Do zoos still belong in our cities?

The Johannesburg Zoo has a rich history but its future in a modern world is debatable

- Ask Ash Ash Müller

One of the most valuable pieces of land in Johannesburg has been home to lions, leopards, elephants and Siberian tigers for over a 100 years.

This is not a riddle. I'm talking about the Johannesburg Zoo a place that many of us have visited or driven past on Jan Smuts Avenue without giving much thought to its extraordinary history.

The story begins with Hermann Eckstein, a German-born British mining magnate who played a massive role in shaping early Johannesburg.

Eckstein was the first president of the Johannesburg Chamber of Mines, a man whose fingerprints are all over the city's early development and, quite literally, the man who gave us the "forest" of Joburg.

He planted over 3 million trees in Saxonwold. Back then, the suburb was known as the Sachsenwald Plantation, named after the Sachsenwald Forest near the city of Hamburg, in Germany.

This is the same forest where Hermann Eckstein grew up.

In the late 1800s, his company H. Eckstein & Co planted millions of blue gums, wattles and pines across the open veld to supply timber for the growing mining industry.

When the mining needs eventually changed and the land was opened up for residential development, the name was anglicised to Saxonwold literally meaning "Saxon Forest." A fitting name for one of Johannesburg's greenset, most historic suburbs.

When you look out over the leafy canopy of Johannesburg today, one of the largest manmade urban forests in the world, you're seeing part of his legacy.

When Eckstein died, his company, Wernher Beit mining group, made an unusual donation in his honour.

In August 1903, they gave the Johannesburg Town Council 81 hectares of land and a few wild animals on one condition: the park had to be called Hermann Eckstein Park.

And, just like that, two of Joburg's most beloved spaces were born: Zoo Lake and Johannesburg Zoo, separated by Jan Smuts Avenue.