About three months ago, she was hospitalized with heart problems resulting from the birth of her second child and we’ve chronicled her possible eventual return. But it seems that the chanteuse has decided to not return at all, based on advice from her doctors.

In a statement released by the Flamingo, Don Marrandino, the resort’s president, said,”“We have truly enjoyed having her as our resident headliner and continue to wish her a full and quick recovery so that she may resume doing what she loves best, entertaining audiences.”

Anyone currently holding tickets for any canceled Braxton shows can obtain a full refund at the Flamingo box office.

The legendary Donny and Marie Osmond had already been scheduled to take over the theater which had housed the “Toni Braxton – Revealed” show since August 2006. And judging from the fact that they just went through a blitz of auditions for backing dancers, the show looks well on its way to keeping the September 9, 2008 start date.

But what about the busy summer months? Well, the Flamingo says they are bringing in the classic 80s funk group, The Time, to fill in most of the dates.

Morris Day and his original band mates, drummer Jellybean Johnson, bass player Terry Lewis, valet Jerome Benton, guitarist Jesse Johnson and keyboard duo Jimmy Jam and Monte Moir will all perform their classics such as “Jungle Love” and “The Bird” starting June 24 through 28. They’ll return for another round of dates July 1 through 5 and again from July 29 through Aug. 2. Tickets for their 7:30pm shows will run from $65 to $150 and are available at the Flamingo box office.

At that time, I’m guessing the theater will start its conversion over to the Donny and Marie setup. Tickets for their Tuesday through Saturday 7:30pm shows will run $85 through $115, with a special VIP package that includes an after-show photo with the duo going for $250 per person. Those tickets are also available at the Flamingo box office.

All other summer dates will feature magician Nathan Burton and comedian George Wallace continuing to share the showroom at 4pm and 10pm respectively. Tickets to Burton are $34 and $44, while Wallace’s show will set you back $75 a seat.

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Joburg in Flames?

With the crazy news coming out of South Africa over the past week it was Germany that issued the first travel warning, advising its nationals to steer clear of Johannesburg, and no doubt there will be others to follow. Johannesburg is a violent and dangerous place, it always has been, and chances are it always will be. It is the City of Gold with an appropriate gold rush mentality, and the current rash of street violence is nothing new.

However it always helps to keep these things in perspective. While not wanting to take too much of a let them eat cake approach to the social divide in South Africa, the xenophobic attacks taking place at various locations around the country are confined to the townships and shanty towns where the most violent and unpredictable elements exist, alongside the regional refugees and economic migrants against whom most of these attacks are directed. These are areas that no tourist would ever knowingly wander into and expect to get out alive, just as an outsider would avoid the Gaza Strip, or any number of Rio favellas, or indeed many areas of New York, LA or London after dark.

Africa on certain levels is extraordinarily violent, but paradoxically countries like Zimbabwe, against visiting which every western government has advised it’s citizens, is for those not directly involved in the tribal demographic or political quagmire as safe as any place on earth. There has been no incident so far in Zimbabwe were a tourist or non-aligned foreign national has been injured or even inconvenienced by the troubles underway. I recall being in Ireland in the 1980s when a pair of British soldiers were publicly beaten to death on the streets of Belfast, which had absolutely no impact on my cycle tour of Donegal, and nor the evening that I spent clashing tankards of ale with the locals at a village pub.

Anybody planning a trip to South Africa should read what is written about the violence underway in Johannesburg, and absorb some of the background of this historically troubled land, but should in no way allow that to influence their travel choices. South Africa is a highly sophisticated and regulated country with a fully functional system of law and order. Through 99.9% of the country there will be not the faintest trace of anarchy, and as with any country in Africa, mind your manners, watch where you keep your valuables, and don’t move unaccompanied after dark. With that in mind step forth and have a great time, because South Africa is a warm, welcoming and peaceful nation that needs your tourist dollars. Anybody who discovers any different is welcome afterwards to douse me with gasoline and toss me a match…!

