Saving Africa

The title suggests the book is about one man’s effort to save the apes of Africa. It is that, and more.

The title is the name of Ofir Drori’s organization, The Last Great Ape, or LAGA for short, based in Cameroon. LAGA has been responsible for putting poachers and traffickers of apes and other endangered species behind bars since its founding in 2003.

One telling photograph in the book shows a long row of heads of apes on the ground. Behind the heads are skins of other animals. Another photo shows the tusks of more than 100 killed elephants that were seized in an ivory bust. The book contends that the wildlife trade is pushing animals to extinction.

	“The Last Great Ape, A Journey Through Africa and a Fight for the Heart of the Continent” by Ofir Drori and David McDannald Pegasus Books, $27.95, 281 pp.

Co-author David McDannald, an American, credits Drori’s efforts for animal rights to lead him to widen his focus.

“Animals were his toe hold as an activist,” McDannald said in a phone interview from Galveston, Texas. “The same model that he uses to fight corruption in courts over wildlife crime, he has tried to let Cameroon citizens use his legal team against corrupt officials (on other issues).”

Drori, an Israeli, uses Cameroon as his operational base and has spearheaded efforts in central Africa for conservation, democracy and the rule of law and human rights, McDannald said.

Drori’s perspective, McDannald said, comes from his experience in knowing how to deal with life in sub-Saharan Africa.

“The organization (LAGA) was the culmination of his search for purpose,” McDannald said. “He evolved from an adventure setting out across Kenya and slowly began to participate in the places he traveled to, that is, going with women to weed cassaba fields or teaching science in a bush classroom.

“That wasn’t enough. In Sierra Leone he experienced the amazing spirit of the Leonean people when they were under threat of being murdered in Freetown.”

Drori also was in a war zone in Liberia. To document and expose his encounters with war victims and child soldiers, Drori began working as a photojournalist.

McDannald and Drori met in Nairobi, Kenya, in 2000 and, according to McDannald, “we were like two souls finding this commonality.”

In the book’s postscript, McDannald writes that he and Drori began to write the book in 2008. After he got to know Drori’s mother in Israel, he understood that “her son’s story could only have arisen from the rare household where courage, individualism and compassion had been emphasized.”

Ofir Drori and David McDannald discuss, sign “The Last Great Ape” at 6 p.m. Friday, Aug. 24, at Collected Works, 202 Galisteo, Santa Fe and at 3 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 25, at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW.