the “tick a box” world of eco travel we choose the pangolin as the creature we most wanted to see - as a bit of a private joke. Also our friends and family were mystified by our travel habits and destinations. We wanted them to understand our passion. But most of all we wanted to record our experiences and share them with other people. We thought that one way to help save the places we love is to bring attention to them through the book.
Jade: We wanted people to know the beauty and wonder of many of the places we have been and the astonishing creatures that live there.
What influenced your love of wildlife and open spaces?
Das: I was born and raised in Calcutta. Rats and cows were the only wildlife! So it is something of an acquired habit for me. Though wildlife documentaries in part were the inspiration.
Jade: My father used to pack us all in the car any chance he got and we would drive all over the place, into the country, to dams, zoos, wildlife parks, beaches, mountains, always somewhere different. We would have picnics and explore all that was there to see.
In your book, you talk about your extraordinary travels. What made you want to see wildlife? What was your first eco travel experience?
Das: The "Accidental" part in the title comes from the fact that we stumbled into eco-travel. A man I worked with had two photos in his office: a Mountain Gorilla and a big male elephant with huge tusks. The photos worked a magic spell on us. We trekked in Zaire’s Virunga Mountains to see gorillas. The moment we saw our first Mountain Gorilla we were hooked.
Jade: Nothing can prepare you for that experience. The two hours we spent with two separate family groups in the mountain forests remain intensely special to us.
Das: It changed our lives - it was akin to a spiritual experience.
Mountain Gorilla & Baby in Virunga Mountains (1991)
What is In Search of the Pangolin about?
Jade: It is a loose record of our travel to eco-tourist destinations. We wanted to record the unearthly beauty and splendour of the wild places and magnificent animals that we were lucky enough to see. We wanted people to share the joys and despair, the sanity and the absurdity of our journeys.
Das: Each chapter looks at one part of the experience.
Chapter 1 - "The Guidebook Say…" - looks at how you get information about your destination. This is frequently not easy. Pictures of wildlife inspire eco-travel. You want to see the ‘real thing’ - sit next to the gorillas, handle snakes, stroke and cuddle an Orang-Utan or a Koala - in practice, this is difficult.
Chapter 2 - "Rushing & Waiting" - describes the various modes of transport that gets you to your way off-the-track destination including some of the hazards. A herd of elephants on the runway rarely interrupts air traffic at London’s Heathrow airport. In Africa, in remote wildlife areas, this is a relatively common occurrence.
Chapter 3 - "No Place Like Home" - looks at where you stay. This also has special hazards - in the Peruvian Amazon, a snake, a Boa Constrictor, had taken up residence in one of the shared toilets.
Chapter 4 - "Walk on the Wild Side" - looks at the actual experience of seeing wildlife - from cars, boats, backs of elephants and on foot. In the amazon, we were told to wear caps while walking through the rainforest. ‘You might be chased by a Bushmaster [a large, aggressive, very poisonous snake]. You throw your hat to the snake,’ our German guide advised. ‘It uses up some of its venom in biting the hat which smells of you. When it bites you, there is less venom. You might survive.’
Chapter 5 - "Lens Envy & Other Traumas" - describes your interactions with other people - fellow travellers, guides and the local people you meet. You'll meet the infamous "bridge club" here!
Chapter 6 - "Fata Morgana" - tries to honestly assess whether eco-tourism helps to preserve the natural world.
What are some of the more interesting sights and encounters with wildlife you have had at your various destinations?
Das: There are so many interesting things that we have been privileged to see. Some stick in the mind more than others do though. The Okavango Delta is very special. As you know you travel by mokoro, a dugout canoe. It is a great way to see wildlife especially the prolific bird life of the area. I asked about the channels. ‘They are hippo paths,’ the guide said. All the channels are made by hippopotamuses travelling through the swamp. ‘What happens if a hippo comes along?’ I foolishly asked. It would be wise to give way to the hippopotamus. ‘You jump into the water, out of the way,’ the guide replied.
Jade: I think the gorillas in the Virunga Mountains are special. Also the Serengeti, Ngorogoro Crater are astonishing places. I always am very pleased to see some unusual smaller creatures. We saw a mother porcupine and her baby in South Luangwa. We also love owls – the sighting of a Giant Eagle Owl at night was very special. Das is inordinately fond of honey badgers.
Das: They are just characters...small but tough and ferocious. Really amazing creatures.
