Wild at Heart

FOREWORD BY NELSON MANDELA: Johns and Godwin photographed and interviewed Nelson Mandela during the summer of 2000. Mandela, in a remarkable tribute to their unique work, will contribute a Foreword to this book. UNPRECEDENTED PHOTOGRAPHS: Chris Johns spent six years recording Africa's spellbinding wildlife, and diverse peoples. His rare talent and dedication resulted in photographs of never-before-seen animal behavior and an intimate depiction of African peoples. COMPELLING STORIES: Peter Godwin tells true tales he has heard from a thousand tribespeople, farmers, and rangers over the years, the sort of yarns that keep tourists enthralled at lodges across the continent and keep them coming back for more. UNIQUE CONSERVATION MESSAGE: This book tells the conservation story in a new, up-to-the-minute way, describing a plan backed by Nelson Mandela for the establishment of Peace Parks throughout Africa. These parks would provide safe corridors for animal migration that cut across national borders. The authors show, in their beautiful, story-telling work, how all life is connected.
The book makes the point that unexpected results may come from even the most well-meaning conservation efforts: helping save one animal can bring threats to another. WILD AT HEART tells its story by weaving together stunning photographs and anecdotal text. The combined words and photographs take the reader on a page-turning journey that, step-by-step, reveals the tangled relationships among animals, people, and geography. Each installment in this journey tells a unique story and also illuminates how different facets of African life are intertwined and dependent on other realities of the African world. The authors show the various collisions that result from isolated viewpoints, such as the single-minded focus on conserving one species without regard for overall bio-diversity, and they speculate on prospects for a future based upon understanding that, ultimately, everything is related. where there are collisions between tradition and modernity, between conservation and development, between people and animals.