Africa is synonymous with wild life and natural dense vegetation found in very few other places. Most people these days just hop on a plane to Kenya or South Africa to see some of the worlds most amazing animals in the wild. Are you wondering then why any one would want to create a 112 feet high bio dome that covers 172,000 square feet in Europe to replicate what Kenya and South Africa already has – ie wildlife in their natural environment? Well perhaps to bring the proverbial Mountain to Mohamed or to contribute to meeting the world’s toothless climate change goals by reducing our aviation carbon dioxide emissions on our way to Kenya, South Africa and Tanzania.
Chester Zoo in the UK could well make this a reality by 2014. The dome will be stocked with tropical animals with a tropical vegetation to go with it and will be the biggest zoo in Europe.
The design and the scale of the structure is impressive. However, it some how baffles the mind that in this day and age “caging” animals under the guise of conservation is still seen as acceptable. Surely there must be better ways of promoting conservation that does not require removal of animals from their natural habitat and transported several thousand miles into an artificial environment.
Buildings account for about 50% of the UK’s energy consumption and carbon emissions, much less ones with a need to artificially create a warm environment in a non-tropical part of the world. Surely such environmental costs should be offset against the public “good” of “saving” wildlife.
I am inclined to think that the intentions behind the creation of this zoo may be part commercial but may also have emanated from a desire to genuinely “help”. This “help” will probably not be necessary if there was a more effective management of wildlife havens like the Maasai Mara and the Serengeti which form a single savannah ecosystem bestriding the Kenya-Tanzania border.
Thousands of people converge on these wildlife hotspots every year to see the “Big Five” – lions, elephants, buffalos, leopards and rhinos. The very popularity of these sanctuaries is slowly killing them.
Increased human settlement and the number of tourists encroaching on these havens are leading to a decline in some animal species according to a study funded by the Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF).The study concluded that six species – giraffes, impalas, warthogs, topis and water-bucks – had declined significantly, and at an alarming rate.
At $60 for adults and $30 for children to enter these reserves it will take a herculean task to convince the resource poor governments that run the reserves to limit the number of tourists allowed in.
Tanzania apparently generates $13 million from allowing the hunting and capture of wild animals. The equivalent for South Africa is about $250 million and these are statistics provided by governments with a self interest to continue with the status quo.
Also, as population grows (Africa’s population has increased from 100 million from the start of the 20th century to 700 million today) and as demand for more land to cultivate increases it will be even more difficult to convince those who live in and around the various wild life reserves to resist encroaching on to the reserves. Convincing people who depend on the land for their livelihoods to actively protect the wildlife that they may see as a threat to their very existence could be just as onerous. Poachers tend to thrive in such environments.
A UK news paper (The Independent) cited a Kenyan government report that suggested that there may be as many as 108 lodges and camps and 4000 beds in the Masai Mara alone. 8 out of 10 of these lodges have failed to carry out Environment Impact Assessments and about 30% of the lodges operate illegally. There were less than a dozen lodges in the early 1980s.
Would it not be a great idea to:
1. Lobby travel agencies across the globe that send thousands of tourists to poorly managed African wildlife reserves to be conscious of the damage the presence of large numbers of tourists may be causing?
2. Put more pressure on communities and governments to control the trickle and in some cases the influx of people who have lived around (and in some cases in) these reserves from time immemorial to relocate away from the reserves?
3. Castigate Chester Zoo for continuing the trend of “caging” (however large and sophisticated the “cage” may be) animals in an unnatural habitat?
There are a plethora of questions (not limited to the ones above) that we could possibly ask. That’s the easy bit. Finding sustainable solutions are, however, the difficult bit.
If you have any, please do not hesitate to share these with us.
Nii Thompson
