TO PRESERVE A RESERVE

The future of Kora Game Reserve - and thus the future work of George Adamson in Kora - is uncertain. The reserve is some 500 parched square miles of dense, thorn thickets and short, bone-dry trees. It is one of Africa's most primitive and least-changed places. Its sparse grass cover has spared it from human settlement, but not from nomadic herders who have seriously overgrazed it. Poachers have wiped out most of the elephants and all of the rhinos. In an apparent response to this, the government of Kenya in recent months has stationed armed agents in the reserve who have chased out poachers and herders.

As a reserve, the area is locally administered and does not have the same protection it would as a national park. The new director of Kenya's wildlife department, Richard Leakey, has not yet decided whether the area should be made a national park. But he is familiar with the area and with the variety of animal and plant life there.