Spotlight - 14.2019

Fotos: Lapalala Wilderness School staff

NATURE 14/2019 Spotlight 71

pushes himself up with his walking stick

and shakes my hand. “My goodness, it’s

John Hammond,” I think to myself, until

Walker starts to speak in clipped South

African tones.

Like the lovable, bearded palaeontol-

ogist from the film Jurassic Park, he is full

of life and enthusiasm. Walker aims to

save and breed rhinos. These beautiful

creatures, which have roamed the Earth

for more than 30 million years, have been

brought to near extinction in less than 30

years by man’s greed for rhino horn. Rhi-

nos are some of the permanent guests at

Walker’s latest project, the Waterberg Liv-

ing Museum and botanical gardens. He

hopes that if enough people see rhinos in

real life, it will reduce the threat of death

from poaching.

Walker tells me his life story before

I see something out of the corner of my

eye. A huge giraffe walks slowly past the

window. My mouth falls open. Sitting in

the colonial-style lounge, holding polite

conversation, I had momentarily forgot-

ten where I was. “You have giraffe here,

too?” I point out rather obviously.

“Not just giraffe, but antelopes and rare

birds, including ground hornbills, which

have been extinct in the Waterberg [re-

gion] for many years,” Walker says. “All

this on a 100-hectare plot. Not a lot, but

just enough to excite the kids.”

The animals have arrived ahead of the

human guests. They are settling in, while

the Living Museum prepares to open its

doors in the coming months, with Anton,

Clive’s son, acting as curator.

Walker draws my attention away from

the giraffe, saying with a smile: “Just im-

agine you’re a child from a township who

has only ever seen a giraffe in a textbook.

Now, all of sudden, it’s a living, breathing

concept. This is the essence of the Living

Museum and the Wilderness School. It’s a

living classroom, which is transformative

for our children.”

Walker himself had a transformative

experience in his younger years: in 1971,

he was living a comfortable existence,

working as an advertising executive in his

home city of Johannesburg, when a five-

day guided wilderness walk in Zululand

turned his life upside down.

“The experience had such a marked

impression on my thinking that I decided

then and there to become a professional

wilderness guide,” he says. “I decided to

guide children of around nine, who were

still at an impressionable age, and moti-

vate them to adopt a conservation ethic

for the rest of their lives, wherever that

might lead them.”

It took Walker ten years to realize

his dream, and a lot of searching before

he found the ideal place for his project:

the Lapalala Wilderness reserve. It was

the 1980s and the apartheid years. Un-

daunted, he started encouraging people

to sponsor kids from the Johannesburg

township of Soweto to visit the reserve

for the weekend. He then restored an old

farmhouse on the reserve and made it

into a field school, which opened in 1985

— today’s LWS.

A living museum

After the great success of LWS, Walker

is now directing his energy towards the

Living Museum. First of all, he hopes to

turn it into a local meeting spot, where

people “simply pop in and have a cup of

tea”. Already, the local “men’s breakfast

club” has “bagsied” a weekly morning

meeting slot. The complex will also have

an auditorium, a conference centre, an art

gallery, a library, a research centre and an

office complex. The museum’s main fo-

cus, though, is Walker’s collection.

We step outside and walk along the

path leading to the various museum

buildings, which are located among the

flora and fauna. Each building houses a

separate collection, inviting visitors to

learn about rhinos, elephants, cultural

history, the region’s past and present pio-

neers and the heritage of various peoples

such as the San Bushmen. A surprising

number of treasures, from rhino fetuses

to elephant bones and various fossils, il-

lustrate the facts.

We’re not the only visitors here today.

Looking like a moving Persil advert, a

group of teenage schoolchildren wanders

around in starched white shirts. Their im-

maculate uniforms contrast with the dry

dust underfoot and my grubby clothes.

They stop to listen as their teacher ex-

plains something.

Then I’m rewarded with a rare twitcher

sighting — not of a feathered friend, but

of a flock of serious birdwatching teen-

agers. Inspired by their visit to the Liv-

ing Museum, this birdwatching group

was formed recently in one of the black

township schools. The group is hoping

adopt [E(dQpt]

, hier: annehmen

bagsy [(bÄgsi] ifml.

, für sich beanspruchen;

hier: reservieren

binoculars [bI(nQkjUlEz]

, Feldstecher, Fernglas

charge sb. [tSA:dZ]

, jmdn. zahlen lassen

clipped [klIpt]

, abgehackt

common: village ~

[(kQmEn]

, Gemeindeland,

Dorfanger

executive [Ig(zekjUtIv]

, Führungskraft

extinction [Ik(stINkS&n]

, Aussterben

fetus [(fi:tEs]

, Fötus

flock [flQk]

, Herde, Schar

greed [gri:d]

, Gier

ground hornbill

[)graUnd (hO:nbIl]

, Hornrabe

grubby [(grVbi]

, schmuddelig, dreckig

heritage [(herItIdZ]

, Erbe

immaculate

[I(mÄkjUlEt]

, makellos

impressionable

[Im(preS&nEb&l]

, beeinflussbar

peoples [(pi:p&lz]

, Völker

plot [plQt]

,^ Grundstück

poaching [(pEUtSIN]

, Wilderei

pop in [pQp (In]

, kurz vorbeikommen

restore [ri(stO:]

, restaurieren, erneuern

rewarded: be ~

[ri(wO:dId]

, belohnt werden

settle in [)set&l (In]

, sich einleben

slot [slQt]

, Zeitfenster

starched [stA:tSt]

, gestärkt

textbook [(tekstbUk]

, Lehr­, Schulbuch

treasure [(treZE]

, Schatz

twitcher [(twItSE] UK ifml.

, Vogelbeobachter­

undaunted [Vn(dO:ntId]

, unerschrocken

for donations of binoculars to help spread

their new hobby among friends.

Walker’s hope is for individuals and or-

ganizations to sponsor ten such kids for a

half-day visit to the museum. “We don’t

want to charge children who live in tin

shacks,” he says. “We want to take these

children out of the townships and open

the window to the natural world for the

first time.”

Central to Walker’s world view is that

conservation isn’t just for the rich. Every-

one should be given the opportunity to

see why the environment is so impor-

tant. “The environment is like a village

common: we all use it, but few of us take

care of it,” he says. “We need to turn that

round, starting by educating everyone

around us.”

I look at this small man with his big

dreams and reflect on how much he has

achieved already. If anyone can get people

to listen to a message of hope about the

value of our planet, he can.