Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the thing.
Speaker 1: Africa can cast a spell on people. Today. Both of
Speaker 1: my guests, Peter Beard and Richard Ruggero, have attempted to
Speaker 1: tackle the issues Africa struggles with in very different ways,
Speaker 1: one with art and one with government policy. When you
Speaker 1: see the skies of Africa, they are so huge and
Speaker 1: you almost look into the eye of God. I can't
Speaker 1: explain it. That's something that enters your soul. That's Peter
Speaker 1: Beard's wife, Najma, were at their house and mont talk
Speaker 1: having a light lunch, anything like order. I know those
Speaker 1: skies she's talking about. I've been to Africa. I went
Speaker 1: to n and stayed in natal in South Africa. We
Speaker 1: were there for two months, living in a house on
Speaker 1: the edge of a game reserve. Just before we arrived,
Speaker 1: there were two lethal attacks by wild animals in the area.
Speaker 1: Signs were posted everywhere advising caution. It seemed everyone carried
Speaker 1: a weapon. I remember in eighteen year old production assistant
Speaker 1: on the film turned out to be packing a gun
Speaker 1: underneath his shirt. Africa certainly did feel wild and here
Speaker 1: I am interested in all of Peter Beard seventy four
Speaker 1: was born in New York City. I don't get tired ever.
Speaker 1: Went to the same schools as his father, Buckley pomfret Yale.
Speaker 1: His great grandfather was a railroad tycoon. His grandfather was
Speaker 1: heir to the lower Lard tobacco fortune. We go to
Speaker 1: the tuxedo clubs. My grandfather there pure lar Lard. But
Speaker 1: it's a great portrait. Peter Beard first felt the pull
Speaker 1: of Africa at age seven when he stepped into the
Speaker 1: African Hall of the American Museum of Natural History. Ten
Speaker 1: years later, at seventeen, he reached the continent with a
Speaker 1: camera in hand. I always take him pictures. Since you
Speaker 1: were a child before you were born, since you were
Speaker 1: a child, who encouraged you to do that? Why did that?
Speaker 1: Photography wasn't a mainstream hobby back then. I did have
Speaker 1: a very advanced grandmother, my mother's mother, who wanted to
Speaker 1: buy me a camera. My parents wouldn't let her. Eventually
Speaker 1: she won and I got a camera in about a
Speaker 1: void lander. Hey, now, don't you gonna sit here and
Speaker 1: criticize me? After Najma, Peter's wife sits about twenty ft
Speaker 1: from us, That is, when she's not pacing the grounds
Speaker 1: or lighting a cigarette, or checking on the food being served.
Speaker 1: So what was photography then to you? Meaning when you started,
Speaker 1: you know, it was very juvenile and like sentimental. I
Speaker 1: just liked number one, how easy it was. Number two.
Speaker 1: I was going to school, and you graduate and get
Speaker 1: out and get pictures of the guys in your class.
Speaker 1: I got all my group. If you ever interested, I've
Speaker 1: got all my albums in New York. Clearly you're someone
Speaker 1: who there's a lot of things you could have done right.
Speaker 1: You grew up in a very very comfortable family. You
Speaker 1: look like a movie star. When did things with you
Speaker 1: with photography? Really? When did it take hold of you?
Speaker 1: I never did. I'm just into subjects and things that
Speaker 1: are interesting. You can see that in the pictures, are right,
Speaker 1: don't You don't consider yourself a photographer? No, I'm not.
Speaker 1: If I can avoid it, you can see yourself a
Speaker 1: writer who takes pictures. I would say an escapist, right, Why?
Speaker 1: Because I went to art school. But I don't like
Speaker 1: the word art and I don't like the words. I
Speaker 1: don't like what's happening in the art world at Chelsea
Speaker 1: Million Studios there. I like things that are exciting or
Speaker 1: make you laugh, or something like that. Was your father artistic? No? No,
Speaker 1: did he collect art? Was Anson weird? Artistic? Peter turned
Speaker 1: to his brother, also named Anson, who was visiting that
Speaker 1: day and sitting on a bench behind us. Eventually Anson
Speaker 1: would join in the conversation, what did you study at
Speaker 1: Yale when you went to Yale? Well? When did you
Speaker 1: go to Yale? Because you because you sound so I
Speaker 1: don't know what the word is. Um, what did you say?
Speaker 1: The word of us crazy? That's his wife says, volunteered
Speaker 1: the word crazy. You sound so unorthodox. So I'm assuming
Speaker 1: did you go to Yale out of obligation? Was that
Speaker 1: like a family thing? Well? I was you want to
Speaker 1: go to you? I was going as a pre med
Speaker 1: and I suddenly realized going into pre med. And I'd
Speaker 1: also been to Africa one to two visits. Humans are
Speaker 1: the problem, so imagine being in the business of saving
Speaker 1: fucking humans. You went to Yale for what? What'd you started? Art?
