The Myth Of Wild Africa

Africa's wildlife heritage is under siege--and its worst enemy may be traditional conservation methods. The authors tell of new conservation programs that include more Africans in the planning, execution, and financial benefits of this multi-billion dollar business.

Africa's wildlife heritage is under siege--and its worst enemy may be traditional conservation methods. The authors tell of new conservation programs that include more Africans in the planning, execution, and financial benefits of this multi-billion dollar business.

"This book offers a timely, clear-headed, and uniquely important contribution to conservation, one that should be read by all bureaucrats, scientists, and others involved with development projects that supposedly benefit wildlife and wilderness."--George B. Schaller, author of Wildlife of the Tibetan Steppe

An engaging social history of foreign tourists’ dreams, the African tourism industry’s efforts to fulfill them, and how both sides affect each other. Since the nineteenth century, foreign tourists and resident tourism workers in Africa have mutually relied upon notions of exoticism, but from vastly different perspectives. Many of the countless tourists who have traveled to the African continent fail to acknowledge or even realize that skilled African artists in the tourist industry repeatedly manufacture “authentic” experiences in order to fulfill foreigners’ often delusional, or at least uninformed, expectations. These carefully nurtured and controlled performances typically reinforce tourists’ reductive impressions—formed over centuries—of the continent, its peoples, and even its wildlife. In turn, once back in their respective homelands, tourists’ accounts of their travels often substantiate, and thereby reinforce, prevailing stereotypes of “exotic” Africa. Meanwhile, Africans’ staged performances not only impact their own lives, primarily by generating remunerative opportunities, but also subject the continent’s residents to objectification, exoticization, and myriad forms of exploitation.

Looks at wild dogs that roam the African savanna, and their social behavior, hunting techniques, and how they raise their young