By Petro Kotzé As a young student, Aristide Kamla had “big plans” when he traveled to Lake Ossa in Cameroon to conduct his master’s degree fieldwork with the little-known African manatee. He was hoping for a manatee count and a management plan to come out of the expedition on the roughly 4,000-hectare (10,000-acre) lake. But securing grants was difficult for this budding researcher, so his first funder was his mother. Kamla says she gave him $500, a “huge” amount for the family’s modest means. It almost ran out before he saw a single manatee. Months later, on the brink of abandoning ship, a lo…