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Decolonizing NatureStrategies for Conservation in a Post-colonial EraEdited byWilliam M Adams and Martin MulliganEarthscan Publications Ltd London • Sterling, VA
First published in the UK and USA in 2003by Earthscan Publications LtdCopyright © William Adams and Martin Mulligan, 2003All rights reservedISBN:1 85383 749 0 paperback1 85383 750 4 hardbackTypesetting by PCS Mapping & DTP, GatesheadPrinted and bound in the UK by Creative Print and Design (Wales), Ebbw ValeCover design by Andrew CorbettFor a full list ofpublications please contact:Earthscan Publications Ltd120 Pentonville Road, London, N1 9JN, UKTel: +44 (0)20 7278 0433Fax: +44 (0)20 7278 1142Email: earthinfo@earthscan.co.ukWeb:www.earthscan.co.uk22883 Quicksilver Drive, Sterling, VA 20166-2012, USAEarthscan is an editorially independent subsidiary ofKogan Page Ltd and publishes inassociation with WWF-UK and the International Institute for Environment andDevelopmentA catalogue record for this book is available from the British LibraryLibrary ofCongress Cataloging-in-Publication DataDecolonizing nature : strategies for conservation in a postcolonial era / edited byWilliam M. Adams and Martin Mulligan.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 1-85383-749-0 (pbk.) – ISBN 1-85383-750-4 (hardback)1. Nature conservation–Great Britain–Colonies–Africa–Philosophy. 2. Natureconservation–Australia–Philosophy. 3. Colonization–Environmental aspects–GreatBritain–Colonies–Africa–History. 4. Colonization–Environmental aspects–Australia–History. I. Adams, W. M. (William Mark), 1955- II. Mulligan, Martin.QH77.G7 D43 2002333.7'2'0994–dc212002152952This book is printed on elemental chlorine-free paper
ContentsList offigures and tables viList ofauthorsviiAcronyms and abbreviationsx1 Introduction William M Adams and Martin Mulligan12 Nature and the colonial mind William M Adams163 Decolonizing relationships with nature Val Plumwood514 The ‘wild’, the market and the native: Indigenous people face new forms ofglobal colonization Marcia Langton795 Sharing South African National Parks: Community land and conservation in a democratic South Africa Hector Magome and James Murombedzi1086 Devolving the expropriation of nature: The ‘devolution’ of wildlife management in southern Africa James Murombedzi1357 Decolonizing Highland conservation Mark Toogood1528 Responding to place in a post-colonial era: An Australian perspective John Cameron1729 The changing face of nature conservation: Reflections on the Australian experience Penelope Figgis19710 When nature won’t stay still: Conservation, equilibrium and control William M Adams22011 Beyond preservation: The challenge of ecological restoration Adrian Colston24712 Feet to the ground in storied landscapes: Disrupting the colonial legacy with a poetic politics Martin Mulligan26813 Conclusions William M Adams and Martin Mulligan290Index300
List of figures and tablesFIGURES5.1Richtersveld National Park, South Africa1135.2Kruger National Park and the Makuleke land claim1145.3Proposed southern African trans-frontier conservation parks1235.4The analysis ofpower in trans-frontier conservation areas12611.1The ‘Black Hole’24911.2The East Anglian Fens25411.3Area ofSites ofSpecial Scientific Interest in English counties25511.4Protected areas in Cambridgeshire by size25511.5Wicken Fen, Cambridgeshire259TABLES5.1The key elements ofthe land reform process, South Africa,post-19941105.2Number ofhouseholds reclaiming their land in South Africa,post-199411110.1Contrasting dimensions within conservation23511.1Loss ofbird species in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire24811.2Examples ofspecies believed extinct at Wicken Fen258
List of authorsAdams, William H (Bill)Bill Adams is Reader in the Geography ofConservation and Development atthe Department ofGeography, University ofCambridge, UK. He has writtenseveral books, including Future Nature: A Vision for Conservation(Earthscan, 1996)and Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World (Routledge,2001). He is interested in conservation and rural change, especially in Africa andthe UK, and has served on the councils ofthe Cambridgeshire Wildlife Trust,the British Association for Nature Conservationists and Fauna and FloraInternational.Cameron, JohnJohn Cameron is a Senior Lecturer and coordinator ofthe postgraduate researchprogramme in the School ofSocial Ecology and Lifelong Learning at theUniversity ofWestern Sydney (UWS). He initiated a series ofnational Australiancolloquia on sense ofplace (held in the Blue Mountains, central Australia,outside Melbourne, and in Canberra), and has edited a volume ofpapers arisingfrom those gatherings. Before joining UWS, he was employed by the AustralianConservation Foundation as a resource economist for research and consultancyon national forest policy and land management.Colston, AdrianAdrian Colston is the National Trust Property Manager for Wicken Fen,Cambridgeshire, UK. He has worked as a professional nature conservationistfor 20 years for the Wildlife Trusts, the Royal Society for the Protection ofBirds(RSPB) and the National Trust. He has written several books, including TheNature ofNorthamptonshire, with Franklyn Perring (Barracuda Books, 1989) andCambridgeshire’s Red Data Book, with Chris Gerrard and Rosemary Parslow(Wildlife Trust for Cambridgeshire, 1997).Figgis, PenelopePenelope Figgis is currently Vice President ofthe Australian ConservationFoundation (first elected in 1985), Director ofthe Australian Bush HeritageFund and a member ofthe World Commission on Protected Areas. She waspreviously a member of the boards of management of the EnvironmentProtection Authority ofNew South Wales, Uluru/Kata Tjuta National Park,the Great Barrier ReefConsultative Committee and Landcare Australia, and a
director ofthe Australian Tourism Commission. Her major publications includeRainforests ofAustralia(Weldon, 1985),Australia’s Wilderness Heritage: WorldHeritage Areas, co-authored with J G Mosley (Weldon, 1988) and Australia’sNational Parks and Protected Areas: Future Directions(Occasional Paper No 8,published by the Australian Committee for International Union for theConservation ofNature, 1999). In 1994 she was made a Member ofthe OrderofAustralia (AM) for her services to conservation and the environment.Langton, MarciaMarcia Langton holds the Chair ofIndigenous Studies at the University ofMelbourne. She was the Ranger Professor at the Northern Territory Universityand Founding Director ofthe university’s Centre for Indigenous, Natural andCultural Management. She is a well-known public figure in Australia, appearingregularly in the media and in documentary films concerned with indigenousissues. She is the author ofBurning Questions: Emerging Environmental Issues forIndigenous Peoples in Northern Australia(Centre for Indigenous, Natural andCultural Resource Management, Northern Territory University, 1998).Magome, HectorHector Magome is Director ofConservation Services atSouth African NationalParks, where he is responsible for developing biodiversity and livelihoods relatedpractices. This includes developing management plans for national parks andmanaging scientific programmes for biodiversity research and monitoring.Before joining South African National Parks, Hector was responsible forimplementing community wildlife extension programmes for the North WestParks and Tourism Board ofSouth Africa.Mulligan, MartinMartin Mulligan is a Senior Lecturer in the School ofSocial Ecology andLifelong Learning at the University ofWestern Sydney. He is co-author (withStuart Hill) ofEcological Pioneers: A Social History ofAustralian Ecological Thoughtand Action (Cambridge University Press, 2001) and is general editor oftheAustralasian journal Ecopolitics: Thought and Action (Pluto Press Australia). He hasbeen an environmental activist and active supporter ofAboriginal people andcommunities since the early 1970s.Murombedzi, JamesJames Murombedzi is the Environment and Development Officer for SouthernAfrica for the Ford Foundation. He was previously a lecturer in political andsocial ecology at the Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University ofZimbabwe. His research has focused on the micro-political dynamics ofnaturalresources management in the communal tenure regimes ofSouthern Africa. Hehas consulted for various organizations, including the World ConservationUnion (IUCN), the Global Environmental Facility and the Food and AgricultureOrganization ofthe UN.viiiDecolonizing Nature
