0:00:02 > 0:00:05The last remaining wild places on Earth -
0:00:05 > 0:00:07primordial,
0:00:07 > 0:00:10timeless, untouched by humans.
0:00:11 > 0:00:14But are they as pristine as we think?
0:00:17 > 0:00:21Ancient cities in the heart of the Amazon.
0:00:22 > 0:00:26The most iconic wild places shaped by man.
0:00:28 > 0:00:33Is wilderness just a figment of our imagination?
0:00:33 > 0:00:36How natural is the natural world?
0:00:52 > 0:00:55Nowhere speaks of wild nature more powerfully
0:00:55 > 0:00:58than the savannas of East Africa.
0:00:59 > 0:01:03And here one place has become iconic -
0:01:03 > 0:01:04Serengeti.
0:01:10 > 0:01:15For many, Serengeti is the embodiment of wild Africa.
0:01:19 > 0:01:23The Serengeti is that which is infinite,
0:01:23 > 0:01:25that which is tremendous,
0:01:25 > 0:01:29that which is beyond control.
0:01:29 > 0:01:31But is this place what it seems?
0:01:31 > 0:01:37A national park is typically an artificial set-up. It's just a zoo magnified.
0:01:39 > 0:01:44Is this primordial wilderness as timeless and unchanging as we imagined?
0:01:44 > 0:01:50There's an assumption that if you put a line around a park, it's going to stay like that.
0:01:50 > 0:01:52Nothing stays the same.
0:01:54 > 0:01:58Is Serengeti as natural as we think?
0:01:59 > 0:02:06Humans did have a very big influence in shaping the savanna fauna and almost certainly the plants as well.
0:02:06 > 0:02:10Behind the popular image of a pristine wilderness
0:02:10 > 0:02:14hides a far less natural history.
0:02:15 > 0:02:20A story that charts the fortunes of hunters and hunter-gatherers.
0:02:22 > 0:02:25Of devastating disease,
0:02:25 > 0:02:28war and battles for political dominance...
0:02:30 > 0:02:37..taking us right back to the origin of our species and the very nature of existence,
0:02:37 > 0:02:43the story of how a particular view of the wild came to shape Africa.
0:02:57 > 0:03:02In 1957, a small zebra-striped aeroplane left Frankfurt in Germany
0:03:02 > 0:03:06on a 6,000-mile journey to East Africa.
0:03:07 > 0:03:13Inside was Bernhard Grzimek, the curator of Frankfurt Zoo, and his son Michael,
0:03:13 > 0:03:16their mission - to save the Serengeti.
0:03:16 > 0:03:21'The Serengeti in Tanganyika is a wilderness of about 8,000 square miles.
0:03:21 > 0:03:25'That is practically the size of Northern Ireland
0:03:25 > 0:03:29'and yet the Serengeti is one of the Seven Wonders of this Earth.
0:03:29 > 0:03:33'To the east lies the plateau of the giant crater.
0:03:33 > 0:03:37'The Ngorongoro Crater is the most magnificent natural zoo on Earth.
0:03:37 > 0:03:42'God created it for himself and fenced it in with mountain walls 1,800 feet high
0:03:42 > 0:03:44'to protect its inhabitants.'
0:03:44 > 0:03:47SQUAWKING
0:03:48 > 0:03:52The Serengeti at that time was headline news.
0:03:52 > 0:03:58It had recently been made a national park to protect its natural wonders.
0:03:59 > 0:04:04But the British colonial government had just announced plans to make the park smaller
0:04:04 > 0:04:09to allow more room for a rapidly expanding human population.
0:04:09 > 0:04:13When the Grzimeks went to the Serengeti in 1957,
0:04:13 > 0:04:17there was a controversy brewing over the borders of the national park.
0:04:17 > 0:04:23The British colonial government decided to create a conservation area
0:04:23 > 0:04:26that would include Maasai herders
0:04:26 > 0:04:32and separate that off from another part of the park that would be devoted solely to the animals.
0:04:32 > 0:04:36Though animals would still get some protection,
0:04:36 > 0:04:40leading conservationists the world over were up in arms.
0:04:40 > 0:04:46They opposed any reduction in size of what they saw as Africa's last great wilderness
0:04:46 > 0:04:49and in particular,
0:04:49 > 0:04:54the removal from the national park of the spectacular Ngorongoro Crater.
0:04:56 > 0:05:01Bernhard Grzimek was determined to prove the case for a bigger national park.
0:05:01 > 0:05:06He believed the key lay in the world-famous wildebeest migration.
0:05:08 > 0:05:13Serengeti's annual migration is a true wonder of the natural world -
0:05:13 > 0:05:18two million wildebeest, along with 500,000 zebra,
0:05:18 > 0:05:23following the rains across two countries.
0:05:29 > 0:05:35You encounter an immensity that you almost imagine cannot be real.
0:05:35 > 0:05:38So many wildebeest.
0:05:38 > 0:05:42And everything moving towards a certain direction.
0:05:42 > 0:05:46And you're also overwhelmed by the sense of mystery,
0:05:46 > 0:05:49the vastness, the awesomeness.
0:05:51 > 0:05:54The wildebeest migrations happen
0:05:54 > 0:05:59in a pattern that's linked to the patterns of rain and desiccation on the Serengeti.
0:05:59 > 0:06:06Their young, as well as those of zebra and gazelle, are prey for a number of the iconic predators -
0:06:06 > 0:06:08lions, hyena...
0:06:09 > 0:06:15So in a sense, they're an indicator for the broader health of that entire ecosystem.
0:06:22 > 0:06:25The migration is so famous today,
0:06:25 > 0:06:30it's difficult for us to imagine that as recently as the late 1950s,
0:06:30 > 0:06:32almost nothing was known about it.
0:06:32 > 0:06:38Bernhard Grzimek believed that the colonial government's new plans to cut Serengeti in half
0:06:38 > 0:06:44would leave the wildebeest completely unprotected for a large part of the year.
0:06:44 > 0:06:50He was deeply concerned that this would spell the end for Serengeti's wildlife.
0:06:54 > 0:07:00With the plane, Grzimek would be the first to follow the migrating herds
0:07:00 > 0:07:05and to prove that Africa's wild animals needed more space to survive.
0:07:07 > 0:07:13The plane was also the key to bringing a completely new and dramatic perspective on Serengeti.
0:07:20 > 0:07:27The film Serengeti Shall Not Die would show the splendour of this wilderness as never before
0:07:27 > 0:07:31and bring the plight of the Serengeti to the world.
