When we went to Africa, we experienced some astounding wildlife reserves including Chobe National Park and Kruger National Park. But sadly, we did not get to go to the Serengeti. That is still a dream. I had a chance to go to it earlier this year, but that did not work out.
According to my cousin, Erich Vogt, the Serengeti is the Garden of Eden. He understand, I believe, that the world was sacred. The Masai word “Serengeti” means “endless plains.” Well, the Serengeti is no longer the Garden of Eden and it is certainly not endless. But we once thought it was endless. Wish it were so.
The wildebeest is certainly one o f the ugliest of animals, but it endless fascinating. The Serengeti contains millions of wildebeest, hundreds of thousands of gazelles and many other species in astonishing abundance. Yet scientists now know that the Serengeti requires enormous grasslands to support such abundance and if those grasslands are lost or degraded the entire incredible ecosystem can collapse. The wilderness is finite. It is fragile, and it needs protection.
Frankly that is exactly what happened in North America. Now you can drive from Manitoba to Arizona as we have done a number of times and see very little wildlife. Nearly none. That is a pity because when Europeans contacted North America there were more wild life than all of Africa. That seems unbelievable today, but that is what happened. We lost those wild spaces. They were ploughed over and built over. This to my mind is a clear sign of decline.
In 1968 astronauts for the first time travelled far enough into space to see the entire globe at one time. They broadcast amazing photographs of this pale blue dot floating in the void. It was a remarkable photograph. It changed the attitudes of a lot of people to our planet. Many of us realized that the world was limited. We could see it was limited. But it did not change us enough. We still have not changed enough. We still need a new attitude to nature.
David Attenborough said a fundamental truth was revealed the day that photograph was broadcast:
“Our home was not limitless. There was an edge to our existence. It was a rediscovery of a fundamental truth: we are ultimately bound by and reliant upon the finite natural world around us.”
That fact must settle in. We must really come understand it. We must live that truth. Or we are destined to continue desecrating our sacred world. We must retain the sacred in the earth.