Plumwood, ValVal Plumwood is Australian Research Council Fellow at the Australian NationalUniversity, Canberra. She has published over 100 papers and four books,including The Fight for the Forests (as Val Routley, Australian National UniversityCanberra, 1973),Feminism and the Mastery ofNature (Routledge, 1993) andEnvironmental Culture: The Ecological Crisis ofReason (Routledge, 2002). She is aninternational pioneer ofenvironmental philosophy, a forest activist and thesurvivor ofan encounter with a saltwater crocodile in Kakadu National Park in1985, which delivered a strong message about human vulnerability and thepower and agency ofnature.Toogood, MarkMark Toogood teaches geography at the University ofCentral Lancashire and isan Honorary Research Fellow at the Centre for the Study ofEnvironmentalChange, Lancaster University. His research interests concern the political andcultural dimensions ofecological knowledge and nature conservation.List ofauthorsix
List of acronyms and abbreviationsABCAustralian Broadcasting CorporationACFAustralian Conservation FoundationAONBArea ofOutstanding Natural Beauty (UK)AWCAustralian Wildlife ConservancyCAMPFIRECommunal Area Management Programme for IndigenousResources (Zimbabwe)CAPCommon Agricultural Policy (EU)CAPCaracas Action PlanCARcomprehensive, adequate and representative reserve system(Australia)CBDConvention on Biological DiversityCBNRMcommunity-based natural resource managementCCAGSCrofting Counties Agricultural Grants Scheme (Scotland)CDI conservation and development initiativeCIConservation InternationalCITESConvention on International Trade in Endangered Species ofWild Flora and FaunaCMNConservation Management Networks (Australia)CNPcontract national parkCNPPACommission on National Parks and Protected Areas (now theWCPA)DEFRADepartment for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (UK)EAEnvironment Agency (UK)ESAEnvironmentally Sensitive Area (UK)EUEuropean UnionFATEFuture ofAustralia’s Threatened EcosystemsFAOFood and Agriculture Organization (UN)FOMFriends ofMakulekeGABMPGreat Australian Bight Marine ParkGATT General Agreement on Tariffs and TradeGKGGaza-Kruger-GonarezhouGKG TFCAGaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou Trans-Frontier Conservation AreaGLTPGreat Limpopo Trans-Frontier ParkHLFHeritage Lottery Fund (UK)IBPInternational Biological ProgrammeIBRAInterim Biogeographic Regionalization for Australia
IDBInternal Drainage Boards (UK)IMCRAInterim Marine and Coastal Regionalization for AustraliaIPAIndigenous Protected Areas programme (Australia)IRAIrish Republican ArmyIRSACInstitut pour la Récherche Scientifique en Afrique CentralIUCNInternational Union for the Conservation ofNature andNatural Resources (World Conservation Union)KNPKruger National ParkKTPKgalagadi Trans-Frontier ParkLIFELiving in a Finite Environment programme (Namibia)MABMan and the Biosphere programme (UNESCO)MOMPAmultiple-objective marine-protected areaMoUmemorandum ofunderstandingMSPMember ofthe Scottish ParliamentNGOnon-governmental organizationNHMFNational Heritage Memorial Fund (Scotland)NNRNational Nature Reserve (UK)NPWSNational Parks and Wildlife ServiceNREnew range economicsNRSNational Reserve System (Australia)NRSMPANational Representative System ofMarine Protected Areas(Australia)NSWNew South WalesOLDoperations likely to damage Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interest(UK)ORSTOMOffice de Récherche Scientifique et Technique d’Outre MerPAprotected areaPPFPeace Parks FoundationRA TFCARichtersveld Ai-Ais Trans-Frontier Conservation AreaRDCrural district council (Zimbabwe)RFARegional Forest Agreement (Australia)RNP Richtersveld National ParkRSPBRoyal Society for the Protection ofBirds (UK)SACspecial area ofconservation (UK)SADCSouthern African Development CommunitySANParks South African National ParksSEERADScottish Executive Environment and Rural Affairs DepartmentSLOSSsingle large or several small principleSNHScottish Natural HeritageSPWFE Society for the Preservation ofthe Wild Fauna ofthe EmpireSSSISite ofSpecial Scientific Interest (UK)TFCAtrans-frontier conservation areaTWINSPANTwo-Way Indicator Species AnalysisUNUnited NationsUNESCOUnited Nations Educational, Scientific and CulturalList ofacronyms and abbreviationsxi
OrganizationUWSUniversity ofWestern SydneyVIDCO village development committee (Zimbabwe)WADCO ward development committee (Zimbabwe)WCPAWorld Commission on Protected AreasxiiDecolonizing Nature
