The book review:
In the Shadow of Kilimanjaro--on foot across East Africa by Rick Ridgeway, New York, Henry Holt and Company, 1998. Ridgeway is an adventure travel writer who uses a month-long safari descending from Kibo peak on the top of Kili along the water courses of the Tsavo, Galana and Sabaki rivers to the beach at Malindi as an opportunity to delve into conservation issues in Kenya. His description of the walk itself, accomplished in the company of Iain Allen, KWS wardens Bongo and Danny Woodley, and rangers Mohamed Hamisi and David Lokiyor, provides the setting for the discussion. (Not coincidently my interest in this book was piqued because my wife and I hiked the along the Tsavo River with Iain and Mohamed in 1983.) Ridgeway evokes the sense-enhancing tension of the bush where every movement could be an elephant, buffalo, lion, hippo or even, now again, a rhino. He listens to the birds, smells the smells and suffers the heat. Juxtaposed to the on-the-spot lessons and anecdotes about the animals encountered--Ridgeway was particularly impressed by a no-bluff charge of an elephant matriarch--the author recounts the history of the Tsavo parks, the colonial-era debates about the utility of such areas, and the exploits of legendary white hunters. He uses Bongo and Danny’s father, the late Bill Woodley, a thirty-year veteran of Kenyan parks, as a measuring stick and point of departure for debates on conservation and hunting. Woodley, along with David Sheldrick, essentially developed Tsavo in the forties, fifties and sixties into today’s parks. They confronted elephant-culling issues, drought, traditional elephant hunting by Waliangulu tribesmen using bows and arrows, vicious battles with Somali shifta armed with AK-47s, and high-level political corruption.

Ridgeway also discusses recent and current Kenyan wildlife issues, particularly the leadership of Kenya Wildlife Services: first of Richard Leakey as director and then David Western who replaced him. The author mulls over strict preservation of parks for animals only against ideas of community-based conservation, but does not come out clearly for either philosophy. Throughout the book, Ridgeway evokes nostalgia for the past. In sum, The Shadow of Kilimanjaro is a good history of the Tsavo, a sound primer about elephants, and a solid overview of conservation issues in Kenya. It is an excellent read for those who want to think about how Kenya should handle such pressing questions.

Addendum: For those interested in animals, birds, game parks and conservation issues Swara, the quarterly magazine of the East African Wildlife Society, is full of fascinating articles on such topics. Visit the web site www.eawildlife.org for more information.