Standing Cairns - Spot the difference?

There is a long history of enforced range management schemes in Lesotho, mostly from the Americans, evolving from the 1930’s colonial perceptions of Basutoland as an “African Switzerland” but devoid of environmental soundness from Basotho devoid of sound livelihood practices. And this from the creators of the Dust Bowl due to unsustainable farming practices in the USA(!) However, these imperial assertions, which continue to this day in the guise of foreign aid, also found moral solace in even longer standing claims from early missionaries sent to the Kingdom who declared that soil erosion and environmental damage were characteristic of a reprehensible and “sinful” people unworthy of their own land and in need of Christian conversion. Environmental stewardship was equated with moral fibre. And this from the land of Charles Dickens where the origins of the oil-based Industrial Revolution continue today to pollute, defile and destroy the Earth as we know it. Herdboys are vilified as villains who must go yet the tar-sands, coal burning plants, oil derricks and rapine mineral mining by the more “civilized” nations goes on as never before. I never understood the blatant hypocrisy but clearly I can see that the Emperor has no clothes.

Foreigners have always been anxious about Lesotho’s environment and have always envisioned mountain dreamscapes of fenced in “pristine” surroundings (called parks) where rich people can play and the poor face the facts. Just take a look at Sehlabathebe if you want to know how it might end up. Scientific “experts” have always been especially irritated with “uncontrolled” grazing, despite the long standing maboella customary regulations that repudiate this claim, and given that Basotho - through the Laws of Lerotholi - have taken environmental considerations seriously through the generations.

South Africa has already established it political and environmental hegemony in Lesotho through the disreputable Highlands Water, a nationalistic, neo-colonialistic, self-serving and environmentally defiling project if ever there was one. The TFCA is similar, if not in intensity but in aim, for duplicitous reasons. The bottom line is that countries who live in glass houses should not throw stones but powerless Lesotho is powerless to stop it.

I am sorry to hear that the MCC (a dubious Republican Party invention from a very abhorrent political party) is trying yet again where others have failed. My sympathies to the liberated wandering devotees of free and unrestricted access who just want to be left alone in a grand and beautiful landscape: am I speaking of herdboys or hikers? Hmmm.

I am very heartened by your response to my post. I thought I was the only one on the planet to dare to think such thoughts, but now I know I am not alone!