Back to the bush

BAOBAB reaches out and grabs the spear the Masai has planted in the riverbed. The current is not strong, but the rocks are slimy with hippo leavings. There are two crocodiles basking just upstream. "They are not interested in you," the Masai says, by way of comfort. We reach the far side of the Mara River and begin climbing Oloololo, an escarpment which twists and turns all the way to Tanzania. It is already hot, too late in the morning for most animals to show themselves. We come across broken trees and elephant dung.

A bull elephant has just passed through. Dung beetles are already bristling in the droppings. There is something heroic about them; an elephant lifts its tail and they are straight on to the dropping, slicing it up, rolling it into balls and taking it down into the earth, aerating and fertilising the soil. One of the Masai pokes at the dung. There are half-digested fruits of the greenheart tree among the grass and other seeds. We proceed cautiously: greenheart raises aggression in elephants. One of the men goes ahead with a bow and arrow, just in case. Baobab discerns some movement. A buffalo? No, just cattle. Closer to, we hear the cowbells. A barefoot boy drives the herd along. The cowbells warn off hyenas and lions. The clanging is agreeable, almost Alpine. The talk is mostly of animals, plants and trees. There are local varieties of olive and fig. Baobab asks one of the Masai what his favourite animal is. "A cheetah," he says, without hesitation. "They only eat fresh meat. They never scavenge."

Baobab once wrote a novel which was in part about the nature of wild animals and is often drawn back to the African bush. The beauty of the land raises a perennial question: what is the wild worth to Africa? What is the rest of the world willing to pay to protect it?

At the top of the escarpment, we come across the hiding place of a rock python. We go no further: just beyond are newly planted fields of maize. Kenya has lost half of its biodiversity in the last decade. Rivers, vegetation and animals are easily cleared away. Fragility brings urgency: can wilderness coexist in Africa with the growing human population? Is it right to castigate east Africa for mismanagement while the petroleum economies of west Africa, notably Nigeria, have obliterated their animal and bird life and are polluting their wetlands?

Read more about conservation in Africa.