Chapter 1IntroductionWilliam M Adams and Martin MulliganCONSERVATION AND DECOLONIZATIONAt its height, the British Empire was the most impressive example ofcolonialism ever constructed. Its global reach was unparalleled, its legacyenduring. It transformed political relations, economies, ethnicities and socialrelations, sometimes quickly and almost everywhere profoundly. It alsotransformed nature, creating new landscapes, new ecologies and new relationsbetween humans and non-human nature; in the process, it created newideologies ofthose relationships (Shiva, 1989).In time, conservation also struck root in the colonial world, both incolonized territories and in industrializing metropolitan countries in Europeand North America. By the 19th century, ideas about nature, whether as aneconomic resource that needed conserving and exploiting, or as a preciousreservoir of unchanged wildness, were an important element in colonialideology, at home and abroad. Through the 20th century, those ideas floweredand seeded widely. Conservation became a global concern, the subject ofmajorinvestment by states, and ofurgent concern to growing environmentalmovements.At the start ofthe third millennium, the British Empire has long since beenswept away, but colonial conservation ideas remain. In some cases they havechanged; but many are remarkably intact. Does decolonization have anysignificance for conservation? If so, how does conservation thinking andpractice need to change to take account ofa post-colonial world? Have ideasabout nature been allowed to shift, or are they still the subject ofsome kind ofneo-colonial domination by Northern urban environmentalists? What kind ofconservation is needed in a post-colonial world? These are among the questionsaddressed by this book.
ORIGINS OF THIS BOOKThis book had its genesis in a meeting between the editors at Cambridge in July1998. Martin Mulligan had already used Bill Adams’ book on conservation inthe UK,Future Nature (1996), in teaching a subject related to environmentalvalues and conservation strategies at the University ofWestern Sydney. Hesuggested the possibility ofworking together on a book that would developsome of the themes introduced in Future Naturewith reference to bothAustralian and UK experiences. Having a long-standing interest in the post-colonial experiences ofsouthern Africa, and knowing that Bill was involved in arange ofconservation-oriented projects in the region, Martin decided to travelto the UK via Zimbabwe. By the time they met, Martin had gained a taste of‘wild’ Africa and had spent a couple ofdays in the carefully manicured gardensofcentral London, noting in his travel diary that:…all the monuments to the colonial era make me feel uneasy, more acutelybecause I have come here from Africa… [I]t strikes me even more stronglythat highly structured gardens represent an attempt to control nature bymaking it into an ornament or trophy, and we have inherited that attitude inAustralia… I look forward to visiting a part ofEngland where nature isless subdued.Reflecting on this ‘enhanced’ culture shock, Martin suggested the titleDecolonizing Nature to Bill and we quickly agreed that we should draw on someAfrican experiences, as well as those ofAustralia and the UK. Instead ofsimplybuilding on ideas already outlined in Future Nature, we began to explore thecommon ground and contrasts involved in decolonizing attitudes towardsnature in different parts ofthe old British Empire. The idea was born ofseekingcontributions to a book from writers and practitioners already engaged in tryingto overcome the legacy ofcolonialism in thinking about nature conservation, orin conservation work.It is important to stress that we come to this project with an activecommitment to conservation. In highlighting a need to rethink conservationstrategies, we have no desire to decry the important work ofconservationpioneers and the movements they were able to build,or to dismissconservationists’ present-day aspirations. We take it as self-evident that withoutthe legacy ofconservation work that has been built in countries such as the UK,Australia, Zimbabwe and South Africa, there would be little or no basis to workfrom – no thinking to be rethought. However, we do believe that the currentdiscourse about nature conservation needs to become much more inclusive(particularly ofthe peoples who were colonized) and more dynamic in the faceofcomplex global socio-political changes. Some ofthe contributions to thisbook (see, for example, Chapters 5 and 6 by Magome and Murombedzi onsouthern Africa; Chapter 9 by Figgis on Australia; or Chapter 11 by Colston onthe UK) make it clear that there is broad agreement about the need to rethink2Decolonizing Nature