In recent months, there have been a proliferation of steak houses opening in Vegas. Get ready to add one more to the mix when Brand debuts at the Monte Carlo on May 24th, during the upcoming Memorial Day weekend.

Centrally located in the heart of the resort’s casino floor, Brand features a 5,000-sq-ft 250-seat dining room designed in earthy colors with a dramatically lit ceiling canopy that creates a pixilated abstract cow-print pattern. The walls surrounding the restaurant are partially made of glass to allow diners to enjoy the excitement of the casino, while still being enclosed inside.

Signature dishes like oversized bone-in (dry-aged) and bone-out (wet-aged) Nebraska steaks, large chops cooked to order in a wood-burning grill and The Ultimate Steak — a mammoth 8.6-pound beef porterhouse for six with two house-made sauces and two sides — are highlights of Brand’s menu. Among those house-made sauces are unique flavor combinations such as brandy & green peppercorn, whole grain mustard and a shallot-red wine bordelaise. Definitely a step up from the traditional steak sauce.

Additional signature dishes on Brand’s menu, created by The Light Group’s Executive Chef Brian Massie, include a 20-oz Tomahawk rib eye, a 16-oz rack of lamb, a 12-oz filet mignon, a double-decker burger with brie and double-smoked bacon, as well as imported Japanese Kobe beef, Kurabutto pork prime rib, and lemon-rosemary free-range chicken. Seafood fans won’t be left out either, with a variety of fresh fish, oyster, clam, crab, shrimp and lobster options.

Salads, appetizers and a la carte sides, such as lobster & double-roasted garlic mashed potatoes, crispy corn pancakes with sautéed bacon and creamy pudding, and a blooming caramelized onion, round out the main menu items.

For those who enjoy liquid libations, Brand will feature an extensive list of wines, bourbons and specialty cocktails to complement each item on the menu. A select variety of more than 200 red wines chosen from areas spanning the California wine country, to the Bordeaux region of France all the way to the Super Tuscans of Italy will highlight the wine list.

In addition to the restaurant, Brand will offer a nightlife element in the form of an attached intimate lounge area that features plush low-level couch-style seating, five elevated plasma TV screens and a DJ booth.

Brand Steakhouse will be open seven days a week from 5pm until midnight. The lounge will be open seven days a week from 5pm until 3am. For dinner reservations, please call 702.730.6700 or visit lightgroup.com.

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Some things change, and some things don’t. Robert Mugabe, after almost five weeks of political hiatus, remains in power, while galloping inflation – touted now at about 200 000% – necessitated the issue of another new banknote, the third issue in a year. This time it was a Z$500 million bill, up 400 million from the last. Currently the rate of exchange is Z$52 million to £1 sterling. A letter I recently received from a friend in Harare told me that a brief trip to the supermarket to purchase 2 onions, 4 bread rolls, 1 packet of coffee, 2 litres of milk and a cucumber came to a total of Z$1.25 billion, which would have been Z$1.25 trillion had the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe not recently removed several zeros from the local currency. You may ask me how does a man who presides over such unimaginable economic lunacy survive in power, and the truth is I haven’t got a clue.

Warthog’s Revenge

While on the subject of swine species, warthogs have been creating a bit of a stir in the industry recently, contributing their share to the regular, but admittedly infrequent incidences of bitings, maulings, stingings and occasional deaths. These often result from the too-close commerce encouraged by wilderness guides between soft skinned urban tourists and wild animals. In this case it was a Canadian tourist, Brunhilde Galke, 69, visiting Huntershill private game park in the Eastern Cape, who ran foul of a ‘tame’ warthog in the dining room of the lodge. It was probably neither her fault nor the warthog’s, but a waiter who should have known better than kick the animal after it upset a dustbin in the bar area. The warthog rushed the waiter, but then vented it’s spleen more effectively against Brunhilde as she left the dining room and was making her way across the yard to her accommodations.