0:07:31 > 0:07:36And so he became, if you like, the voice of Serengeti,
0:07:36 > 0:07:40the one that went out there to the western world and North America
0:07:40 > 0:07:43through his films to say, "Serengeti is in trouble.
0:07:43 > 0:07:50"This is the greatest place on Earth and what we don't know is about to be lost very quickly."
0:07:50 > 0:07:56Grzimek would show the world what he perceived to be the real threat to Serengeti's survival - humans.
0:07:58 > 0:08:03It was this last great Eden, so to speak, which he championed,
0:08:03 > 0:08:08but it was also this dark, stalking menace in the background which is about to overwhelm it.
0:08:08 > 0:08:15So he put those things together very effectively to create a crisis of the Serengeti.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17The bigger argument was
0:08:17 > 0:08:21these natural wonders have to be kept
0:08:21 > 0:08:25against these hordes of human predators, if you will.
0:08:25 > 0:08:30And therefore, human beings were seen as a problem, as a threat.
0:08:30 > 0:08:35They were not part of the argument, they were not part of the picture.
0:08:35 > 0:08:39The broader picture was nature has to be kept pristine.
0:08:40 > 0:08:43Over the next few years, it was this idea
0:08:43 > 0:08:49of a pristine nature, timeless, unchanging and, most of all, untouched by humans
0:08:49 > 0:08:53that came to determine not only the future of Serengeti,
0:08:53 > 0:08:55but of wild Africa as a whole.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00"A national park must remain a piece of primordial wilderness
0:09:00 > 0:09:02"to be effective.
0:09:02 > 0:09:07"No man, not even native ones, should live inside their borders."
0:09:07 > 0:09:10The only problem is, the more we look,
0:09:10 > 0:09:14the more we find this view to be at odds with the bigger picture.
0:09:16 > 0:09:22Beneath the hooves of the wildebeest, there is a much older story,
0:09:22 > 0:09:25the story of human beings.
0:09:25 > 0:09:28Actually, the story of life itself.
0:09:29 > 0:09:32The complete account of the shaping of Africa's landscape
0:09:32 > 0:09:38that has been hidden from us by the dominance of just one way of looking at the world.
0:09:46 > 0:09:49Almost 50 years earlier,
0:09:49 > 0:09:55an entomologist called Kattwinkel was chasing butterflies through the wilds of Serengeti
0:09:55 > 0:09:59when events took a remarkable twist near the edge of a rocky gorge.
0:10:04 > 0:10:11He had spotted a butterfly that he particularly wanted and Kattwinkel followed it down into the bushes.
0:10:11 > 0:10:14Presumably, he found a number of butterflies,
0:10:14 > 0:10:16but he also found fossilised remains
0:10:16 > 0:10:19of extinct mammals.
0:10:19 > 0:10:22Kattwinkel had stumbled upon Oldupai Gorge,
0:10:22 > 0:10:26one of the most famous sites of early human history known today.
0:10:30 > 0:10:36The real significance of Oldupai wasn't immediately clear, not until after the Second World War
0:10:36 > 0:10:42when a controversial paleoanthropologist and his wife focused their attention
0:10:42 > 0:10:45on Kattwinkel's scrubby, remote gorge.
0:10:48 > 0:10:53It wasn't long before Louis and Mary Leakey revealed a sensational new find.
0:10:56 > 0:11:00Zinjanthropus boisei, as they called it,
0:11:00 > 0:11:03was estimated to be nearly two million years old,
0:11:03 > 0:11:07at the time, the oldest human-like creature ever found.
0:11:09 > 0:11:14And that got the world very excited about the great antiquity of humanity
0:11:14 > 0:11:20and the presence of humanity in one form or the other in Africa
0:11:20 > 0:11:25and, presumably, in some way relating to the spread from Africa to other parts of the world.
0:11:27 > 0:11:31And just 30 miles south of Oldupai is Laetoli.
0:11:31 > 0:11:34Here, Mary later found footprints -
0:11:34 > 0:11:38three apes walking upright across the savanna
0:11:38 > 0:11:40three and a half million years ago.
0:11:43 > 0:11:49Clearly, bipedal apes, creatures that walked habitually on two legs,
0:11:49 > 0:11:52from which we are descended in one way or the other,
0:11:52 > 0:11:56were in Africa at least four million years ago
0:11:56 > 0:12:01and it's the oldest record of bipedalism that's been found anywhere in the world
0:12:01 > 0:12:07and clearly the African apes, of which we are one, were derived from that ancient fauna.
0:12:08 > 0:12:13The very latest evidence suggests that the presence in Serengeti of humans
0:12:13 > 0:12:19and the ancestors of humans from so far back in time is no coincidence.
0:12:24 > 0:12:27Because of a quirk of nature,
0:12:27 > 0:12:31grasses and trees have a different way of turning sunlight into food.
0:12:31 > 0:12:36When they die, they leave slightly different forms of carbon in the earth.
0:12:39 > 0:12:44Analysis of these signature traces has led to startling conclusions
0:12:44 > 0:12:47about the true nature of the African savanna.
0:12:49 > 0:12:55Over time, the amount of tree cover has fluctuated drastically between two extremes -
0:12:55 > 0:13:00on one hand, a forest, on the other, a grassland.
0:13:01 > 0:13:06And the main force behind these cycles is the climate.
0:13:06 > 0:13:09CRACK OF THUNDER
0:13:13 > 0:13:17What we've seen, major changes in rainfall conditions,
0:13:17 > 0:13:21so that we have had droughts, some of them have lasted
0:13:21 > 0:13:28for 30,000 years, where clearly this whole system would have been completely different.
0:13:28 > 0:13:35And the other thing that we've known from all of this is that they changed incredibly fast.
0:13:35 > 0:13:39It could take only 20 years for it to flip from one to another.
0:13:40 > 0:13:43CRACK OF THUNDER
0:13:44 > 0:13:51What it means in terms of what we see today and the future is that nothing stays the same.
0:13:57 > 0:14:01And it is this changing nature of the savanna
0:14:01 > 0:14:04that in turn influences everything.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10It is the dynamic of habitat change that drives evolution.
0:14:10 > 0:14:14If everything had remained pristine whenever that moment was,
0:14:14 > 0:14:18then we certainly wouldn't be here anyway
0:14:18 > 0:14:23because there would have been no pressure for an ape to stand up in the first place.
0:14:23 > 0:14:27The more we find out, the more a picture of humans
0:14:27 > 0:14:32as an integral part of the savanna ecosystem from the earliest times begins to emerge.
0:14:35 > 0:14:41And soon, early humans started to exert their influence on the landscape.