conservation strategies, even ifthe debates about preferred strategies are, notsurprisingly, vigorous and sometimes heated. It is also clear that many newstrategies are already being implemented and refined. What this book attemptsto do is bring to such strategic discussions a much stronger focus on thecomplex, contradictory and difficult processes ofdecolonization and, at thesame time, create opportunities for a cross-fertilization ofideas and experiencesbetween the UK, Australia and southern Africa. The book seeks both to discussconservation in these three regions, and also to address more general themes.EMPIRE AND NATUREThe importance ofempire to the shape ofmodern conservation cannot be indoubt. British imperialism grew with the emergence ofcapitalism. As capitalismgrew most strongly in Britain, the British Empire came to overshadow theempires ofother European powers, and many British scientists were recruitedto the service ofempire in order to improve the technologies of‘resourceutilization’ and trade (Mackay, 1985). However, alongside this mercantile agenda,the British imperial project also reflected the values ofthe broader EuropeanEnlightenment that had unfolded during the 18th century. Ushering in the AgeofReason, with its direct challenge to religious dogmatism, the EuropeanEnlightenment placed faith in the capacity ofthe rational human mind to orderand conquer all – suggesting a superiority ofmind over matter and ofhumansover ‘non-rational’ nature. In its imperialist vision, ‘civilized’ Europe, bearingthe torch ofreason, had a duty to enlighten the rest ofthe world, conqueringwildness and bringing order and rationality to ‘uncivilized’ peoples and nature.The mission ofBritish colonialism was not only to enrich the imperialmetropole, but also, in so doing, to ‘improve’ the world. In the name oftheimperial endeavour, peoples and nature were subjected to conquest and control,harnessed and transformed to serve projects ofagricultural improvement,industrialization and trade (MacKenzie, 1990a; Grove, 1995; Drayton, 2000).During the 19th century, European colonialism became intertwined withthe international growth ofcapitalism. By the end ofthat century, Britain wasbeing challenged in its industrial might and its domination ofworld trade byboth Germany and the US, a recently colonized land whose settlers had achievedindependence from Britain a century earlier. At the dawning ofthe 20th century,Victorian Britain’s faith in bureaucracy as a measure ofstability was proving tobe cumbersome for the administration ofthe colonies, and simmering resistancegrew into more overt anti-colonial revolts. Although it was a war against Britainby non-British European settlers in southern Africa, the Boer War of1899–1902ushered in a century in which direct and indirect forms ofcolonial rule wouldbe overtly challenged. Ifthe long reign ofQueen Victoria (1837–1901) markedthe height ofBritish imperial power, it also marked the end ofone era ofcolonialism and its replacement with a more complex interplay between neo-colonialism and decolonization that continued throughout the 20th century.Introduction3
However, the legacy of19th-century British colonialism would not simply fadeaway with the ending ofdirect and indirect rule from London. IfEuropeancolonialism had begun in the 17th century with the extraction of‘surplus’commodities (such as gold, ivory, skins, spices and slaves), the version ofcolonialism that was taken furthest by Britain in the 19th century meant that theeconomies ofthe colonies were captured and re-ordered to serve the interestsofthe colonial power. European colonizers had moved from trade to territorialannexation, and they dug in for a long stay.In some places (for example North America, Argentina, Australia and NewZealand), the Europeans created settler societies. These were stocked withvarious cadres ofEuropean society, from convicts to yeoman farmers, whobrought with them an array ofdiseases and economically productive organismsthat formed the basis for ‘neo-Europes’ (Crosby, 1986). In others (for example,West Africa or India) the colonial powers inserted political managers into pre-existing, or merely imagined, indigenous governance systems, and exertedcontrol by indirect rule (see, for example, Shenton, 1986). Colonized peopleswere variously coerced and taxed into engagement in the formal economy, oftenas migrant labourers in mines or plantations.As Val Plumwood explains in Chapter 3, European colonial power came tobe based upon a series ofseparations and exclusions that cast colonized peoplesand nature as being outside the ‘ideals’ of‘civilized’ Europe and, therefore,inferior. The colonized were denied their individuality