Speaker 1: Did you finish? Oh? Yeah, you graduated. I did history
Speaker 1: of art, you know, all those things, American studies, and
Speaker 1: then I went to art school and I did Joseph
Speaker 1: Albert's in the art school. And when you left Yale,
Speaker 1: where'd you go Africa? So so you knew you've been
Speaker 1: to Africa before before you finished with Charles Darwin's grandson,
Speaker 1: by the way, And what was the genesis of that?
Speaker 1: Was your father an adventure people in your family adventurers
Speaker 1: like fa the Room with Woolworth Donahue and who did
Speaker 1: the greatest Safari's all with a hunter I've used never
Speaker 1: went never bird into bird shooting and stuff like that.
Speaker 1: It was not an Africa file. No, he had had
Speaker 1: a salmon river. He's salmon fishing and deer hunting and
Speaker 1: he was a great guy, but he was not really adventurous.
Speaker 1: I mean, I hate to use this phrase, but who
Speaker 1: turned you onto Africa? Well, I guess it was with
Speaker 1: this Quentin Ken's Darwin's grandson. We went South Africa, Madagascar, Kenya.
Speaker 1: So it was a damn good time and what happened
Speaker 1: to when you were there became an important part of
Speaker 1: your life. Well, I've got a lot of important not
Speaker 1: important pictures. No, I got a lot of lousy pictures,
Speaker 1: but subject matter, you know, Ryan knows things like that.
Speaker 1: But it was my interviews introduction to Charles Darwin. And
Speaker 1: I think the elimination of Darwin from our school studies,
Speaker 1: and the way he's been swept under the rug is
Speaker 1: at the root of almost all of our problems. Why
Speaker 1: we don't know anything about biology, zoology, ecology or nature.
Speaker 1: We are enemies of nature. Don't ever forget it. Peter
Speaker 1: Beard continued to go back to Africa. He made his
Speaker 1: reputation with a book called The End of the Game,
Speaker 1: published in nineteen sixty five, which chronicles the starvation of
Speaker 1: tens of thousands of elephants and other animals in Kenya's
Speaker 1: Tsavo National Park. He had purchased forty five acres in
Speaker 1: Kenya outside Nairobi and set up what he called Hog Ranch,
Speaker 1: named for the resident ward hogs in the area. I've
Speaker 1: still got a great place. Peter's photographs in the End
Speaker 1: of the Game stay with you. They are stark. Peter
Speaker 1: described the African Hall at the Museum all those years
Speaker 1: ago as possessing quote a darkness you could feel unquote.
Speaker 1: The same phrase comes to mind when looking at the
Speaker 1: image is in his book. It was overwhelmingly obvious that
Speaker 1: this enormous park was being eaten alive by an overpopulation
Speaker 1: of elephants. Because they'd had a nine year anti poaching campaign.
Speaker 1: They arrested all the traditional hunters. They were locked up.
Speaker 1: The population soared ate the trees and poaching was used
Speaker 1: as an excuse to continue raising money. What's the status
Speaker 1: of Tsavo now? What are the issues there now? Well,
Speaker 1: the bush is slowly growing back, but the cargated iron
Speaker 1: huts have expanded from villages into little cities. The human
Speaker 1: touches is like a disease. I mean, nothing they can
Speaker 1: do about Africans in Africa. Who's going to do anything?
Speaker 1: The national parks were pretty much held aside for for
Speaker 1: for accommodation housing, uh, you know, ship houses. And what's
Speaker 1: the status there now? A population? It was around five
Speaker 1: and a half million when I arrived to over forty
Speaker 1: million starvation and begging and going around the world looking
Speaker 1: for freebees. Yeah. At this point, Peter's brother, now with
Speaker 1: cigar in hand, raises his hand. What does Peter think
Speaker 1: about the fact that Bill Gates has put so much
Speaker 1: money into AIDS in South Africa while President u Becky
Speaker 1: pays no attention aids. There is really a density dependent phenomenon.
Speaker 1: The more of it the better. Frankly, Kenya is now
Speaker 1: way over forty million from five and a half. Just
Speaker 1: think about that. That means nobody lives happily. Everybody's a crook,
Speaker 1: everybody is on the make, everybody's sitting begging outside the
Speaker 1: American embassy. It's it's just cuts the country right off.
Speaker 1: You can't you can't survive population pollution on this level. Now,
Speaker 1: when you said that AIDS was a density dependent Yeah,
Speaker 1: and the more of it the better. Your wife was
Speaker 1: on her feet right away. Well, that's because everybody's very,
Speaker 1: very sentimental and they think forty million Africans is going
Speaker 1: to do a country good. No, it's not. Peter and
Speaker 1: Najma met in ninety five. Do you want to know?
Speaker 1: Nahma is Peter's third wife, after Sherrod Tigues and socialite
Speaker 1: Mini Cushing. Peter met Najma in Kenya, where she was born.
Speaker 1: I'd grown up there when I was educated in Europe.
Speaker 1: So when I came back, and how how much time
Speaker 1: have you spent back in Africa for the last you met?
