Stroop – Journey into the rhino horn war

Stroop is perhaps the most important film you will ever watch.

Simon Espley, Africa Geographic CEO: “This film will change things. I have been involved as a sounding board to these two special humans from the early days, and seen them put their lives on hold during this incredible four-year journey of discovery and creation. This documentary is the most informative, most edgy, most evocative behind-the-scenes expose I have seen. Everyone who cares about the future of Africa’s wildlife needs to see this ground-breaking film.”

I am delighted to say that this magnificent, if necessarily harrowing, film will be shown in Grahamstown (at NELM) during the National Arts Festival this year.

Chainsaw: a New Year message

This is Thandi, the heroic rhino to whom For Rhino in a Shrinking World is dedicated. Her horn was, of course, hacked from her face by poachers.

Since then, I have had both the honour and the despair of watching a rhino darted and de-horned in order to make it less attractive to poachers. Here is my response to that experience.

I wish all rhinos long life, safety and the dignity of living as they are meant to: in the wild and free of human interference.

Chainsaw

I have always hated that sound: it means
death for something, it means devastation,
the hollow shriek of human intrusion.

Now here he is, crumpled on his haunches,
a white rhino bull, too strong, too proud, too
much himself, despite the darts, to go down.

But he’s drugged, masked, pinned: this to save his world.

And clearly he has been through the nightmare
before, though his stunted horn has re-grown.
Now the indignity repeats itself.

Our work’s against the clock, the sedative,
the history; his life depends on us.
So, plenty of cool water – and a chainsaw.

The helicopter’s pilot lounges, smoking,
in his cab as blizzards of horn shavings
surge from the blade like flakes of pale soap,

like the weeping wings of termites or ants,
like butterflies consecrating the grass
beneath the sun’s fire and the chainsaw’s hell.

This is what we’re reduced to: presiding
over the face of our world, cosmetic
surgery or death, improving nothing.

Harry Owen

Rhino Anthology Cover Art Reworked

Sally Scott’s majestic front cover image hangs on my study wall and at this time of year autumn sunlight slants across the picture making dark shadows and new contrasts.

I’ve taken a few photos of this and today I reworked one of them.  I chose three keywords – rhino, shrinking and world – and used the photo as a base to run them through WordFoto.  It’s a very clever application that selects area of similar colour and shape in a picture and then replaces them with your selected words at different sizes.  Here’s the comparison.  There’s no intention to change it!

Update: Draft Cover

Just received the drafts of the back and front. Comments?

Front cover image © Sally Scott

Back cover image © Pat Whitfield

Cover Picture

Just as Harry was posting Will Fowlds’ foreword Sally Scott was sending us a copy of the image she has produced for the front cover of the anthology.

The eye of this rhino certainly follows you ….

Sleeping Rhino: more from Sally Scott

Snoozing white rhino

Rooting-for-Rhino-School-Route Challenge: Victoria Girls and Victoria Primary entry

All the local schools did fantastic human mosaics of rhino for world rhino day.

Here’s the VG and VP entry. You can see others in Facebook … https://www.facebook.com/pages/Rooting-for-Rhino-School-Route-Challenge/255953621187748 and there’s lots of competition to receive the most likes.

More artwork from Sally Scott

Feast your eyes on these two wonderful images that Sally Scott has produced for the anthology.

My TEDx talk

Here is the talk I gave as part of the TEDxRhodesU event at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa, on Sunday 12th August 2012. It all refers to the power of poetry but the second half is specifically about ‘For Rhino in a Shrinking World’.

White rhino

What we are trying to keep for future generations.