If Mervyn Cowie had been born and brought up in South Africa, where his father was chief magistrate of Johannesburg, his love of wildlife, together with his grit and determination would surely have led him to become one of that country's leading wildlife protagonists. As it was, his father, suffering from wounds sustained in the Boer War, moved to settle in Kenya, and South Africa's loss became Kenya's gain.

Mervyn Hugh Cowie was born in Nairobi in 1909 and grew up in a country where wild animals large and small, dangerous and harmless, teemed in their thousands. Some of his first memories were when his father was away "at the war" and he lived with his mother and brother in a hut on a friend's farm at Kiambu, twenty-five kilometres north-west of Nairobi.

"At night, he wrote, "I would lie awake listening to the herdsmen cracking their whips in order to keep the lions away from the cattle and I wondered what my resourceful mother would do if a lion actually broke through the flimsy door into our hut." Later, when his father returned safely from the Great War, Mervyn would revel in the stories of big game hunting told to him by his father and other great pioneer hunters.

For the young Mervyn, the stories of these exciting encounters with dangerous wild animals took the place of nursery rhymes and fairy tales. One of his great heroes was Lord Delamere who would sit him on a box outside his house and tell him the story of how an angry lion he was hunting attacked him and broke his neck. Many years later Cowie remarked of his heroe, "I remember his tangled locks, worn down to his shoulders against the heat of the African sun, swinging back and forth as he talked of great hunting adventures and wondering if I would ever have the courage to face an angry lion or a charging elephant."

Like most Africans who grew up in the bush at that time, from a comparatively early age Mervyn would go out with a gun to shoot something for the pot. But soon he learned to admire the great beauty and grace of wild animals and wondered how long mankind had been at war with them and whether it would always continue. He never though condemed lawful and honourable sport hunting, and to the end of his days he held the fraternity of professional hunters, most of whom keenly supported the case for preserving wildlife, in great esteem.

But hunting was not in his blood. He once encountered an incident which taught him that man and beast can live in harmony if they have mutual respect. One day, while passing a lioness in what was later to become Nairobi National Park he came off his motorbike. The heavy bike, a Harley Davidson, pinned him to the ground close to where the lioness lay watching him and, although he was not badly injured, he was unable to extricate himself. Though he could not see it, he suspected that blood was oozing from a cut in his leg. He was too far into the bush for his shouts for help to be heard and he began to panic.

The lioness walked towards him, no doubt curious as to what this human was doing lying on the ground under a lump of metal, and she stopped just a few feet from him. The only thing he could do was to stare her out, which he did, by now more in anger than fear. The lioness sat down and they stared at each other for some minutes while young Mervyn prayed that the smell of petrol was greater than the smell of his own blood. She was so close that he could see the ticks and lion flies crawling about on her head as she sniffed the air.

After about ten minutes the lioness got up, yawned, stretched and walked off. Cowie was to later say that the incident made him grow up in those ten fearful minutes. He realised that man and beast need not spend their time killing each other. "But first, man must learn to suppress his desire to kill, and beast must be afforded a place to live." This was probably the first inkling within him of a new order.

If wildlife is to be preserved, it must be given a place "under the sun." But these ideas were not in fashion with most of his contemporaries. Cowie was sent to England to be educated at Brighton College and then went on to Oxford University to study law. He trained in accountancy and returned to Kenya as a chartered accountant. But office life was not for him. He longed for the wide open spaces and by now he had begun to appreciate that the wild animals he loved needed protecting.

He had seen the vast herds that he remembered from his younger days dwindle and realised that unless something was done to provide safe havens where wildlife was protected from man, with man's inordinate scramble for land there would very soon be nothing left. Thus began his life's great task. He knew it would be an uphill struggle. Lethargy within the colonial government, plus the inherent antagonism of farmers, both African and European, towards wildlife meant that many people were against the principIe of protecting wild animals which were generally considered fair game and by most farmers as vermin.

His famous anonymous bogus letter to the East African Standard advocating the slaughter of all wildlife in the country to make way for farming has now entered the history books, but at the time it brought a hitherto apathetic Kenyan society at last to its senses. Strong protests against such a terrible idea were voiced and the colonial government was obliged to take action. The case for some form of permanent wildlife protection was overwhelming and Cowie and other far-sighted men, notably chief game warden Archie Ritchie, won the day.

