As baboons and monkeys are slaughtered in Magaliesberg, we desperately need to find our humanity again

The single focus of COP15 is on how to respond to the scientific data that we are experiencing a dangerous decline in nature caused by humans. 

Surely if our survival is all interconnected, then we all – 8 billion of us humans – have to make an earnest effort to respond intelligently and with compassion in big and small ways to deal with an ecological disaster of our making. 

I live off-grid in the Magaliesberg mountain range. It is one of the oldest mountain ranges on Earth (more than 2 billion years old), housing the Sterkfontein Caves, otherwise known as the Cradle of Humankind. These caves have given us the oldest fossils of the journey of the hominin species, our now extinct bipedal ancestors. We are Homo sapiens which, loosely translated, means human with wisdom and intelligence. So important to the world is the Cradle, that UNESCO declared the Magaliesberg Biosphere as a Protected Natural Environment in 1993. 

When I heard of a plan being put into place last week to kill male baboon leaders and cull monkeys that have been part of this ecosystem long before humans in the Magalies biosphere it shocked me. 

What shocked me even further is the crass attitude towards baboons and monkeys, who are hunted as a sport and many farmers see them as a nuisance to be eliminated. This persecution, according to conservation guidelines, manifests in their regrettable label of “species of least concern”. Which means that it’s simply too easy to get rid of what is seen as “problem animals”.

Another glaring oversight in public policy is the lack of protection of many species of smaller wild animals, including jackals, brown hyena, mountain reedbuck, bushbuck, and klipspringer. The numerous kloofs with crystal-clear streams, waterfalls and pools in the biosphere are home to more than 150 bird species, including three breeding colonies of the Cape vulture and a variety of other raptors such as the black eagle, as well as kingfishers, crimson-breasted shrikes and the elusive African finfoot.

Baboons are an integral part of this ecosystem. They are curious sociable primates who have strong personalities. Like humans, baboons and monkeys have a range of more than 30 distinct and different vocalisations for communicating with each other. 

Like humans, the bond between mother and infant baboon is very special. Baboons have coexisted with human ancestors for many millions of years. The oldest baboon fossil is a skull found in South Africa that is thought to be two millions years old.

Baboons and monkeys are the subject of much of the local mythology and folklore of indigenous people. One of the greatest African prophets, Ubaba Credo Mutwa describes baboons as an integral part of our ecosystem. They play a critical role in seed dispersal and regeneration. 

So important were baboons that across the continent along the Nile Meridian which birthed us and all biodiversity, they were considered sacred in our past. According to The Universal Book of Mathematics, the Lebombo bone, discovered in Swaziland, considered the oldest calendar of the world, dating back more than 40,000 years, was inscribed on a baboon fibula as was a later calendar, the Ishango Bone.