Speaker 1: Eight five, So that's over twenty years ago. Well we
Speaker 1: used to live there a year at the time, a
Speaker 1: year there, years years ago. Well, god, yes, over twenty
Speaker 1: five years. So in the past, over how much time
Speaker 1: have you spent in Africa during that? Not enough? All?
Speaker 1: Not much? But is it? Is it safe to say
Speaker 1: though that Africa cast this tremendous shadow over both of you.
Speaker 1: You're both fairly my soul. It's the best place to be,
Speaker 1: but it's also increasingly diminished. How has he changed in
Speaker 1: the time you've known him? What was he like when
Speaker 1: you met him? Uh? He was socially incredibly out there,
Speaker 1: but I thought of it as totally normal. I thought
Speaker 1: this was an incredible human being who done incredible things.
Speaker 1: But I do remember this really funny moment. We'd gone
Speaker 1: to some shrink for some weird reason. I can't remember
Speaker 1: what it was, but and Peter left the room to
Speaker 1: go to the loop, and the chap just looked at
Speaker 1: me said, if I were you, young lady, I'd make
Speaker 1: a run for it, but you didn't. Why. I'm a
Speaker 1: really stubborn wench. That's really all. I'm woln or right
Speaker 1: all up, basically. But he's a very colorful character. He's
Speaker 1: a colorful, exhausting character. Yes, that's true. You're married now
Speaker 1: and how many five years of how many children do
Speaker 1: you have one? Just one? You had no children prior.
Speaker 1: I'm not I'm not really a reproducer, You're not. We
Speaker 1: just have the divine zar. I have said that Zara
Speaker 1: was an accident. I love accidents and everything I do,
Speaker 1: I love accidents, and people criticize me that I told
Speaker 1: him before this interview. If he ever said I would
Speaker 1: literally attack him. What's the matter with an accident? I
Speaker 1: think of Francis Bacon visual word looking for accidents. But
Speaker 1: you were a famous Uh what's the word? What should
Speaker 1: I say? What should I call? He was a famous?
Speaker 1: Thank you? You're a famous libertine? People say, and you
Speaker 1: you number three last years? How did that happen? What's
Speaker 1: the difference? Well, you learn, you get better picking something,
Speaker 1: you're better picking, you get a better pick better and
Speaker 1: h then you just get in a sort of prayer
Speaker 1: position and go forward. So in an age where people
Speaker 1: in the modern world, I mean the world is divided
Speaker 1: between people who don't know you at all, people who
Speaker 1: know you as a photographer and the writer of these
Speaker 1: books and this adventurer and so forth. They know you
Speaker 1: as a famous socialite, if you will, they know you
Speaker 1: as all these things. And then there's young kids who
Speaker 1: served the internet who know you that you're the guy
Speaker 1: that got crushed by the elephant on YouTube. Yeah, what
Speaker 1: was different that day from any every other day? That
Speaker 1: day we were out there, We had no security, no gun.
Speaker 1: It was Peter was helping a friend who was opening
Speaker 1: up a safari camp. We're basically on a picnic. We've
Speaker 1: done the a promotional shooting. Suddenly like fifteen elephants came
Speaker 1: over the hill a cowherd, you know, like they are.
Speaker 1: You don't get bulls that at that age. And it
Speaker 1: was on the very It's just it's another population story.
Speaker 1: It was on the edge of Tanzania Kuca Mountain and
Speaker 1: elephants come in and grab a cabbage at night and
Speaker 1: they get shot. So I'm sure this is a herd
Speaker 1: that had been shot up, but they were very skittish,
Speaker 1: so they take the bullet and keep moving. They don't
Speaker 1: go down, They just shoot him to scare him. Now
Speaker 1: they take the bullet and move. You know, that doesn't
Speaker 1: do any harm than her Well through they shooting at night,
Speaker 1: you know, a big black thing air bam, and you
Speaker 1: just have a lot of wounding. Um And this female
Speaker 1: gave us a demo, which is totally normal. We ran back.
Speaker 1: I was in long pants early morning wet grass. The
Speaker 1: elephants went back up the hill, so to speak, and
Speaker 1: we just stood there. The son's a bitch. This matriarch
Speaker 1: came again, so then she starts coming. We start running
Speaker 1: again and make it feel happy. But it wasn't stopping.
Speaker 1: And I looked into the elephant on an ant hill
Speaker 1: and think his head butted here. Well, no, no, no,
Speaker 1: it's many things. I was up in the air and
Speaker 1: down and the camera took off. I think we'd run
Speaker 1: far enough so that it knew we weren't dangerous. The
Speaker 1: herd came around. The herd was it was actually almost
Speaker 1: worth it. Uh, that should have been the title of
Speaker 1: the boy Almost worth it. I was completely blind by
Speaker 1: the way my optic nerve had been bounced off. I
Speaker 1: couldn't see a goddamn thing. I had a huge hole
Speaker 1: in my leg went right through here, and my hip
Speaker 1: was broken in seven or eight places at this point.
