The Heartbeat of the Wild

"The Heartbeat of the Wild

By David Quammen

National Geographic, 349 pages, $28

Wilderness, David Quammen reminds us in "The Heartbeat of the Wild," must be diverse. A stand of pine trees isn't a forest. A stagnant pool and a few cattails don't make a swamp. To be truly wild, to sustain the pulse in his book's titular metaphor, a great ecosystem must nurture myriad plant and animal species and support a network of essential natural processes such as photosynthesis, pollination, competition and predation. If not, the heartbeat stops; wilderness dies.

Diversity, in turn, requires scale and connectivity. If a wilderness is too small and too distant from other wild places, the author continues, drawing on the work of Edward O. Wilson and other conservation biologists, it cannot thrive. The finite resources of remote islands (whether surrounded by ocean or by civilization) can support only limited numbers of plants and animals, resulting in extinctions and diminishing the diversity on which wildness -- and ultimately the survival of our own species -- depends.

Around the world, Mr. Quammen writes, wild areas are increasingly being "surrounded by people and all the accouterments we require, all the transformations of landscape we commit, replacing biological diversity and connectivity and ecological processes with cities and highways and great universities and operas and libraries and suburbs and driveways and livestock and crops and parking lots and malls and golf courses." Not that we don't need crops and highways and universities. Still, the heartbeat weakens; wilderness falters.

These 21 essays were first published in National Geographic magazine. Mr. Quammen, a prolific science journalist, reports from many regions where wildness is clearly in retreat, from a salmon spawning river in Russia to a marshy jaguar habitat in Argentina. But the great majority of his stories come from Africa, home to the planet's most varied landscapes and most diverse, abundant wildlife. Because the pieces originally appeared from 2000 to 2020, each is framed by a new introduction and endnote to place the article in context and bring the story up to date.

Since Homo sapiens poses the greatest threat to the planet's wildernesses, as well as its greatest hope, the essays center not only on plant and animal species but on members of our own, in particular scientists, conservationists, public officials and local residents. The last of these groups is crucial, Mr. Quammen points out, sounding a central theme, because it's impossible to save wild places without also addressing the needs of the human beings who live nearby. As in any successful negotiation, the solution has to be a win for all sides, for the neighbors as well as the conservationists.

The essay "Tooth and Claw" examines the perilous state of the iconic African lion, which owing to habitat loss, poaching and other largely human-caused threats, has disappeared from some 80% of its former range and dwindled to a wild population of fewer than 20,000, about half of which live in small, isolated, unsustainable refuges. Part of the problem, Mr. Quammen writes, is that although lions are "magnificent at a distance," they are "inimical to pastoralism and incompatible with farming," which makes them "fearsomely inconvenient to the rural peoples whose fate is to live among them." And often fatal to the lions.

So, as experts debate how to rescue the great cats, a community-based initiative at Amboseli National Park, in southern Kenya, works to keep them at a safe distance from humans. Young Maasai men, formerly lion hunters, are hired as "Lion Guardians," tracking them with GPS, then intervening when they threaten livestock. A win for the herders, the guardians and the lions alike. Though the idea has been adapted elsewhere, including an elephant sanctuary in northern Kenya, Mr. Quammen understands that it is no panacea in the face of a growing human population, habitat loss and illegal hunting. But when every remaining lion is precious, even partial victories are cause for celebration.

"Desperate Primates" offers a heart-breaking example of the dangers when a wild species comes in too-close contact with human neighbors. In western Uganda, as villagers have cut forests for cropland, firewood and lumber, endangered chimpanzees have lost their natural habitat. The apes have responded by raiding crops, attacking people at streams and carrying off infants and toddlers, with sometimes tragic results. In return, the chimps have suffered deadly, illegal reprisals. Yet relocating the animals is unfeasible, because all appropriate habitat in Uganda is already occupied by other chimpanzees. The answer? A suite of measures aimed at keeping animals and people apart, including new water wells, more-efficient stoves to conserve firewood, financial incentives for reforestation and educational programs on child safety. Though again far from perfect, the programs have helped produce a "fragile coexistence" between the species.

Focusing on efforts to protect extraordinary landscapes such as Botswana's Okavango Delta and "great beasts" such as the lion, elephant, bonobo and chimpanzee, "The Heartbeat of the Wild" offers a bracing blend of boots-on-the-ground adventure and clear-eyed science, presented in prose that is vivid and passionate yet measured and graced with an occasional flash of humor.

Throughout Mr. Quammen's excellent book, the hard-won victories -- a string of national parks in Gabon, an anti-poaching program in Chad -- are qualified, suggesting that the clock is running out on the planet's last great wildernesses. Yet "The Heartbeat of the Wild" is neither eulogy nor pep talk. "It's late, but it's not too late," the author concludes. "We still have great landscapes and great chances all over the world."

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Mr. Helferich's most recent book is the historical mystery "Hot Time," published under the pen name W.H. Flint." [1]

1. REVIEW --- Summer Books: Don't Fence Me In. Helferich, Gerard. 
Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 27 May 2023: C.11.