"Born Wild: The Path to Conservation" is a compelling narrative by Simba Qiang Zhuo, detailing his transformative journey in wildlife conservation within Kenya. Beginning with no formal education or experience in conservation, Zhuo's passion, ignited by the stories of George Adamson and the allure of the African wilderness, led him from the bustling streets of Nairobi to the heart of wildlife preservation efforts. His encounters with pivotal figures, including Tony Fitzjohn, and experiences such as living close to lions on the Swara Plains, illustrate the power of determination and the unexpected paths to fulfilling one's dreams.
Zhuo's narrative highlights the challenges of conservation work, especially for someone from a non-traditional background and facing prejudices due to his nationality. Despite these hurdles, his story is one of perseverance, underscored by the mentorship and friendship he received from Fitzjohn, a legendary conservationist with no formal academic training but a shared dedication to lion conservation. This mentorship and shared passion not only propelled Zhuo forward but also emphasized the importance of cross-cultural collaboration in the fight against wildlife extinction.
Transcript逐字稿
Machine transcription with names checked by hand. Small errors may remain; the audio is the record.机器转写，人名地名已人工校对，可能仍有少量误差，以音频为准。
0:00"Born Wild, The Path to Conservation" by Simba Qiang Zhuo. My exploration into wildlife conservation in Kenya started in Nairobi back in 2010. At that time, I really had no clear path. I wasn't schooled in conservation, nor did I have any practical field experience. All I had was a childhood dream, uncertain if it could ever be realized, taking things one step at a time. I had long been familiar with the story of Elsa the lioness, having read the books and seen the films. George Adamson's life rewilding lions in Maru and Korra was something I aspired to, yet it felt somewhat distant from my own life.
0:43During my time in Nairobi, I squeezed through Matatus, packed with crazy drivers and passengers, commuting between the Nairobi city center and areas like Keren, Kailaleshwa, Kilimani and Riverside, staying at various friends' homes. With many government departments concentrated in the city center, one was required to navigate there to complete complex bureaucratic procedures. It was often noisy and congested, making trips to and from the center quite a hassle. The Stanley Hotel in Nairobi was a spot I often visited, not to indulge in beer or whiskey, but to connect with friends from across the globe. It offered a sense of stepping back into the British colonial era of the early 20th century, a respite from the outside chaos, unbeknownst to me then, also a favorite of Tony Fitzjohn before he joined George Adamson in 1971.
1:37I've always believed in the incredible connections that can link people from different regions and eras, but I hadn't imagined that I would later have the chance to meet Tony and through him learn more about George. Though I never met George, our shared love for lions and dedication to conservation allowed us to contribute together to the path of human wildlife conservation. In Nairobi, I had a close friend named Colvinder Rana, an Indian Kenyan born into a family known for sports, with his father being a Kenyan cricket champion. However, Rana had no interest in sports. He was a businessman who loved lions. In September 2010, he took me to the Swara Plains to see his newly purchased land and introduced me to some of his neighbors.
2:19Through these new friends, we met Sandy Simpson. He originally came from Scotland, lived on the eastern outskirts of Nairobi in the Suara Plains, with three lions at home, all escaped from Nairobi National Park, and too old to be released back into the wild, thus kept in open air enclosures. Rana and I often visited the lions, hoping to help Sandy realize his plan to establish a conservation area to create a safe corridor for the wildlife of Nairobi National Park. For this purpose, I rented a wooden cabin on the Suara Plains to be closer to those three lions. One day in October, Rana excitedly invited me over for dinner. His wife prepared an authentic Indian meal, and after dinner, ran a mysteriously presented a videotape saying, "I guarantee this will be your favorite movie."
3:06It was my first time watching "To Walk With Lions," a film about Tony Fitzjohn's legendary work with George Adamson in the Corps Reserve. Having watched countless movies, this film, for its plot and music, undoubtedly became my favorite. After watching the movie, I returned to my place in Nairobi and began searching online for information about George Adamson and Tony Fitzjohn, surprisingly discovering the George Adamson Wildlife Preservation Trust's rudimentary website. I found a contact email and wrote to Tony without expecting a reply, yet 10 days later I received his response, marking the beginning of our correspondence. In January 2012, Tony returned to Kenya from Tanzania for a few days in Nairobi.
3:51We agreed to meet at a restaurant in Corral with my wife and eight-year-old daughter joining us. Tony, then 67 and I, 39, took the opportunity to learn more about George and Tony's life with Lions and Cora. Unexpectedly, a viral video of a man hugging a lion was directly related to him. The young male lion, Christian from London, was raised and successfully rewilded by George and Tony and Cora. Tony worked with George for 18 years until George was killed by Somali poachers in 1989, after which Tony left Kora in Kenya, founding the Mikomasi Reserve in Tanzania. In 2019, Mikomasi was declared a national park, and the Kenyan government later invited Tony back to Kenya, hoping he could help rebuild the Kora Reserve.
4:36During that meeting, Tony was curious about why I had come from China to Kenya to protect lions. At the time, I was in a difficult position. The cost of living in Nairobi was high and I had no income. Moreover, many people had prejudices against Chinese people, thinking that Chinese came to Africa only for business and were interested in buying ivory and other wildlife products. This prejudice made it difficult for me to integrate into the local conservation community, let alone join local international conservation organizations to gain some income and field experience. After hearing my story, Tony changed his usually humorous tone to a more serious and solemn one, saying, "Symba, Africa is the cradle of humanity and the last Eden for wildlife.
