Conservation in Africa: Peoples, Policies and Practice

by Edited by David Anderson , Richard H. Grove

• ISBN13: 9780521349901
• ISBN10: 0521349907
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1990-05-25
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Summary

This book provides a new inter-disciplinary look at the practice and policies of conservation in Africa. Bringing together social scientists, anthropologists and historians with biologists for the first time, the book sheds some light on the previously neglected but critically important social aspects of conservation thinking. To date conservation has been very much the domain of the biologist, but the current ecological crisis in Africa and the failure of orthodox conservation policies demand a radical new appraisal of conventional practices. This new approach to conservation, the book argues, cannot deal simply with the survival of species and habitats, for the future of African wildlife is intimately tied to the future of African rural communities. Conservation must form an integral part of future policies for human development. The book emphasises this urgent need for a complementary rather than a competitive approach. It covers a wide range of topics important to this new approach, from wildlife management to soil conservation and from the Cape in the nineteenth century to Ethiopia in the 1980s. It is essential reading for all those concerned about people and conservation in Africa.

Table of Contents

Preface

List of contributors

Introduction: the scramble for Eden: past, present and future in African conservation David Anderson and Richard Grove

Part I. Conservation Ideologies in Africa: Introduction William Beinart

1. Early themes in African conservation: the Cape in the nineteenth century Richard Grove

2. Chivalry, social Darwinism and ritualised killing: the hunting ethos in Central Africa up to 1914 John M. MacKenzie

3. Colonialism, capitalism and ecological crisis in Malawi: a reassessment John McCracken

4. Conservation with a human face: conflict and reconciliation in African land use planning Richard Bell

Part II. Wildlife, Parks and Pastoralists: Introduction Paul Howell

5. Pastoralism, conservation and the overgrazing controversy Katherine Homewood and W. A. Rodgers

6. Pastoralists and wildlife: image and reality in Kenya Maasailand David Collett

7. Integrating parks and pastoralists: some lessons from Amboseli W. K. Lindsay

8. The Mursi and National Park development in the Lower Omo Valley David Turton

Part III. Conservation priorities and rural communities: Introduction John McCracken

9. Local institutions, tenure and resource management in East Africa Peter D. Little and David W. Brokensha

10. Conflicting uses for forest resources in the Lower Tana River basin of Kenya Francine Hughes

11. Environmental degradation, soil conservation and agricultural policies in Sierra Leone, 1895-1984 Andrew Millington

12. Managing the forest: the conservation history of Lembus, Kenya, 1904-63 David Anderson

Part IV. Consequences for Conservation and Development: Introduction John Lonsdale

13. The political reality of conservation in Nigeria Olusegun Areola

14. Settlement, pastoralism and the commons: the ideology and practice of irrigation development in Northern Kenya Richard Hogg

15. Approaches to water resource development, Sokoto Valley, Nigeria: the problem of sustainability W. M. Adams

16. State policy and famine in the Awash Valley of Ethiopia: the lessons for conservation Maknun Gamaledinn

Index.