In Other News · Africa

Source: Daily Maverick (South Africa)

Synecdoche is an unusual word but capable of some heavy lifting. Applied to the baboons of the Cape Peninsula it’s particularly appropriate. It means a part which represents a whole. In arguments over raided kitchens, fences and the removal of troops there’s a much larger question of how much room humans are willing to leave for wild animals. It brings a global conflict into a single frame: we expand into the living spaces of other species then struggle to tolerate their presence in ours.