and diversity and treatedas belonging to stereotyped classes; they were both marginalized by, andincorporated within, the colonial project, which was, in turn, driven by anoverriding desire for order and control. Increasingly, the biological scienceswere recruited to the task ofrationalizing nature to make it more amenable tohuman exploitation. Not surprisingly, the experience ofcolonialism abroadentrenched the separation between people and nature at home, and furtherundermined the possibility ofdiverse development paths within the UK itself.Despite the diversity ofcolonial experiences, colonialism – a precursor toglobalization – created the illusion that a particular model ofdevelopment couldbe recreated in all parts ofthe world, and the powerful (and so often destructive)homogenization of‘Modernism’ began. As the chain ofevents initiated by theterrorist attacks on the US on 11 September 2001 have reminded us so painfully,efforts to impose uniform models ofdevelopment across natural and culturaldiversity have failed to deliver peace and prosperity, or freedom from tension,conflict and insecurity.The engagements between colonizer and colonized, between metropolitanand peripheral economies, and between modern technology and nature, werenot only direct and material, but also discursive. Knowledge ofthe colonizedworld, and its increasingly transformed nature, was intrinsic to colonialdomination (Pratt, 1992; Drayton, 2000). The production ofknowledge was anintegral part ofthe exercise ofcolonial power (Loomba, 1998). The ‘Orientalist’discourses of colonialism (Said, 1978; Moore-Gilbert, 1997) took as theirsubjects both people and nature. Indeed, the two were commonly linked in4Decolonizing Nature
loosely theorized (and deeply racist) discourses that dismissed as unordered,undisciplined, worthless and uncivilized the ‘wildness’ ofexotic and remotepeoples and landscapes. For indigenous peoples, colonialism reached ‘into ourheads’ (Smith, 1999), and it did the same (with very different implications) forthe colonizer: colonization changed the very categories within which nature andsociety were conceived.Richard Grove (1995) and other environmental historians (see, for example,Griffiths and Robbins, 1997) have made the point that experiences ofcolonialism with regard to exploiting nature have been far from uniform, andthat an impetus to conserve nature began when colonial authorities grewalarmed at the speed ofenvironmental degradation in colonized lands.Somewhat paradoxically, while ideas about the exploitation ofnature movedwith the colonizers from the centre to the periphery ofold empires, ideas aboutthe conservation ofnature circulating in the periphery were brought back to thecentre. However, it is important to recognize that both the exploitation ofnature in the colonies and the impetus to conserve nature for longer-termhuman use were a product ofthe colonial mindset, which was shaped by theinteraction between colonial experiences in the centre and periphery. Thecolonial mindset can only be understood by looking at this interaction; but itwas fundamentally rooted in European values, which constructed nature asnothing more than a resource for human use and wildness as a challenge for therational mind to conquer. As Tom Griffiths (1996) has pointed out, even thosesettlers who were most enamoured ofthe flora and fauna in their adoptedhomelands saw themselves as either hunters or collectors, and wanted to asserttheir mastery over the wildness that they simultaneously admired and feared, orto collect specimens that could be named and safely deposited in museums.Early colonial ideas about the conservation ofnature essentially grew out ofabroader desire to ‘tame’ the wild.DECOLONIZATION AND CONSERVATIONIn terms ofdirect political control by European powers, colonial rule was finallybrought to an end in much ofthe world in the third quarter ofthe 20th century,especially as the result ofa string ofanti-colonial struggles that emerged informer European colonies in the wake ofWorld War II. In South Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, new post-colonial political structures emerged. The end ofdirect political control might have been expected to open the way for moreindependent thinking about the relations between society and nature, perhapsbased on non-Western traditions and cultural fusions. This did not happen.From the late 19th century onwards, the decolonization process had involvedthe creation of‘modern’ nation states that were built, essentially, on Europeanmodels and traditions, and the deep ideological legacy ofcolonialism endured.Smith (1999) comments that indigenous people have been subjected to ‘thecolonization oftheir lands and cultures, and the denial oftheir sovereignty, by aIntroduction5
