Abstract
This chapter explores the emergence of an imperial wildlife preservation lobby comprised of former hunters, liberal reformers, and imperialists. As the British Empire conquered southern, central, and eastern Africa in the late nineteenth century, wresting control over the management of land and animals from indigenous authorities, this lobby, in the form of the Society for the Preservation of the Fauna of the Empire (founded 1903) argued for a universal, empire-wide approach to protecting animals, regulating hunting, creating a new category of poachers, and relying on imperial agents and natural historians to publicize their cause. Preservationists leveraged their connections to Britain’s imperial government to gain a monopoly on imperial wildlife policymaking, but complained by the 1920s that their influence was waning.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
F. C. Selous, Travel & Adventure in South-East Africa (Rowland Ward and Co, 1893), 135–138.
- 2.
Selous, Travel and Adventure, 156; H. Vaughan-Williams, A Visit to Lobengula in 1889 (Pietermaritzburg: Shuter & Shooter, 1947).
- 3.
Selous, Travel and Adventure, 20, 23, 368, 244, 252.
- 4.
Selous, Travel and Adventure, 204.
- 5.
“Concession B,” reproduced in Gervais Clay, Your Friend, Lewanika: The Life and Times of Lubosi Lewanika Litunga of Barotseland 1842–1916 (London: Chatto & Windus, 1968), 168.
- 6.
Originally the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire, the organization removed the word “wild” early on in its existence, and decades later became the Fauna Preservation Society, and then Fauna and Flora International. For simplicity, it is discussed in its first two iterations as the SPFE.
- 7.
Assorted Letters, 1917–1953, Natural History Museum, DF1004/CP/665.
- 8.
Gunther to Selous, February 13, 1883, Natural History Museum, DF 201/12.
- 9.
MacKenzie, Empire of Nature.
- 10.
John Blower, Banagi Hill: A Game Warden’s Africa (Moray: Librario, 2004), 177. There is a very long list of such texts. A few examples from different eras include Roger Courtney’s Footloose in the Congo, John Boyes’ The Company of Adventurers, Walter Bell’s The Wanderings of an Elephant Hunter, George Adamson’s Bwana Game, Arthur Radclyff Dugmore’s Camera and Adventure in the African Wilds, Arthur Neumann’s Elephant-Hunting in East Equatorial Africa, and Selous’ Travel and Adventure in South-East Africa.
- 11.
See Emma Griffin, Blood Sport: Hunting in Britain Since 1066 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007); Brian Harrison, “Animals and the State.”
- 12.
Norman Carr, The White Impala: The Story of a Game Ranger (London: Collins, 1969), 13.
- 13.
Edward North Buxton, Two African Trips with Notes and Suggestions on Big Game Preservation in Africa (London: Edward Stanford, 1902), 36.
- 14.
Buxton, Two African Trips, 117.
- 15.
HMSO, Convention for the Preservation of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa, May 1900, Cd. 101.
- 16.
HMSO, Convention for the Preservation of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa, May 1900, Cd. 101, 89–91.
- 17.
HMSO, Convention for the Preservation of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa, May 1900, Cd. 101, 9–10.
- 18.
Buxton, Two African Trips, 118–119.
- 19.
Buxton, Two African Trips, 122, 127.
- 20.
Buxton, Two African Trips, 128, 129.
- 21.
Buxton, Two African, 134.
- 22.
“The Preservation of the Wild Fauna,” Times (London), April 21, 1906.
- 23.
Buxton, Two African Trips, 140.
- 24.
Dennis Laumann, Colonial Africa, 1884–1994 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019), 11.The Berlin Conference mandated that it was not enough to stake out territorial claims; they must be accompanied by “effective occupation.”
- 25.
Howard Hensman, A History of Rhodesia (London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1900).
- 26.
“The Year,” Journal of the SPFE (1907), 21.
- 27.
Provincial Commissioner (Rift Valley) to Acting Game Warden, 5 March 1936, KNA KW15/6; Acting Game Warden to Provincial Commissioner (Rift Valley), 7 March 1936, KNA KW15/6.
- 28.
HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1910, Cd. 5136; HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1909, Cd. 4472, 2.
- 29.
HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1910, Cd. 5136; HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1909, Cd. 4472.
- 30.
HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1910, Cd. 5136; HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1909, Cd. 4472.
- 31.
John Manwood, A Treatise and Discourse of the Laws of the Forrest (New York: Garland Pub., 1978, orig. 1598).
- 32.
HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1909, Cd. 4472: 16–17.
- 33.
HMSO, Correspondence related to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1906, Cd. 3189: 1.
- 34.
HMSO, Further Correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1909, Cd. 4472: 48; HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1910, Cd. 5136, 100.
- 35.
HMSO, Further correspondence relating to the preservation of wild animals in Africa, 1910, 15.
- 36.
Ibid.
- 37.
Ibid.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
“The Year,” Journal of the SPFE V (1907), 21.
- 40.
“List of Members,” Journal of the SPFE VI (1908), 4–7.
- 41.
Journal of the SPFE.
- 42.
Reuben Matheka, “Antecedents to the Community Wildlife Conservation Program in Kenya, 1946–1964,” Environment and History 11, 3 (2005): 239–267; Bernhard Gißibl, “German Colonialism and the Beginnings of International Wildlife Preservation in Africa,” German Historical Institute Bulletin Supplement 3(2006), 122; Dan Brockington, Fortress Conservation (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002); Stuart Marks, The Imperial Lion: Human Dimensions of Wildlife Management in Central Africa (Westview Press, 1984); Adams, Against Extinction.
- 43.
Journal SPFE X (1922), 38.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Schauer, J. (2019). Imperial Ark: Imperial Preservationists and African Wildlife. In: Wildlife between Empire and Nation in Twentieth-Century Africa. African Histories and Modernities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02883-1_2
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02883-1_2
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02882-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02883-1
eBook Packages: HistoryHistory (R0)