17/03/2014
Intressant om tillkomsten av Nairobi National Park.
The unsung hero – Mervyn Cowie !!!
Colonel Mervyn Hugh Cowie was born in Nairobi in 1909 and lived in a hut on a farm at Kiambu, north-west of Nairobi. Before moving to Kenya his father was chief magistrate of Johannesburg . Mervyn studied Law and Accountancy at Oxford University .
An incident happened to teach him that man and beast can live in harmony . One day, while passing a lioness in the Nairobi National Park he came off his motorbike. The bike pinned him to the ground as the lioness lay watching him and he was unable to move , with blood was oozing from a cut in his leg.
The curious lioness walked towards him pinned under a lump of metal, and stopped just a few feet away . The lioness sat down and they stared at each other for some minutes while young Mervyn prayed that the smell of petrol was greater than the smell of his own blood.
Eventually the lioness got up and walked off. Cowie was to later say that the incident made him grow up very quickly. He realised that man and beast need not spend their time killing each other. "But first, man must learn to suppress his desire to kill, and beast must be afforded a place to live." He then tirelessly began to pursue the Colonial Government to set aside National Parks in Kenya , starting with the Nairobi National Park .
Towards the end of 1945, the government established national parks and appointed trustees. Cowie was appointed executive director. In December 1946, the Nairobi Park was established and later the Tsavo National Park , Aberdare and Mount Kenya Parks , Amboseli and many others , including the Serengeti in Tanzania .
History now reveals that he masterminded the protection and conservation of Kenya's wildlife and wilderness areas . I hope that our modern conservation efforts will continue to help keep Kenya’s God given natural heritage intact for future generations .