FALLING FOR THE FLAMINGO
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Question: what’s an English carpenter from
Nottingham doing in a remote corner of the Camargue area of southern France?
Answer: why, protecting flamingoes of course. For the past 35 years Alan
Johnson, who completed a five year apprenticeship in carpentry and
cabinet-making in Britain back in the early 1960s, has been at the forefront of
an international campaign designed to protect and promote the interests of the phoenicipterdae,
better known to you and I as that tall and elegant wading bird the pink
flamingo.
"I was doing a formal period of
apprenticeship", Johnson recalls. "That was tantamount to a binding
contract with your employers and as such you couldn’t pull out of it. But as
soon as my time was up, on my twenty first birthday, I left my job and set off
for the Tour du Valat in the Camargue. Everyone, including my own parents,
thought that I was stark, raving mad."
Not that that was his first visit to the
secluded research station founded by the Frenchman Luc Hoffman in 1954. For
Johnson, whose interest in ornithology began as a boy when was just twelve
years old, had been visiting the site regularly, only too happy to be downing
tools and swapping his hammer and chisel for bird-rings and binoculars whenever
funds and time-off from work enabled him to make the pilgrimage down south.
Hoffman explained to Johnson that the remit of the Tour du Valat, situated some
twenty miles from the picturesque Languedoc town of Arles, was to contribute to
the protection of the endangered Mediterranean wetlands through the development
of management systems designed to ensure their survival. For Johnson, it was
music to his ears. In fact fighting for the flamingo was just a small part of a
much broader picture in which hydrologists, botanists and zoologists were hard
at work studying every aspect of the Camargue’s complicated ecosystems. Almost
immediately Johnson was hooked - he has worked there ever since - the issue of
conservation close to his heart long before the green bandwagon had even begun
to roll.
For the carpenter turned conservationist it
was an exciting time, his first task to find out why the flamingo had failed to
breed in the Camargue for the previous five years, thereby defying a tradition
going back through the centuries. Launching himself into his new role with
energy and enthusiasm (quite apart from studying for a doctorate in ecology - in
French - in his spare time) the results of Johnson’s research were soon
to hand: the lack of breeding almost certainly attributable to a combination of
growing air traffic, predation and an increasing population of herring gulls.
"We campaigned by asking both military
and civil pilots, including those from a number of major international
airlines, not to fly purposefully over the birds. You could quite understand
why pilots would wish to do this, because seen from a plane a flock of
flamingoes is quite beautiful. Our lobbying went quite well, but it did take a
good couple of years; by and large though our message was quite well received,
it was more a question of education than anything else."
Was this the end of the road in so far as
Johnson’s campaigning was concerned? Certainly not. For together with a number
of other conservationist organizations, he concluded that that what the
flamingo really needed was a protected nesting site of its own. The flamingo
traditionally chooses a low island surrounded by water for this purpose, since
this provides protection from terrestrial predators such as dogs and foxes. But
because the river Rhone had been contained by a series of dikes, these clay or
sand islands were no longer being formed naturally in the Camargue. With the
help of Les Salinas du Giraud, the largest salt company in France (and
the very model of an environmentally friendly enterprise), a huge artificial
island was constructed to give the flamingo colony a protected and dependable
site, entirely isolated from human activities. For Johnson the new island at
Fangassier was a triumph beyond his wildest dreams, the site subsequently
establishing itself as the largest and most successful flamingo breeding centre
anywhere in the world, with 13-14,000 breeding pairs producing some 7-8,000
young each year.
Having long since earned his colours as an
international authority on the life and times of the flamingo, Johnson runs
through a few elementary facts. You do not require a degree in psychology to
know that he has done so countless times before. It is in January, the 56 year
old ex-past Englishman explains with more than a hint of a French intonation in
his voice, that the flamingoes begin their courtship display, a prelude to the
mating which takes place from the end of march until the end of May. The nest itself
comes in the form of a conical mound of mud, whose concave top holds the single
egg, concubated by both parents for approximately one month. Once hatched the
chicks gather together for safety in a large group when they are old enough the
leave the nest for the first time. Their maiden flight will traditionally take
place towards the end of July, the young taking wing at around three months.
And why pink? Because of the flamingo’s favourite diet of crustaceans, algae
and tiny aquatic invertebrates.
So all is well in the best of all possible
worlds? Don’t even think it. In fact Alan Johnson is today campaigning as
actively as he was over three decades ago.
"The Camargue is now threatened with a
new programme of mosquito control. Don’t get me wrong - I can’t stand
mosquitoes - but if you want to live in the Camargue you have to learn to live
with them. Reducing mosquitoes will no doubt bring more people into the area,
but a sudden rush of tourists will have a negative impact. Flamingoes feed on
mosquito larvae - I’m not saying its their most important food - but you don’t
tinker with nature. Wetland areas are continuing to shrink and we don’t want to
expedite that process in any way. There are also plans afoot to build a bridge
over the Rhone at Salin de Giraud. Its another example of progress at the
expense of the environment. I am dead against both projects."
The fight for the flamingo and for the
protection of its natural habitat thus goes on. Which means that Johnson is
likely to have his work cut out for some considerable time to come.
"I returned to the factory in the
Midlands a few years ago - the one where I had completed my apprenticeship in
carpentry. It seemed to have fallen foul of the Thatcher revolution and had
clearly not been functioning for some time. Of course I was sorry that people
might have lost their jobs. But at the same time it did confirm to me that I
was right not to have heeded my parents’ advice to remain in carpentry, when my
interest in life was always the great outdoors. My work with flamingoes here in
the Camargue has not been an ordinary 9 to 5 job. Its been my entire life, an
all-consuming passion, that same passion that I experienced as a teenager still
very much there. There is not the slightest room for complacency though. For
the need to conserve the wonderful wildlife we have is now greater than ever
before."
·
Flamingo Sponsorship: on
payment of a yearly contribution, anyone can sponsor a flamingo ringed by Tour
du Valat and so be kept informed of the bird’s movements. The contribution
helps to cover the cost of the Flamingo Network. For more information you can
contact Alan Johnson at the Station Biologique de la Tour du Valat, Le Sambuc
13200 Arles, France.
·
Telephone + 467 90 97 20
13. Fax: +467 90 97 20 19
The main Web site of freelance writer
Jeremy Josephs is at www.jeremyjosephs.com Please check there if you might be interested in
engaging him as a writer. Many of his articles are available online. Please
check the sitemap for a complete list.