0:14:44 > 0:14:51With fire, they could start to tip the natural balance of the savanna to their advantage,
0:14:51 > 0:14:55pushing back woodland to open up grassland.
0:14:55 > 0:15:00I think it's been shaped and reshaped time and time again for the last...
0:15:00 > 0:15:04at least a million years, and certainly since fire became a factor
0:15:04 > 0:15:09because even the early hunter-gatherers would have used fire to get rid
0:15:09 > 0:15:15of some of the coarser grazing to create these patches of greenness that then attracted in wildlife.
0:15:16 > 0:15:19So I have no doubt whatsoever
0:15:19 > 0:15:25that the hunter-gatherer going back half a million years plus was a major agent of using fire in the Serengeti.
0:15:26 > 0:15:30As geological time gave way to historical time,
0:15:30 > 0:15:35the human influence over the environment moved into a new phase.
0:15:38 > 0:15:44When cattle came down into that area some four, four and a half thousand years ago,
0:15:44 > 0:15:48they would have had a huge impact from opening up the countryside
0:15:48 > 0:15:55and I think herders would have frequently set fire to bush to clear areas for grass.
0:16:28 > 0:16:34What the pastoralist is trying to do is get rid of the tree cover and create more grassland,
0:16:34 > 0:16:37so fire for them becomes a very important tool
0:16:37 > 0:16:43in making the savannas more savanna-like, and this is the irony to me.
0:16:43 > 0:16:47If you take away fire and you take away the pastoralist,
0:16:47 > 0:16:51you end up with lots of thickets and bush over much of Africa.
0:16:53 > 0:16:59And by changing the nature of the savanna, you also change the nature of the savanna's wildlife.
0:16:59 > 0:17:06And it's going to increase the ratio of the grazing animals like the zebra and the wildebeest,
0:17:06 > 0:17:11compared with the browsing animals like impala and giraffe.
0:17:13 > 0:17:18Though ultimately it's the climate that drives places like Serengeti,
0:17:18 > 0:17:24over time, humans became a key part in fine-tuning its characteristic nature.
0:17:28 > 0:17:34By the time the earliest maps started emerging from Victorian explorers of the late 1800s,
0:17:34 > 0:17:40we can see the extent to which people had begun to dominate the landscape around Serengeti.
0:17:42 > 0:17:46In the eastern side of our system, we have pastoralists.
0:17:46 > 0:17:52You can't conduct agriculture on the plains. They cannot support that sort of thing.
0:17:52 > 0:17:57They're not the right soils and it's far too dry, so it's really only for pastoralism.
0:17:57 > 0:18:01In contrast to that, we have agriculturalists in the west
0:18:01 > 0:18:05and these people are largely from what's called the Bantu group
0:18:05 > 0:18:09and they came from the Congo. They arrived in the 1500s.
0:18:11 > 0:18:17And in between, the Wandorobo with a specialism for elephant hunting.
0:18:23 > 0:18:29The most recent people to arrive in the area have in many ways become the most iconic - the Maasai,
0:18:29 > 0:18:34arriving from the north of Kenya and Sudan as recently as the 1800s.
0:18:34 > 0:18:41They later won the respect of the colonials, largely as a result of their fierce warrior reputation.
0:18:45 > 0:18:49But their success was much more to do with the way they saw their cows
0:18:49 > 0:18:54and the wild animals of the savanna as part of the same fabric of survival
0:18:54 > 0:18:57and for wildlife and Maasai alike,
0:18:57 > 0:19:00the key to survival here is movement.
0:19:01 > 0:19:07The Maasai have really perfected the art of making sure that they use their ecosystem
0:19:07 > 0:19:12in a way that they do not necessarily deplete it, but they move about.
0:19:12 > 0:19:19For instance, they've got a dry season area where they graze their animals during the drought period.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23They've got an area where they move to when it is rainy.
0:19:23 > 0:19:29They use the hooves of the cow to cultivate their ecosystem. Without that, very quickly it can change
0:19:29 > 0:19:34to not necessarily a grassy area, but to more of a thicket and bushy
0:19:34 > 0:19:37that will not have a lot of value for your livestock.
0:19:37 > 0:19:43You try to move about, so you can continue balancing the shrubs, trees and grasses around your ecosystem.
0:19:44 > 0:19:48Until this point in the history of the Serengeti,
0:19:48 > 0:19:56the story was of humans coming to exert more and more control over the landscape and the moving herds,
0:19:56 > 0:20:01quite the opposite of the modern picture of a pristine wild Africa.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05What happened next would change all that.
0:20:10 > 0:20:15In 1891, an Austrian explorer, Oscar Baumann,
0:20:15 > 0:20:19was one of the very first Europeans to travel through the Serengeti.
0:20:19 > 0:20:22His account records first-hand evidence
0:20:22 > 0:20:27of what turns out to be nothing short of the worst human catastrophe ever
0:20:27 > 0:20:30to befall the African continent.
0:20:30 > 0:20:36"There were skeleton-like women with the madness of starvation in their sunken eyes,
0:20:36 > 0:20:39"warriors who could hardly crawl on all fours.
0:20:39 > 0:20:43"There were refugees from the Serengeti
0:20:43 > 0:20:47"where the famine had depopulated entire districts."
0:20:49 > 0:20:53What he was describing were the effects of a colonial invasion,
0:20:53 > 0:20:58not of an army, but of something ultimately much more destructive -
0:20:58 > 0:21:00a virus called rinderpest.
0:21:02 > 0:21:04Rinderpest arrived in Africa,
0:21:04 > 0:21:08as far as we know, for the first time, in 1890,
0:21:08 > 0:21:11brought in with cattle from Egypt
0:21:11 > 0:21:17when the Italians invaded what was called Abyssinia - Ethiopia now.
0:21:17 > 0:21:23It took six years to spread from Ethiopia to the Cape of Good Hope and to West Africa
0:21:23 > 0:21:25and killed off 95% of the cattle.
0:21:25 > 0:21:32With this cattle virus, the whole socioeconomic fabric of pre-colonial Africa collapsed.
0:21:32 > 0:21:38Without meat, without milk, without even the means to pull a plough,
0:21:38 > 0:21:44mass starvation quickly followed on a scale matched in global terms only by the Black Death.
0:21:45 > 0:21:49"Parents offered us their babies in exchange for meat.
0:21:49 > 0:21:55"Swarms of vultures followed them from high, awaiting their certain victims.
0:21:55 > 0:21:59"Such affliction was from now on daily before our eyes."
0:22:01 > 0:22:07I think the reason why rinderpest was a signature impact
0:22:07 > 0:22:10is that it swept through Africa so fast.