But for Mervyn, the battles had only just begun. Towards the end of 1945, legislation was enacted enabling the colonial government to establish national parks and appoint trustees. Cowie, who had by now been recognised as one of the prime movers in getting the parks established, was appointed executive director. Soon after, in December 1946, the Nairobi Park was established. Later, in Apri1 1948, the Tsavo National Park was created and, by 1950, Cowie had overseen the establishment of all the major parks including the Aberdare and Mount Kenya Parks and the National Reserves of Amboseli, Marsabit and Ngong.

When one considers the difficulties of setting aside huge tracts of land, defining boundaries and reconciling numerous conflicting interests, this was no mean feat in so short a time. Tsavo National Park alone was over eight thousand square miles and the Marsabit Game Reserve measured over ten thousand. He had proudly taken Princess Elizabeth and Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh, in his much-loved Ford V8 station wagon to see the lions of Nairobi National Park.

Only days before, the princess had become Queen after hearing of the death of her father while staying at Treetops in the Aberdares. During their visit to Nairobi Park Cowie no doubt explained to the royal couple the history of that most famous of national parks. His struggle to get it formed had started nearly fourteen years earlier when a committee appointed by the government recommended that Nairobi Commonage, as it was then known, be turned into a national park. An account of those struggles, and of Cowie's later battles with the establishment are recorded in his book 'Fly Vulture' published in 1961 by George Harrap and Co. Ltd.

During the twenty years he served as director of the Royal National Parks of Kenya, Cowie had many battles with the powers-that-be, not the least of which were over the paucity of money allotted to maintain the parks. It seemed that it was one thing to legislate for the inception of national parks, but quite another to give sufficient money to run them. Cowie never ceased to be amazed at the lack of interest Whitehall showed in the one major resource with which Kenya was so richly endowed.

One battle he fought, and lost, had a far-reaching effect which remains with us to this day. In 1961 the Game Policy Committee decided to abolish, at a stroke, all the national reserves and turn them over to the district councils and a government-run Game Department. For thirteen years, National Parks had successfully administered the national reserves and now they were to be given to a government department whose main concern was controlling wildlife, not preserving it.

Cowie, backed by his board of trustees, opposed the idea in the strongest possible terms and published a report setting out his reasons. History has proved him right, as those of us who have lived through it have seen places like Amboseli turn from a wildlife wonderland into a tourist dust bowl as a direct result of that ill-conceived decision. Now- thankfully, at the eleventh hour, the Maasai community has taken the initiative and started creating their own wildlife sanctuaries.

Among the major battles Cowie won was the fight over the construction works for the Mombasa water supply at Mzima Springs in Tsavo West National Park. The government wanted to cut costs by creating an enormous above-ground dam which would have inundated the unique spectacle of Mzima Springs. After a struggle which culminated in questions being asked in the British Houses of Parliament, he finally persuaded the powers-that-be to alter the construction design and create an underground lake instead.

To this day visitors enjoy the springs without even knowing there is a huge underground lake and earthworks nearby. Mervyn Cowie was a slim courteous man of military bearing. His stern countenance concealed a dry humour and a keen sense of the ridiculous. Above all he held a deep concern for people of all races. Through his vision, Kenya's wildlife and wilderness areas have been preserved for future generations to enjoy.

History will show that he masterminded the protection and conservation of Kenya's wildlife and wilderness areas. He spared no effort in his crusade to make the world aware of the threat to wildlife, consistently pursuing international publicity whenever he could. Through his persistence and dedication he enabled one of Kenya's greatest assets to be realised; currently wildlife tourism earns Kenya some five hundred million dollars a year.

Because of Mervyn Cowie's foresight and dogged persistence, lions still roam across the Lone Tree Plains in Nairobi National Park, elephants still shuffle through the Tsavo bush by night, hippos still grunt their greetings at Mzima Springs and vultures still fly over Amboseli. Because of his indomitable spirit, the animal kingdom does not suffer quite so much of man's invasions of its domain and, because of his love of the wild, animals still have places under the sun where they remain supreme. Enchanted Landscapes salutes him for saving a remnant of the world's priceless heritage.