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September 16, 2005
African Conservation
Project Assisted by Cessna Aircraft Skylane
Seattle, WA, USA--(Jobwerx News)--Cessna aircraft will enable conservationist
pilots to zero in on and identify individual species and human settlements
over Central Africa.
On foot, J. Michael Fay crossed more than 2,000 miles to document stretches
of African wilderness the world had never seen before. He helped establish
13 national parks in the Gabon region of Africa, preserving many species
found nowhere else in the world.
To begin his next research and conservation endeavors, Fay will take delivery
of a new Cessna Skylane 182T 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, at Cessna Aircraft Company,
Wichita, Kan.
"The aircraft will range over Central Africa and enable conservationist
pilots to zero in on and identify individual species and human settlements,"
Fay said. "We can count roads and rivers accessible by people, electrical
power infrastructure and irrigation systems. It will create access in
some of the most remote - and most beautiful - areas on the planet."
The airplane is not only needed to research the terrain, it will help
conservationists track roving animals.
"All the wild dog and lion radio telemetry is done in a Cessna 182,"
Fay said. "Following animals over roadless and mountainous terrain can
only be done in an airplane. An airplane for conservation projects in
East and Central Africa, is what a boat is to a marine program."
The Wildlife Conservation Society chose the Cessna 182 because Cessnas
can endure the stress of the African environment.
Skylane in flight * |
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"Cessnas are durable, comparatively easy to fly, and can land on short,
unpaved runways," Fay said. "Beyond that, they are mechanically strong,
and maintenance is simpler than on other makes. Bush airplanes are subject
to damage from dust, rocks and animals. They are almost never hangared,
so the heat is always an issue. Cessnas persevere, and are known as the
workhorses of Africa. Many of the Cessnas used by conservationists have
been in service for decades."
The high-set wing configuration also makes them ideal for aerial surveys.
"Cessna employees appreciate knowing many airplanes they build help with
important missions, like the conservation efforts Dr. Fay directs," said
Phil Michel, vice president of marketing.
J. Michael Fay, 48, is an ecologist at the New York-based Wildlife Conservation
Society of New York and a Conservation Fellow at the National Geographic
Society. He has spent his life as a naturalist - he roamed the Sierra
Nevada Mountains and the Maine woods as a boy, traveled through wilderness
in Alaska and Central America in college, and has spent the past 15 years
in the central African forest.
Fay received a Bachelor of Science degree in 1978 from the University
of Arizona. He then spent six years in the Peace Corps as a botanist in
national parks in Tunisia, and then worked in the savannas of the Central
African Republic. In 1984, he went to work at the Missouri Botanical Garden.
A floristic study of a mountain range on Sudan's western border eventually
led to a Ph.D. on the western lowland gorillas. It was at this time he
first entered the forests of central Africa.
Fay's doctoral work was curtailed several times while he surveyed large
forest blocks and worked to create the Dzanga-Sangha and Nouabale-Ndoki
parks in the Central African Republic and Congo - parks he later managed.
Fay's published works throughout the last 20 years have covered a wide
range of field research subjects, from exotic orchids to lowland gorillas
to forest elephants.
In 1996, Fay flew a small airplane low over the forests of Congo and Gabon
and observed a vast, intact forest corridor that spanned the two countries,
from the Oubangui River to the Atlantic Ocean. From October 1999 through
December 2000 he walked the entire corridor - more than 2,000 miles -
systematically surveying trees, wildlife and human impacts on uninhabited
forest areas.
Photographer Nick Nichol's coverage of Fay's walk was published in National
Geographic magazine, and soon inspired President Omar Bongo of Gabon to
create 13 national parks in his country comprising some 11,000 square
miles (26,000 square kilometers) of land.
Returning to Africa in 2004, Fay conducted his Africa MegaFlyover, assessing
the impact of the human footprint on the continent through aerial surveys
conducted from a Cessna he piloted.
* Photo courtesy of Cessna Emedia.
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