Save wildlife from avocado craze

The avocado has been a lifesaver for a number of us who went to boarding school in Kenya. I’m talking about government-run schools, not the million-dollar international outfits tucked in plush countrysides.

Avocados lifted dull half-boiled rice to a Michelin-starred taste buds for us. They replaced the weevil-infested, rotten green grams often served with the rice as casserole. The superfood enthusiasts would call that vegan casserole. It was not.

 It was disgusting, tasteless food covered in moss and fungi, boiled in water and salt. That magic fruit helped us not to go to bed hungry. One only needed to fold it in the rice. Two boring foods complimenting each other for necessity. Superfood? Hardly.

There could be nutritional value in avocado that helped us to enjoy our boring school dinners, but the notion that it’s a superfood worth killing elephants for is stretching it. Many fancy stories have been written about the humble avocado. They have travelled far and wide to reach the land of plenty, where people have unlimited food choices to make.

You will not hear the poor starving Africans make some silly choices where food is a matter of life and death. The superfoodies have exhausted all the food fads and now turned to avocado. Whatever the hell that means. Avocado now sits right ahead of coffee out of a monkey’s backside to Kimchi (Don’t know it? Me neither!)

Red meat demonised

Only people with no problems finding food would be as choosy as in the developed world. Red meat has been demonised as unhealthy yet the problem is the sedentary lifestyle of residents of the affluent parts of the world, who drive from the shortest point A to B and spend hours on sofa in front of TV and computer games.

Were red meat that bad, nomadic communities would be extinct. Coffee and cocoa, which led to colonisation and has been bought from third world countries at throwaway prices for centuries to sate the taste buds of the rich craving exotic foods, have also fallen out of favour.

The superfood enthusiasts have turned to all sorts of weird decaf coffees and teas. African rooibos (red bush tea) and other herbal teas fill up cupboards in most kitchens abroad as an alternative to the black (real) tea grown by countries such as Kenya. I bet they will turn to green tea as a superfood against Covid-19. Who knows?

Avocado enthusiasts are not mad. It is countries like Kenya that is prepared to destroy its unique ecosystems to grow avocado for people with the most transient of taste buds that is seriously banal. It is scandalous that the government, especially the Ministry of Tourism, has just allowed the razing of vegetation in Amboseli National Park to pave the way to avocado trees.

The pictures of confused, soot-covered animals affected by the man-made fires in the game reserve were heart-wrenching to watch. It should have shocked the hardest of hearts but, despite the protestations, the avocado project in the reserve was given the green light. Putting up electric fences is not enough; it will only change the landscape for the animals and shrink pasture.

The Amboseli avocado farms are planting a seed for further acquisition of land for illegal farming activities, which will threaten the savannah even more.

Kenya may not understand the importance of the unique ecosystem right at its doorstep; it will certainly do when all its wildlife is extinct. That will affect the entire tourism market. Africa’s unique wildlife parks play a core role in bringing in millions of tourists and revenue. There can be no tourism without wildlife in Kenya.

Most of the species being put at risk by unjustifiable farms in the savannah are unique to the ecosystem and are now seriously facing extinction from farming activities. Most of the animal species will be difficult to replace — as we have seen with the rhinos. Avocados, on the other hand, can easily be replenished. We need not risk wildlife to plant them.

Undo the damage

And what is so special about avocado to require an overhaul of the savannah to justify its growing? Nothing. No amount of fiscal benefits can justify killing wildlife for avocados. The taste buds that we’re today bending over backwards to ensure they are satisfied with avocados will change tomorrow to something else. By that time, it will be difficult, if not impossible, to undo the damage that will have been done on the savannah.

Lack of knowledge in the general populace on the importance of the savannah ecosystem to the country and the wildlife is one of the contributory factors to the destruction and human-wildlife conflict always witnessed in the country.

We need to include conservation in our education system so as to create awareness and a pool of local specialists that will appreciate and preserve our unique wildlife heritage for generations to come.

Wildlife deserves to be in their natural habitat just as we deserve our homes. Respect lanes!

[email protected]. @kdiguyo