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The wonder Chris Matthews first witnessed three decades ago, as a hitchhiker on his way home from the Peace Corps, is still there in Africa
The wonder Chris Matthews first witnessed three decades ago, as a hitchhiker on his way home from the Peace Corps, is still there in Africa
Commentary: Matthews talks about guarding Africa and its animals from poachers and terrorism CHRIS MATTHEWS, host:
From the pages of "Tarzan" to Ernest Hemingway, the big game of the wild African plains became the stuff of our dreams--and it's for real, a wonder of the world that lives even now. There are places in Kenya where you can stand on an escarpment and see more plains and Acacia trees than you can see ocean standing on a beach. `For now,' I said.
The wonder I first witnessed three decades ago, as a hitchhiker on my way home from the Peace Corps, and went back to see once again this summer, is still there.
But a couple generations from now, an Africa for our grandkids to know, that depends on the people of Africa and those of us who came from there, which is, if you rely on those old bones, all of us. Those, like the rangers of the Kenya Wildlife Service of the front-line force. These guys live out in the bush, away from their families, guarding the big game from the poachers who cross borders to kill for the ivory.
Outside groups, like the International Fund for Animal Welfare, on whose board I serve, are working to help. But these Kenyan rangers are the heros as they face the nightly danger of poachers, armed with automatic weapons and ready to kill anyone who stands in their way.
Terrorism is added to the threat. Those tourists who were made nervous by the American's Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania a few years back are cutting the hard dollars it takes to back those gutsy African forces like the Kenya Wildlife Service.
Let's not let the roaring, driving, riveting animal kingdom of Africa become one more casualty to fear.