Images and words ©Bruno D’Amicis/www.brunodamicis.com
Who
knows why but I never dreamed of meeting a lion. Bears and wolves, oh
yes, many times, and even tigers, pumas, jaguars and leopards; but
no, a lion, just no. Is the indigestion of documentaries about
savannah that I had as a child or perhaps the hundreds of stunning
images taken almost daily in the most famous areas of Africa, but the
lions have never stimulated my curiosity. And hence my vision and my
photographic projects naturally developed in other climates and
around other subjects. I swear, I never had plans to photograph a
lion. Ever. Or at least until January of the past year...
After
having previously worked there in December 2008, in the early 2012 I
went back to Ethiopia, and more precisely in the remote region of
Kafa, on behalf of the German NGO NABU to document landscapes and
biodiversity of newly formed UNESCO Man and Biosphere Reserve. In
addition to photographing an incredibly rich wildlife and the
cultural sites of the region, I had been sent there with a precise
"top secret" mission: to look for possible signs of lions
in the lush mountain cloud forests, where rumors about sightings and
attacks on livestock reported by the local population raised hope to
find a small but possible core of individuals living in an
environment and an elevation somewhat unusual.
As
the name might suggest, Kafa, the legendary kingdom that endured
until 1879 when it was overthrown by the Emperor Menelik II, is
universally regarded as the birthplace of coffee. For centuries,
protected by steep and misty mountains and wide chocolate-colored
rivers, coffee plants of the wild variety, Coffea
arabica,
grew in virgin forests of the region, providing valuable benefits to
local people, long before the Western world would discover the black
beverage. But the current rate of population growth combined with an
exponential increase of poverty has led to a rapid deforestation:
with the axe and fire people are forced to turn the rainforest into
agricultural areas or to sell off their land to foreign investors.
Where once, Ethiopian forests used to cover more than 30% of the
country, now they do not arrive at 3%. Much of what is left of these
is in Kafa and represents the threatened biome of the afromontane
evergreen forests, which beside the latest wild coffee plants hides
many more treasures. Although it would take perhaps a few dozen pages
or a monologue of a couple of hours to tell all what you can see in
that place and make you understand what really these forests are, is
nevertheless worth a try ...
After
the pink color of dawn has abandoned the fog that covers the forests
of Boginda, a new day in Kafa is announced by the harsh cries of
guereza colobus monkey echoing along the valleys, while the
hornbills, always in pairs as the police, fly slow by. Along the
Gojeb river, the rare black crowned cranes leave a huge skeletal tree
on which they spent the night together with elusive De Brazza's
monkeys; chug the hippos in the water and scare dozens of giant and
colorful butterflies. Troops of bushpigs and sketchy baboons patrol
the forest floor at the feet of tall dracenae. In Mankira, beautiful
turacos, green, red and blue, run quickly along the silvery branches
of the coffee bushes, more like squirrels than birds. Calls, flights,
jumps and whispers wake up the rare bamboo woods, so beautiful and
perfect that seem to come out of a movie by Ang Lee and utterly out
of place in this little piece of Africa. The light finally dissolves
nocturnal feline shadows, which have concealed from terrified eyes
the spotted mantle of a leopard, the scales of mamba and the jaws of
hyenas. With more than 210 species of birds, 60 species of mammals
and a ever-growing checklist of reptiles, amphibians, fish and
plants, this kaleidoscopic ecosystem does not seem to miss anything.
Yet until the early 1900s there were even elephants, perhaps the last
true masters of these lands. But the lion? Possible that in such a
diorama made of vines and giant ferns, epiphytes and fig trees, which
grow up to 2500 meters above sea level, does roam the King of the
savannah?
Before
leaving, I diligently did my homework and researched about the
species. But, apart from the famous paintings by Henri Rousseau, a
song by the Evening Birds ("in the jungle ... the mighty jungle
... the lion sleeps tonight ...") and perhaps Disney's cartoons,
honestly I did not find much more in the literature confirming a
possible presence of Panthera leo in mountain cloud forests. I was
really skeptical, but I would have still given it a try: there was
nothing to lose and I had a couple of aces in the hole...
