Decolonisation and Wildlife Conservation in Kenya, 1958–68

Abstract

Several of Kenya's wildlife conservation areas were established from the late 1950s through efforts by the international conservationist lobby to decolonise African conservation programmes initiated by colonial administrations from the late nineteenth century. The prospect of African independence induced conservationists to look for ways to give Africans a stake in their own wildlife, with a view to securing the future of conservation under independent governments. Kenya's internal politics shaped these efforts on the ground, giving birth to community-controlled wildlife conservation projects such as game reserves. Although the government of independent Kenya had started to transform the conservation programme in favour of state-controlled wildlife areas by the late 1960s, the legacy of the community game reserves persists today. This paper analyses the impact of the internal politics of decolonisation on Kenya's wildlife conservation programme.

Notes

KNA = Kenya National Archives; MAC = Murumbi Africana Collection, held in the KNA; all CO files are held in the British National Archives.

For details of the OAU conservation charter, see Robins, The Ebony Ark, 162–67; Curry-Lindahl, ‘The New African Conservation Convention’, 116–26. For Kenyan politics in the period 1958–68, see Miller, Kenya, ch. 2.

Adams, Against Extinction, 170. The first and second international conferences on the protection of African wildlife were held in London in 1900 and 1933 respectively.

Ibid., 51–54.

See, for example, Carruthers, Kruger National Park and ‘Nationhood and National Parks’.

Adams and Mulligan, eds, Decolonizing Nature. However, Adams does discuss decolonisation and wildlife conservation in Africa briefly in Against Extinction.

Gibson, Politicians and Poachers.

Yeager and Miller, Wildlife, Wild Death, 68. On the significance of land in Kenyan politics, see Lonsdale, ‘Ornamental Constitutionalism in Africa’, for example.

See, for example, Western, In the Dust of Kilimanjaro and ‘Ecosystem Conservation and Rural Development’

Lindsay, ‘Integrating Parks and Pastoralists’.

Ofcansky, Paradise Lost, 104–05.

Gibson, Politicians and Poachers, 73.

Ochieng', History of Kenya, 102–03.

Trzebinski, Kenya Pioneers, 146.

Until 1902 the Rift Valley and western Kenya highlands were part of the Uganda Protectorate.

Lonsdale, ‘The Conquest State’, 14–16; Sorrenson, ‘Land Policy in Kenya’, 672–80; Soja, The Geography of Modernization, 17; Waller, ‘The Maasai and the British’, 530; Ambler, Kenyan Communities, chs 6, 7.

See, for example, Okoth-Ogendo, Tenants of the Crown.

Soja, Geography of Modernization, 19; Spencer, Nomads in Alliance, 201; Trzebinski, Kenya Pioneers, 144, 162, 165. The enlarged Masai Reserve came to constitute Kajiado and Narok districts in the east and west respectively. The word Maasai was spelled as Masai during the colonial period.

Waller, ‘The Maasai and the British’, 529. Also see Hughes, ‘Malice in Maasailand’.

KNA/DAO/MKS/1/59, quoted in Matheka, ‘Colonial Capitalism’, 121. Also see Odegi-Awuondo, ‘Wildlife Conservation’; Van Zwanenberg, ‘Economic History’, 94–98; Kjekshus, Ecology Control; Vail, ‘Ecology and History’.

Soja, Geography of Modernization, 21.

Trzebinski, Kenya Pioneers, 136. Hunting subsidised many ‘imperial’ activities in eastern and southern Africa. See, for example, MacKenzie, ‘Hunting in Eastern and Central Africa’.

Odingo, ‘Settlement and Rural Development’; Cone and Lipscomb, History of Kenya Agriculture, 91–96.

Miller, Kenya, 26.

HMSO, Report of the Kenya Land Commission, 203; Matheka, ‘Antecedents’, 244.

HMSO, ‘Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, vol. 25: Motion – Preserving Wild Fauna’, 21 Nov. 1929, 623–43, KNA/KW/27/1; Ofcansky, Paradise Lost, 81–84; Neumann, Imposing Wilderness, 126–29. Kruger National Park in South Africa and Parc National Albert in the Belgian Congo had been established in 1926 and 1929 respectively.

Matheka, ‘Antecedents’. In the mid-1920s the colonial government in Kenya introduced a system of local government in African-inhabited areas known as local native councils (LNCs), which became African district councils (ADCs) after the Second World War. These were technically representative bodies though they consisted mainly of government-appointed chiefs and their meetings were presided over by white district commissioners. At independence the ADCs, which were renamed county councils, became more representative of the ordinary people's will.

Beard, End of the Game, 137, 163.

HMSO, East African Royal Commission, 299.

Conservation personnel and other resources were used for Emergency-related activities in 1952–56.

Kenya, Sessional Paper No. 7 of 1957/58, 21–22, 66–69. Dr J. C. Likimani, a Maasai, definitely represented the African voice in the GPC.

Ibid., 24. The controlled hunting areas programme involved culling wild animals outside official conservation areas through licensed hunting. When the hunting occurred in an African reserve, part of the licence fees went to the LNC for provision of social services like education and health care.