Speaker 1: By the way in the interview, I want to mention,
Speaker 1: Beard is hiking up his shorts and showing in the
Speaker 1: innermost portion of his thigh. The closest area to his
Speaker 1: actual personality itself is this hideous gash a hole in
Speaker 1: his leg. So anyway, there was an amazing gaping hole
Speaker 1: and there was no blood coming up, by the way,
Speaker 1: but I couldn't see it. I got splintered hips. I
Speaker 1: don't I didn't get speared because I couldn't see the thing.
Speaker 1: And um, but did you think when that happened, did
Speaker 1: you think that was it? Did you thought you thought?
Speaker 1: You thought that was it? Well, you can't escape an elephant.
Speaker 1: You thought that was the end? Do you think how romantic? No?
Speaker 1: I thought the parts are I just finished her book.
Speaker 1: Um no, I was just felt like an idiot. So
Speaker 1: then how long did it take you to recover? You were?
Speaker 1: You were? You were flat on your back for months? Correct?
Speaker 1: I bled out going into the hospital. It was about
Speaker 1: four hours to get to the hospital. I eventually had
Speaker 1: to be flown too. I see, they think that's what
Speaker 1: did you just say? No no roads? So the man
Speaker 1: who complained that roads have ruined Africa is the man
Speaker 1: is saying going to no fucking roads here. It was
Speaker 1: a very bumpy little ride. But even in your in
Speaker 1: your way and yeah, I mean, you don't seem like
Speaker 1: somebody who's eager to take a bow for this or
Speaker 1: anything else. But in your way through your work through art,
Speaker 1: through photography. Do you think that you've been responsible for
Speaker 1: some of the uh, the good that's come there in
Speaker 1: terms of casting a light on that at all? Truthfully,
Speaker 1: I know nothing at all, no positive result. I know
Speaker 1: lots of people look at these pops. They don't even
Speaker 1: see that there's a starvation scene. They see ivory, They think, ohvations.
Speaker 1: Peter's brother Anson speaks up again, saying he's heard him
Speaker 1: described as a conservationist. I'm for a conservation, but it's
Speaker 1: mostly a con that's the trouble. It's sentimental. Buy an
Speaker 1: elephant or drink a lion and acre so some of
Speaker 1: them have to die. Well, the way human spreading. The
Speaker 1: whole lot of the answer is limiting human development. You've
Speaker 1: got population pollution is the key, and that that's the thing.
Speaker 1: But I'm afraid it's partly due to Hitler. You can't
Speaker 1: talk about population dynamics. You never hear the word, do you.
Speaker 1: You never hear pecking order, You never hear any of
Speaker 1: the words that relate to all the struggles that are
Speaker 1: going on there because we have decided not to talk
Speaker 1: about any of the realities. But it's do gooder conservation.
Speaker 1: It's sentimental or shit. What we're talking about in essences
Speaker 1: is changing human behavior. Richard Ruggero is Chief of the
Speaker 1: Near East, South, Asia and Africa at the Division of
Speaker 1: International Conservation at the US Fish and Wildlife Service. Africa
Speaker 1: called out to him too. He joined the Peace Corps.
Speaker 1: He was placed in the Northern Central African Republic. Richard
Speaker 1: spent most of the nineteen eighties and nineties living in Africa,
Speaker 1: and he doesn't see things that differently from photographer Peter Beard.
Speaker 1: Richard Rogero has spent over thirty years in conservation. His
Speaker 1: dissertation from nine was on the plight of the African elephant,
Speaker 1: a problem he's still trying to tackle. You know, I
Speaker 1: could describe it that if God forbid, what was happening
Speaker 1: to elephants were happening to people, we would call it
Speaker 1: a massive genocide. They're being exterminated for ivory on a
Speaker 1: mass level, correct using the latest technology nets, weapons, cell phones,
Speaker 1: sat phones, vehicles, aircraft, helicopters, and the ease by which
Speaker 1: massive amounts of ivory can be illegally shipped to markets
Speaker 1: has never been greater, and it is primarily for ivory.
Speaker 1: Is an ivory driven market. Primarily, you know, certainly there
Speaker 1: are some of the other uses as well. While bush
Speaker 1: meat people eat elephants in what regions of Africa? Do
Speaker 1: they They don't export that meat, do They're not really.
Speaker 1: Most of it is consumed either in rural villages, but
Speaker 1: increasingly and more disturbingly, it's exported to cities within Africa.
Speaker 1: The problem there is that it produces a market that's very,
Speaker 1: very difficult to satiate. Is it labeled as elephant meat
Speaker 1: when it's sold in more it's not labeled so much
Speaker 1: as you go to a market stall and the meats
Speaker 1: there and the person selling it will tell you what
Speaker 1: it is. It's fairly obvious to look at it. So
Speaker 1: people in African society, not just impoverished people, they eat
Speaker 1: elephant meat and that's a food staple to them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean the impoverished people who eat elephant meat opportunistically sporadically.
