Jenny and Tebogo Connect for Ripple Effect

More than a year ago, when Tebogo was still managing the safari camp, a professional beekeeper was brought in to help with a bee "problem" at the camp. Wild Honey bees were nesting in trees (as they naturally do) near guest accommodation (as they reasonably might since the camp is in their wild space). Tebogo had always informed guests of the wild bees presence, location and habits and encouraged their awareness and accommodation of them in this wild space. His superiors thought the bees being close to the guest tents was a problem. The video shows the beekeeper's solution as Tebogo narrates his concern. Tebogo was devastated by the "solution" being implemented at the camp and shared his despair with us.  At first, Tebogo wondered if the wild honeybees should be captured, put in managed hives and moved. Since another of our small scale visionaries (Jenny Cullinan in South Africa) is a wild bee researcher we put them in touch.  Jenny shared Tebogo's horror at the "solution" being implemented and explained why capturing the bees was ecologically disruptive and unnecessary. She gave suggestions for rerouting human traffic patterns and methods to encourage altered flight patterns of the bees to avoid human-bee interaction. While South African National Parks has adopted Jenny's recommendations as policy in that country, this is not current practice in the country of Botswana. Tebogo spoke with the consultant beekeeper, sharing his concerns for the ecology and the alternatives Jenny had suggested. Fast forward more than a year and Tebogo ran into the beekeeper when he was in Maun. Listen to Tebogo's account here. The man said he had been looking for him because he wanted to share that he no longer cuts trees with chainsaws to remove nesting wild bees. Instead he said he now uses the approaches Tebogo had shared from Jenny with much more favorable results! This is the power of caring humans sharing knowledge and considering the welfare of all beings in the local ecology to find ways to live together in mutual support.  This is convivial conservation.