More praise for Celebrity and the Environment ‘More exposé than a tabloid. More weight than a broadsheet ... Brockington lends academic muscle to what, I suspect, many of us instinctively feel about these issues. Extensively researched yet winsomely written and, thankfully, not veering into cynicism which a book on this subject could easily do. Enlightening and easily accessible by the armchair environmentalist.’ Terry Clark, St Luke’s Church, Glossop ‘I was surprised by this book. Anything containing the mere word “celebrity” will normally see me heading for the hills at speed, let alone a whole book on the subject! Dan’s book is written with wit and grace. His research was clearly meticulous and the result is a book that is informative and enjoyable.’ Robin Barker, Countrycare Children’s Homes ‘In an analysis that builds on a large literature examining interlinkages between conservation and corporate interest, Dan Brockington turns a new corner, investigating how the rich and famous lend their glamour to the noble goal of saving the planet. In reality conservation is a highly political pursuit with winners and losers. Brockington provides a well- balanced account of the pros of harnessing the razzamatazz of celebrity to the conservation cause with the cons of sanitizing the harsh realities of conservation politics and the insidious danger of commoditizing nature. If you want to embark on the journey in to contemporary conservation you would go well with this book.’ Monique Borgerhoff Mulder and Tim Caro, University of California at Davis ‘A thoroughly stimulating book that made me question my role as a conservation filmmaker.’ Jeremy Bristow, director and writer About the author Dan Brockington has a PhD in anthro- pology from UCL and is happiest conducting long-term research in remote rural areas. He is the author of Fortress Conservation and Nature Unbound (with Rosaleen Duffy and Jim Igoe), and has undertaken research for several years in Tanzania as well as shorter projects in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and India. He has worked at the Universities of Oxford, Cambridge and London and is now a senior lecturer at the Institute for Development Policy and Manage- ment at the . Celebrity and the Environment Fame, wealth and power in conservation Dan Brockington Zed Books london | new york Celebrity and the Environment: Fame, wealth and power in conserva­ tion was first published in 2009 by Zed Books Ltd, 7 Cynthia Street, London n1 9jf, uk and Room 400, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa www.zedbooks.co.uk Copyright © Dan Brockington 2009 The right of Dan Brockington to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988 Set in OurType Arnhem and Futura Bold by Ewan Smith, London Index: [email protected] Cover designed by Rogue Four Design Printed and bound in Great Britain by CPI Antony Rowe, Chippenham and Eastbourne Distributed in the usa exclusively by Palgrave Macmillan, a divi- sion of St Martin’s Press, llc, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, ny 10010, usa All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying or otherwise, with- out the prior permission of Zed Books Ltd. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data available isbn 978 1 84277 973 6 hb isbn 978 1 84277 974 3 pb Cert no. TT-COC-002303 Contents Figures and table | vi Acronyms | vii Preface | viii 1 Introduction . 1 2 Combining celebrity and the environment . 6 3 Conserving celebrities . 25 4 Wildlife presenters and wildlife film . 41 5 Celebrity conservation . 62 6 Concentrations of wealth and power . 90 7 Criticisms . 110 8 Saving the world . 126 Notes | 152 Bibliography | 168 Index | 184 Figures and table Figures 2.1 The global growth of protected areas . .14 6.1 The development of conservation NGOs working in sub-Saharan Africa . .95 Table 6.1 The structure of the conservation NGO sector in sub-Saharan Africa . .96 Acronyms ATREE Ashoka Trust for Ecology and Environment BBC British Broadcasting Corporation CEO chief executive officer CNN Cable News Network DRC Democratic Republic of the Congo ESRC Economic and Social Research Council HTV Harlech Television, now called ITV Wales and West IUCN International Union for Conservation of Nature MTV Music Television NGO non-governmental organization PETA People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals RMAP Resource Management in Asia-Pacific Programme SECS Sudanese Environmental Conservation Society SERG Society and Environment Research Group UK United Kingdom US/USA United States of America USAID US Agency for International Development WWF Worldwide Fund for Nature Preface I know something about wildlife conservation. I have written books and articles about conservation, I go to international meetings about it, I enjoy talking to conservationists and wrestling with their problems in conservation journals. I love spending time in rural societies learning about conservation, and listening to people talk about local environmen- tal politics and the impact of government policies or non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on their lives. I have spent nearly three years on such work in rural societies in Tanzania for my PhD and post-doctoral research, and have been able to talk with farmers and conservationists in many other parts of the world about their struggles. However, I have had only glancing encounters with celebrity conserva- tion and I am not normally drawn to celebrity in a more general sense. I do not dress fashionably and visit the cinema only sporadically. I never fitted in with the groups at school who were keen on the latest trends in music – I did not like the sound of it and could not (cannot) dance. I do not read Hello! or OK!, or men’s (or women’s) magazines. I was out of the country when the first Big Brothers were screened in the UK, and could not understand the hype when I returned. I do not follow reality TV shows; in fact I do not watch television. When I realized that celebrity was becoming increasingly important in environmental affairs and that I was going to have to take an interest in it and find out how it works, my main problem was that I simply did not know the names of the people involved. And when I found out what they were, I did not know who they were. Early drafts of this manuscript were full of unfortunate mistakes: Brangelina was a woman and I recorded the support of both Harrison Ford and Indiana Jones for conservation causes. I still do not ‘get’ celebrity. I have had trouble taking it seriously. I have frequently found the world I encountered bizarre and ridiculous. Celebrity is presented as an all-encompassing, totalizing phenom- enon which touches everyone. Most newspapers and magazines are full of details about celebrities’ lives and goings-on. Even the more serious publications can be keen to tell us what apparently random celebri- ties think about various current affairs. However, as we shall see, the media are an unreliable guide to the popularity of celebrity: theirs is too vested an interest. I suggest that some simple statistics will make my anti pathetic stance the most plausible and representative one to take. There are millions of us who are not interested in celebrities. In fact, we are in the majority. Over 98 per cent of the population of Britain does not buy Hello!; over 80 per cent does not even read any celebrity magazine. Many readers are probably just forced to encounter the publications while waiting for doctors, dentists and hairdressers. Viewing figures for the most popular soap operas in the UK are frequently under 10 mil- lion, which means that more than 80 per cent of the country has found other things to do rather than watch them. I admit that celebrity features prominently in British society, and in much of the West, but I deny its domination. And my strangeness to celebrity makes me well placed to write about it. For decades anthropologists have been pitching up in societies they knew little about, and soon learnt enough to write about them. A stranger’s eye can be perceptive, even if she dislikes, or wants to laugh at, what she sees. My methods for coping with, and finding out about, this strange world have been straightforward. I read books and articles, wrote letters and emails, surfed the Web and talked to people. I have explored the literature on celebrity and wildlife films, interviewed celebrity conservationists, read their autobiographies and biographies, and talked to wildlife filmmakers, presenters and conservation NGO staff; interviews and personal com- munications are anonymized and referred to as ‘Sources’ in the notes. I have studied the structure of the conservation NGO sector in particular regions. I have examined websites and followed particular conservation campaigns. The result is not an exhaustive survey; it was not intended to be. Nor have I followed the work of particular celebrities in depth. I am more interested in the conservation celebretariat as a whole. Many people have assisted during the course of writing this book. Mahesh Rangarajan helped to get it off the ground; his enthusiasm for the project and extraordinary memory prompted some wonderful leads. Tamsine O’Riordan and Susannah Trefgarne have been patient at Zed, and arranged for several useful anonymous reviews – my thanks to those readers. I also thank Amanda Stronza, Andrew Mittelman, Ashish Kothari, Barbara Brower, Barbara F. Wolf, Bernardo Peredo, Bram Büscher, Chris- topher Thoms, Chuck Willer, Crystal Fortwangler, David Hoffman, David M.