Her injuries remain serious, and several weeks after the incident the unfortunate Canadian is still in an East London hospital recovering from severe lacerations to her legs and chest. These required emergency procedures, 100 stitches and a series of drainage tubes in her arms, legs and chest. Clearly this was more than the average scare, and is a cautionary tale for tourists, private lodge owners and waiters alike. Warthogs are among the most dangerous of animals frequently encountered in these types of surroundings.

It is part of the ambience of a game lodge to have a ‘tame’ animal or two drifting through the grounds, and although a small herd of impala, or an ostrich, a giraffe, and even occasionally an elephant, are not an infrequent sight, warthogs are also regular visitors to game lodges and bush camps. And while the standard advice to remember is that wild animals are wild, attacks cannot always be avoided, and neither for that matter human stupidly.

Tusker’s Last Stand

The Lake Kariba resort of Charara is a popular local destination for mainly white Zimbabweans who retreat to the lake in large numbers on weekends and pubic holidays. Here they endure the almost obligatory slow broil under the Zambezi sun while enjoying the exceptional game viewing and fishing available on the lake. There is also an annual New Years Eve rave staged at the site, which is not always in keeping with the natural atmosphere of the area, but is thoroughly in keeping with the often thuggish behaviour of white Zimbabwean youth at play. A long time resident of Charara has been Tusker, a 50 year old bull elephant who has been a regular feature around the camp site for as long as anyone can remember. He did at some time develop the unfortunate habit of using his one remaining tusk to rip up cars and SUVs in search of fresh fruit and vegetables. This most people were aware of in advance, and a few simple precautions tended to thwart him…most of the time.

This year, however, Tusker fell victim to certain facts of Zimbabwean life. The first was the aforementioned white Zimbabwean youth at play. A selection of these, drunk, loud and abusive during the New Years Eve rave, thought it hilarious to throw bottles and beer cans at him as he made his way through camp, with a handful even trying to scratch his belly, and a few trying to pull hairs out of his tail. By all accounts Tusker handled it well, but later went on to damage beyond repair a few motor vehicles, which, although not unusual, gave the local National Parks warden the excuse that he had been looking for since the economic collapse to shoot Tusker. Soon afterwards the reason was revealed when he and and his staff distributed the meat locally to a hungry population, which was, of course, to his considerable fiduciary advantage. This is the second prevailing circumstance in Zimbabwe – corruption, hunger and avarice.

Such is the state of the game in Zimbabwe. Tusker is no more. A tidal wave of rage washed up on many shores as friends of Tusker’s from around the world made known their grief, but sadly this is a common end for wild creatures who stand up for themselves in their own habitats. The offending warthog at Huntershill was shot within hours of his mauling poor Brunhilde, and no doubt his carcase was also distributed to the staff, waiters among them. In the meanwhile the ever present monkeys and baboons, observing events from the surrounding trees, pondered the risks of human association, and thanked their primate gods that they have a better brain on the whole than the pigs.

Les Misérables

The reputation of local warthogs, however, was redeemed somewhat by another warthog incident that had an altogether happier conclusion. A certain Victor Hugo of KwaZulu/Natal (no relation to the French author) recently opted for a tame warthog as an alternative to a guard dog to protect his property. He soon had reason to celebrate when the daring phacochoerus africanus so terrified a gang of seven burglars that they fled, leaving behind vital evidence that led to their their prompt arrest, ending a seven year career of crime in the local area. The warthog’s name is Survivor, he was not shot, and survives to guard another day.

The Elephant Cull

The killing of wild animals that attack and injure their human visitors has a certain sad logic, as does the culling of elephant, both of which are practices that in theory have a tough love angle, and are done with the long term well being of the species in mind. This year the South African Governent cleared the way for the resumption of selective culling of elephants in the interests of populaton control. A moratorium had been placed on the practice in 1994 as part of the CITES convention on the trade in endangered species. The decision to recommence culling may seem pervsese as conservationists gnaw their fingernails in an agony of anxiety over the gradual drive to extinction of other rare species of elephant in the Congo and West Africa, but southern Africa, and in particular Botswana and South Africa, are suffering the effects of excellent population management with a surplus of elephants that can no longer be sustained upon available habitat.