0:22:10 > 0:22:14In the best part of a decade, it had moved from Cape to Cairo
0:22:14 > 0:22:21and it devastated livestock populations and, therefore, it devastated pastoral people.
0:22:22 > 0:22:24It was much more than a virus.
0:22:24 > 0:22:27I think it was the loss of a way of life.
0:22:27 > 0:22:31I think there was a loss of a certain meaning.
0:22:31 > 0:22:38If everything you ever imagined life to be was suddenly swept away and swept away so drastically,
0:22:38 > 0:22:41what else is there to hold on to?
0:22:41 > 0:22:45And I think it was such a struggle to reconstruct life again.
0:22:47 > 0:22:50Over the next 20 years, a transformation took hold.
0:22:51 > 0:22:57Across East Africa, human mediated grasslands were now swallowed up
0:22:57 > 0:22:59by the wild African bush.
0:22:59 > 0:23:06Most critically, just at the time that the colonial scramble for Africa was reaching out
0:23:06 > 0:23:09into the remotest parts of the dark continent.
0:23:13 > 0:23:17The impact of rinderpest was to create the impression
0:23:17 > 0:23:24among the incoming explorers and the administrators that the savannas had very few people.
0:23:26 > 0:23:31And I think the unfortunate thing is that that was true for that time,
0:23:31 > 0:23:36but looked at in the bigger historical picture, going back maybe 200 years,
0:23:36 > 0:23:40these would have been prime areas and they would be prime areas again
0:23:40 > 0:23:44once the populations of people and livestock built up again.
0:23:44 > 0:23:50So we're looking at a very low ebb ecologically for the relationship between people and wildlife
0:23:50 > 0:23:54and it had a huge bearing on the way in which conservation went
0:23:54 > 0:23:58and the perception or, let's say, the misperception
0:23:58 > 0:24:04that the colonial governments and even independent governments had on the role of people in the savannas.
0:24:07 > 0:24:11With the shutting out of the local people from the landscape,
0:24:11 > 0:24:17the way was now open for a completely new vision of the African savanna -
0:24:17 > 0:24:21wild, savage and pristine.
0:24:23 > 0:24:27"It is the strong attraction of the silent places,
0:24:27 > 0:24:32"of the large tropic moons and the splendour of the new stars
0:24:32 > 0:24:37"where the wanderer sees the awful glory of sunrise and sunset
0:24:37 > 0:24:41"in the wide waste spaces of the Earth, unworn of Man,
0:24:41 > 0:24:46"and changed only by the slow change of the ages through time everlasting."
0:24:48 > 0:24:55In April 1909, ex-US President Theodore Roosevelt arrived on the shores of East Africa
0:24:55 > 0:24:58for his now famous safari.
0:24:58 > 0:25:04Theodore Roosevelt was probably America's greatest conservation President.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07During his administration,
0:25:07 > 0:25:13the largest amount of public lands was set in forest reserves
0:25:13 > 0:25:17and national parks than probably any other President since.
0:25:17 > 0:25:21Roosevelt was very much of this generation
0:25:21 > 0:25:25that saw nature as an antidote to civilisation.
0:25:25 > 0:25:29And in coming to East Africa, I think that it was part
0:25:29 > 0:25:33of his effort to recapture that long-gone pioneer spirit.
0:25:33 > 0:25:37Here was this great open landscape, very few people,
0:25:37 > 0:25:41and he had a whale of a time over that period of a year.
0:25:41 > 0:25:46Immediately, the great American conservationists set out doing
0:25:46 > 0:25:50what conservationists in those days did - hunt.
0:25:51 > 0:25:57Roosevelt just lined up with specimens and this is the ultimate He-Man, sort of big hunter image.
0:25:59 > 0:26:04But as his lust for the primitive urges of the hunt propelled him on,
0:26:04 > 0:26:10Africa started to stir deep emotions for an age lost to the modern world.
0:26:10 > 0:26:13When I went to the Serengeti for the first time
0:26:13 > 0:26:18and saw those wildebeest, the first thought that came into my head
0:26:18 > 0:26:23was this is what the American West must have looked like before we destroyed all the bison,
0:26:23 > 0:26:26so when someone like Roosevelt saw
0:26:26 > 0:26:28all this game running around,
0:26:28 > 0:26:32he was like, "It hasn't all been squandered. It's still here."
0:26:33 > 0:26:36Here was a last primordial wilderness
0:26:36 > 0:26:39that urgently needed preservation,
0:26:39 > 0:26:43atonement for the losses of the civilised world.
0:26:43 > 0:26:49"All civilised governments are now realising that it is their duty here and there
0:26:49 > 0:26:52"to preserve unharmed tracts of wild nature
0:26:52 > 0:26:55"with thereon the wild things,
0:26:55 > 0:27:01"the destruction of which means the destruction of half the charm of wild nature."
0:27:01 > 0:27:06That's certainly a big part of how conservation in East Africa is talked about.
0:27:06 > 0:27:12It's like something to be protected for all of humanity because it's unique and special now.
0:27:12 > 0:27:18This is a place where it hasn't been destroyed that we should be especially concerned about.
0:27:18 > 0:27:23On his return, however, Roosevelt's adoring public were captivated,
0:27:23 > 0:27:27not by fledgling thoughts of global conservation,
0:27:27 > 0:27:31but by the heroic exploits of the great white hunter.
0:27:37 > 0:27:43Roosevelt's 1911 safari really created a cascade of hunters coming out.
0:27:46 > 0:27:53In East Africa, the British colonial government's initial reaction to controlling this slaughter
0:27:53 > 0:27:56was to create hunting licences,
0:27:56 > 0:28:01but in a place as big as this with just a handful of administrators,
0:28:01 > 0:28:06their power to actually control anything was severely limited.
0:28:06 > 0:28:10Licences were much more effective against the local people.
0:28:11 > 0:28:16With one fell swoop, native hunting became illegal
0:28:16 > 0:28:22because not many natives could go to the towns, the colonial towns,
0:28:22 > 0:28:26the colonial bomas where the colonial administrators were
0:28:26 > 0:28:28to obtain hunting licences.
0:28:28 > 0:28:33So the only form of hunting that then became legal
0:28:33 > 0:28:35was European hunting.
0:28:35 > 0:28:40So there was this complete divide between the trophy hunting colonials
0:28:40 > 0:28:45and the subsistence hunters trying to get at those same animals for meat.