D. Saphiro (Game Warden, Kajiado) to Chief Game Warden, 14 April 1958, KNA/KW/1/73 (emphasis in the original). The civil war that broke out after Sudan's independence in 1956 destabilised socio-economic activities, including wildlife conservation.

G. A. G. Adamson (Senior Game Warden, Isiolo) to Acting Chief Game Warden, 3 July 1959, KNA/KW/1/80. The spadework for the establishment of the Meru Game Reserve was done by Larry Wateridge, Adamson's assistant in the Isiolo range. See Wateridge, ‘Meru District Game Reserve’, 32–36.

‘Notes on a Discussion held at Government House on Friday 28 October 1960 between the Governor and a Delegation of the Trustees of the RNPK [Royal National Parks of Kenya] on the Future of National Reserves’, KNA/KW/1/20.

See Matheka, ‘Politics of Wildlife Conservation’.

See various documents in MAC/KEN/47/5 and MAC/KEN/48/3; ‘The Maasai Tribe – Kenya: The Future of the Masai Agreement, 1961–62’, CO 822/2000.

See various documents in KNA/KW/23/156. There were separate ADCs for Narok and Kajiado districts but the two sometimes held joint meetings to discuss issues affecting the whole Masai Reserve.

A. Galton-Fenzi (for Permanent Secretary, Ministry of African Affairs) to J. L. Webster (Permanent Secretary, Ministry of Forest Development, Game and Fisheries), 10 March 1960, KNA/KW/23/156. Also see Narok District Annual Report, 1959, 4–5, KNA/DC/NRK/1/1/5. The co-operative society was a joint government-Maasai venture for exploiting forests in Narok District but ordinary Maasai opposed it as they feared they would be banned from taking their livestock to forests during droughts. Attempts by the forest department to control Mau and other forests in Narok District resulted in political agitation in 1950–52. See the relevant annual reports in KNA/DC/NRK/1/1/3.

‘Narok District Annual Report, 1959’, 17, KNA/DC/1/1/5.

See N. S. Sandeman to Acting Chief Game Warden, 16 July 1959, KNA/KW/1/80.

‘Narok District Annual Report, 1960’, 1, KNA/DC/NRK/1/1/6; King, ‘The Maasai and the Protest Phenomenon’, 136; Hughes, ‘Malice in Maasailand’, 212. In 1959 Tanganyika Maasai, fearing ‘that their land barriers would soon be broken down’, proposed the establishment of ‘a separate state independent of the rest of Tanganyika’. This proposal is said to have interested ‘Narok elders’. See also ‘Narok District Annual Report, 1959’, 5, KNA/DC/NRK/1/1/5; CO 822/1997; CO 822/2000.

W. E. Crosskill (Minister for Tourism, Game, Forests and Fisheries) to W. F. Coutts (Chief Secretary), 30 June 1960, KNA/KW/23/156. Also see Editor, ‘Masailand’, 5–6.

W. E. Crosskill to Permanent Secretary (Ministry of Tourism, Game, Forests and Fisheries), 20 July 1960, KNA/KW/23/156.

R. E. Wainwright (Chief Commissioner) to His Excellency the Governor, 23 July 1960, KNA/KW/23/156.

G. C. M. Dowson to Chief Secretary, 26 July 1960, KNA/KW/23/156; F. W. Goodbody (Chief Secretary's Office) to R. Tatton-Brown (Ministry of Local Government), 29 June 1960, KNA/KW/23/156.

‘Narok District Annual Report’, 1960, 6, 12–13, KNA/DC/NRK/1/1/6; ‘Minutes of a Meeting of Narok African District Councillors and Government Officers Held at Telek on 15 Dec. 1960’, KNA/KW/1/20.

Chief Game Warden, ‘Masai Mara Game Reserve’, 20 Dec. 1961, KNA/KW/1/23. Proponents of ADC game reserves believed that pride, prestige and profit for the participating community were important for the success of the project: ‘pride’ in owning the sanctuary, ‘prestige’ from international recognition of the reserve and ‘profit’ from tourism.

‘Kajiado District Annual Report, 1961’, 20, KNA/DC/KAJ/4/1/13.

See correspondence between the Samburu DC and the Chief Game Warden in KNA/KW/1/2.

I. R. Grimwood (Chief Game Warden) to Permanent Secretary (Ministry of Tourism, Forests and Wild Life), 14 Aug. 1962, KNA/KW/1/80. Also see related documents in KNA/KW/1/24.

Kenya, Game Department Annual Report, 1963, 7.

Unlike Meru, Kajiado, Narok and Samburu districts, Isiolo District is inhabited by several ethnic groups and so the game reserve could not be named after a particular community.

Ibid. See also Chief Game Warden, ‘Form of Application of a Grant from the WWF’, 26 Jan. 1963, KNA/KW 13/15; D. W. J. Brown (Acting Chief game Warden) to Permanent Secretary (Ministry of Natural Resources), 3 Dec. 1964, KNA/KW 13/14.

The Lambwe Valley, an area of 127 square miles, had been virtually unoccupied because of the presence of tsetse fly carrying both human and animal trypanosomiasis.

See a variety of correspondence in KNA/KW/12/3.

I. Grimwood (Chief Game Warden) to Civil Secretary [PC] (Nyanza Region), 27 Sept. 1963, KNA/KW/12/3. The Lake Victoria region has rain for most of the year.

Ibid.

See a variety of correspondence in KNA/KW/1/23.

See a variety of correspondence in KNA/KW/1/23 and KNA/KW/23/156.

N. S. Sandeman to Game Wardens, 3 June 1961, KNA/KW/1/20; Kenya, Game Department Annual Reports, 1964 and 1965, 25. Gazetted forests were also regarded as controlled areas and some of them were open to licensed hunting.

Kenya, Game Department Annual Report, 1962, 7; ‘Game Department Annual Report, 1966’, 1 & 2, KNA/KW/23/138; J. N. Orumoi (Game warden, Kajiado) to Chief Game Warden, 28 Nov. 1966, KNA/KW/15/2; Evelyn Wood Temple-Boreham (Senior Game Warden, Narok District) to Divisional Game Warden (Southern Division), 14 Jan. 1969, KNA/KW/23/156; Kenya, Kenya: An Official Handbook (Nairobi: East African Publishing House, 1973), 129.

For an analysis of the rivalry between KANU and KADU, see Anderson, ‘“Yours in Struggle for Majimbo”’ and Ogot, ‘The Decisive Years’.

‘Kajiado District Annual Report, 1964’, 2, KNA/DC/KAJ/4/1/13. Also see Ofcansky, Paradise Lost, 104–05.

When it became clear that Kenya would soon be independent, the Somali, who had for a long time harboured dreams of uniting with the Somali in Somalia, Ethiopia and Djibouti in a ‘Greater Somalia’, petitioned the British government to allow them to secede. Attempts to resolve the issue during the constitutional conferences in London and through a commission of inquiry did not succeed. Consequently, after Kenya attained madaraka (responsible) government in June 1963, the Somali and related Muslim groups in northern Kenya started guerrilla activities with the backing of the government of Somalia. This destabilised life in many parts of northern and eastern Kenya until October 1968 when the Arusha Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the governments of Kenya and Somalia, and the latter ceased to support the Shifta morally and materially.

Kenya, Game Department Annual Report, 1963, 2, 16-18; Kenya, Game Department Annual Report, 1964 and 1965, 1, 2, 15.

The radical wing of KANU formed KPU in 1966 following frustrations by the Kenyatta government. See Miller, Kenya, 34.

V. H. Smith (Chief Licensing Officer, Central Firearm Bureau) to Chief Game Warden, 16 Jan. 1966, KNA/KW/15/2. Zebra and wildebeest were shot for hides for sale.

Kenya, Kajiado District Annual Report, 1967, 13. In May 1967 the Kenya National Farmers Union's Beef Committee urged the government to limit the amount of game on farms where its presence hampered agricultural pursuits. Maasai ranchers also wanted wildebeest eliminated from their ranches because of the danger of malignant catarrh. By then African ranchers had modernised their activities with the help of loans from the government.

Parker, ‘Requiem for a White Elephant’, 332, also 330–32; Miller, Kenya, 50, 53, 59, 60; Gibson, Politicians and Poachers.

I. R. Grimwood to Game Warden (Kajiado), 29 Jan. 1964, KNA/KW/1/23; ‘Advertisement for the Post of Warden, Amboseli Game Reserve, 11 April 1962’, KNA/KW/1/21.

The number of tourists visiting Amboseli increased from 15,459 in 1964 to 23,859 in 1967 while that of cars increased from 3,000 to 6,037, respectively. See ‘Game Department Annual Report, 1968’, 18, KNA/KW/23/156.

In 1962, the three main sources of revenue for Kajiado County Council were Amboseli, £24,903; personal taxes, £7,450; livestock, £6,040. By 1968, the figures had risen to £45,200, £37,900 and £10,831, respectively. Most of the revenue generated at Amboseli was used to finance development in other parts of the district. The county council therefore did not represent the aspirations of the residents of Amboseli. See ‘Masai Amboseli Game Reserve’, KNA/KW/13/21, Folio 10.

R. T. Elliot (Divisional Game Warden, Northern Division) to Chief Game Warden, 25 Jan. 1969, KNA/KW/23/156; Benjamin S. Ashiundu (Public Relations Officer, Kenya National Parks), ‘Press Release’, 11 Oct. 197, 5, KNA/KW/13/29. Lambwe Valley Game Reserve was renamed Ruma National Park.

Bertrand was commissioned by the Kenya government in 1965 to analyse the tourist industry in Kenya and make recommendations for its development. His report appears to have been the origin of the national reserves policy formalised in 1975. See Kenya, Development Plan, 1966–1970, 204–95.

See Matheka, ‘Politics of Wildlife Conservation’.

‘Received wisdom’ is a concept used in reference to misperceptions on environmental issues in Africa. For examples of work analysing such misconceptions, see Leach and Mearns, eds, The Lie of the Land.

Adams, Against Extinction, 212.