The natural extension of this is the potential for a renewal of trade in ivory. This is particularly the case with Zimbabwe, where any reason to sell anything for hard currency finds avid support in government. This has naturally excited the fears of conservationists worldlwide that elephant culling will stimlate the illegal trade in wildlife products, particularly ivory and rhino horn, that will further aggrivate the deadly delcine of central, west and east African populations.

Thanks to the US Trophy Hunters Association. We love you all!

Meanwhile, I began this post on the lunacy of Zimbabwe, so let me end there. A newsletter was recently circulated among interested parties highlighting the abuse against the natural resources of that country, and in particular the national parks, by the staff of the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Management itself. The issue that was highlighted was the uncontrolled hunting being effected in the various national parks and protected areas to the north west of Zimbabwe by various government fat cats who have, in the recent land turmoil, gained access to previouly protected areas of wildlife management. With customary indifference to the future, these people, in collusion with the departmental personel, have been allowing the commercial hunting of elephant on a dramatic scale, mainly to American hunters, who are legendary for their fat pockets and empty consciences. A certain party illustrated the degree of slaughter with an entry into a particular visitors book. Dated August 2007, it was signed by hunters from Utah, Minneapolis and San Diego, and read thus:

169 elephants in 8 days. Nowhere comes close!

In case anybody was fooled into believing that this refered to a photographic safari, the plains all around were littered with the decaying bodies of entire herds of elephant, and the photgraphs were circulated to prove it.

Cartoon: Mail & Guardian

Cape Town – Robben Island Museum has rejected a report that wild animals on the 574 hectare island are starving to death because of poor environmental management.

The Cape Argus reported on Tuesday that among the animals affected were bontebok, springbuck, fallow deer and rabbits, and that environmentalists blamed neglect by the museum, which manages the island.

The newspaper said the problem was mainly the result of an explosion in the wild rabbit population, which was “eating everything in sight”.

However the museum’s director, Paul Langa, said the island had a programme to exterminate the rabbits – which had drawn accusations of brutality.

It was also shifting many of the fallow deer off the island, though this was a complex operation.

Conservation programme

It had a conservation programme in place, “but you can’t fulfil all the requirements at one time”, he said.

“There may be methods better than what we are doing, but let’s be advised of the methods.”

He said it had to be remembered that the island was just that: an island, with its own environmental peculiarities.

At particular seasons it got very dry, and this year had been a bad year “because it’s been very, very dry”.

The museum would issue a full response to the claims raised in the Argus article, he said.

The island hosts 23 recorded species of mammals, including small herds of bontebok, springbuck, steenbok, fallow deer and eland.

The rabbits were introduced by early European settlers.

The museum has in the past also run a programme to shoot out feral cats on the island, to protect birdlife, though the SPCA suggested that rabbits turned carnivore might be responsible for bird deaths.

The focus of the museum is the island’s prisons, where apartheid-era struggle icons including Nelson Mandela were jailed.

Aer Lingus’ sale prices may be competitive for travel on your route, but you should compare fares before booking to be certain you get the best deal.

The deal

Travel is valid from May 1 through May 31.

Travel is valid Mondays through Thursdays.

Book by April 18, 11:59 PM ET.

Best sample round-trip fares, not including additional taxes and fees, are:$640 from New York City, NY to Glasgow, Scotland, United Kingdom on Aer Lingus$754 from New York City, NY to Warsaw, Poland on Aer Lingus$846 from Boston, MA to Milan, Italy on Aer Lingus$864 from Boston, MA to Barcelona, Spain on Aer Lingus$894 from Boston, MA to Paris, France on Aer Lingus$954 from New York City, NY to Rome, Italy on Aer LingusAll prices, dates, and booking details listed here were valid at the time of publication. Some information may have changed since that time.