0:28:45 > 0:28:49And the local populations felt very alienated
0:28:49 > 0:28:52that wildlife had become not their customary right,
0:28:52 > 0:28:58but it had become something of a sport, something of a pleasure for the colonial government,
0:28:58 > 0:29:01so again that became a deep antagonism.
0:29:01 > 0:29:05As traditional hunters were branded "poachers",
0:29:05 > 0:29:11hunting and the safari now became the noble pursuit of foreign dignitaries and kings,
0:29:11 > 0:29:13like the future George VI.
0:29:15 > 0:29:22But very soon wild Africa would be available to all with the invention of the portable movie camera.
0:29:26 > 0:29:32Martin and Osa Johnson were among the first to lay down their guns and pick up a camera.
0:29:32 > 0:29:35For some of the time, at least.
0:29:39 > 0:29:42On the trail, Osa's eye catches a slinking figure ahead.
0:29:42 > 0:29:47A lion has caught the scent of his favourite delicacy - zebra.
0:29:47 > 0:29:53While he stalks his prey, guns are dropped, cameras take their place and Martin photographs the action.
0:29:53 > 0:29:58They spent a couple of years in Africa filming wild animals.
0:29:58 > 0:30:04And part of it very much conformed to a vision of Africa
0:30:04 > 0:30:07of ecological paradise.
0:30:07 > 0:30:11The talk about this place that they discovered, Lake Paradise.
0:30:11 > 0:30:18They hadn't discovered it. It had been known by the African people in that area for a long time.
0:30:18 > 0:30:23They very much portrayed it as this Garden of Eden.
0:30:23 > 0:30:27Through the camera lens, the animals of Africa took on new meaning,
0:30:28 > 0:30:34transformed by technology from savage beasts to things of extraordinary beauty.
0:30:40 > 0:30:44And the Johnsons were the first to film from the air.
0:30:45 > 0:30:49Aerial scenes become very important because
0:30:49 > 0:30:57it's a kind of God's eye view of the world and portrays the immensity of the landscape.
0:30:57 > 0:31:02Wildebeest, hundreds upon hundreds of wildebeest, led on by overpowering thirst,
0:31:02 > 0:31:05driven on by the lions that follow.
0:31:05 > 0:31:12If you're filming wildebeest migration, you begin to capture the awe of the sheer scale
0:31:12 > 0:31:16and size of these wildlife populations.
0:31:17 > 0:31:23Though still in black and white, these extraordinary scenes from the early 1930s
0:31:23 > 0:31:27show a surprisingly familiar image of Africa emerging,
0:31:27 > 0:31:31one that we can recognise in wildlife films today.
0:31:31 > 0:31:39Roosevelt's savage, primordial wilderness was evolving into a land of awe-inspiring, majestic beauty,
0:31:41 > 0:31:48even if, ultimately, the audience's need for thrills and spills
0:31:48 > 0:31:52required every scene to climax with a large dose of false jeopardy
0:31:52 > 0:31:56and end up with Osa shooting the main subject.
0:31:58 > 0:32:04Osa lets go another bullet. And Osa Johnson has scored the first lion kill of her life.
0:32:05 > 0:32:08But attitudes were beginning to change
0:32:08 > 0:32:15and soon a few more enlightened hunters began to see the impending end of what had once seemed endless,
0:32:15 > 0:32:18even in the vast expanses of Serengeti.
0:32:20 > 0:32:25There was almost no control of this hunting. It was a free for all.
0:32:25 > 0:32:31And there was, on some occasions, as many as 100 lions shot in one trip.
0:32:32 > 0:32:38This enraged some of the more conscientious professional hunters,
0:32:38 > 0:32:43one of which, Finch Hatton, who features in Out of Africa,
0:32:43 > 0:32:49he wrote a letter to The Times complaining and saying there has to be regulation.
0:32:49 > 0:32:54"And what should one say of the two gentlemen who went to the Serengeti by motor car
0:32:54 > 0:32:57"and killed, between them, 80 lions?
0:32:57 > 0:33:03"Can we think of anything more nauseating? And this is considered sport."
0:33:03 > 0:33:07The last of the great hunters ended up in southern Tanzania,
0:33:07 > 0:33:10people like Rushby and many others.
0:33:10 > 0:33:14They had been the great elephant hunters of the 1920s.
0:33:14 > 0:33:18That whole era came to an end in the 1930s.
0:33:18 > 0:33:23And, ironically, they became the first game wardens.
0:33:23 > 0:33:27They switched from seeing wildlife as endless to realising, in fact,
0:33:27 > 0:33:33this was not an endless resource. It was coming to an end and very quickly.
0:33:35 > 0:33:38Over the following decades,
0:33:38 > 0:33:43it became clear to these early hunter-turned-conservationists
0:33:43 > 0:33:49that to control hunting in Serengeti would be futile without the creation of a protected area.
0:33:54 > 0:33:59So in 1951, after the distraction of the Second World War,
0:34:00 > 0:34:06Serengeti National Park was created, just in time for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II.
0:34:06 > 0:34:11And that park stretched from Lake Victoria in the west
0:34:11 > 0:34:16and then eastwards to include Ngorongoro Crater and across the plains.
0:34:16 > 0:34:20So it was largely an east-west oriented park.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28But this new national park included people.
0:34:28 > 0:34:31There were still human settlements.
0:34:31 > 0:34:36The Sukuma were still present, the Ngoreme, Kuria and the Maasai,
0:34:36 > 0:34:39but their activities were seriously curtailed.
0:34:39 > 0:34:45In the eyes of the local people, this new protection was incomprehensible.
0:34:45 > 0:34:51What once belonged to everyone now became shambala bibi - the Queen's field.
0:35:13 > 0:35:19Not to say the Queen wouldn't allow them into her field, at first anyway.
0:35:19 > 0:35:25The concept of the national park was alien to the British government.
0:35:25 > 0:35:31The interesting this is that they had it in mind that local people could and had lived with wildlife
0:35:31 > 0:35:36so all you had to do was set these areas aside so they would not be invaded by settlers
0:35:36 > 0:35:41or be hunting areas and it would be fine. It simply didn't work.
0:35:44 > 0:35:50What had been low-level subsistence hunting now became more commercial hunting.
0:35:50 > 0:35:57The towns were growing, there was an urban population with a demand for meat and so the call went out -
0:35:57 > 0:35:59we need meat.
0:35:59 > 0:36:05And where was the largest source of free meat? The Queen's field.
0:36:05 > 0:36:10It was just a question of taking traditional methods and scaling them up.
