Born Wild Page 26

  The first salvo in his campaign came when he charged Elisaria, Lucy and me with ‘violation of procedures’. We were obliged to stand trial in Same for Elisaria’s alleged failure to turn on the interior light of a car when asked by a ranger at the Njiro entrance to the reserve; Lucy and I had not even been in the car in question; Elisaria was never asked to turn on the light; the car had no interior light. Just putting it down on paper reminds me of how very dark and mad that whole period was – the charge didn’t even exist in Tanzanian law. A few weeks later Marenga arrested me and took me to Same jail late on a Friday night. Just as when I had been beaten up in Kora, the officer in charge refused to imprison me. A few weeks later, Marenga would not allow Bob and Gill Marshall-Andrews to visit us but was overruled by Dar es Salaam. All these humiliations were like death by a thousand cuts for Marenga. Every time he tried to get us, he was foiled and made to look yet more ridiculous. It wasn’t easy being the butt of his ire. His hatred of us became ever more unhinged. And for the next nine months we had to go to court once a month where our case would be ‘mentioned’ and the usual paid-off witnesses arrayed against us. Elisaria, Lucy and I would fly into Same where our friend the district commissioner would pick us up and look after our babies while we appeared in court. We would stand in the dock with people we had helped to arrest for poaching while Marenga paid off his witnesses on the court steps in full view of anyone passing by. Angry as I was, I was able to laugh it off but it was no fun at all for Elisaria and Lucy. The magistrate was not enjoying it either. The obvious travesty of justice was demeaning his courtroom and wasting his time. And when he allowed us to play him the Martin Clunes-assisted spy-recording of Marenga vowing to ‘get us’, we knew we were going to be all right.

  We could have spent our whole lives worrying about Marenga and the court cases but we had to keep the rhino and dog programmes moving forward and the Trusts had to keep them funded. Some of our trustees and donors, however, were understandably tiring of the endless shenanigans at Mkomazi. One minute we were asking for hundreds of thousands of dollars for rhino translocations, the next we were in court, fighting with the warden of the reserve. It all made sense to people like Bob Marshall-Andrews and Moritz Borman, our patron and chairman in the USA, who had been able to visit Mkomazi, but to those who hadn’t, the project was beginning to sound dangerous with its court cases, the government’s withdrawal of work permits and flying licences. Pete Brandon had been in the car with Elisaria during the incident that had sparked the current court case so he, too, understood but many others didn’t. It was hard.

  Funds became very tight, and some of the time we weren’t able to use the vehicles we had been donated because we had no money for fuel. Feeding the dogs was not a problem as we were given tons of food by Gilbertson and Page, the British pet-food manufacturer. The rhinos were now browsing for themselves. Right when we were at our most broke we received the funds from the George Adamson Trust in the Netherlands to build a secondary school in Kisiwani. This major undertaking went on as we were scrabbling for money to pay the wages of the wild-dog keepers. It was a crazy situation but nothing new. We did what we could with the funds we had and pushed on with the school, which we hoped would stand as a monument to everything that Harrie and Truus had done in the area. Schools sound like an odd thing for an organization like ours to be building but education is a great way for Mkomazi and places like it to show they are of benefit to the communities on their borders.

  The middle of 1998 was marred by appalling tragedy when the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam were blown up in a simultaneous attack. Africa hosted the start of the ‘war on terror’ that was soon to engulf the world. Hundreds of people died – none of whom we knew. But in October tragedy struck closer to home: we received news from Kenya that Giles had been murdered near Mombasa on the coast. His killers have never been found. It was no consolation that he had stayed with us in Mkomazi a few months earlier and seen how well the dogs he had found were doing. They had been long, happy days when Giles had flown around the reserve on his paraglider before jumping on his bike and roaring out of our lives. And it didn’t lessen the sadness. Giles had brought a great sense of fun to everything he did and made even the smallest episode into an adventure. He would have loved the little lioness that came into our life just as he left it and she might even have kept him in the conservation business for which he was so well suited.