Speaker 1: Is nothing new about that, and a lot of people
Speaker 1: would say there's nothing wrong about that given a sustainable
Speaker 1: level of off take. The problem here is that in
Speaker 1: some cases there's an additional inducement to eat often meet
Speaker 1: number one, it's a bush meet in many places. I'm
Speaker 1: speaking primarily of central Africa where you ask the question
Speaker 1: where does this happen most? It happens all over Africa,
Speaker 1: but mostly in Central Africa. At this point you say
Speaker 1: Central Africa, are there governments there that condone this more
Speaker 1: and encourage this more than others? No, the culprit I
Speaker 1: wouldn't say that they openly condone it. It's just by
Speaker 1: negligence or in action it effectively causes the problem to
Speaker 1: be worse. There are some countries that are very very
Speaker 1: good at it and make really good earnest efforts, such
Speaker 1: as in Central Africa. Gabon is clearly a leader, very
Speaker 1: progressive president who might be the greenest president on Earth.
Speaker 1: Ali Bungo is his name, and um the system, the ethos,
Speaker 1: the government and many people and even down to villages
Speaker 1: are very supportive of the concept of sustainable off take
Speaker 1: or respecting laws. It's not a perfect place. The problem
Speaker 1: there is poachers are coming in very well armed from
Speaker 1: across borders and they're killing elephants at an incredible rate.
Speaker 1: So Gabon is working very hard on that, and that
Speaker 1: does contrast with some countries who either lack the political
Speaker 1: will or maybe this is more important, lack the capacity
Speaker 1: to do anything about it now um, the idea that
Speaker 1: Kenya and areas like that, which are probably the most
Speaker 1: well known, I would imagine. I think that the people
Speaker 1: have who have that romanticized as Dennison, you know, Peter Beard,
Speaker 1: Meryl Streep and Redford getting on a train together or
Speaker 1: get on a biplane together. And that's not the highest
Speaker 1: concentration of elephant. No. No. But when you describe the
Speaker 1: percentage of the populations in Kenya now um receiving increased pressure,
Speaker 1: that's a manifestation of the great symptom. The symptom is poaching,
Speaker 1: the symptom is habit destruction. The disease is something else,
Speaker 1: and I think that's what Peter Beard alludes to. What
Speaker 1: do you think it is, Well, it's a human induced problem.
Speaker 1: Nature has some problems that people are not responsible for.
Speaker 1: I mean, you can talk about volcanoes, tsunamies. People aren't
Speaker 1: responsible for that. But many of the problems that nature,
Speaker 1: the wild wildlife experience are at the hands of man.
Speaker 1: To coin a phrase, So the problem is basically people's
Speaker 1: attitudes about wildlife in general, about elephants specifically. It's a
Speaker 1: function of shortsightedness. It's a function of apathy. It's a
Speaker 1: function of greed and it's a function of human numbers.
Speaker 1: Is it fair to say? And I don't have a
Speaker 1: sophisticated analogy here, but would you put poachers, even with
Speaker 1: their high powered weaponry and satellite phones and and aviation
Speaker 1: equipment and so forth, would you put them in the
Speaker 1: category more with like people who are making moonshine during
Speaker 1: prohibition and it's more of a kind of a rag
Speaker 1: tag bunch. It's not that sophisticated or they more the
Speaker 1: equivalent of Mexican drug lords who are actually controlling the
Speaker 1: regions politically and killing the political leadership that opposes them
Speaker 1: and terrorizing. How sophisticated is poaching in Africa in terms
Speaker 1: of its political power? Both exists the unsophisticated, the poacher
Speaker 1: who maybe has a fabricated shotgun or uses snares or poison,
Speaker 1: and that still exists. It's been the case for a
Speaker 1: long time. It's the relative proportion of poachers. It's the
Speaker 1: predominance now of these more sophisticated, more aggressive, frequently militarized
Speaker 1: poachers that's happening, and that's what's causing this chronic problem
Speaker 1: that we've seen it. Ebbs and it flows, but it
Speaker 1: has gotten dramatically worse in recent years. It's a result of,
Speaker 1: as I say, the market for ivory and the ease
Speaker 1: by which it can be obtained in technology, guns, helicopters,
Speaker 1: political background, indifference, those points come into play. Is it
Speaker 1: fair to say that that in Gabon, where Ali Bongo
Speaker 1: is having some degree of success, what's he doing and
Speaker 1: or not doing that's leading to that success that other
Speaker 1: places it's getting by them. First, the country or an
Speaker 1: individual or an institution needs to be aware of the problem.
