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Opinion: Why the world needs African wildlife filmmakers

Africa's iconic wildlife often stars in nature films, but Black African wildlife filmmakers are hard to come by.

Editor’s Note: Paula Kahumbu is a Kenyan wildlife conservationist and CEO of WildLife Direct. She is also guest editor of CNN’s Call to Earth series. The views expressed in this commentary are her own.



CNN
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I am an African living in Nairobi, Kenya, who makes films about my continent’s wildlife. But as a species, wildlife filmmakers from Africa are rarer than mountain gorillas. This needs to change.

We can literally count Africa’s prominent Black wildlife film makers on one hand – Kenya’s Faith Musembi, Manu Akatsa, and Jahawi Bertolli, and the Congo Republic’s Vianet Djeguet. To understand why there are so few, we need to remember our recent history.

When the colonial powers invaded Africa, they seized control of the continent’s wildlife along with its other natural resources. Colonial settlers saw African wildlife as “big game” and the continent’s first protected natural areas were game reserves, “pristine” natural areas created by expelling local communities for the benefit of white hunters.

After almost all African countries achieved independence in the latter half of the 20th century, descendants of colonialists remained in charge, in alliance with Western-based international conservation organizations. Game reserves were renamed national parks and, gradually, big game hunting gave way to wildlife tourism, where animals were “shot” with cameras instead of guns. But African wildlife was still there for White people’s enjoyment. Benefits from wildlife, and access to protected areas for local people were very limited. The idea that these locals could have an interest in preserving wildlife for its own sake was rarely considered. This may have unwittingly caused the prevailing perception that Africans aren’t interested in wildlife.

Africans like me who tried to get involved in wildlife conservation were made to feel out of place. Fellow Africans told me it was backward for a modern educated African to go to the bush and asked if I thought I was White – since of course, wildlife conservation was a romantic career choice for a foreigner. My applications to join White-led field research projects were rejected. When I was first interviewed by a British film crew, my interview was cut at the editing stage and replaced by one with a…

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