colonizing society that has come to dominate the shape and quality oftheirlives, even after it has formally pulled out’ (p7).Modern European colonialism was not monolithic, and the diverseexperiences ofdecolonization were complicated. In parts ofthe world whereEuropean settlement and land occupation was either complete or very extensive(for example, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, the US, Canada and SouthAmerica), direct imperial control by European political powers ended as thesettler societies progressively assumed administrative control (in a relativelypainless form ofdecolonization). But such settler societies had established theirown, internal, forms ofcolonialism in order to dominate indigenous minorities(for example, in Australia; see Chapter 4), or profoundly suppressed majorities(as in the case ofSouth Africa or Rhodesia [Zimbabwe] before majority rule).In many settler societies, indigenous peoples were herded into isolatedfragments oftheir former terrain, on ‘reservations’, ‘missions’ or ‘tribal lands’,administered with a complex mix ofbrute exploitation, paternalistic exhortationand racist disdain. In such contexts decolonization has often been piecemealand is still far from complete.As decolonization reached its peak in terms ofthe political independenceofnation states, new forms oftrans-national and global colonization – in theform ofcultural and economic engagement – began to gather force, acceleratingrapidly during the last part of the 20th century. The process of politicaldecolonization was therefore overtaken by globalization and neo-colonialism,making the transition to post-colonial societies complex and messy. Even in thepost-colonial era, dominant global development strategies are still rooted inEuropean or Western values, and in familiar ideologies ofnature. Through the‘development decades’ ofthe third quarter ofthe 20th century, nature wastreated either as the fuel for modernist economic growth, or as somethingprecious, needing absolute preservation. The adoption of the language of‘sustainable development’ at the end ofthe 20th century (especially in the 1987Brundtland Report [World Commission on Environment and Development,1987] and the outputs ofthe 1992 Earth Summit in Rio) maintained a view ofnature as an economic resource, to be managed in ways that yield sustainableeconomic benefits (Adams, 2001). This may have created new frameworks for‘natural resource management’, but it did not challenge the colonial legacy ofimperial, anthropocentric and utilitarian attitudes towards nature.In trying to make some sense ofthe implications for conservation ofthecomplex transition to the post-colonial era, this book focuses on the legacy ofcolonial mindsets in specific regions that were in the periphery and centre ofthe former British Empire. This is partly because we felt a need to narrow thefocus to parts ofthe world within which we felt confident we could identify keyissues and important contributors to the discussion. However, given the sizeand power ofthe British Empire, and the weight in contemporary global affairsofsettler societies originally set up by the British (most notably, ofcourse, inthe US), the focus on the British Empire seems fortuitous. The ideologiesfostered by British imperialism, especially during the 19th century, were6Decolonizing Nature
important not only in the colonial world that Britain came to dominate, but alsoin the colonized world, more generally. Furthermore, this focus enabled us toexplore the legacy ofcolonialism inside the pre-eminent colonial power: Britain.The experience ofbeing at the centre ofa vast empire obviously influenced theways in which British people (especially the English) came to think ofthemselves and their relationships with other peoples and places (MacKenzie,1986).While no set ofexperiences can be deemed to be representative, we havebeen able to take a significant cross-section ofthe British colonial experience bycomparing post-colonial experiences in two parts ofthe old empire: one inwhich a white settler society largely displaced the indigenous people (Australia),and the other (southern Africa) in which the balance of forces was