Speaker 1: And I think you know, the problem is becoming very
Speaker 1: conscious in the minds of the public. Certainly politicians um
Speaker 1: in Africa are aware of the problem. The next step
Speaker 1: is the political will to do something about it, and
Speaker 1: the third step is having the capacity to act on
Speaker 1: the political will. Well, Bungo has the political will and
Speaker 1: he is developing. And that's what my organization Fish and
Speaker 1: Wildlife helps them with is to develop the capacity to
Speaker 1: deal with the problem that the awareness is brought to
Speaker 1: everybody's attention. So the answer to your question succinctly is
Speaker 1: he's aware of the problem, he's willing to do something
Speaker 1: about it, and he's mustering the capacity and the wherewithal
Speaker 1: to actually do it. When was the first time you
Speaker 1: were aware of Peter Beard's photography and his work there
Speaker 1: in Africa. What was your response to that when you
Speaker 1: first saw that. I was first aware of it. I
Speaker 1: think I lived in Kenya in the late eighties. We
Speaker 1: knew that Peter was out in hog Ranch and um
Speaker 1: occasionally you'd see him across a crowded room at a
Speaker 1: at um some sort of function, But um, I never
Speaker 1: had close contact with him at all. We just lived
Speaker 1: in the same place, the same country. My reaction was
Speaker 1: that he is an artist and he is doing some
Speaker 1: fantastic I was first just physically attracted to the beauty
Speaker 1: of his photographs and how he put together his books.
Speaker 1: But thinking about it farther down the road, I mean
Speaker 1: I was struck by almost quaintness. Isn't the right word.
Speaker 1: That it was a reflection of a of a time
Speaker 1: that was fleeting. You alluded to Isaac Dennison and the
Speaker 1: Hollywood images of what Kenya was like. Certainly Peter's work
Speaker 1: had a great deal of that sort of nostalgic feel,
Speaker 1: very very beautifully presented. But to me, there's a great
Speaker 1: function in that and and the great function now decades
Speaker 1: after he produced his main book or his his artistic displays,
Speaker 1: the photography mainly is it shows what was it. Peter's
Speaker 1: work is a it's a sitegeist. It's it's a representation
Speaker 1: of what things were in the fifties and sixties in Kenya.
Speaker 1: And by contrasting that, we can see how far things
Speaker 1: have gone. And that enables us to predict the future
Speaker 1: or to foresee it, or to anticipate it. And if
Speaker 1: we can't do that, we can't deal with it. We
Speaker 1: have to be proactive. That's the secret to conservation. You
Speaker 1: have to anticipate the trend to be able to proactively
Speaker 1: deal with it. In Peter's book really gives us that
Speaker 1: that sort of nostalgic or that retrospective you that's very
Speaker 1: helpful to us. When I look at his pictures, it's
Speaker 1: almost like he's Frederick Remington's exactly. Yeah, that's that's my point.
Speaker 1: You know, it's just from an artistic standpoint, it's fantastic stuff.
Speaker 1: But as I say, as a historical perspective and a reminder,
Speaker 1: it's it has a function as well as just an
Speaker 1: aesthetic value. But for the sake of this program, if
Speaker 1: you had to give it a word or a phrase,
Speaker 1: how bad is it right now? Uh? My thirty two
Speaker 1: years of experience of watching it very closely, this this
Speaker 1: is a nightmare. It is unbelievably bad, and we've been
Speaker 1: seeing it accelerating in that negative trend. So once again
Speaker 1: it's it's the rate of change. What's the hotspot? Where
Speaker 1: is it really like out of control Central Africa? What
Speaker 1: country the Western Congo basin where there's still a lot
Speaker 1: of elephants really getting hammered d r C. The demock
Speaker 1: at a Republic of Congo is so degraded already. For example,
Speaker 1: Ian Douglas Hamilton's estimated three fifty to four hundred thousand
Speaker 1: elephants there when he did his big continental survey. They're
Speaker 1: about twelve thousand left now, so it's pretty much the
Speaker 1: end of the game there for elephants. But farther in
Speaker 1: the Western Congo basin, Gabo is an example, the Republic
Speaker 1: of Congo, that's the smaller one. There's still some elephants.
Speaker 1: They've been greatly reduced, but there's still populations that are meaningful. Oh,
Speaker 1: that's hard to answer. Um. Rough roughly fifty thou of
Speaker 1: thousands sure, there's one park called me in Kebe that
Speaker 1: has probably twice as many forest elephants as the entire
Speaker 1: d RC. It's a place that the poachers no. Um
Speaker 1: just received a report yesterday by the the Echo Guards
Speaker 1: who are out looking at it, and despite massive intervention
Speaker 1: by the government of Gabon, there are still big pockets
Speaker 1: of poachers. So this is this is a problem. That
Speaker 1: sure great to point out that there's political will in
Speaker 1: Gabon and that they have a motivated National Parks Agency,
Speaker 1: But when you're up against the scale of the problem,
Speaker 1: the intensity, the danger of running into people who aren't
Speaker 1: just going to run away when they're confronted, but are
Speaker 1: going to stand and fight, this is a whole different dimension.
Speaker 1: So the answer to your question is how bad is it?
Speaker 1: It's horrible, It's terrible, and it's getting worse. Um, what's
Speaker 1: the political situation? Then, what's the government situation there? Well,
Speaker 1: DRC has been challenged by civil war for decades. Let
Speaker 1: me put it this way, it's easy to see how
Speaker 1: the government can be preoccupied with more urgent needs. That
Speaker 1: must be the constant problem in some aspects of that.