  Some of Danny Woodley’s rangers in Tsavo had found the cub close to a fire lit by pastoralists. They had waited in their car for twenty-four hours before deciding the mother must have died in the fire and picking up the cub. It was an amazing show of how thinking had changed since I had first come to Kenya. Before George’s methods became widely known, a ranger would have scooped up the cub and driven away without a second thought as to where the mother was. We named the cub Jipe after the lake that lies between Tsavo and Mkomazi and started the long process of helping her to grow up in the wild.

  I was electrified to have another lioness to look after. Nina the elephant was a glorious addition to our lives but having the chance to work with another lioness was an unexpected treat. The children adored Jipe and so did everyone else. She lived in the house with us for a short period, while Zacharia built her a compound, and formed special bonds with him, Elisaria, Fred and Ombeni. Warm and friendly from the very beginning, she reminded me of Lisa, the soppy but successful lioness who had been at Kora when I’d first arrived there. By December, Jipe had her own compound below the mess tent where she was looked after by Zacharia and Ombeni, both of whom had a wonderful way with her. She soon tired of mince with egg and milk and was on to solid bits of meat as she would have been in the wild. We took her for long walks around the reserve as we had in Kora and she soon made her first kill. I had almost forgotten how wonderful it was to walk through the bush with a lion by my side, seeing what was going on in a totally different way. It reminded me of those happy days with Christian, Lisa and Juma in Kora when I had first been learning about the bush. I was in heaven. But we had to hide her from Marenga by moving her, Zacharia and Ombeni to a tiny camp in the rhino sanctuary when she was eleven months old. We had the proper permissions but didn’t dare take any chances.

  The work in the reserve carried on as the court cases and controversies raged away. We had all sorts of academics coming to look at the rhino project and the wild dogs, many of whom were amazed by our success. Dr Rolf Baldus, who has done a huge amount of work at the Selous Game Reserve, said he was stunned by the efficiency of the rhino sanctuary and had thought he would never see its like in Tanzania. Our old friend Dr Rob Brett, who shares many of our views about his academic peers, came to do an assessment of the rhino sanctuary. Over dinner one night, we were discussing the world of conservation academia when Rob’s face took on a sombre aspect. He said that there were two terribly depressing things about working in the rhino world, first, and most obviously, ‘the imminent extinction of the species’, but second, watching the Rhino Specialist Group of bearded academics dancing in a disco.

  Because we were doing the dogs as well, we were involved with a whole different group of ‘dog academics’ although, happily, it is a much smaller field. In April there was a meeting of the Wild Dog Specialist Group in Arusha and it went surprisingly well. It was decided that we should carry on with our reintroductions. There was no disco. The very next day we had to attend court again in Same. As I had predicted from the start, but had often found hard to believe, the Wildlife Division had been embarrassed into withdrawing its case against us. Marenga was obviously sick in both head and body and had made the department look bad so they transferred him out of the reserve and threw him on the scrapheap. It was extraordinary how his departure put a new spring in people’s steps. Although he had not worked alone, he had been the instrument of our persecution. His campaign against us had been wholly unpleasant, and for some quite terrifying, but it had strengthened us as a team. Elisaria had stood up in court to defend us outsiders
against his own government and compatriots. Many others, too, including some of Marenga’s officers, went out on a limb for us at great risk to themselves. I don’t really do humble but was nonetheless incredibly grateful for how our team at Mkomazi supported us through those times.

  Time had moved so quickly that we were amazed when in June Pete Morkel reminded us we had to change the transmitters in the rhino horns. This can be a major and expensive undertaking involving helicopters at a thousand dollars an hour if you want to minimize the risk to the rhinos. There’s no distracting a rhino with a stick while you hold your breath and whip a collar round its neck as we had done in Kora with the lions. Like leopards, but more so, they don’t have the right shaped heads for collars. What we do instead is drill a hole in their horns (which are just keratin and have no nerves in them), insert a battery-powered transmitter, then seal it with dental acrylic. To do this the rhino has to be completely knocked out, but the shorter and lighter the state of unconsciousness, the safer it is for the animal.

