by DrSusanBlock
Over a decade and a half ago, shortly after I’d fallen in love-at-first-sight with the amazing “Make-Love-Not-War” bonobos I first saw on a PBS special, one of my viewers recommended a guest for my show who had worked with bonobos and just returned from their native habitat in Congo (then called Zaire). Her name was Sally Jewell Coxe, and in our free-ranging first interview, I could see that she was just as passionate about bonobos as I was. But while I, being a sex therapist, was inspired by their intense sexuality and the “Bonobo Way” of peace through pleasure, Sally’s main focus was and is conservation. Indeed, bonobos—the remarkable great ape species that is over 98% genetically similar to us human “naked apes”–is highly endangered. Their population’s tiny numbers are dwindling fast, due to the recent, rapid encroachment of human civilization, war, mining and, most specifically, poaching. On that show long ago, Sally dreamed of helping to stop the poaching and save the bonobos from imminent extinction.
A lot of people dream on my show. The vast majority of their dreams—whether personal erotic fantasies or soaring visions of changing the world—are light years away from reality. “The ideal is the enemy of the real,” after all, as Capt’n Max likes to say. Yet as the years past, I’ve come to see that Sally’s not just an idealistic dreamer; she’s a boots-on-the-ground—and in the mud!—doer. Her fantasy of creating an organization to help save the bonobos in the Congo rainforest has entered the realm of rough, tough reality. Meeting challenge after seemingly insurmountable challenge, with very little funding, Sally and her staff have built her organization, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), into an international powerhouse that’s really making a difference in the future of bonobos, as well as other wild life and human life in the region, becoming the model for a new kind of inclusive, bonoboësque conservation. In fact, BCI is at the vanguard of what I see as a Bonobo Conservation Revolution (BCR).
Reporting from the frontlines of the BCR on this show is my featured guest, award-winning author Deni Béchard. Born in British Columbia, Deni has traveled through over 50 countries as a journalist and seeker of the deeper truths behind the news that are revealed by people’s personal stories. His own personal memoir, Cures for Hunger, which describes growing up with a bank robber for a father, was an IndieNext pick and Amazon Canada’s editor’s pick as best memoir of 2012. His first novel, Vandal Love won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was on Oprah’s Book Club’s summer reading list for 2012. Deni has reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, writing for the LA Times, Outside, Salon and the Harvard Review, among many other publications. Now, in his latest book, published by Milkweed Press, Empty Hands, Open Arms: The Race to Save Bonobos in the Congo and Make Conservation Go Viral, Deni has written about something near and dear to our wild hearts here in Bonoboville.
To continue reading please visit: http://bloggamy.com/bonobo-conservation-revolution/
A lot of people dream on my show. The vast majority of their dreams—whether personal erotic fantasies or soaring visions of changing the world—are light years away from reality. “The ideal is the enemy of the real,” after all, as Capt’n Max likes to say. Yet as the years past, I’ve come to see that Sally’s not just an idealistic dreamer; she’s a boots-on-the-ground—and in the mud!—doer. Her fantasy of creating an organization to help save the bonobos in the Congo rainforest has entered the realm of rough, tough reality. Meeting challenge after seemingly insurmountable challenge, with very little funding, Sally and her staff have built her organization, the Bonobo Conservation Initiative (BCI), into an international powerhouse that’s really making a difference in the future of bonobos, as well as other wild life and human life in the region, becoming the model for a new kind of inclusive, bonoboësque conservation. In fact, BCI is at the vanguard of what I see as a Bonobo Conservation Revolution (BCR).
Reporting from the frontlines of the BCR on this show is my featured guest, award-winning author Deni Béchard. Born in British Columbia, Deni has traveled through over 50 countries as a journalist and seeker of the deeper truths behind the news that are revealed by people’s personal stories. His own personal memoir, Cures for Hunger, which describes growing up with a bank robber for a father, was an IndieNext pick and Amazon Canada’s editor’s pick as best memoir of 2012. His first novel, Vandal Love won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize and was on Oprah’s Book Club’s summer reading list for 2012. Deni has reported from Iraq and Afghanistan, writing for the LA Times, Outside, Salon and the Harvard Review, among many other publications. Now, in his latest book, published by Milkweed Press, Empty Hands, Open Arms: The Race to Save Bonobos in the Congo and Make Conservation Go Viral, Deni has written about something near and dear to our wild hearts here in Bonoboville.
To continue reading please visit: http://bloggamy.com/bonobo-conservation-revolution/
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