Background - A Short Safari Adventure Among Africa's Thorny Bushveld Wildlife - page 14

Eagle Lake Park in Colorado with Trash and Dead Deer
Alternatively, our crew of five in the 645 nm Marion Bermuda race carried a minimum of
safe water supplies of one gallon per person per day showing how little is needed and this
will be explored in the context of the desert dwelling San Bushmen. Our goal was to keep as
light as possible, yet allowing for missing Bermuda and doubling reserves. We did not
shower, instead used baby wipes, which became noticeable to the olfactory nerve! Yet, in
addition to man's daily water use there is the indirect needs of producing foods and meat from
water, which are huge. For instance, it takes about 400 gallons of water to produce a bowl of
breakfast cereal. If climate change were to increase the severity of droughts, and there are
predictions of some effects by 2030, particularly in the thorny Bushveld of the Limpopo and
Zambezi river basins, the fight over water between provinces and countries will become more
frequent than they already are. The effect of climate change and water loss on vegetation will
also be striking, and since most wild animals cannot follow changing vegetation zones because
fences hem them in; they will suffer. For the Karoo succulents further south and the Fynbos
biome of South Africa, it is predicted that by 2050, up to 99% of the 2,500 succulent species
of plants and of the 8,000 Fynbos plants 50% will become extinct.