Sex stories

The main reason for the urgent travel this week has been to join the coordination meeting relating to Niassa National Reserve, a vast relative wilderness in the far north of Mozambique, along the border with Tanzania. The Reserve is divided into concessions, held by a varied bunch of operators with their own assorted motivations, even though some conservation work is a basic requirement of being a concessionaire. We help to finance a cluster of concessions that is sheltering some of the best concentrations of wildlife and which will one day generate enough tourism revenue to be more financially sustainable than it currently is.

The challenges of managing such a space (size of Wales or Massachusetts, like all huge wildernesses are) are vast. Organised poaching gangs come from Tanzania, already terrible roads are impassable in the rains, communities can be incentivised to hunt wildlife for the illegal trade and the finance needed to properly protect the Reserve is incredibly difficult to raise. I learnt about one particularly grim practice of a lion's face being removed as a trophy, either by someone local with a cultural attachment to lion totems or to be shipped to Asia alongside an illegal consignment of ivory.

A large number of actors are trying to make conservation work in Niassa, and they are all passionate. I treated the meeting as an opportunity to observe dynamics between the government at various levels, international NGOs, local NGOs and other private operators. I need to ensure my voice, when it's knowledgable enough to contribute, will be a positive influence, not add to an already confusing and sometimes tense morass. I tried to present myself as warm, collaborative and open to people, some of whom I was meeting after years of hearing their name or seeing amazing images of wildlife produced via their work, such as of African wild dog.

There are some success stories to tell about Niassa, as relayed by the Chief Park Warden who led much of today's meeting and pronounced success as sex. I momentarily wondered whether bedroom scandals were yet another challenge facing the management of Niassa. Effective deployment of an elite branch of the Mozambican police since an escalation of poaching in late 2017 has led to a big drop in the number of elephants killed. It feels singularly unique in Africa to have such a positive result following the involvement of a police force, and is worth communicating lest funding be withdrawn for this particular activity.

My room has no functioning lights. Pleas to check out the issue were ignored so I tried to work in the darkness, which wasn't ideal. In addition I have a toilet that doesn't flush, a shower that scalds and curtains that don't close. Both nights staying here I have had to ask people outside to be quiet in the early hours, as what looks like an inviting courtyard pool surrounded by rooms with big glass windows transforms into a sound-amplifying funnel when drunk guests booze into the night. The first time the people said they weren't going to be quiet; the second group was more apologetic. The hotel has been panned on TripAdvisor. I should have researched better.