gmlsmit wrote:Some true words.
Allan Moorhead wrote the following as an Introduction to “Serengeti shall not die” authored by Dr. B. Grzimek during 1960, FIFTY YEARS ago.
I remember years ago having a conversation with Sir Osbert Sitwell in Italy, and in the course of it I mentioned that I was considering a journey to the temples of Angor-Wat in Indo-China but was finding some difficulty in making up my mind; for one thing the expense of the trip was very great. Sir Osbert made the lapidary remark “anyone who can go to Angor-Wat and does not is mad” I went, I was captivated.
If you have the money to spare go there, and do not delay too long for this spectacle may not be as enduring as stone temples.
From year to year the threat of extermination hangs over the wild animals, and it is very unlikely that our children will never see them as we see them now – in a vast procession of Zebra Blue-Wildebeest and Gazelles, moving across open plain, the Lions lying like cats in the sun with Hyaenas and Jackal nervously about them, the Vultures hovering in the immense sky and the blue hills in the distance.
Year after year the numbers of the herds grow less as the poachers and tribesmen attack them and make inroads upon their waterholes and grazing grounds.
There is insufficient money to police it properly, and the demand for land for agricultural and settlement purposes is steadily increasing everywhere in Africa.
One could argue that the tourist trade attracts much more money than the land itself could ever yield. One can protest that there is a moral duty to preserve this last of the great natural congregations of wild animals left in existence.
One can point out that once these beasts are killed, they can never be replaced; already mankind has exterminated unknown numbers of species of birds and beasts throughout the world.
None of this seems to make any difference. The African authorities, both black and white have decided that that the interest of human beings were paramount, and that wherever human beings are in conflict with wild life, it is the wild life that must go.
There is just one gleam of hope in this dismal story. All over the world, and indeed Africa itself, there exists a small group of men, naturalists, zoologists and others, who are determined to make a final outcry before all is irrevocably lost. If they can raise sufficient money for proper policing and other vital works, there is still a chance that they can persuade the authorities to take action.
In order to do this they must first arouse not only the interest but the conscience of those of us who are not as yet absolutely committed to the idea that human beings are the only living creatures who have rights upon this earth.
They must also have the power of evoking and of communicating something of the great beauty and the excitement of the Parks and Reserves, so that we all will wish to preserve them as an aesthetic object for the generations that lie ahead.
“Men other ideals for which they are willing to die: freedom, glory, politics, religion, the rulership, of their class or the expansion of national borders”.
“Millions feared Hitler and millions were enthralled by him. Millions laid down their lives for, other millions died fighting against him. Today when school children are asked questions about Hitler – most of them know very little about him, and cannot even name his henchmen . . .”
Men are easily inspired by human ideas, but they forget them just as quickly.
Only Nature is eternal, unless we senselessly destroy it. In fifty years time nobody will be interested in the results of the conferences which fill today’s headlines.
“But when fifty years from now a Lion walks into the red dawn and roars resoundingly, it will mean something to people and quicken their hearts whether they are bolsheviks or democrats, or whether they speak English, German, Russian or Swahili. They will stand in quiet awe as, for the first time in their lives they watch the mighty herds or even little groups wander across the plains and bush of Africa”.
“Is it really stupid to work for Zebras, Lions, and men who will walk this earth fifty years from now; and for those in a hundred or two hundred or three years’ time from now”.
Please decide for yourself.
Maybe you will agree with Alan and a few others including myself, that it is not too late yet. We can still make a change, but then we have to start soon.
