East African wildlife

Abstract

Colonial explorers found the savannahs of east Africa to be spectacularly rich in wildlife. Anxiety about the fate of various species, particularly the larger mammals, was voiced at least as early as the 1890s. They became, together with areas thought fit to become national parks on the United States model, items on the agendas of the colonial powers in the period before the First World War. In the conventions of 1900 and 1933, the British Government took the lead in drawing together other European states with territorial possessions on the continent as a whole in efforts to preserve certain areas and species from threats posed by hunting, poaching and encroachment on habitat by other forms of land use. Changing political structures in Africa from the late 1950s brought in their wake different problems and approaches. Attempts to impose solutions from the metropole, difficult enough in the colonial era, were not viable in a milieu of newly independent nations often acutely sensitive to outside interference, especially perhaps from those conservation groups in western countries that seemed less able to adapt to new political realities and priorities. East African countries, though, particularly Kenya, were in a better position than other developing nations to implement protectionist measures: the wildlife resource was increasingly incorporated into definitions of national identity and, by attracting tourists, came to play a central role in economic development. The aim of this second case study is to examine the part played by international conservation organisations in this process.

The sky has no limit

birds fly free

animals get fat

in the bush by His grace.

Shaaban Robert, Utendi wa Adili¹