To conserve wildlife is to pay homage to nature’s gift to us
Dinesh Patel’s book, The Journey Within (AuthorHouse, 2015; 2009), a 256 page pictorial, is a profound experience. The collection of photographs in this book is not just another addition to the many books on Africa’s wildlife in existence. PHOTO | NATION
It is, therefore, not too much to be expected to protect wild animals. Animal conservation is not the ‘problem’ of the Kenya Wildlife Services or some mzungu, as many Kenyans tend to imagine, but a collective responsibility.
Indeed, what The Journey Within offers the audience is a close encounter with the photographer. From Nairobi National Park to Lake Nakuru National Park, Masai Mara National Reserve, Serengeti National Park/Ngorongoro Conservation Area, Amboseli National Park, Tsavo National Park to Samburu and Shaba National Park.
One imagines to be travelling with Dinesh Patel and his longtime safari companion, Praful Patel (editor of the book), and the rest of their support crew on the journeys that are celebrated in the tens of photos in the book.
That humankind has been quite unkind to nature is not in doubt. The media is full of stories of damaged environment, extinction of flora and fauna, flooding, hunger and starvation.
Calls to conserve the environment are becoming louder by the day even as industrialization and growing consumerism continue to contribute to the ravaging of the environment. In this inexorable march to ‘progress’ humankind seems determined to bulldoze everything in its way to build dams, superhighways, skyscrapers, shopping malls, exclusive suburban homes, modern mono-crop mega-farms etc. Very few seem to be able or willing to defend the environment.