  Pete had heard that a film crew was visiting in a helicopter so we took advantage of their presence. He darted the rhinos from the helicopter with a capture gun, then we landed nearby and did the business as fast as possible. We had a problem, though, with Jonah: he charged off into deep bush after we had darted him, a dangerous and possibly life-threatening thing to do. We had to act fast because he could fall and drown in the water nearby but there was nowhere to land the helicopter. Pete – calm and professional as always – guided in the helicopter, jumped thirty feet into the tree canopy, shinned down a trunk, fixed the transmitter and revived Jonah without batting an eyelid. Now that’s my kind of academic.

  In August we finished Kisiwani secondary school and Minister Zakia Meghji flew into Same to open it. It was wonderful to see one of our achievements being embraced so wholeheartedly by the government. A lot of work had gone into the school – US$100,000 raised by Aart Visee and the Dutch Trust, hundreds of hours of labour from Mkomazi and the Tanzanian Trust, but most of all the vision of Harrie and Truus who had done so much for the small community where they had lived. Our friend Richard Kipuyo Loisiki from the Masai steppe had come to stay with us a few weeks earlier and had met some of his fellow Masai elders. They blamed their court case against the government on the influence of foreign NGOs and were now showing their support for us by sending their children to the new school. Projects like the school – and, of course, the departure of Marenga – completely changed the atmosphere at Mkomazi and its environs.

  And there was more good news to come. It was at the reception after the opening of the school that we first met Salum Lusasi, the new Wildlife Division project manager. After the horrors of Marenga we were very wary of what might happen next but were agreeably surprised. Lusasi was a real old pro who had worked at Headquarters for years. Now that he had been sent to the field, he made sure that he met all the old wardens who had worked in Mkomazi, and interviewed the rangers and the local government officials before jumping to any pre-ordained conclusions. Salum Lusasi worked with us rather than against us, and we had a great relationship for the next seven years. Almost immediately we started putting in a new road between his headquarters at Zange and ours at Kisima. He provided the labour; Anthony Bamford and the English Trust provided the heavy plant. We put the fuel in.

  By this time we really had a huge amount of equipment and could make a big difference quickly. Larry Freels sent us loads of kit from the States, we had a grader on hire purchase and we were receiving good funding again from people like Tusk. The key, however, to things working smoothly was incredibly mundane: good book-keeping. It was odd that I had never grasped this before. My office and workshop are both obsessively neat with everything labelled and in its place, but our accounts had always been a much-feared muddle.

  Andy Mortimer went to school with me and has been on the Trust since the beginning, but in the mid-nineties he and his wife Georgina really took us in hand and showed us how to make the most of the money we were receiving. He guarded the Trust’s money like a leopard looks after her cubs and ran the books like the chief finance officer of a large company. He gave us a monthly amount for wages, staff food, our grub and a few spares and made us keep a simple cash book. Andy paid all the big bills, had us audited and dealt with the charity commissioners as well as organizing obscure spares that I requested. He’s still in charge of our finances. ‘I don’t like surprises,’ he says, and we don’t dare give them. Even before the Mortimers had come to see us, they knew where we were going wrong. They taught me about depreciation and how buying a new Land Cruiser might work out cheaper than constantly repairing a couple of wrecked Land Rovers. But by then, thank God, Lucy was here and could make sense of it all. I still do everything in my head. Without Andy and Georgina, it’s fair to say we would have collapsed years ago, like so many other charity projects without strict financial controls. And we’re still good friends, although I must exasperate the hell out of Andy. Bob Marshall-Andrews noted in his speech at the Trust’s twenty-first anniversary at the Royal Geographical Society that he saw a letter from me to Andy that I had signed off, ‘Yours, expecting a bollocking’ and noted that it was an interesting relationship, seeing as Andy was only a couple of years older than me. But, then, you haven’t met him.

