It is virtually impossible to control Northern Kenya, which is populated chiefly by migrant nomads.

For three million years we were hunter-gatherers, and it was through the evolutionary pressures of that way of life that a brain so adaptable and so creative eventually emerged. Today we stand with the brains of hunter-gatherers in our heads, looking out on a modern world made comfortable for some by the fruits of human inventiveness, and made miserable for others by the scandal of deprivation in the midst of plenty.

The greatest problem we face is the growing number of people living in poverty. The related sense of hopelessness has to be impacting on every part of environmental management.

Whether or not all this came to pass in an East African ditch, I wouldn't like to say. Perhaps it happened in North Africa or further west, but Africa was definitely the place.

In the area of species protection, we should concern ourselves with what is right as opposed to what might be easier, or popular in the short term.

Along the borders to Ethiopia and Somalia, anarchy reigns, the police and military have retreated quite some distance.

I have been raised to believe in freedom of thought and speech. If a minority wishes to accept that position it's their right. What I fear is that this minority may seem to be larger than it truly is. What is strange is that there are still people who believe the world is not a globe.