0:36:10 > 0:36:14What was far more effective was the line trap,
0:36:14 > 0:36:20the miles and miles of traps that people laid, the pit traps and many other traditional means,
0:36:20 > 0:36:26which were now multiplied by a factor of 10 or 20. This became extremely effective.
0:36:29 > 0:36:35At the same time, modernisation was also challenging the colonials' harmonious view
0:36:35 > 0:36:38of the pastoral population.
0:36:40 > 0:36:46The government's own vaccination programmes had all but eradicated rinderpest
0:36:46 > 0:36:52and as the Maasai, in particular, began to move back into lands they had traditionally used,
0:36:52 > 0:36:57they too were beginning to exert a new level of pressure on the wild.
0:36:57 > 0:37:03The role of local people as a dominant force in the environment could no longer be brushed aside.
0:37:03 > 0:37:10The scene was now set for the prevailing image of the African landscape to evolve once more.
0:37:14 > 0:37:20It's in the films of another couple, Armand and Michaela Denis, that this next reinvention of wild Africa
0:37:20 > 0:37:22first appears.
0:37:23 > 0:37:30In Below The Sahara, the modern picture of a fragile paradise threatened by evil man
0:37:30 > 0:37:32first came into popular culture.
0:37:35 > 0:37:40Below The Sahara represents this transformational shift
0:37:40 > 0:37:45in the representation of Africa to one of ecological splendour.
0:37:45 > 0:37:48And really to see man as a threat.
0:37:48 > 0:37:54Flying over game country is the best way to realise the wealth of wildlife which still survives
0:37:54 > 0:38:00in immense Africa. You feel as if the pages of time had been turned back to a more primitive age
0:38:00 > 0:38:07when animals roamed the tropical earth in their countless thousands before man, the enemy,
0:38:07 > 0:38:11man the ravager and destroyer had been born.
0:38:11 > 0:38:15This scene really represents a pristine wilderness,
0:38:15 > 0:38:18nature in its purity
0:38:18 > 0:38:23before man the destroyer had entered the scene.
0:38:23 > 0:38:27And that really sets up this dichotomy, if you will,
0:38:27 > 0:38:33between humans versus nature, that humans can't exist alongside nature
0:38:33 > 0:38:40and humans are always a threat. And that nature needs to be protected from them.
0:38:41 > 0:38:45The Denises were, by now, part of a growing international movement
0:38:45 > 0:38:50that saw the future for African wildlife only in the separation
0:38:50 > 0:38:54of pristine Africa from the dark forces of humanity.
0:38:59 > 0:39:06The political champions of this emerging view were London-based hunter-turned-conservationists.
0:39:06 > 0:39:11The Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire.
0:39:13 > 0:39:19Some people called it the Penitent Butchers Club because it was made up of a lot of hunters.
0:39:19 > 0:39:23The Serengeti was to be the first
0:39:23 > 0:39:29and the crown jewel of Britain's national parks within the Empire.
0:39:29 > 0:39:33A lot of people felt very passionately about its preservation.
0:39:33 > 0:39:38The SPFE now looked for a way to enforce their growing conviction
0:39:38 > 0:39:43that the Serengeti should be free from the threat of humanity in future.
0:39:45 > 0:39:49Their attention was drawn to another national park for inspiration.
0:39:50 > 0:39:53Not an African park, but an American one.
0:40:05 > 0:40:09Yellowstone, the world's first national park,
0:40:09 > 0:40:14had itself been through a difficult history of uncontrolled poaching
0:40:14 > 0:40:20and conflict over indigenous rights, and had long before established the precedent
0:40:20 > 0:40:24that human rights and conservation don't mix.
0:40:28 > 0:40:33Largely as a result of its high profile relaunch, by none other than Theodore Roosevelt,
0:40:33 > 0:40:38it had long ago become the shining example of world conservation.
0:40:40 > 0:40:44Yellowstone National Park in the United States provided
0:40:44 > 0:40:49a model that was then applied all across the colonial world.
0:40:50 > 0:40:56So Serengeti is the best example of the Yellowstone idea.
0:40:56 > 0:40:59An area of fantastic ecological wonder
0:40:59 > 0:41:05being emptied of the social presence that had been part and parcel of that ecology.
0:41:06 > 0:41:12For the new hard-line conservationists, Yellowstone was the perfect template for Serengeti.
0:41:14 > 0:41:16A park without people.
0:41:16 > 0:41:23But back in East Africa, the local colonial administration wasn't convinced
0:41:23 > 0:41:28that moving people out of Serengeti was a good idea.
0:41:28 > 0:41:33The debate came to focus on the fate of the most numerous people in the park -
0:41:33 > 0:41:35the iconic Maasai.
0:41:35 > 0:41:40There was quite a bit of tension between local colonial administrators
0:41:40 > 0:41:44who understood these people's relationships to place
0:41:44 > 0:41:51and what their livelihoods were about. They said, "You can't just throw these people out of this park.
0:41:51 > 0:41:58"It's going to be catastrophic. Plus, they'll hate it. So if you want that, go ahead and throw them out."
0:41:59 > 0:42:04As the rift grew between the powerful conservationists in London
0:42:04 > 0:42:10and the local colonial government, the future of two completely different visions of wild Africa -
0:42:10 > 0:42:16one with people, one without - was held in the balance.
0:42:17 > 0:42:23In 1956, the British Government tasked a special committee to come up with a solution.
0:42:24 > 0:42:29That recommendation said the Maasai are living in the eastern side
0:42:29 > 0:42:35and therefore what we should do is draw a line down the middle of the plains
0:42:35 > 0:42:38and have the Maasai where they currently are
0:42:38 > 0:42:41and the wildlife on the western side.
0:42:41 > 0:42:44The proposal was a clever compromise.
0:42:44 > 0:42:51To create a Serengeti without people, they would shift the park boundary to the west
0:42:51 > 0:42:56and so avoid having to evict the 6,000 Maasai who lived in the east.
0:42:59 > 0:43:05Because this made the original park much smaller, they would add an extra extension to the north,
0:43:05 > 0:43:08up towards the Kenya border.
0:43:08 > 0:43:13The habit of the human being to try to, em...
0:43:13 > 0:43:18create boundaries around that which is infinite,
0:43:18 > 0:43:25around which he or she cannot really understand, the assumption of control of nature,
0:43:25 > 0:43:29was one of those exercises in futility and nonsense.
0:43:33 > 0:43:40By early 1959, Bernhard Grzimek and his son Michael had been studying the wildebeest herds
0:43:40 > 0:43:45for over a year to try to stop the plans for the proposed new boundaries.