Find airfares

You can use our tool to compare airfares from multiple travel providers, or go directly to Aer Lingus’ website and click on “Fly Irish to Europe” in the right-hand corner.

Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or dates. Be flexible with your travel dates to find the lowest fares. Blackout dates and additional restrictions may apply.

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Frontier’s prices are hit-or-miss. When I checked, Frontier was offering the best prices for travel on the Aspen, Colorado Springs, and Durango routes, but United beat its Grand Junction and Jackson Hole fares. This sale is worth a look, but you should compare fares before you book.

The deal

Travel is valid from April 15 through June 11.

Book tickets at least 21 days in advance. Start dates for travel vary by destination.

Book by May 21, 9:59 PM MT.

Best sample round-trip fares, not including additional taxes and fees, are:$106 between Denver, CO and Colorado Springs, CO on Frontier$166 between Durango, CO and Denver, CO on Frontier$166 between Denver, CO and Jackson Hole, WY on Frontier$166 between Denver, CO and Grand Junction, CO on Frontier$166 between Denver, CO and Aspen, CO on FrontierAll prices, dates, and booking details listed here were valid at the time of publication. Some information may have changed since that time.

Find airfares

You can use our tool to compare airfares from multiple travel providers, or go directly to Frontier’s website.

Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights or dates. Be flexible with your travel dates to find the lowest fares. Blackout dates and additional restrictions may apply.

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Whew! I’ve just updated our Las Vegas Deals page with some new April offers and we now have more deals than ever. In case you are just finding this, we have a permanent page where we keep all the best Las Vegas airfare+hotel deals we can find, and we’ve also been adding hotel-only deals to the top of that same page.

A few of the new deals expire in just the next few days so you don’t want to wait too long to check them out, but the good news is that a few of the new deals that have been added will be good for at least a few months. With these hotel deals you get a reduced room rate and special things included like dining credits, free show tickets, free drinks, and some other interesting offers. Some have restrictions so you can only use them certain days of the week, but if you schedule matches with these they can be MUCH better deals than you get just by searching on a regular travel site. Check out the new Las Vegas Deals and don’t forget to scroll down to see the airfare+hotel deals.

The Global Crisis

When I was a child, picking up a National Geographic magazine at the school library was a journey into a larger than life, multi-chromatic kaleidoscope of mankind and nature. It was a glimpse into the future of what an inquisitive mind could expect from a limitless world. These days, no less splendid in its presentation, when that signature yellow banded periodical drops into my mailbox I feel the sort of reluctance to break the seal as I might if I was looking at an angry red final demand for an overdue car payment.

Currently the feature stories tend to dwell almost exclusively on the global environmental crisis, with florid warnings of catastrophe in picture and print, be it a matter of diminishing ice masses, the waterless southwest of the USA, the slaughter of Congolese mountain gorillas, bush-meat, bushfires, e-waste, imploding biodiversity, diminishing rainforests, poisoned rivers etc, etc, etc.

As the great eco terrorist himself, Peter Garrett of Midnight Oil, once wrote in a stark and despairing lyric: The river runs red, black rain falls, dust in my hand…..! In this age the entire global environmental issue is indeed such a multi-faceted tragedy that it prompted one similarly Malthusian commentator to remark that the only may to mentally survive our common and downward trajectory is to strangle the last giant panda with guts of the last blue whale. If it is all inevitably doomed, then why not just let it all crumble, and afterwards work to rebuild with what is left.

The Peace Parks Foundation

Of course, in the face of reality, there is still that wonderful human quality of hope at work, and there are almost as many attempts out there to engineer a solution as there are problems to confront. Some of these are despairing, some delusional, but quite a few are well conceived, well researched, well funded and broadly supported. One of these is the Peace Parks Foundation, or the TransFrontier Conservation Area Programme, a concept currently under development in Southern Africa, and supported, not surprisingly, by the National Geographic society as well as many other influential outreach and donor organisations.

