Natural boundaries: animals and humans clash in Kenya

“Railway in harmony with wildlife conservation,” read the headline in China Daily, trumpeting the supposed success of the £3.9bn, 370-mile Chinese-built railway that takes passengers and freight from the coastal city of Mombasa through Nairobi and on to the town of Naivasha in the Rift Valley.

Guillaume Bonn’s photographs, part of a 20-year project to document the growing clash between animals and humans in Kenya, Somalia, Botswana and South Africa, tell a different story. A vast bridge carves a strip of steel and cement through Nairobi National Park, on the capital’s doorstep, which is home to giraffes, leopards, lions, rhinos and zebras. “They are affected by pollution, by noise, and they’re losing space,” says Bonn, a Madagascar-born photographer who grew up in Kenya.

For Bonn, the railway itself is not the only problem: he fears that it sets a precedent for a Kenyan government that is desperately searching for economic growth. “If you allow one train to cross the park, it’s just the beginning. “The national park will disappear. Why should we save the zebras when we can put a shopping mall and a casino there?”
Steve Bloomfield