Colonial Wildlife Conservation and National Parks in Sub-Saharan Africa

Abstract

Colonial wildlife conservation initiatives in Africa emerged during the late 19th century, with the creation of different laws to restrict hunting as well as with the setting up of game reserves by colonial governments. Key influential figures behind this emergence were aristocratic European hunters who had a desire to preserve African game populations—ostensibly protecting them from settler and African populations—so that elite sports hunting could persevere on the continent. These wildlife conservation measures became more consolidated at the turn of the 20th century, notably due to the 1900 Convention for the Preservation of Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa—an agreement between European imperial powers and their colonial possessions in Africa to improve wildlife preservation measures—and with the establishment of the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire in 1903. This Society, made up of aristocrats, hunter-naturalists, and former government officials, used the influence of its members to advocate for greater wildlife conservation measures in Africa. The wildlife preservation agenda of the Society was largely geared around restricting hunting praxis (and land access) for African populations, while elite European hunting was defended and promoted as an imperial privilege compatible with environmental outcomes. Starting in the 1920s, members from the Society played a key role in setting up Africa’s early national parks, establishing a key conservation praxis that would continue into the late colonial and postcolonial periods. After World War II, colonial wildlife conservation influence reached its zenith. African populations were displaced as national parks were established across the continent.