Page 39 - Silver Lakes May 2021

NATURE

The dodo

but only species ‘that people liked’. The
eagles were preying on the young of
animals that men liked to hunt.

The full title of Michelle Nijhuis’ book
(not yet available in South Africa) is
Beloved Beasts: Fighting for Life in an Age of Greta Thunberg
Extinction.
and sparked worldwide interest in it. A and gave direction to the growing but not
Edge’s boldness eventually led to generation later, Rachel Carson, and her yet focussed conservation movement.
Audubon societies recognising the need brilliant book, Silent Spring, did it for me. It
to protect not just popular species but the triggered huge changes in environmental As Nijhuis says, while balancing human
ecosystems upon which all living things laws and the creation of more protection needs we must save whole ecosystems,
depend. So conservation has become the agencies. not just charismatic species. She singles
‘wise use’ of the living world. out Namibia as an example of the essential
And look at the recent impact of Greta holistic approach. Our neighbour’s
Nijhuis makes the important point that Thunberg, the Stockholm teenager conservation approach aims to get
it is individuals, like Rosalie Edge, who who skipped school and triggered an away from the top-down effort guided
are steering us away from two centuries international resolve to fight climate by governments and international
of slaughter and the ‘Age of Extinctions’. change. Industry has shown too little organisations outside Namibia. It aims
However, Edge is just one of many genuine concern. “You should be ashamed to empower Namibia’s own and locally-
bold voices to have spoken out. There of yourselves!” she said to a startled based conservancies to consider both the
were more famous characters, such as gathering of international figures. She was needs of wildlife and those of people.
Aldos Leopold who, when my parents then 17 but was applauded globally.
were children, wrote vividly of wildlife Hope, she says, springs from collective
On a local level, there was Clive Walker, a action, but the power of one is so often the
young wildlife artist in his 30s, working in trigger for it and for saving the ecosystems
a Johannesburg city centre gallery. Almost upon which our ‘beloved beasts’ are
50 years ago he set up the Endangered absolutely dependent.
Wildlife Trust (EWT) – now South Africa’s
primary wildlife protection agency. His
idea, at first, was simply to quickly ascertain
which species of threatened wild animal
needed precedence over other threatened
species. He told a newspaper there were so
many species near the brink of extinction
but academia was too slow in financing
and especially publishing much-needed
research. He suggested the public should
raise funds for ‘emergency research’. The
idea worked. Energetic young scientists
were found – and EWT went on to broaden
its scope and become a crucial element in
South Africa’s conservation efforts.
Some will recall, back in the 1960s when
a student at the world Habitat Congress
(in Canada) called out, “Think globally!
Act locally!” He was quoting the Scottish
planner and conservationist, Patrick
Geddes, who coined the phrase in 1915.
That student’s voice was heard worldwide
Clive Walker Michelle Nijhuis

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