Toktok Talkie

Book excerpt: With his penchant for nature, science, writing and photography, the desert ecologist, Dr Joh R Henschel, could not help but document the conversations about the natural world with his friend Zophosis Moralesi, a Toktokkie as beetly as can be. The Toktok Talkie articles were first published as weekly newspaper columns between 2011 and 2013, and these are now collated in this book. In it, Joh reveals some of his musings about nature and his observations of peoples' relationships to it. He deftly interweaves the human defiance of nature, symbolised by the Ancient Mariner, with nature's many values and ultimate power of having the last word, presented by a humble messenger, the Toktokkie beetle, Zophosis moralesi. His first experience of the Namib in 1977 became love at first sight. Since then he has been conducting research in the Namib and several deserts world-wide, reported in numerous scientific papers and technical documents. After spending over three decades in Namibia, Joh and his wife, Theresa, moved to Kimberley in South Africa in 2013, where he joined the National Research Foundation to continue arid land research through the South African Environmental Observation Network (SAEON).