In my last post I made a point of singing the praises of the Conservation Corporation Africa for grasping the nettle in a private capacity in order to push forward conservation by one of only two powerful motivating factors known to man. The first of these, of course, is religion, but in the absence of a Fatwa issued on Ted Nugent, or the chimpanzee bush meat vendors in central Africa, or the tiger bone and rhino horn merchants of the Far East, then generating a high cash return from ecotourism and ploughing it back into awareness and practical conservation programs is the next best thing.

Conservation in the modern context, however, is an issue far more complex than funding a few rural schools and clinics, or planting a few trees here and there. It is at its simplest a matter of balancing the interests of a bourgeoning human population against the need for space and natural habitat for an increasing number of endangered species. Perhaps even more importantly it is a quest to secure the earth’s capacity to regenerate fast enough to support any kind of life force in the future. The difficulty is that in the balance of interests between humans and animals, humans broadly speaking have the vote, which tends to influence governments towards the requirements of societal development to the detriment of nature. In countries were people do not have an effective vote the situation is often worse, for then decisions are usually made in favour of a narrow clique of plutocrats which is never good news for natural resources and environments.

The mandate of the Peace Parks Foundation is both practical and symbolic. On a practical level it is committed to finding an accommodation between these conflicting factors in order to reverse the steady decline of southern Africa’s wilderness heritage. Symbolically it aims to expedite the break down of political divisions that have in the past not only divided nations, but have divided the response to conservation issues, and have tended to inhibit the free movement of people and animals in areas of natural linkage separated by arbitrary colonial demarcations. Furthermore it hopes to promote alternatives to the direct exploitation of environments for people dependent on natural production. Ecotourism is one of the few ways that this can be achieved.

Dr. Anton Rupert

The Peace Parks Foundation has largely been the work of one of those perfect pioneers of great concepts: a visionary businessman with a great idea and the cash to back it up. Dr. Anton Rupert, South African billionaire philanthropist, who died in 2006 at the great age of 89, devoted much of his energy and no small amount of his wealth to conservation both in Africa and worldwide. He was a founding member of the World Wildlife Fund, president of its South African branch, and a significant contributor in terms of time, money and influence to the general momentum of conservation in Southern Africa.

In the early 1990s, at a time of momentous social and political change in the region, Dr. Rupert worked to make real a concept that had been floating in African conservation circles for decades, arguably the genesis of which was the work of Portuguese biologist Gomes da Sousa who as far back as the 1930s contended that the wisdom of joining wildlife areas across national boundaries was indisputable. Meetings were held between Dr. Rupert and Mozambiquean President Joaquim Chissano, which resulted in an enthusiastic endorsement from the Mozambique Government, setting the preliminary stage for the founding of an organization to facilitate the concept. After an initial grant from Dr. Rupert of US$260 000, and after securing the patronage of Nelson Mandela, who has incidentally added enormous ballast to many environmental and conservation issues in South Africa since his release from prison, the Peace Parks Foundation was signed into being on 1 February 1997.

Successes

The first TFCA to be inaugurated was the Kgalagadi TransFrontier Park, which was formally opened on 12 May 2000 by Presidents Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and Festus Mogae of Botswana. The new reserve comprises a marriage of the original Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa and the Gemsbok National Park in Botswana, amounting to a combined area of some 38000km² of wilderness and wildlife preserve.

It is perhaps incidental, but nonetheless a fact, that the Kgalagadi TFCA is probably not the truest test of the viability of the TFCA concept, since both South Africa and Botswana are too wealthy, too well organised and too well policed to fall victim to the vicissitudes that might be expected in countries like Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and further north in Zambia or Tanzania, where poaching is a severe problem, facilitated often by corruption, and where funds available for wildlife conservation are always scarce.