  As I’ve said before, it’s fairly easy to get someone to adopt a wild dog or help buy a rhino from South Africa. They’re tangible and you can see what you’re getting. But with projects such as ours, there are always unforeseen emergencies that need money immediately, like fires, breached dams, rolled vehicles, broken windscreens and elephant ripping up pipelines. It is also difficult to raise money for the mundane but essential things – fuel, uniforms, batteries, wire, poles and the like. Everything Andy and Georgina did has set the Trusts on a much more stable basis. Of course we still have emergencies but they’re no longer such nail-biting, shrieking crises as they used to be because we have planned ahead – maybe not for that particular emergency but at least for an emergency – and can react accordingly. The Mortimers completely transformed our accounting systems, forced me to plan ahead and to court more institutional funding.

  Three of the institutions that have funded us allowed us to make fundamental changes to the way we work: the Suzuki Rhino Club, the International Fund for Animal Welfare and Bob Bishop’s Swordspoint Foundation. IFAW in East Africa is headed up by James Isiche, the former warden of Tsavo West. He knows the pressures we work under, and introduced us to his boss, Fred O’Regan. Together they have allowed us to plan years rather than months ahead and, incidentally, have moved us on to more efficient Land Cruisers. The same must be said of Swordspoint, which helped us over a terrible funding crisis and continues to ensure the long-term safety of our rhinos. The Suzuki Rhino Club is our biggest donor.

  Mkomazi is a good 1,300 kilometres away from Kora but both are very close to my heart. Even during the darkest days at Mkomazi, I was always keeping an eye on Kora and trying to do as much for it as possible, but in 1999 the Kora project had a major setback. Anne Spoerry, the marvellous doctor who had planned and spearheaded all our interventions in Asako, died in her sleep at the age of eighty. She had done many Flying Doctor clinics there and we had put in a new hand pump to provide the villagers with their first ever clean water. Without her forceful presence the board of her organization was not so interested in our partnership so we were going to have to think of new ways to help the village.

  The fact that Kenyan foreign minister Stephen Kalonzo Musyoka was involved in the area was a great boon. He had pushed for a bridge to be built just above Adamson’s Falls so now Kora and Asako were much more accessible to everything, including tourism, which could bring new life to the area if handled properly. And Prince Bernhard had come up with the cash to restore George’s camp, burnt down by Somali raiders in the dark years. By this time the prince liked to fund things such as our Trust with personal cheques rather than making us go through his WWF’s lengthy funding process.


  We had great plans for Kora but commuting between it and Mkomazi was an expensive struggle. At least we knew it was being looked after by people who cared about it and progress was being made. Pete Jenkins’s son Mark was now warden of Meru and Kora. Bitten as a child by the lion Boy, he had been brought up in Meru. He understood the area’s wonders and was well aware of its problems. He was reclaiming it by taking the battle to the poachers – and winning. We got on well.

  Throughout 2000 we made a concerted push towards getting Kora back on the map and Asako more into the twentieth century, if not yet the twenty-first. There was a real feeling of optimism in Kenya at that time. President Moi was still clinging on by his fingernails but he was going to have to stand down at the end of 2001, hoisted by a two-terms-only law of his own making. The government in waiting, with my friend Mike Wamalwa at its core, was running on an anti-corruption ticket and the whole country thought they had only a year left to wait before the good times started. Richard Leakey was the new head of the civil service and my old friend Nehemiah arap Rotich was in charge of the Kenya Wildlife Service. These were honourable people with whom our Trust could do business.

  I managed to get a film company to finance most of the Kora trips that year because I was about to appear on celluloid – not as an actor, as I had for the Japanese, but as a character. Since George’s death I had been approached by a wide variety of people wanting to make a film of George’s life in Kora. I went with a Dutch Canadian called Peter Kronenborg, who gave me script control and agreed to film in Kenya instead of rushing off to South Africa. This provided four hundred Kenyans with jobs, which was a huge source of satisfaction to me.