Author Archives Bruce Byers

About Bruce Byers

Bruce Byers Bruce Byers Consulting provides technical assistance to government agencies, NGOs, and the private sector in the U.S. and over­seas. We carry out assessments, analyses, and applied research that provide the background information needed to design effective strategies and actions in complex ecological and social contexts.

Malindi Marine National Park and Reserve

25 August, 2011 At the headquarters of the Malindi Marine National Park and Reserve we met with the Senior Warden and some of his staff. The park and reserve are managed by the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).  The warden talked
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Arabuko-Sokoke Forest

24 August, 2011 Athman Seif, director of “MaMa,” the Malindi Marine Association, met us at the Malindi Airport after the short flight from Lamu.  He would be our host and local guide for the next couple of days as we
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Beaches and Dunes, Kiunga Marine National Reserve

21-22 August, 2011 About 8:30 on Sunday morning the boat pulled up in front of Lamu House.  We scrambled down the steps and climbed in with our gear, joining two staff members of the USAID-funded SECURE Project and two staff
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Mangroves of Lamu

20 August, 2011 Dropping down to land at the Lamu Airport after a flight of a little over an hour from Nairobi gave a gull’s eye view of the extent of mangrove cover. Low forests of these salt-tolerant trees covered
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Field of Dreams of Monarchs

September-October 2010 One day in May I dug up some young milkweed plants I spotted growing along the bikepath while on a run, and transplanted them to my garden.  I guess it was a hopeful “if you plant it, they
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Mau Forest

18 August, 2011 The morning was sunny, but the humid clouds hanging on the higher hills around Nakuru suggested that rain was coming later.  We passed through farm country around Njoro, turned onto a smaller road through Edgerton and headed
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Underpass for Elephants

16 August, 2011 Yes, that’s under “pass,” not “pants,” which would be even more unusual.  Not than an underpass for elephants is a usual thing, even in Kenya.  In fact it is the first one the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy staff
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Community Conservancies in Northern Kenya

15 August, 2011 We were off early from the Ngiri Guest House at Lewa for an all day trip to visit two community conservancies whose formation has been supported by the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT).  We drove through Isiolo and
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Mt. Kenya and Lewa Wildlife Conservancy

13-14 August, 2011 We left Nairobi on Saturday afternoon in an underpowered old white minivan, driven by James, a driver hired through one of the countless safari tour companies in Nairobi, and fought our way through the endless glut of
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    The View from Limuw The indigenous inhabitants of the island called it limuw, “in the ocean.” A prosaic but apt geographical name for the place. The name has a very matter-of-fact, here and now implication. But the Spanish who explored the Chumash Channel and its islands beginning in the 16th century and colonized the area with their string of …...
    The Chumash Channel and its Islands When Spanish explorer Juan Cabrillo sailed into the Santa Barbara Channel in 1542, he found a thriving indigenous maritime culture living along the coasts and on the Channel Islands. One thing that impressed the Spaniards were the large seagoing canoes. One major coastal village had so many canoes on the beach that Cabrillo called it …...
    The Art of Ecological Restoration on Santa Cruz Island The large fabric print hanging on the west wall of the dining room of the Santa Cruz Island Reserve research station caught my eye immediately. A tangle of creatures drawn in detailed black covered the white background, intertwining in almost Escher-like fashion. There were sheep and foxes, eagles and jays, oaks and mallows, skunks and …...
    Evolutionary Ecology on California’s Galapagos Sunday, October 24th. Our reservations for the trip to Prisoners Harbor on the north shore of Santa Cruz Island had been made months ago. But the weather during the past week had forced Island Packers, the commercial concessionaire that provides transportation for visitors to the four northern islands within Channel Islands National Park, to cancel …...
    More Ecological Explorations at the Edge of the Continent October 2021. In my last story posted here I described my ecological explorations in the San Francisco Bay area in June during a writing residency at The Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes Station, right on the San Andreas Fault at the south end of Tomales Bay. I was gathering information and experiences for essays about …...
    Ecological Explorations at the Edge of the Continent June 2021. At about the time the coronavirus pandemic struck in the spring of 2020, I was preparing my application for a writing residency at the Mesa Refuge in Point Reyes Station, California. It was an exciting opportunity I had learned about because several of my favorite writers, including Rebecca Solnit and Robin Kimmerer, are …...
    Planting Chestnuts at Sky Meadows March 22, 2021. It was a beautiful morning as I drove west on I-66 and turned north toward Sky Meadows State Park. From the Crooked Run Valley, the meadows sweep up to the old farm and on toward the ridge to the west, along which the Appalachian Trail runs. The parking lot beside the visitor …...
    A Decade of American Chestnut Restoration on Timber Lane September 2020. In my last story posted here, A Decade of Monarchs and Milkweeds, I described how a decade ago, just as I was leaving a job at an international consulting firm where I had worked for about five years and re-starting my independent consulting business, an experiment to attract monarchs to my yard by …...
    A Decade of Monarchs and Milkweeds September 2020. This September marked ten years since I left a job at a consulting firm where I had worked for about five years and restarted the independent consulting business I’d first started in 1994. I wrote about that in 2010 in a story titled “Field of Dreams of Monarchs.” On my last day commuting …...
    Coronavirus, Human Hubris, and Life in the Coevolving Biosphere The novel coronavirus is holding up a mirror for our species, giving us an opportunity to consider our place in the evolution of life on Earth and question our anthropocentrism. What I’ve missed during this pandemic and shutdown of our usual social and economic life is writing or reporting that puts this experience, unprecedented in …...