Africa assails the senses. It is the sound of ten thousand animals running on open plains, the taste of heat in the air, the sight of flamingos tingeing a lake pink, the smell of dampness foretelling rains to come, and the touch of the earth beneath naked feet.

Covering one fifth of the Earth's total land area, Africa straddles the equator. Second in size only to Asia, its name comes from the Latin aprica meaning “sunny,” or perhaps the Greek aphrike meaning “without cold.” This 11,667,000 square mile (30,217,000 square kilometer) continent is filled with exceptional landscapes and truly spectacular biological and human diversity.

This is a land of contrasts, contradictions, and complex interactions. In its vastness, Africa encompasses deserts where daytime temperatures can reach 183°F (84°C) and nights are a frigid 10.4°F (-12°C). Half an inch (13 millimeters) of rain may fall in a year or once in a decade. At the desert fringes, however, the land is transformed as rainfall increases, and plants spread their leaves and stems more widely.

Africa's savannas and woodlands are home to more large ungulates (some ninety species) than any other continent. Mass migrations follow the rains as they have for two million years. And following the zebra, wildebeest, gazelle, and buffalo are the carnivores that define Africa: lion, leopard, cheetah, hyena, and wild dog.

As the rains increase, forests coat the lowlands and the flanks of mountains. Literally millions of species exist here. New species of plants, birds, and even mammals await discovery, along with countless invertebrates responsible for driving the endless recycling of nutrients from the forest floor to the canopy. Deep in the forest, chimpanzees have developed tool cultures and plants engage in chemical warfare with voracious insects. In the rainforest, life builds on life in a exhilarating display of adaptation, innovation and natural selection.

Meandering rivers and immense lakes bisect the land. Waterfalls and cataracts break the flow with cacophonies of sound and mist. Salty remnants of ancient lakes host colonies of flamingos and isolated freshwaters are filled with unique fish.

Savanna, woodland, wetland, rainforest and desert are necessarily arbitrary distinctions. In reality, they blend, merging in ways that can often combine the features of several habitats. Animals range between them, favoring savanna at one time of year, woodland at another. Some species are so finely adapted to particular conditions that they can survive nowhere else, while others are so catholic in their abilities that few places are without them, save those where humans have intervened.

Leopards range from arid deserts to tropical rainforests. Mountain gorillas are isolated in the Virunga volcanoes that divide the Democratic Republic of Congo (formerly Zaire) from Rwanda and Uganda. Plains zebra thrive on ample grasslands, while Grevy's and mountain zebra cling to remote strongholds. Wildebeest mass in herds of phenomenal size, giving moving, thundering life to the great migration, while sitatungas and lechwes live their lives in swamps with relative anonymity.

Habitats shift and change. Fires sweep through the savanna, killing saplings but giving new life to grasses and fire-resistant plants. Rains fail one year, but return the next. Rivers change course, isolating vast lakes that gradually dry, leaving immense salt pans to bake under the sun. Glacial periods come and go. Continents shift, altering rainfall patterns and drying vast areas, as well as redirecting air masses around rising mountain ranges. Change is the only ecological constant.

Rivers flow from mountains still being uplifted by tectonic forces. Deserts rely on water evaporated from distant seas. Rainforest trees depend on elephants to disperse their seeds. Griffon vultures need hyenas to break the bones of their prey into manageable pieces and expose the edible marrow. Leopard tortoises feed on hyena droppings to get the calcium they need for healthy growth. The savanna depends on fire and elephants to maintain its grasslands. Predators need their prey to survive.

In Africa, nothing can exist in absolute isolation--people included. We need Africa, simply because it is Africa, and without it we lose something that is fundamental to our existence. Humanity experienced its beginnings among the savannas, woodlands, and rainforests of Africa. No wonder we feel a fascination for it. Africa is in our blood and in our genes.

The first small blade tools emerged in Africa. Cattle were domesticated here. The earliest hominid remains from Ethiopia and Kenya have been dated at 4.5 million years before present, and the earliest identifiably modern humans existed throughout eastern and southern Africa at least one hundred thousand years ago. From Africa, these people colonized the world.

Today, Africa is home to one thousand distinct languages and countless cultures. Only 10 percent of the world's population lives here, but in many African nations 40 percent of the population is under fifteen, and growth projections average 3 percent a year. Twenty-eight million people struggle with famine on a recurrent basis.

Africa is Serengeti, Madagascar, Tsavo, Okavango, Virunga, Kalahari, Sahara, Congo, Kilimanjaro, Ngorongoro, and Olduvai. It is Lake Victoria and Tanganyika. It is the Mountains of the Moon and home to “the smoke that thunders.” Africa is the grandest of all places because it still harbors remnants of spectacles that have been all but lost from other continents. However, Africa's wondrous wildlife cannot be saved by corralling it in national parks. Africa can only flourish by recognizing the needs of the people for whom the rainforest, savannas, woodlands, and deserts are home.

In the heart of Africa, we developed our humanity and our consciousness. For whatever reason, biological imperative or accident, we have the ability to consider our actions and to plan our future. The next decade may well decide the fate of, among others, the black rhinoceros, mountain gorilla, and elephant. Two large mammal species have become extinct in Africa in modern times: the blue buck disappeared around 1800 and the zebra-like quagga vanished in the 1870s. Many others are on that slow descent to oblivion. Rarely does a species vanish overnight. Usually it takes decades, and a declaration of extinction may be made years after the fact. In September 2000, Miss Waldon's red colobus was finally declared extinct. Discovered in 1933, it had not been seen in the wild since 1978, and its passing makes it the first primate taxon to have gone extinct since the 1700s. Many biologists fear that the loss of this primate is simply the portent to a wave of extinctions that may soon rob Africa of its diversity. Africa without its elephants, rhinos, primates, and carnivores is an Africa that does not bear contemplation, just as an Africa without the Berbers, Ashanti, Mbuti, Masai, Karo, San, and Zulu becomes less than it once was.

Africa is a sensation that we must all learn to feel and protect.

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