issue Vi • Fall 2010
Speaking of Wholeness by cynthia travis
O
ne full moon ago, on safari in the Serengeti in Tanzania, I 40,000 square miles. It is one of the last expanses of its kind, home to watched a giraffe savor an acacia branch, relishing its long, millions of herbivores, including giraffes, elephants, antelopes of many sturdy thorns the size of toothpicks, and the tiny, tender leaves they kinds, and the famous migrating herds of wildebeest and zebra, along protected. Gingerly holding the branch in his lips, he curled his tongue with their predators – lions, cheetahs and leopards – and of course around the thorns and gently stripped them into his mouth. After a rich and varied bird, plant and reptilian life. few minutes, he turned away from the tree and ambled towards a shallow ravine. The trees had released their tannins, carried by the wind to Recently, the government of Tanzania approved a six lane highway that other trees and giraffes nearby: Time to move on. No more feasting here. will bifurcate the Serengeti from the coast all the way to Lake Victoria After about fifteen minutes of feeding, the trees know to do this so that is being touted as the means for providing much-needed roads as not to be consumed. I imagined the giraffe’s nostrils and the leaves for commerce and development to isolated inland villages. But it turns themselves tingling in the afternoon air. out that its otherwise inexplicable routing goes straight to the site of several gold mines owned and financed by American and Canadian In the streambed, a dozing jackal suddenly pricked up his ears, sat mining companies. (Tanzania is the third largest gold producer in up, then stood, rigid and listening, and trotted upstream towards the Africa, after South Africa and Ghana.) sound he had heard. David, our guide, carefully followed, inching Lake Victoria, originally known forward, until we came upon a as Ukerewe or Eye of the Rhino, pride of lions devouring an imis the largest tropical lake in the pala. The jackal, and David, had world and the world’s second heard the lions’ triumphant roar largest freshwater lake (after after the kill, a sound that eluded Lake Superior in the U.S.) The those of us with untrained ears. lake is shared by three countries: We drove close – no more than Uganda, Kenya and Tanzania. five feet from a lioness gnawing Lake Victoria is located at the on the rib cage, and sat in the fadfork of the huge Y-shaped Great ing light listening to the wind and Rift Valley, and its extended systhe cracking of bones. Soon the tem of lakes includes Lake Turhyenas would come, the vultures kana, Lake Albert, Lake Kivu, and marabou storks. Hyena scat Lake Tanganyika and others, all is chalk white because of all the of which would be opened up to bones they eat, finishing the skeldevelopment and pollution with eton after the lions are through. the construction of the highway. Giraffes and other ungulates eat hyena feces for the calcium. Prior to 1954, Lake Victoria’s A perfect system. No scarcity. biodiversity was remarkable, with Abundance without waste. over 500 species of fish and a super-efficient internal recycling The Serengeti ecosystem, about system that circulated nutrients 80% of which lies in Tanzania and biomass both vertically and and the other 20% in Kenya, is horizontally, converting massive a vast open grassland and mixed amounts of plant and animal degrass and woodland of about tritus into food and fertilizer. The giraffe savoring an acacia branch photo by cynthia travis
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