Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti by Thomas M. Lekan

Kalb, Martin

doi:10.1353/gsr.2021.0031

Cited by 2 publications

(4 citation statements)

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“…Officials in Mexico and Argentina paid attention to developments in the United States, Canada, Switzerland, and elsewhere that suggested setting nature aside was a way for their countries to participate in a cosmopolitan club of nations (Carruthers 2012). Less relevant were the calls from the London Convention (1930) to hold on to colonial resources, and more appealing was the cultural prestige associated with celebrating valuable Argentine or Mexican landscapes (Booth 2008;Kupper 2014;Andermann 2018;Wakild 2018;Lekan 2020). In this way, establishing and maintaining parks was a process of legitimizing and growing state activity, which was neither homogeneous nor directly copied from a template (Kelly et al 2018).…”

Section: Dissimilar Nationalist Beginningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Before Biodiversity: Trajectories of National Parks in Latin America (1930s–1980s)

Freitas,

Leal,

Wakild

2024

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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Almost a century ago, long before biodiversity expressed a scientific value for nature, Latin American countries began establishing national parks. Today, they represent over 6 percent of Latin America’s landmass. By considering national park creation across a broad regional span and six crucial decades, this article explains a mode of state formation focused on caring for nature instead of just exploiting it. It examines how national parks expanded in the region by identifying three consequent trajectories: the use of these conservation units for frontier development in Argentina and as part of a broader project seeking social justice in Mexico; the formation of more haphazard park initiatives in various countries, taking Brazil and Chile as main examples; and the development of ecologically coherent park systems through the cases of Peru and Colombia. The article also addresses the role of science (especially forestry) and international cooperation in shaping national parks. In this manner, it uncovers the paths that faded from view after the idea that parks intend to protect biodiversity took hold and illustrates a rarely acknowledged aspect of state expansion.

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Section: Dissimilar Nationalist Beginningsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Before Biodiversity: Trajectories of National Parks in Latin America (1930s–1980s)

Freitas,

Leal,

Wakild

2024

Lat. Am. res. rev.

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“…In 1955, what had been a problem for local game management attracted the interest of the international scientific community, when the administration of the British Territory of Tanganyika announced a decision to partition the Serengeti National Park which had been established in 1951. The political dimensions of this plan and its colonial heritage have recently been discussed in great detail by Thomas Lekan (Lekan, 2020). The separation of the park into two conservation areas would have lifted the strict conservation status of the central plains, an important grazing area for ungulates.…”

Section: Tracing: Direct Aircraft Observations and Migration Patterns...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Watson was not the first one to use aerial observation. Bernhard Grzimek, the director of the Frankfurt Zoological Society (FZS) and his son Michael had used a zebra-striped Cessna to conduct animal censuses in the Serengeti plains in the 1950s in their campaign for keeping the park as large as possible (Lekan, 2020). Pearsall, too, and a few years later, the Talbots referred to aerial observation methods (Talbot and Stewart, 1964: 823).…”

Section: Tracing: Direct Aircraft Observations and Migration Patterns...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Authors have rightfully pointed out how international conservation interests have been mobilized to justify continued foreign intervention also after Tanzanian independence (Neumann, 1998;Schauer, 2018). This discourse on East African nature as world heritage in need of international protection and aid has been embraced by the Tanzanian government and wildlife authorities, too, which have used the spectacle of the Great Migration to buttress the country's extensive wildlife tourism industry (Gardner, 2016;Lekan, 2020).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Airplanes, cameras, computers, wildebeests: The technological mediation of spaces for humans and wildlife in the Serengeti since 1950

Schleper

2021

Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space

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Drawing on the concept of technological mediation, this article examines the spatial politics of observation technologies and associated practices that have been used to monitor the movement of migratory wildebeests in the Serengeti from the 1950s until the 2000s. It shows that key technologies, and the types of research collaborations they sustained, mediated notably different normative ideas about human–wildlife interaction and the sharing of space in and around protected areas. During the 1950s and 1960s, observations of animal migration were conducted by airplane. Direct observation was characterized by the study of movement of migratory ungulates, such as the wildebeest, and humans across space in real time. Aerial observations depended on a close cooperation between scientists and park authorities, and on the knowledge and observational skills of game wardens. The experience of the movement of animals and people in real time allowed, to some degree, for experimentation with forms of human land-use. During the 1970s, many small-scale and short-term projects shifted the research focus toward data recording by camera. Aerial photographs created supposedly complete spatial overviews of inhabitation, which supported interpretations of spatial conflicts between humans occupying the park’s surrounding areas and animal populations inside the park. From the 1980s onward, computer technology allowed for long-term calculations of past and future trends in population densities of individual species. The understanding of the wildebeest as a keystone species and the Serengeti as a baseline ecosystem turned communities of local pastoralists and agriculturalists into a future threat. As observation technologies are here to stay, it remains important to pay attention to technologies’ potential roles in creating additional distances between researchers and research subjects. Historical insights, such as the ones presented in this article, can help reflect on how various forms of remote sensing may mediate normative views on human–wildlife interactions and consequentially affect local livelihoods.

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Our Gigantic Zoo: A German Quest to Save the Serengeti by Thomas M. Lekan

Cited by 2 publications

References 0 publications

Before Biodiversity: Trajectories of National Parks in Latin America (1930s–1980s)

Before Biodiversity: Trajectories of National Parks in Latin America (1930s–1980s)

Airplanes, cameras, computers, wildebeests: The technological mediation of spaces for humans and wildlife in the Serengeti since 1950

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