5:23China is the most populous country in the world, and now there are many Chinese people living and working in Africa, but no one has come to join us in wildlife conservation work. Africa needs China's help. You are the first Chinese person I know who has come to Africa to work in wildlife conservation. Naturally, you will face many suspicion and difficulties, but you must persevere because your actions will inspire and encourage more Chinese people to pay attention to and support this great cause. Tony's encouragement was the main reason I was able to keep going. Tony himself had no academic background in wildlife conservation and had wandered Africa for years until he joined Georgia's team in Korah.
6:04And now he is a legendary figure in conservation. I am grateful to Tony to this day. Without him, I might have given up on my conservation dreams and returned to China to take up a stable but conservation unrelated job, which clearly was not the life I wanted. Life is short and it would be a great pity not to pursue one's ideals in the life one desires. After that meeting, we kept in touch regularly and I consulted him on many questions about line behavior, which greatly aided my study of human line relationships. In 2014, he invited me to attend a memorial ceremony for George Adamson in the Quora Reserve.
6:44I joined Dr. Dominic Magelli, the chief veterinarian from the Kenya Wildlife Service, and we drove for nine hours along the route they often used, empathizing with the difficulty of transporting supplies from Nairobi by land. A pilot friend I had met on the Suara Plains had even flown supplies to George and Tony. During the ceremony, he gave a speech reflecting on his life and work with George in Kora, expressing deep nostalgia for George. During this visit to Kora, we had the chance to explore the Kampi-Yasimba, where they had lived, climbed the nearby Rock Hill, and walked to the Tana River. In October of the same year, I accidentally met Tony again in Los Angeles, where Fulu, Tongshilu, and I attended his fundraising salon.
7:29After that, we never met in person again, but we continued to correspond by email. I tried to invite Tony to China to give a talk, hoping to promote the Chinese edition of his book, "Born Wild." But these plans were delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic. From 2022 to 2023, I wrote several letters to Tony, but he did not reply. It was unusual for him not to respond quickly, so I searched his name online, only to discover that he had passed away in May, 2022. In 2015, I invited Tony to write the foreword for my book, "Guarding the Lion Pride," published by Sandleon Bookstore, to which he gladly agreed and soon sent it to me.
8:11In the foreword, Tony wrote, "George Adamson was sitting in the mess tent in Korah in the early 1970s, talking to some people that were paying a visit. And I heard him say, "When I came out here, in 1924, the wildlife was going to go on forever. There were no people, no emphasis. And even when I came out to Kenya in the late 1960s, It was inconceivable to think that rhinos, elephants, lions, and many other animals would disappear from already protected areas, even if a fast expanding population would develop the lands in between. It was inconceivable that wildlife populations without corridors would vanish from these hinterlands and live in isolated glory, albeit that some of these areas were huge, some the size of countries in the case of Savo National Park in Kenya and the Salos Game Reserve in Tanzania.
9:03It has been my huge privilege and pleasure over the past few years to have had the friendship and company of Qiang Zhuo, nicknamed Simba, Kiswahili Furlian, for his love of these wonderful and gregarious animals that we seem to have so much in common with. Whether in the Maasai Mara where his small dedicated group tries to address all the modern day human animal conflict problems with practical solutions, or in Los Angeles where we have met when he was lecturing to U.S. university students Chinese groups in the cities to China where he works tirelessly to bring the wonders of the last great wild animal spectacles in the world and the need to save them to vast sections of society. Truly a voice in the wilderness from the wilderness but I have never underestimated how one person can capture the mood of an entire generation. I too have experienced the love and companionship of these animals in Core National Park in Kenya where for nearly 20 years I returned orphaned lions back to the wild with George Adamson and with whom we crossed the boundaries of fear to form close and lasting relationships with these incredible creatures. And my respect for them and the life they lead is boundless. My respect for Simba is boundless too for all he is doing. It hasn't been easy and he has had to forego a lot of the comforts and pleasures that the modern world has taken for granted to promote his message. I fear for the natural world that we love so much and must be perpetuated, for apart from the economic benefits they produce, they are our spiritual bridges to the past and we must reconcile with them. Simba gives me hope that all is not lost and that's enough. Because of Tony and George, every time I return to Kenya, I almost always visit El Samir in Naivasha. It was the place where George and Joy lived together, and it It was also where Tony went to inquire about job opportunities with Joy.
10:57Although Joy and Tony did not get along well, it was Joy who informed Tony that George needed an assistant in the Cora Conservation area, which led Tony to the life he truly wanted to live. Tony and I come from different places. He is from England, and I am from China. We also hail from different eras. He is 28 years, my senior. We might be considered friends across generations, but we share many similarities. Before coming to Africa, we both loved Tarzan of the Apes, aspired to explore Africa, enjoyed adventures, liked the Stanley Hotel, and we both chose a life path that is free and wild by nature.
11:37Tony has left us, which brings infinite sadness. In this life, I no longer have the chance to chat with him, but his spiritual legacy, Optimism, humor, bravery, and resilience will continue to illuminate my path in wildlife conservation. Paying tribute to Tony Fitzjohn, I echo a sentiment from his "Born Wild." Success is not final, failure is not fatal. It is the courage to continue that counts. I have found the courage.