Despite this the TFCA program has grown significantly in scope and is now an established factor on the southern African parks & wildlife landscape. Other signature trans-boundary marriages that have taken place include the Lubombo TFCA that links South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland along their common frontier. The new park is a unique area of coastal, wetland and low lying sandveld country that includes the famed Maputo Elephant Reserve, the Tembe Elephant Park in Maputaland, South Africa, and the Lubombo Conservancy in Swaziland.

Some Failures

Among others trying to join the family, but suffering a rather more painful birth experience, has been the hugely ambitious Great Limpopo TFCA that aims to link Kruger National Park with Mozambique’s Limpopo National Park, and Zimbabwe’s Gonarezou National Park, Manjinji Pan Sanctuary and Malipati Safari Area, into a single functioning ecological zone. So far the link up between South Africa and Mozambique along the eastern boundary of Kruger National Park has progressed well. There is currently experimental access between Kruger and Limpopo with the main fear being that wildlife moving from the well stocked reserves of Kruger into something of a wildlife vacuum in Mozambique created by years of mismanagement and poaching will simply result in the wholesale slaughter of South Africa’s carefully husbanded resources. So far so good, however, although perhaps the most significant brake on the realisation of the entire project has been political collapse in Zimbabwe, and temporality that country’s contribution to the programme is on ice.

Even more painful, perhaps, has been the linking of the two sectors of the Chimanimani Mountains straddling Zimbabwe and Mozambique which is an area currently suffering tremendous ecological destruction as a consequence of intensive and illegal gold panning. This again has come about largely as a consequence of political upheaval in Zimbabwe. Within the last two to three years upwards of 30 000 impoverished individuals have moved in and overrun an entire area of about 5000km² of TFCA. The main target has been the stream bank ecology from where small amounts of gold are extracted. In mountain environments these areas play a vital role in the support of biodiversity, and the removal of soil and vegetation from streambanks tends to set in motion an almost irredeemable cycle of gully erosion, with an associated dramatic loss of biomass. Both politically and logistically this problem has proved impossible to confront, and as a consequence nothing has been done, highlighting the weaknesses inherent in trans-frontier cooperation, just as most of the other projects have tended to highlight its strength.

A bright future

However, on the whole the system has been a boon for conservation, as well as for tourism, the two being linked in a natural symbiosis. On a continent that has not had a particularly successful history of regional entente, this seems to be one of the more potent pillars of the healing process, promoting cooperation between nations, and helping to define southern Africa in particular as one sweeping ecological zone only incidentally subdivided by nations. With a biodiversity unique on the planet, and despite the very real demands of human development, it has been proved that room can be made for nature, and moreover that nature can be broadly respected as a vital factor in the cycle of life. Perhaps now is after all not the time to strangle the last giant panda with the guts of the last blue whale, for the truth of the matter is that if it can happen in Africa then it can happen anywhere. And yes, while the damage is wide and very deep, and while the future is by no means certain, to quote Peter Garrett once again:….they say it’s late, but you know its never too late…..!

The other projects in the family include: Lubombo TFAC, Maloti-Drakensberg TFCA, Iona-Skeleton Coast TFCA, Kavango-Zambezi TFCA, Malawi-Zambia TFCA, Chimanimani TFCA, with a handul of others at the conceptual phase, including Liuwa Plain – Kameia TFCA, Lower Zambezi – Mana Pools TFCA , Niassa Reserve –Selous TFCA, and Mnazi Bay –Quirimbas TransFrontier Marine Conservation Area. These cover the broad SADC region including Tanzania and Angola.

If you’re headed to Albuquerque, Los Poblanos may be worth considering. Several rooms come in under $200 per night, and the amenities (fireplace, luxury toiletries, newspaper, breakfast) are substantial, leading to a good value for your travel dollars.

For reservations, call 505-344-9297 or book on the Los Poblanos website.

If you’re traveling from out of town and need to book a flight, you can find the lowest prices for your route by comparing airfares from multiple travel providers with our price-comparison tool.