Elephant Song - Smith Wilbur - Страница 8
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We are talking about an average family income of a hundred and twenty dollars a year, ten dollars a month. They cannot afford to set aside land and grazing for a beautiful but useless animal to live on. If the wild game is to survive in Africa it has to pay for its supper. There are no free rides in this harsh land.
One would think that living so close to nature they would have an instinctive feeling for it, Daniel persisted. Yes, of course, but it is totally pragmatic. For millennia primitive man, living with nature, has treated it as a renewable resource. As the Eskimo lived on the caribou and seal and whale, or the American Indian on buffalo herds, they understood instinctively the type of management that we have never achieved. They were in balance with nature, until the white man came with explosive harpoon and Sharpe's rifle, or, here in Africa, came with his elite game department and game laws that made it a crime for the black tribesman to hunt on his own land, that reserved the wildlife of Africa for a select few to stare at and exclaim over. You are being a racist, Daniel chided him gently.
The old colonial system preserved the wild game. So how did it survive for a million years before the white man arrived in Africa?
No, the colonial system of game management was protectionist, not conservationist. Aren't they the same thing, protection and conservation? They are diametrically opposed. The protectionist denies man's right to exploit and harvest nature's bounty. He would deny that man has a right to kill a living animal, even if that threatens the survival of the species as a whole. If he were here today, the protectionist would prohibit us from this cull, and he would not want to look to the final consequence of that prohibition which, as we have seen, would be the eventual extinction of the entire elephant population and the destruction of this forest. However, the most damaging mistake that the old colonial protectionists made was to alienate the black tribesman from , the benefits of controlled conservation. They denied him his share of the spoils, and built up in him a resentment towards the wild game. They broke down his natural instinct for management of his resources. They took away his control of nature and placed him in competition with the animals. The end result is that the average black peasant is hostile towards the game.
The elephants raid his gardens and destroy the trees he uses for firewood. The buffalo and antelope eat the grass on which he feeds his cattle. The crocodile ate his grandmother, and the lion killed his father. . . Of course, he has come to resent the game herds. The solution, Warden? Is there one? Since independence from the colonial system we have been trying to change the attitude of our people, Johnny told him. At first they demanded that they be allowed to enter the National Parks that the white man had proclaimed. They wanted to be allowed to go in and cut the trees and feed their cattle and build their villages. However, we have had a great deal of success in educating them to the value of tourism and they are safari-hunting and controlled culling. For the first time being allowed to participate in the profits, and there is a new understanding of conservation and sensible exploitation, especially amongst the younger generation.
However, if the protectionist do-gooders of Europe and America were to force a ban on safari-hunting or the sale of ivory, it would set back all our efforts. It would probably be the death knell of the African elephant and eventually the end of all the game. So in the end it is all a matter of economics? Daniel asked. Like everything else in this world, it is a matter of money, Johnny agreed. if you give us enough money we will stop the poachers. if you make it worth their while, we will keep the peasants and their goats out of the Parks. However, the money must come from somewhere. The newly independent states of Africa with their exploding human populations cannot afford the First World luxury of locking away their natural assets.
They must exploit them and conserve them. If you prevent us doing that, then you will be guilty of contributing to the extinction of African wildlife. Johnny nodded grimly. Yes, it's a matter of economics. If the game can pay, then the game can stay. It was perfect, Daniel signalled Jock to stop filming and clasped Johnny's shoulder. I could make a star out of you. You're a natural. He was only half joking. How about it, Johnny? You could do a hell of a lot more for Africa on the screen than you can here. You want me to live in hotels and jet aircraft instead of sleeping under the stars? Johnny feigned indignation. You want me to build up a nice little roll around my belly.
He prodded Daniel's midriff. And puff and pant when I run a hundred yards? No thank you, Danny. I'll stay here where I can drink Zambezi water, not Coca-Cola, and eat buffalo steaks, not Big Macs. They loaded the last rolls of salted elephant-hide and immature calf tusks by the glare of truck headlights, and climbed back up the rough winding road to the rim of the escarpment and the headquarters of the Park at Chiwewe in the dark.
Johnny drove the green Landrover at the head of the slow convoy of refrigerator trucks and Daniel sat beside him on the front seat. They talked in the soft desultory manner of old friends in perfect accord.
Suicide weather, Daniel wiped his forehead on the sleeve. of his bush shirt. Even though it was almost midnight, the heat and the humidity were enervating. Rains will break soon. Good thing you're getting out of the valley, " Johnny grunted. That road turns into a swamp in the rain and most of the rivers are impassable. The tourist camp at Chiwewe had been closed a week previously in anticipation of the onslaught of the rainy season. I don't look forward to leaving, Daniel admitted. It's been like old times again. Old times, Johnny nodded. We had some fun.
When are you coming back to Chiwewe? I don't know, Johnny, but my offer is genuine. Come with me. We made a good team once; we would be good again. I know it. Thanks, Danny. Johnny shook his head. But I've got work to do here. I won't give up, Daniel warned him, and Johnny grinned. I know. You never do. In the morning, when Daniel climbed the small kopje behind the headquarters camp to watch the sunrise, the sky was filled with dark and mountainous cloud and the heat was still oppressive.
Daniel's mood matched that sombre dawn, for although he had captured some wonderful material during his stay, he had also rediscovered his friendship and affection for Johnny Nzou. The knowledge that it might be many years before they met again saddened him.
Johnny had invited him to breakfast on this, his last day. He was waiting for Daniel on the wide mosquito-screened verandah of the thatched bungalow that had once been Daniel's own home.
Daniel paused below the verandah and glanced around the garden. It was still the way that Vicky had planned it and originally laid it out.
Vicky had been the twenty-year-old bride that Daniel had brought to Chiwewe all those years ago a slim cheerful lass with long blonde hair and smiling green eyes, only a few years younger than Daniel at the time.
She had died in the front bedroom overlooking the garden that she had cherished. An ordinary bout of malaria had turned without warning to the pernicious cerebral strain. It had been all over very swiftly, even before the flying doctor could reach the Park.
The eerie sequel to her death was that the elephants, who had never entered the fenced garden before, despite its laden citrus trees and rich vegetable plot, came that very night. They came at the exact hour of Vicky's death and completely laid waste the garden. They even ripped out the ornamental shrubs and rose bushes. Elephant seem to have a psychic sensitivity to death. It was almost as if they had sensed her passing, and Daniel's grief.
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