For anybody who has visited Nigeria, it is difficult to think of a more captivating first line for a report than this:

“These photographs came about after a friend emailed me an image taken on a cellphone through a car window in Lagos, Nigeria…”

We were put onto this piece of journalism last week while Stone was on a trip to Nairobi and met up with a connection of Lurks’s – Xan. It’s hard to imagine how a conversation with a guy who’s full name is really “Xan” could NOT be interesting… and it lived up to all expectations.

AfricanSurfer on the streets of Nigeria near Abuja (circa Aug 2007)… ‘Zuma rock’ in the distance

Xan is the foreign correspondent for a mainstream UK newspaper, and at some point the conversation turned to some of the more crazy things journalists out there are doing. “Pieter Hugo“, Xan said between sipping on a cold Tusker: “go and google him when you get home. He’s done some interesting stuff in Nigeria on these Hyena men…“.

Hyena-man of Abuja, as photographed by Pieter Hugo

Nigeria gets a lot of bad press around the world, so to hear about a piece of reporting on the country not directly relating to corruption, scams or violence was unusual. You may remember a couple of weeks back we did a breakfast presentation at The Hub in London. One of the themes that came out in the talk was animal conservation in West Africa, and the fact that contrary to what one expects from an ‘African trip’, we actually encountered astonishingly little wildlife on our way up. And Pieter probably sums up our experience perfectly in the following paragraph of his story of the ‘Gadawan Kura‘ (Hyena entertainers) whom he followed and documented between 2005 and 2007:

“Many animal-rights groups also contacted me, wanting to intervene (however, the keepers have permits from the Nigerian government). When I asked Nigerians, “How do you feel about the way they treat animals”, the question confused people. Their responses always involved issues of economic survival. Seldom did anyone express strong concern for the well-being of the creatures. Europeans invariably only ask about the welfare of the animals but this question misses the point. Instead, perhaps, we could ask why these performers need to catch wild animals to make a living. Or why they are economically marginalised. Or why Nigeria, the world’s sixth largest exporter of oil, is in such a state of disarray.“

(be sure to read the rest of his text here)

A rare exception: this little guy survives happily, regularly harrassing the deer (!), in Fred’s back garden in Abidjan, Ivory coast

Pieters’ piece was in stark contrast to the throngs of tourists Stone had to fight through the following day at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi, mostly arriving from one of Kenya’s famed animal Safari’s. He sat next to Ken on the plane, a wildlife photographer who told him it was the third time in seven months that he was either in Kenya or Tanzania. Tourism brings in approximately US$500m to the economy each year, and features in the top two foreign-export earners for the country along with tea, depending on what you read.

South (and ill-adviseable!) entrance to Mayumba National Park in Gabon, managed by WCS

Although no-where near Kenya-levels yet, Gabon is one country we drove through on our trip up the west coast showing great potential. The government has declared approximately 13% of the country national park, the most of any country in the world. It’s a spectacular chunk of land and there are people (like the WCS) there doing their best to turn it around. We can only hope that places like Gabon will take a good lesson from their brothers on the East side, providing enough support for their parks and people, setting an amazing example for the rest of the West Coast in the process.

No Hyena, but a cool pet anyway. Lurks, Tim and friend, cruising in the Congo (circa May 2007)…