Noel Simon

Noel Murray Simon (born December 25, 1921 in Cliftonville , Kent , † October 20, 2008 ) was a British author and conservationist. He was one of the pioneers of species protection in East Africa.

Life

Simon was one of five children of a naval officer who had participated in the first attempt at an airship crossing across the Atlantic. From a very early age, Simon showed great interest and compassion for nature. He was trained at Christ's Hospital in Horsham , West Sussex and joined the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve in September 1940 . He served as a fighter pilot for the Navy Air Force throughout the war. After joining the No. 805 Squadron he was stationed on the aircraft carrier HMS Illustrious in the Mediterranean Sea and was involved in combat operations during the evacuation of Crete. In 1942 the pilots of the No. 805 Squadron took part in Royal Air Force combat operations over the Libyan desert with their Wildcat fighter jets . On one occasion, Simon had to make an emergency landing in his plane in the desert in April 1942 after he suspected fire.

Back in England, Simon practiced landings on the deck of the aircraft carrier HMS Activity off the west coast of Scotland. He missed the safety ropes and fell into the sea. However, he could be saved immediately. In the summer of 1943 he returned to the "Illustrious" to work at No. 805 Squadron to fly the Grumman F4F Wildcat. On one occasion, his plane crashed on landing, but Simon got away with it. The "Illustrious" was stationed in the Mediterranean and in September 1943 Simon made patrol flights to support the Allied landing near Salerno . In early 1944 he flew wildcats to escort the Atlantic and Russian convoys. On March 31, 1944, Simon and another pilot were assigned to intercept one of the Luftwaffe's Focke-Wulf Condor long-range bombers. The two pilots shot down the machine and took it under their control. In 1942 Simon visited Kenya for the first time during his military service, where he moved in 1947 and married Betty Bingley there. The marriage resulted in two daughters and a son. The couple built a farm in the highlands near Molo . In 1952, Bingley's younger brother was murdered by Mau Mau insurgents . In helping track down the Mau Mau gang, Simon joined the "I" Force and operated for six months in the Aberdares , occasionally on foot but often from the air. He was convinced that the old naval air force string bag machines would be ideal for operations in the Aberdares. Since these were not available, Harvards were used in their place. In 1955, Simon founded the Kenya Wildlife Society, which in 1961 merged with the Tanganyika Wildlife Society and was renamed the East African Wildlife Society . He was the driving force behind the creation of Lake Nakuru National Park , which opened in 1967. He was also responsible for getting the Kenyan authorities to designate 105,000 hectares of the South West Mau Forest as a nature reserve.

Simon's conservation activities weren't limited to Kenya. During its early days, the Kenya Wildlife Society was deeply involved in the controversial government plan to separate the Ngorongoro Crater from the Serengeti National Park. Although this matter had nothing to do with the Kenyans, it was respected by the Tanzanian national park authorities and the initiative of the Wildlife Society welcomed. When it became clear that the government was going to cut off the crater, it was Simon who proposed that the loss to the national park be offset by the addition of new land connected northward to the Kenyan Masai Mara . Simon's proposal was accepted and 2,000 square miles of land were added to the Serengeti, which now encompasses the entire wildebeest migration area. This measure had great benefits for the Kenyan tourism industry.

Simon joined the Royal National Parks of Kenya , where he was quickly promoted to assistant director under first director Colonel Mervyn Cowie (1909-1996). He was largely responsible for convincing the colonial government to recognize the seriousness of the poaching threat in the country's main national park, Tsavo National Park , and to provide the necessary means to counter it. Working closely with David Sheldrick, the founding gamekeeper of Tsavo East National Park, Simon arranged a series of meetings with the then governor, police agent, provincial government and others, resulting in a highly effective anti-poaching campaign in the 1950s. Years ago. Through this initiative under the command of Sheldrick, Tsavo National Park could be freed from poaching for the next decade. Again with Sheldrick, Simon led the Galana Game Management Scheme (Galana Game Management Project), the aim of which was to show the Waliangulu tribe alternatives to poaching. However, the project failed due to a lack of government funding.

Simon remained chairman of the Kenya Wildlife Society until 1962. After a dispute with Colonel Cowie, however, he left the National Park Service and worked for the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (IUCN) in Switzerland from 1962 to 1969 . It was there in 1966 that he compiled the first volume Mammalia of the Red Data Books, official, international handbooks on the world's rare and endangered species. The idea for the Red Data Books came from Sir Peter Scott , but Simon had a free hand to put the first volume together. Mammalia was the prototype of a series of publications that encompass both animals and plants. Since today the online managed in place of IUCN Redlist of Threatened Species (published over 150 Red Data Books, IUCN Red List ) is entered. In 1969, Simon left the IUCN and returned to England, where he concentrated on writing. He wrote a total of 36 books, including Between the Sunlight and the Thunder (1962) about his conservation work in Kenya and a number of children's books. After the dissolution of his first marriage, he married Vanessa Hamilton in 1978, with whom he had a son.

Works (selection)

• Between the sunlight and the thunder; the wildlife of Kenya, 1962
• The Red Data Book: Vol. 1, Mammalia, 1966
• The Red Data Book: Wildlife in danger, 1969 (with James Fisher and Jack Vincent)
• Last survivors; The natural history of animals in danger of extinction, 1970 (with Paul Géroudet)
• The endangered species, 1973
• World guide to mammals, 1976 (with Nicole Duplaix )
• The Edward James Foundation, 1981
• Nature in Danger: Threatened Habitats and Species, 1993
• The Guinness guide to nature in danger, 1993

Web links

• Obituary for Noel Simon in The Daily Telegraph, October 30, 2008.