Whilst I disagree with George Monbiot in that I think there is a place for natural history programmes that just focus on the life history of animals and they don’t always have to show the ills faced by the natural world, I do find the lack of people in any nature documentary a little disconcerting. To give credit where it’s due, the devastatingly low global population of lions and the problems facing them were mentioned at the end of Sunday’s episode of Dynasties. But in terms of showing the people of Kenya, there was a brief glimpse of a road on the Masai Mara in one of the sweeping landscape shots. The slightest of indications of the great number of people that live in or visit the area where the marsh pride live. Other than that, the only sign that people live with these lions was the devastating shots of the lions dying of poisoning.
Whilst it is a vast and incredible landscape, the Masai Mara is certainly not free of the influence of people. Clever cinematography shows the life of lions in all of its glory, but it gives a false idea of a huge and untouched wilderness that contains no people. These documentaries are amazing, but when watching them it is worth bearing in mind two things. Firstly, there are people that live with these animals, as the Kenyan conservationist who briefly spoke at the end of the episode talked about. Yes it is terrible that people will poison these animals and poisoning of wildlife is a huge and growing problem across Africa. But these communities face their own problems. Growing populations, a lack of opportunities for other economic activities and drought put great pressure on them. Secondly, there is a colonial history in Kenya and other lion range states that cannot be forgotten when considering these people and the problems that they face.
I’ve seen a couple of tweets along the lines of ‘humans are the worst’ in response to the poisoning of the lions. It is definitely tragic and hard to watch, and I sympathise with the people who spent so much time with these animals only to watch them die in such a way. But conservation of species like lions is not about pointing the finger at the people who live with them. Shouting from the sidelines won’t help, it will just harden resolve as there is an easy response; ‘what do you know about living with these dangerous animals’. Instead, the future survival of lions will be about finding ways for people to live alongside them. Many organisations and groups are doing great work towards resolving human-wildlife conflict and finding solutions to allow people to live alongside these majestic creatures. Ewaso lions is one of the groups that is doing amazing things ‘promoting co-existence between people and wildlife‘, but a quick google will bring up plenty of others.