Letter from the editor: is it time to be that person?

Our editor, Sonya Schoeman decides it’s time to make an unpopular point.

These days, you have to run a checklist as long as your arm when inviting people over for dinner. There’s the gluten-frees, koshers, Bantings, the sugar-frees, no-nuts and no-fats, the pollotarians, pescetarians, vegetarians, raw-food freaks and vegans. And don’t you just hate those ‘ethical eaters’?

That’s me. I keep it to myself, of course, because I know it makes other people feel awkward. I have a friend who recently became vegetarian/vegan and when being offered flesh, he has tormented internal debates, except out loud, about what constitutes suffering, while everyone else rolls their eyes and guiltily licks blood off their lips. Except me. I’m with him now. It used to be that my policy was I would eat what people cooked because not offending them was the most important thing to me. But these days I think it’s time to become that person. This is what convinced me.

A few months ago, we took a trip into the Whale Coast Hope Spot. It’s heaven out there for those who love the outdoors. There are ancient forests, clean long beaches, jagged mountains, and gorgeous expansive sea views of a coastline largely pristine. Within that spectacular sea view, close to shore, there were splashes so regular they aroused my curiosity: perlemoen poachers. They harvested during the middle of the day, in the afternoon, after sunset.

When I snorkelled to look at the marine life close to shore, the sea bed was paved with perlemoen shells, most of them small; the big ones were long gone. My partner shook his head at my calls to the police.
‘You simply have to let it go,’ he said.
‘This perlemoen bed is gone’. He is probably right. Here’s a sobering fact: we’ve eaten 90 percent of all big sea fish, says oceanographer and scientist Dr Sylvia Earle, who inspired the Hope Spot movement I write about on page 60. Dr Earle, on a matter of principle, insists that no fish is served where she presides. One of the theories behind being a vegetarian/ethical eater, is it’s disruptive to ordinary life. Regrettably, it also sounds awfully like the moral high ground, but is it not time to ditch feelings in favour of growing a more thoughtful movement about careful consumption?

I’m all for small movements, because they can build and cause change. Like the Hope Spot concept may start growing a love for the sea that leads to looking after it. Why is this important? The short answer is, we need it: scientists believe the phytoplankton in it contribute most of our oxygen, plus we still get plenty of food from it. Also, did you know that 85 percent of SA’s tourism is coast based?

I love getting a dinner invitation, by the way. Here’s what I eat: very little meat, but when I do it’s ethically sourced (runs free and is quickly and humanely dispatched), the occasional fish on the green list that’s been line-caught, but I’m most happy with vegetables. And do you know what that makes me (besides a pain in the arse and the dinner guest you don’t want)? A flexitarian. Now that doesn’t sound so bad, does it?

3 things to look out for in this February issue

Our no plastic picnic
Gear Editor Melanie van Zyl rooted out a picnic basket that has no plastic (page 52), while Food Editor Nikki Werner tells you how to fill it with super easy and yummy finger food (page 41).

 
2 Safaris you’ll love

Digital Content Manager Kati Auld and Photographer Teagan Cunniffe went on the first-ever hike and horse-ride in the Baviaanskloof, and it was divine (page 80), while Pippa de Bruyn braved Botswana with a gaggle of journalists – and found the most affordable safari in the Delta (page 70).

This month’s contributors

Crookes & Jackson – Perfect Links, page 54. David Crookes has been a contributing photographer to Condé Nast Traveller for over a decade. He collaborates with Nicola Jackson, his partner in work and life, and together they have travelled to more than 60 countries on assignment for The New York Times, National Geographic Traveller and Condé Nast worldwide. This month they share kindred images shot in Africa.

 
Naomi Roebert – Insider’s Guide to Kakamas, page 107. Freelance travel writer Naomi Roebert is searching South Africa because she wants to see all of it, every dusty outpost, every hidden backroad, every high-backed mountain hunched over secret rivers. This month she found herself in the red-sand reaches of the Northern Cape, where along the Quiver Tree Route she came to meet the hearty people of Kakamas… and took a memorable dip in the remote Riemvasmaak Hot Springs.

Alexia Beckerling – Salento’s Secret Swimming Spots, page 86. Photographer and writer Alexia Beckerling migrates regularly between Cape Town and southern Italy. Alexia’s ritual for greeting a new place is, if at all possible, to immerse herself in a body of water. Some of these that Alexia has dipped into, other than the Ionian and Adriatic seas, are The Serpentine in London, the River Nile, Lake Atitlan in Guatemala and Italy’s famous Lake Como.

 
Pippa de Bruyn – Invitation to Eden, page 70. Everyone should go to the Okavango Delta at least once, reckons Pippa de Bruyn, and this month she’s found a budget-friendly trip for those who don’t camp or have a 4×4. Pippa spent 15 years researching, travelling and writing for the US guide series Frommer’s and now writes for a variety of national and international publications and also creates bespoke itineraries to suit any particular budget and interest.

Read more from this story in the February 2016 issue of Getaway magazine.

Get this issue →

Our February issue features a wild new way to traverse the Baviaanskloof, the Okavango Delta’s most affordable safari, 6 local shores to explore and Italy’s 8 prettiest dips.

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