Jade: Sometimes, especially in Africa it is a scale thing. We were once surrounded by a herd of about 1,000+ cape buffalo. The sheer mass was exhilarating.
You have visited many destinations worldwide – yet the title of your book speaks of a Pangolin. Is it the elusive nature of the animal or the destination it may be found in that is of more importance to you?
Jade: It is the elusive nature of all the creatures of eco-tourism that it reflects. No matter how much you plan, how long you stay etc – whether you see the creature or not is always a matter of luck. We picked the pangolin as our most elusive creature.
Das: It is always luck. In 1991, on our first trip to Africa, we kept seeing leopards. On a subsequent trip, we stayed at a place in South Luangwa famed for its leopards. We arrived late at our lodge. The afternoon game drive was about to go out. Tired and dehydrated, we stayed behind. On the drive, the guides saw a female leopard close to camp. We were cross at having missed the leopard. At dawn and dusk every day, we tried the spots where the leopard was sometimes seen. We never found her. On the morning we were leaving, the camp manager asked us to follow him. On the edge of the camp, there was a clear set of paw prints in the soft earth. It was the female leopard. She had walked by the camp, very close to our hut, sometime during the night, patrolling her territory. But we never did see her.
At what point did you realise that travel has consequences and impacts?
Jade: I don’t think you can avoid seeing the effects from the first moment that you travel generally. In eco-travel, it is the same.
Das: The very act of visiting a natural place is unfortunately an intrusion that changes the place. Roads, tourist lodges, the whole experience of wildlife viewing acts to change the place.
What are the consequences for the people in the places people visit?
Das: I think often about what our travel means to the local people we encounter along the way. A New Zealand woman I know went to Uganda to see the Mountain Gorillas. They were coming back from trekking to see the Gorillas. They had seen the gorillas and were exhilarated. They were returning to the place where they were staying. As they got into their mini-bus, she spotted a woman by the side of the road. The woman was very distressed. She was crying soundlessly. She was sitting and rocking gently in a motion of total inconsolable despair. Her face spoke of her pain and suffering. It seemed that her child had just died of some relatively minor disease. If she had been able to take the child to the clinic in the nearby town, then the child may have lived. There was no transport available. She was poor so could not afford it. The woman who had been to see the gorillas described this strange combination of exhilaration and sadness she felt at that moment. She had flown from New Zealand to Uganda to see the gorillas. It was half way around the world. The child had probably died because of the inability to transport her some 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) to the nearby town.
Jade: It is hard to know what difference it makes. You hope that some of the money goes to the local communities, that the countries use the money in a reasonable way, that individuals can start small businesses to cater to the tourists. How do you know the consequences and what would happen otherwise?
Do you think, if travel is going to happen anyway - that travelling as an "eco-traveller" is important?
Jade: The paradox is that without eco-tourism many of these places cannot survive. Without the tourist dollars, there would be no incentive to preserve the wildlife or the place itself.
Das: We have mixed feelings. In some cases eco-tourism may actually be doing irreversible damage to the places that people love to visit.
How did that change your destinations, modes of travel, choice of operators?
Jade: We try to pick small lodges that are committed to minimising the impact on the environment.
Das: We try to make sure that in the places that we visit that the local people are involved in and also benefit from the money that flows in. As you know in Africa and elsewhere eco-travel is increasingly the preserve of affluent foreigners. Very few locals have the opportunity to see their own wildlife. It is very troubling.
How do you think the experience shaped your view and understanding about the world and its people?
Jade: In some ways it makes you see how much things are the same. How human beings all over the world misuse their environments – how little capacity there is for humans, animals and the environment to live together in a reasonable way. While ever there has to be a hierarchy with the human on top, rather than a collaborative approach, things will continue to be destroyed. The thing that is overwhelming apparent is that very few people seem to see that their actions will effect them negatively in the long run.
Das: Humans see all nature as a resource. It is much much more than that. If we do not learn to share our world then quite possibly and soon there will be no world to share.
There are operators and agents who make claims of ‘Eco” credentials, “green-washing” – making their product look “green” but the truth is quite different. What should travellers to Africa be on the look out for to ensure their choices are leaving “only footprints” or as close as possible?
Das: “Eco” and “Green” are fairly rapidly becoming de-based terms - marketing spin. Everybody is just getting on the bandwagon. It is increasingly about making money or feigning corporate social
responsibility. The concept of a “green” car is an oxy-moron. So everyone needs to be wary of what it means.