0:43:45 > 0:43:51During the dry season, the majority of the animals are to be found near lake Victoria,
0:43:51 > 0:43:55but as soon as the rain falls and the wide areas of plain turn green,
0:43:55 > 0:43:58the herds begin to move over them.
0:43:58 > 0:44:04And they always come back to the same place as soon as the prolific grass starts to grow again.
0:44:04 > 0:44:11They wander far across the new frontiers of the National Park and remain outside them for months.
0:44:12 > 0:44:17It looked like his findings supported his worst fears.
0:44:17 > 0:44:22The wildebeest would be exposed to the threat of people outside the new park boundaries
0:44:22 > 0:44:25for over half the year.
0:44:27 > 0:44:34His only hope was to now push his vision for a larger, people-free park in his new film.
0:44:35 > 0:44:39The areas around the Serengeti are sparsely inhabited,
0:44:39 > 0:44:45but Africa's coloured population is now increasing as rapidly as the rest of humanity.
0:44:45 > 0:44:52Once the wilderness surrounding the present borders of the park fills up with people, it will be too late.
0:44:52 > 0:44:58But just as he was completing the final scenes of Serengeti Shall Not Die,
0:44:58 > 0:45:00filming was cut short by tragedy.
0:45:00 > 0:45:05Michael, his son and director of the film, was killed.
0:45:05 > 0:45:11A Griffon vulture had collided with the wing of the zebra-striped aeroplane.
0:45:13 > 0:45:17Michael's death had a profound impact on Bernhard Grzimek.
0:45:17 > 0:45:22Michael's body was actually buried on the side of the Ngorongoro Crater.
0:45:22 > 0:45:28And so Bernhard's feeling was that completing the film, throwing himself into its completion,
0:45:28 > 0:45:32was the best way to honour his son's memory.
0:45:32 > 0:45:37In the film, Grzimek took the best of filmmakers before him -
0:45:37 > 0:45:43the visual innovation of the Johnsons and the Denises' passion -
0:45:43 > 0:45:49to create a visual masterpiece, an appeal from the heart for pristine Africa.
0:45:57 > 0:46:03It was an instant box-office hit, winning the 1959 Oscar for Best Documentary,
0:46:03 > 0:46:07and it brought the plight of the Serengeti to the world at large.
0:46:07 > 0:46:12Before it is too late, cannot we at least preserve the Serengeti,
0:46:12 > 0:46:18this last refuge of the giant herds of the African plains, as God created it,
0:46:18 > 0:46:22for the animals and for the people who come after us?
0:46:29 > 0:46:34But by now the British colonial authorities had moved on.
0:46:37 > 0:46:40Just three hours drive to the north of Serengeti,
0:46:40 > 0:46:44the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya was at crisis point,
0:46:44 > 0:46:50giving a terrifying glimpse of just how fragile the colonial hold on Africa could be.
0:46:50 > 0:46:56Tanzania was not a colony. It was a mandate handed over by the League of Nations after WWI
0:46:56 > 0:46:59to lead towards independence.
0:47:00 > 0:47:07The overriding concern for the colonial government right now was not conservation.
0:47:07 > 0:47:12It was to avoid conflict on the road to independence.
0:47:14 > 0:47:20Moving 6,000 Maasai from their homeland to create Grzimek's ultimate pristine park
0:47:20 > 0:47:24was not something they could seriously consider.
0:47:25 > 0:47:29So despite Grzimek's pleas for the wildebeest,
0:47:29 > 0:47:35in 1959, on the dawn of independence, the new boundaries of the National Park were imposed.
0:47:37 > 0:47:40Grzimek thought that the decision
0:47:40 > 0:47:42was a catastrophe.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46And he remained angry about it pretty much throughout his career.
0:47:48 > 0:47:52All was not lost for the wildebeest, however.
0:47:52 > 0:47:58Though they do spend a large part of the year on the eastern plains outside the new park,
0:47:58 > 0:48:01we now know that, completely by chance,
0:48:01 > 0:48:07the new northern extension has become the most important factor for their survival.
0:48:09 > 0:48:14And that was entirely fortuitous. That's actually where the wildebeest go
0:48:14 > 0:48:20at the worst time of year. It is their refuge. Nobody knew that at the time.
0:48:20 > 0:48:26Even Professor Grzimek did not pick up on that, so by an incredible amount of luck,
0:48:26 > 0:48:31we had the very bit of the park which is essential for this migration
0:48:31 > 0:48:35because without that they would all have died.
0:48:39 > 0:48:45And in many ways the most significant point slipped through almost unnoticed.
0:48:45 > 0:48:47Although it was smaller,
0:48:47 > 0:48:52Grzimek and the conservationists had got their park without people.
0:48:53 > 0:48:59And that, ultimately, would be the defining factor in shaping Serengeti's future.
0:49:00 > 0:49:04The Maasai had avoided the worst-case scenario,
0:49:04 > 0:49:08the majority now able to stay put outside the park.
0:49:09 > 0:49:12But to finalise the new people of Serengeti,
0:49:12 > 0:49:181,000 Maasai, along with their 50,000 cattle, were now moved out.
0:49:20 > 0:49:23For them, this marked the end of a life
0:49:23 > 0:49:27based on the freedom to move across the savanna.
0:49:30 > 0:49:34"We understand we shall not be entitled henceforth
0:49:34 > 0:49:38"to cross the boundary of the new Serengeti National Park,
0:49:38 > 0:49:41"which we have habitually used in the past.
0:49:41 > 0:49:46"We agree to move ourselves, our possessions, our cattle,
0:49:46 > 0:49:53"and all our other animals out of this land by the advent of the next rains."
0:49:54 > 0:50:00Less is known about the effects on the other people who traditionally used the Serengeti.
0:50:00 > 0:50:05The Sukuma, peasant farmers, were pushed westwards.
0:50:05 > 0:50:10The Ngoreme and the Kuria were also pushed further north.
0:50:10 > 0:50:14So the process of creating Serengeti National Park
0:50:14 > 0:50:19was not... was not a peaceful affair.
0:50:19 > 0:50:26There was resistance, but the colonial armed force, the armed might of the colonial state did the job.
0:50:26 > 0:50:29The people moved out.
0:50:29 > 0:50:32By drawing another line on a map,
0:50:32 > 0:50:38this compromise had effectively drawn a line between people and animals in the Serengeti.
0:50:38 > 0:50:42Pristine Africa to the left, people to the right.
0:50:50 > 0:50:54Those rural populations now saw wildlife
0:50:54 > 0:51:01as government animals and so, coming up to independence, it was said by most people I knew
0:51:01 > 0:51:08that as soon as independence comes through, we will take our own wildlife back.
