Planet of the Fakes: Wildlife TV shows portray a phoney Garden of Eden…

“We love these programmes not only because they show us how curious the products of evolution are, but also because they remove us to a parallel planet, the Garden of Eden before the sixth day of creation, when God went and messed it up by making man…. Today, conservation officials in Kenya often concede that traditional grazing could be permitted in the parks and reserves without driving out the wildlife. But the local people must continue to be excluded because the tourists ‘don’t expect to see them there’. The tourists don’t expect to see them there largely because the television shows them that healthy wildlife habitats are places without people. By presenting the natural world as something apart from humanity, it creates the impression that conservation means exclusion.” —Planet of the Fakes: Wildlife TV shows portray a phoney Garden of Eden…Guardian)