Jade: It is difficult to know from so far away what are claims and what is reality. It is useful to talk to people, to look at websites, to read comments from people who have stayed at places, to read the detail of what the operators claim.
In your book “In Search of the Pangolin”, you describe, with gentle humour some of the more peculiar traits of our own species and their behaviours whilst travelling to remote and beautiful locations. What are a few of the most interesting experiences you and Jade encountered with other travellers?
Jade: I think it was in Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park. She was a small and blonde American. She had the strange metallic appearance of the trophy second or third wife. She was very thin in an “x-ray” kind of way. She was dressed in a tracksuit with bright neon colours – obviously, the season’s colours. She was bright and chatty. She was talking about travelling. “Rushing and waiting; it’s all rushing and waiting,” she intoned in a vaguely Southern accent. “You rush to one place and then you just wait. That’s it. Rushing and then waiting.” With those parting words, she proceeded to wander off to commence her daily jog. She was off to run around the camp fence. The camp was encircled with electrified wiring to keep elephants out. It was about 100 degrees Fahrenheit.
Das: But by god, she’s right. All travel is about rushing and then waiting.
Have you returned to any one destination (in Africa) and if so, where is it and what is it about that location that draws you back?
Das: That’s really difficult. They all are special in their own way. One location is really difficult. But probably Botswana, South Luangwa and the Serenegeti would be places that we would like to go back to.
Your various travels have taken you all around the world and your focus and awareness of eco-travel and other community and wildlife initiatives would have seen you become interested in various organisations and operations that support this work?
Jade: We have no formal association with any organisation. But our bias is to help smaller organisations that work locally with the people. We are cautious about NGOs and headline grabbing projects.
Das: We prefer smaller organisation at the grass roots. Large cconservation organisations are large businesses with million-dollar revenue. They have professional management and speak the language of business. They also seem to arrange and attend many, many conventions and meetings.
I remember, in 2003, Durban in South Africa hosted the Fifth World Parks Congress. 3,000 delegates from around the world attended. The delegates spent ten days in the very best hotels and went on field trips to luxury tourist lodges in nearby national parks. The United Nations and International Union for the Conservation of Nature (“IUCN”) (a NGO that examines endangered species and natural habitats) had just published a report showing that fully 12% of the world’s land surface is now officially protected. The target of 10% (set a decade ago in Caracas) had been exceeded. But the reality is that many parks are token gestures. Governments are unable to protect them. In many developing countries the parks are all but abandoned to poachers, soldiers, looters and human habitation. Elephant Family (a NGO) published the efforts of other NGOs to save the Asian elephant. 21 NGOs in 10 countries were involved in the conservation of Asian elephants. They spent US$4 million. This was a small fraction of the money that had been allocated to the conservation effort.
Jade: Ordinary people donate funds. They sit in their homes, usually in the developed world, worrying about “how they can make a difference?” I don’t necessarily think that large organisation are necessarily the most effective way to bring about the changes that are necessary.
Is there a message in In Search of the Pangolin?
Das:
The Cree American Indian tribe have this prophecy:
Only after the last tree has been cut down
Only after the last river has been poisoned
Only after the last fish has been caught
Only then will you find out you cannot eat money
The book describes what we have seen. The natural world is quite wonderful. We are damaging it in many ways that cannot be reversed. Once it's gone, that's it. We hope that human beings will learn to respect the other creatures on this planet and learn to co-exist with them.
What next for Das and Jade in your Eco-travels?
Das: We are contemplating whether the best form of eco-travel may be to stay at home!
Joking aside, we hope next year to travel to the Lamar Valley/ Northern Range in Yellowstone (to see wolves) and then Baja California/ Sea of Cortez to explore that area for whales and the seabirds.
Jade: The trip promises to be especially challenging for packing. The temperature in Yellowstone will be below zero and around 25C in Baja.
Das: Lots of layers! Starting with a swimsuit as the bottom and woolies on the outer!
Will you find the elusive Pangolin?
Jade: We would love to . But if we do we would probably need to find another creature to stalk.
Das: Maybe fate will be kind to us one day. We just continue to hope against hope that the wild places and creatures we love so much will survive.
Lioness in Moremi Botswana (1995)
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Das and Jade's book is reviewed in Safaritalk Reviews here: In Search of the Pangolin
Booksellers are listed at the end of the review.
Interview by Jude Price ©
Images supplied and used with permission - Satyajit Das and Jade Novakovic