Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the SerengetiOxford University Press, 2019 M12 10 - 324 pages How did the Seregenti become an internationally renowned African conservation site and one of the most iconic destinations for a safari? In this book, Thomas M. Lekan illuminates the controversial origins of this national park by examining how Europe's greatest wildlife conservationist, former Frankfurt Zoo director and Oscar-winning documentarian Bernhard Grzimek, popularized it as a global destination. In the 1950s, Grimzek and his son Michael began a quest to save the Serengeti from modernization and "overpopulation" by remaking an imperial game reserve into a gigantic zoo for the earth's last great mammals. Grzimek, well-known to German audiences through his long-running television program, A Place for Animals, used the film Seregenti Shall Not Die to convince ordinary Europeans that they could save nature. Yet their message sidestepped the uncomfortable legacies of German colonial exploitation in the region that had endangered animals and excluded local people. After independence, Grzimek raised funds, brokered diplomatic favors, and convinced German tourists to book travel packages--all to persuade Tanzanian leader Julius Nyerere that wildlife would fuel the young nation's economic development. Grzimek helped Tanzania to create almost a dozen new national parks by 1975, but wooing tourists conflicted with rights of the Maasai and other African communities to inhabit the landscape on their own terms. Grzimek's global priorities eventually clashed with Nyerere's nationalist ones, as a more self-assertive Tanzania resented conservationists' meddling and failed promises. A story that demonstrates the conflicts between international conservation, nature tourism, decolonization, and national sovereignty, Our Gigantic Zoo explores the legacy of the man who portrayed himself as a second Noah, called on a sacred mission to protect the last vestiges of paradise for all humankind. |
Contents
1 | |
1 A Zookeepers Ecology | 22 |
2 No Room for Wild Animals | 48 |
3 Thinking Locally Acting Globally | 78 |
4 Serengeti Shall Not Die | 105 |
5 A Weakness for the Maasai | 145 |
Other editions - View all
Common terms and phrases
administrators African American appeared argued Arusha became become Bernhard Bernhard Grzimek Board borders British called Cambridge cattle Central colonial Congo conservation conservationists Crater created critical cultural early East Africa ecological efforts emerged environmental European expansion fears film foreign forests former Frankfurt funding global Grzimek Grzimek and Grzimek herds History hoped human hunters hunting images Imagining imperial independence land landscape Last Letter living London Maasai Mann Mensch gekommen Michael move national parks nature needed never Ngorongoro noted Nyerere Office once Owen pastoralists Place plains political population protection region remained Reports reserves result Rhinos Room scientific Serengeti Sewig social Society species story Studies Tanganyika Tanzania territory Tiere liebte tion tourists Trustees United University Press vision visitors West German Western wild animals wildlife York Zoological