Speaker 1: Every country has to have priorities when you're talking about
Speaker 1: putting your limited ability into saving people's lives versus saving
Speaker 1: elephants lives. Well, there's an obvious priority there when you're there,
Speaker 1: when you're when you're dealing with the people there, are
Speaker 1: you encouraged by the amount of people, the percentage of people,
Speaker 1: their native people who care about this issue when you
Speaker 1: think are really willing to take action or are they
Speaker 1: in the in the minority? Well, it depends on where
Speaker 1: you are and how you ask the question. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's I lived with them for years, but you ask
Speaker 1: them the questions how do they feel about elephants? So
Speaker 1: what does living alongside of elephants mean to you? What
Speaker 1: do you need to do things that are good for
Speaker 1: that coexistence? And the answer is highly variable. In some places,
Speaker 1: elephants don't really mess with people. They stay separate and
Speaker 1: um that's the way both elephants and people prefer it.
Speaker 1: In other places, agriculture tends to is tending more and
Speaker 1: more as it expands to get into traditional elephant ranges,
Speaker 1: and so that that interfaces now very obvious. And usually
Speaker 1: when people in elephants are in conflict, elephants lose um first,
Speaker 1: people lose their crops and sometimes get trampled, and that's
Speaker 1: that's very serious. It's tragic. But eventually the elephants get bullets.
Speaker 1: People love deer and Connecticut until they eat your flowers
Speaker 1: and they want them shot. Sure, So you know, it
Speaker 1: would be a similar thing if you were to ask
Speaker 1: somebody whose apple crops are being destroyed by deer, what
Speaker 1: do you think a deer? And they're going to tell
Speaker 1: you that they're not very pleasant neighbors and their bad
Speaker 1: garden pests. On the other hand, somebody who isn't affected
Speaker 1: negatively by them can relate to their esthetic value. Africans
Speaker 1: can do that. Many of them are very proud of elephants.
Speaker 1: It's a part of their culture and their heritage. But
Speaker 1: living with them is costly in a lot of ways,
Speaker 1: and sometimes there needs to be an incentive, and the
Speaker 1: distancentive is enforcing the lawn. Frankly, while that's very important,
Speaker 1: it's only a short term solution that really doesn't get
Speaker 1: to the cru of the issue. The crux is what
Speaker 1: we're talking about, and that is the attitudes of people
Speaker 1: and their willingness to coexist with large animals that compete
Speaker 1: with people for water, for space, or in some cases,
Speaker 1: are more profitable to them dead than alive. So sure,
Speaker 1: it's it's an economic calculus, but it's not quite that simple.
Speaker 1: They're also values, pride, etcetera. One of the things that
Speaker 1: Beard said, which was more all encompassing on this theme
Speaker 1: of the sentimentality of the conservation movement was you know
Speaker 1: that evolution has to be allowed to take its course
Speaker 1: in Africa in all ways, and and and then he
Speaker 1: said that that AIDS was a blessing on the African continent,
Speaker 1: that you know, something has got to happen there to
Speaker 1: reduce that population. And do you find that in Africa?
Speaker 1: Of course, they don't have an economy that compares with
Speaker 1: out of the United States. A few places do, But
Speaker 1: do you find that what's going on in economic policy
Speaker 1: and social policy and agricultural food, energy, things that they
Speaker 1: need for their human population to survive and to develop,
Speaker 1: are those so bad that that it's understandable that the
Speaker 1: elephants are going to follow by the wayside In some places, Um,
Speaker 1: all of those factors help. In some places they're a
Speaker 1: net negative. You know, Africa is a big, diverse continent,
Speaker 1: and certainly there are examples of how all of those
Speaker 1: factors can work to the favor of the natural system,
Speaker 1: and there are certainly examples that in their absence or
Speaker 1: when they're poorly applied, when economic development or agricultural policy,
Speaker 1: or all of the things you mentioned. Forestry, you know,
Speaker 1: Central African forests are being cut to provide hardwood for
Speaker 1: international markets. So so so so be making people aware
Speaker 1: of boycotting that market would be a step. Well, I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I wouldn't say boycotting is is the right term or
Speaker 1: the right approach. It's it's being an informed consumer. It's
Speaker 1: it's about having more manageable stewardship of manageable stewardship certification,
Speaker 1: but real certification that actually works and is transparent. This
Speaker 1: is not news to anybody who's who's thought or spoken
Speaker 1: about these things. But those practices are not yet perfected. UM.
