SAMA HOOLE: More soil carbon. Lower fire frequency. More tree cover than in 1900. The landscape gets more complex, not less.

1890: rinderpest arrives in East Africa. The Serengeti wildebeest collapse from over a million to 200,000.

Ecologists expect the grassland to flourish. Fewer mouths, more grass. Obvious.

The grassland goes backwards.

1960s: vaccination clears rinderpest from cattle. The wild… pic.twitter.com/qgaqTYCnLQ

— Sama Hoole (@SamaHoole) April 20, 2026

1890: rinderpest arrives in East Africa. The Serengeti wildebeest collapse from over a million to 200,000.

Ecologists expect the grassland to flourish. Fewer mouths, more grass. Obvious. The grassland goes backwards. 1960s: vaccination clears rinderpest from cattle. The wild herds recover. Ecologists brace for overgrazing. The wildebeest rebuild to 1.5 million. Largest herbivore population on earth. The grassland gets greener. More soil carbon. Lower fire frequency. More tree cover than in 1900. The landscape gets more complex, not less. The papers have been sitting in prestigious journals for decades. The campaigners continue to argue that grazers destroy ecosystems. The largest natural experiment on earth says the opposite and it cannot be cited, because it does not say the right thing. It just sits there. Getting greener.