Abstract
How does the urbanity of Nairobi National Park (NNP) differ from that of other protected areas (PAs)? To address this question our study follows three stages. First, taking the point of view of tourists, it shows how the tourist experience at NNP differs from that at other Kenyan PAs. Next, from the point of view of managers and park rangers it shows what makes NNP different from other PAs. Finally, widening the observation to the metropolitan scale, it emphasises how NPP participates in the fabrication of the city and distinguishes itself from other PAs in Kenya. All these differences make NNP a “metropark”, a type of hybrid space between a “natural park” and an “urban garden” which incarnates a kind of “naturbanity” calling into question the abrupt divide between nature and city.
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Notes
- 1.
The data needed for this research were collected on a specific mission carried out in July 2014, during which around 30 semi-directive interviews with those involved in nature conservation were conducted. However, the fundamental information needed for contextualisation is the fruit of scientific visits to Kenya and Nairobi over the course of over 30 years.
- 2.
However, Nakuru NP overtakes Nairobi: Nakuru combines the high level of visits from schools and residents that is characteristic of urban parks with the significant number of non-resident visits (+50% of its total visitors) that is characteristic of bushland parks. The reason why Nakuru attracts more international visitors is that it has one distinctive feature that boosts its appeal in terms of animal tourism, one that has nothing to do with urbanity but which is not contradicted by it: flamingos. In 2015 NNP made a $2.7 million profit but we don’t have the new figures for other national parks.
- 3.
This skyline apparently does not change the meaning of the pictures that tourists seek to capture in the animal parks, as the confirmation of the violent and irreducible difference/confrontation between the animal kingdom and human order. This ontological test is also geographical since it depends on the angle, the relative placement of the protagonists, the game of geometric and not ontological distances. The effects of the location are of fundamental importance, no doubt more so that is often the case elsewhere.
- 4.
Whereas the iconic blueprint of certain parks, such as TMNP and TNP, focuses on the park’s contour lines. However, this reversal is of no help in demonstrating urbanity, and instead highlights Nairobi’s uniqueness compared with other urban parks covered in the UNPEC project sample.
- 5.
We shall retain the—perhaps significant—homonym with the Beirut green line that separated Christians from Muslims during the civil law (1975–1990) and which steered the “reconstruction” of the Lebanese capital.
- 6.
Symbolic species are classically used in nature conservation policies. In Kenya, this is first and foremost the rhinoceros, of which the numbers are known more or less exactly. According to the KWS Annual Report 2015, 59 rhinos were killed by poachers in 2013, 35 of which were in PAs managed by the KWS. For 2014, the respective figures were 59 rhinos killed including 18 in PAs. Among the most-targeted protected areas are Nakuru National Park, then Solio Ranch and Ol Jogi Conservancy.
Conversely, Mumbai’s park seems especially less emblematic as it only houses leopards, which are much less prestigious animals than the “national animal” of India, the tiger. Curiously, at SGNP, in 2012, one could buy—desperate marketing tactic, perhaps?—polo shirts emblazoned with a tiger’s head. The fact that the park is home to the highest density of leopards in the world was barely promoted (see Chap. 7).
- 7.
The proximity of certain amenities and certain specific urban facilities, such as Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, are part of NNP’s uniqueness. Indeed, the proximity of roads interferes with the management of the park. One the one hand, KWS’ control of the spaces located under the arrival pathways helps to secure them, on the other hand, the air traffic related to JKIA prevents KWS rangers from using light aircraft in surveillance and means they can only use helicopters, which are less effective in the fight against poaching and more costly as they must be rented from the Kenyan Defence Forces.
- 8.
Literally “the Indians”: Kenyans of Indian origin.
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Calas, B., Landy, F., Mbatia, T. (2018). What Makes Urban National Parks “Urban”? Their Specifics Within the National Systems of Protection. In: Landy, F. (eds) From Urban National Parks to Natured Cities in the Global South. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-8462-1_11
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