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PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHARLIE HAMILTON JAMES
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By Peter Gwin, Editor at Large
Over the last century, National Geographic has sent scores of scientists and researchers, filmmakers, and photographers to document the Serengeti. But a couple of years ago, photographer and Nat Geo Explorer Charlie Hamilton James pointed out that it had been 30 years since the magazine had taken a comprehensive look at this important ecosystem—which covers a Maryland-size swath of northern Tanzania and southern Kenya. That observation led us to this month’s special issue—a deep dive into the current state of one of Africa’s most iconic landscapes.
Part of what makes the Serengeti so special is the astonishing array of life it contains—a deeply interconnected web of thousands of animal and plant species. There are, of course, the safari favorites—elephant, lion, rhino, hippo, cheetah (pictured above), and giraffe. But there are multitudes of creatures that get little attention—the African fish eagle (a near doppelganger for the American bald eagle), the tree hyrax (a tiny distant relative of the elephant), and a hundred species of dung beetles (which navigate by the Milky Way).
Like many wild places, the Serengeti now faces immense challenges—many posed by the growing number of humans who now live in and around it. Kenya and Tanzania have seen their populations double in the last 30 years, and though both nations have protected large parts of the ecosystem, more people are moving into the area. With them come the pressures of livestock, farming, new roads and buildings, and more harvesting of resources. The demand for firewood and charcoal—traditional fuel sources—for example, has devastated the Mau Forest in the north of the Serengeti. Meanwhile, deforestation, dams, and large-scale irrigation projects have disrupted the predictable flow of the Mara River (pictured below)—the Serengeti’s lifeblood.
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