
Protecting the Planet: The Season of Giraffes
Protecting the Planet: The Season of Giraffes
Nicola Davies
Emily Sutton
Walker Books, 2022
32pp., hbk., RRP $A27.99
9781406397093
Once upon a time, the rainy season was also the season of giraffes. As the hot , dry land turned from red to green and the Earth began to breathe again, the giraffes came, their heads appearing in the tops of the acacia trees and they not only fed themselves but helped to spread the trees’ seeds and pollen so there were more trees to give shade, shelter and firewood. The giraffes were just part of the landscape.
But then the giraffes didn’t come… they were seen as food, the trees were used as firewood and the empty landscape where they had once walked, was filled with farms and roads and buildings. Human impact took its toll, and then the rains failed. Climate change brought drought which baked the land and there was nothing for the giraffes to come for. As silently as they had come, they also disappeared. Until…
Written in collaboration with conservationist Kisilu Musya to explain how one of the world’s best-loved animals has dealt with the challenges of climate change, this is the success story of the giraffes in Niger as people realised the impact their actions had and they changed their ways – they stopped hunting, they protected the trees and the places the giraffes liked to be, until there were so many they were able to share them with other places where they had vanished.
Amidst all the negative gloom-and-doom warning stairs of the impact of humans on the natural world, this is a beacon based on a true story that shows that effective changes can be made.
In the mid-1990s there were only 49 West African giraffe left in the wild, and as a result, the subspecies was listed as ‘Endangered’ on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species in 2008.
Comprehensive conservation efforts by the Government of Niger, in collaboration with local and international partners, have triggered an amazing recovery of the West African giraffe population to over 600 individuals today. This positive trend resulted in the downlisting of West African giraffe to ‘Vulnerable’ on the IUCN Red List last month (November 2018).
West African giraffe return to Gadabedji after 50 years of absence
Part of the Protecting the Planet series, which includes Ice Journey of the Polar Bear and Emperor of the Ice, which show younger readers the impact of human activity on Nature’s creatures, this is not only an uplifting story but also one that may encourage them to learn more about these majestic creatures.