0:51:08 > 0:51:10So there was this incredible threat
0:51:10 > 0:51:17that independence would be a release of the rights to go back and kill wildlife.
0:51:22 > 0:51:27'No nation has the right to make decisions for another nation,
0:51:27 > 0:51:29'no people for another people.'
0:51:32 > 0:51:36In the same year Serengeti's new boundaries were fixed,
0:51:36 > 0:51:42a young history teacher, Julius Nyerere, was preparing to lead his country to independence.
0:51:46 > 0:51:51Tanzania didn't start up under President Nyerere as a socialist state,
0:51:51 > 0:51:57but he very quickly moved into the notion that there was something called African socialism to adopt
0:51:57 > 0:52:04in the development of the state. He was very concerned about the inequity under colonial governments.
0:52:04 > 0:52:10He was very firmly committed to levelling the playing field for all his people in Tanzania
0:52:10 > 0:52:16and I think that's what he did. He saw the vehicle of doing that as African socialism
0:52:16 > 0:52:19because it would create equality.
0:52:19 > 0:52:25It was clear from the start that Nyerere's priorities lay with his people,
0:52:25 > 0:52:29but what would he make of the new National Park
0:52:29 > 0:52:33and a vision of Africa that excluded them?
0:52:33 > 0:52:37In September, 1961, as independence loomed,
0:52:37 > 0:52:43the conservation world held its breath and focused its attention on the Tanzanian town of Arusha.
0:52:43 > 0:52:50Here, a conference of 21 African countries and five international organisations
0:52:50 > 0:52:55had gathered to debate the future of conservation in Africa.
0:52:56 > 0:53:00Julius Nyerere delivered his address to the assembled dignitaries.
0:53:02 > 0:53:08The survival of our wildlife is a matter of grave concern to all of us in Africa.
0:53:08 > 0:53:13We solemnly declare that we will do everything in our power
0:53:13 > 0:53:18to make sure that our children's grandchildren will be able to enjoy
0:53:18 > 0:53:21this rich and precious inheritance.
0:53:23 > 0:53:27These wild creatures and the wild places they inhabit
0:53:27 > 0:53:31are not only important as a resource of wonder and inspiration,
0:53:31 > 0:53:39but are an integral part of our natural resources and our future livelihood and wellbeing.
0:53:39 > 0:53:45Not only had he apparently adopted this foreign idea of pristine nature,
0:53:45 > 0:53:51but there was a commitment to make an absolute priority to look after it for the future.
0:53:51 > 0:53:56In the years following independence, there was an explosion of park building,
0:53:57 > 0:54:02resulting in almost a third of Tanzania's land set aside for wildlife,
0:54:02 > 0:54:05more than any other country today.
0:54:09 > 0:54:16Even in the new socialist Tanzania, the value of tourism would come before human rights.
0:54:17 > 0:54:21The creation of national parks was a grand success.
0:54:21 > 0:54:28It was a great benefit to the nations of Tanzania and Kenya in creating this fabric of parks and reserves,
0:54:28 > 0:54:34which then became the basis of a tourist industry, which rose to number one in the export economy.
0:54:34 > 0:54:40So those have really been the fuel for a lot of our economic growth and are recognised as such.
0:54:44 > 0:54:49Today, Serengeti National Park sees half a million visitors a year
0:54:49 > 0:54:52who generate 10 million for the state.
0:54:52 > 0:54:56It supports conservation of animals within the park
0:54:56 > 0:55:01and helps finance some of the other less profitable parks.
0:55:01 > 0:55:05But as the parks have become more and more successful,
0:55:05 > 0:55:12the expectations of tourists have come to reinforce the pristine vision of Africa.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15# In the jungle, the mighty jungle
0:55:15 > 0:55:19# The lion sleeps tonight... #
0:55:19 > 0:55:26Let's start with the morning. It is a most splendid orange sunrise.
0:55:26 > 0:55:33You raise your eyes and right across the plains, dotted with acacia trees,
0:55:34 > 0:55:38giraffes kind of lollop over.
0:55:38 > 0:55:44To your left, elephants browse. To your right, the distant roar of lions.
0:55:45 > 0:55:46And...
0:55:46 > 0:55:50no people. No human beings to disturb the space,
0:55:50 > 0:55:54save the observer of that particular landscape.
0:55:54 > 0:55:57# The lion sleeps tonight... #
0:55:57 > 0:56:03Serengeti is the essence of wild Africa. This is the real wild Africa, this is timeless.
0:56:03 > 0:56:08This is something that is absolutely outside of any human influence
0:56:08 > 0:56:12and it's one of the few places left in the world like that.
0:56:15 > 0:56:20Our obsession to preserve wild Africa has created a pristine fantasy world,
0:56:20 > 0:56:25a place without people, preserved behind invisible walls.
0:56:25 > 0:56:32It may well work for tourism, and it has played an important role in the preservation of animals.
0:56:34 > 0:56:40The problem is that it's a vision that doesn't take into account the bigger picture.
0:56:41 > 0:56:45Serengeti is not a theme park. It is a real place.
0:56:45 > 0:56:49- CRASH OF THUNDER - A place whose true nature is one of constant change.
0:56:57 > 0:57:01Nothing is more iconic of Serengeti than the wildebeest migration,
0:57:01 > 0:57:06for many the symbol of primordial permanence.
0:57:06 > 0:57:13But the latest evidence suggests that not so long ago the climate was very different
0:57:13 > 0:57:18and the migration went in a completely different direction to today.
0:57:21 > 0:57:27The bigger ecological picture says that the climate will drive change again.
0:57:28 > 0:57:30If we get serious changes
0:57:30 > 0:57:33in the climatic regime,
0:57:33 > 0:57:37which is highly likely as a result of global warming,
0:57:37 > 0:57:42then there may be required a change in direction of the migration.
0:57:42 > 0:57:48And if that's the case, then we need to make provision for that.
0:57:50 > 0:57:56In the future, if the place where the animals of Serengeti need to be
0:57:56 > 0:58:03falls outside the boundaries of parks, their chances of survival would seem slim
0:58:03 > 0:58:10without a vision for wild Africa that transcends the unnatural divide between people and wilderness.
0:58:17 > 0:58:21In the next programme, we discover how a European idea
0:58:21 > 0:58:25led to the creation of the original pristine wilderness
0:58:25 > 0:58:29in the unnatural history of Yellowstone.
0:58:50 > 0:58:54Subtitles by Subtext for Red Bee Media Ltd - 2011
0:58:54 > 0:58:57Email subtitling@bbc.co.uk