Speaker 1: We have an idea that those tools can be applied
Speaker 1: very well and many of the things we're talking about
Speaker 1: our tools. Development as an incentive for conservation is is
Speaker 1: certainly known and it has been practiced, but it's still
Speaker 1: it's a work in progress. UM. Sport hunting, for example,
Speaker 1: can be an excellent tool to motivate and to derive
Speaker 1: financial benefits to people who have to make sacrifices to
Speaker 1: live with elephants, of sport, hunting, of what of elephants,
Speaker 1: of of lions, and the very controversial subjects. Of course,
Speaker 1: some people think elephants should never be hunted because they
Speaker 1: are extraordinary animals. Other people think of them as being
Speaker 1: subject to any economic um, motivation or initiative. So there's
Speaker 1: a wide spectrum of views that sort of get more
Speaker 1: into philosophy and ethics than anything else. What are your
Speaker 1: personal feelings about that? My biases, I've lived with elephants
Speaker 1: for years and years. I studied them for my doctor
Speaker 1: at I took considerable risks to study them and certainly
Speaker 1: to keep them alive, So I'm very biased. To me personally,
Speaker 1: shooting an elephant for fun, for entertainment is not cool. However,
Speaker 1: that doesn't deny the fact that other people find that
Speaker 1: okay and that there can be benefits from a well
Speaker 1: managed system. Look, if what Peter is saying is that
Speaker 1: wildlife needs to be managed, then I think he's correct.
Speaker 1: Elephants need to be managed, so do people. In essence,
Speaker 1: not the same way, obviously, but as the world becomes
Speaker 1: more crowded, it's incumbent on all of us to think
Speaker 1: of ways of making room for us all and not
Speaker 1: to sacrifice something like the African elephant because of our
Speaker 1: short sightedness or greed. I'm speaking of humanities, shortsightedness or greed.
Speaker 1: So that's the challenge. Why do you think people, I
Speaker 1: mean in the United States, where Americans are sadly as
Speaker 1: obsessed with their cable, telephone, internet bundling charges more than
Speaker 1: they are with the fate of species of animals around
Speaker 1: the world. Why should Americans care about what's happening to
Speaker 1: the great wildlife heritage in Africa. It comes down to
Speaker 1: valuing elephants, their existence, what it means to the world.
Speaker 1: Is the world a better place with or without elephants?
Speaker 1: Because that choice is being played out passively admittedly, but
Speaker 1: by our ineffectiveness or are in action, we're moving towards
Speaker 1: a time when elephants are so greatly reduced. If it
Speaker 1: matters to people that such remarkable creatures products of creation
Speaker 1: or evolution, as you choose, is the world a better
Speaker 1: place or is it greatly diminished by the loss of
Speaker 1: these animals? In my opinion, the world is a greatly
Speaker 1: diminished place. The quality of life on Earth is diminished
Speaker 1: when we lose key important things. There's a very practical
Speaker 1: function that elephants provide. They have ecological value. They spread seeds,
Speaker 1: they dig for water, they expose salt rich soils. In
Speaker 1: their absence, things change and call it evolution, but it's
Speaker 1: not a natural one because it's being caused by the
Speaker 1: problem we're talking about. So there is an aesthetic value
Speaker 1: to the world, there is a practical or ecological value
Speaker 1: to the world, and in some cases there's a and
Speaker 1: economic value to the world, and all of those things count.
Speaker 1: A quick thought think about where the North American bison
Speaker 1: was at the turn of the twentieth century. There are
Speaker 1: probably more bison, admittedly in their altered form, in North
Speaker 1: America now than there are elephants in Africa. And what
Speaker 1: does that mean. It means that people's attitude toward them.
Speaker 1: Maybe it's because rich landowners want to see the natural
Speaker 1: fauna and therefore make the sacrifice of dedicating their pasture
Speaker 1: land to them. Maybe it's because they like to eat
Speaker 1: beef alow um. But whatever the motivation is, bison have
Speaker 1: a value that justifies their populations. Going from a few
Speaker 1: hundred back in the dark days two maybe half a million.
Speaker 1: That says something. It's it's not an identical case. It's
Speaker 1: sometimes dangerous to compare across tax and across continents, but
Speaker 1: I think the concept is clear that unless people value
Speaker 1: elephants aesthetically, practically, ecologically, unless they value them, people will
Speaker 1: cease to have a motivation to preserve them. Remember what
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan said on Subterranean in Homesick Blues, you don't
Speaker 1: need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows. Sure, Okay, Well,
Speaker 1: you know I have a scientific background, and science is
Speaker 1: the basis of everything we do, and it needs to
Speaker 1: be there and it needs to be good science. But
Speaker 1: at the point we are now with what we're talking about,
Speaker 1: it's about people and understanding them and how to deal
Speaker 1: with their desires, their their characteristics. And that's what we're
Speaker 1: focusing on, and that's where a great deal of the
Speaker 1: hope is. You know, people are the problem, but they're
Speaker 1: also the solution. For more information on Richard bridgero the
Speaker 1: decimation of the elephants in Africa and what you can
Speaker 1: do to help, visit Here's the Thing dot org. You'll
Speaker 1: also see photographs by my first guest, Peter beard. It
Speaker 1: was overwhelmingly obvious that this enormous park was being eaten
Speaker 1: alive by an overpopulation of elephants. Because they've had a
Speaker 1: nine year anti poaching campaign, they arrested all the traditional hunters.
Speaker 1: They were locked up. The population soared ate the trees,
Speaker 1: and poaching was used as an excuse to continue raising money.
Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to here's the thing,
Speaker 1: m