lessfavourable for the white settlers and where the indigenous people haveeventually been able to reassert a measure ofpolitical control. What is relativelyunusual about this book is that we also seek to make sense ofthe post-colonialera by discussing the former imperial metropole. The UK has its own internalcolonial history with regard to Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Moreover, it wasaffected by the cultural backwash and economic profits ofBritish imperialismoverseas. The same colonial mindsets created similar damaging illusions abouthuman ‘mastery’ over nature. Imperial ideologies ofnature were important tounderstandings of nature within the UK, and to the way that ideas aboutconservation emerged (Sheail, 1976; Evans, 1992; Adams, 2001). Like RichardGrove (1997), we are interested in how complex political, economic andideological interchanges between the centre and periphery have been importantto conservation, both globally and nationally (within the UK, as well as betweenthe UK and the colonies). Organizations that aimed to conserve nature beganto emerge in both the centre and periphery ofthe British Empire during thesecond halfofthe 19th century. However, not surprisingly, they reflectedideologies of nature that grew out of utilitarian and reductionist ‘natural’sciences. Even the more aesthetic and ecocentric ideologies about nature soughtto ground themselves in ‘rational’ scientific frameworks. Western ideas aboutconservation were disseminated by state bureaucracies, scientific networks andpassionate conservation advocates through colonized and metropolitan societiesalike – through Scotland, as well as Africa; the English Lake District, as well asthe Australian outback.Ofcourse, it would be simplistic, even misleading, to suggest that strategiesfor nature conservation have been uniform in regions as diverse as Australia,southern Africa and the UK. Conservation has been deeply imbued with theEuropean Enlightenment values that drove global colonial development.However,it has also reflected a social reaction against technology,industrialization and growth-oriented ‘development’. In all three regions, nature-conservation thinking emerged partially in opposition to the impacts oftheexcesses ofutilitarian resource exploitation. This central paradox has created adiversity ofconservation thinking both within and between the regions thatwere once at the centre or periphery ofthe British Empire.Introduction7
In the UK, conservation has inherited both a romantic tradition that hasdecried the impact of‘modernization’, and a scientific rational tradition thatseeks to manage nature for human enjoyment and material benefit (see Bate,1991; Veldman, 1994; Adams, 1996). From romanticism came a celebration ofwild nature, from Wordsworth’s presentation ofthe Lake District during the19th century to the cultural landscape conservation of the Lake DistrictNational Park in the 1950s. From scientific rationality came the differenttradition of‘nature’ (or, later, ‘wildlife’) conservation, and the establishment ofNational Nature Reserves (NNRs) and Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interest (SSSIs)(Evans, 1992; Adams, 1996). British conservation has a rich but confusedheritage. British imperialism funded aristocratic aspirations and attempts tocreate controlled, orderly and beautiful landscapes in the UK, as seen in thegrowing dominance ofthe ‘picturesque movement’ in horticulture andlandscape art. The resulting idealization ofArcadian rural landscapes had littleto do with ‘wild’ nature (Bunce, 1994). During the 20th century, the maintenanceand preservation ofthese landscapes have been important themes ofconservation in the UK – for example, in the work ofthe National Trust(Bullock and Harvey, 1995). Some ofthese valued landscapes were cleared oftheir people for ‘improvement’ (for example, the Scottish Highland clearances;see Chapter 7), or to create a landscape that fitted an aristocratic aesthetic vision.The landscapes valued by conservationists in the UK include those drasticallyremodelled using the profits ofcolonial trade and exploitation, in response tovery similar ideologies of‘improvement’.In North America, by contrast, transcendental concern for nature,epitomized in the ideas ofJohn Muir and his legacy in the Sierra Club, led to acomplex concern with ‘wilderness’ (Nash, 1973; Cronon, 1995). This has longbeen in conflict with the rational utilitarian tradition ofresource conservation –for example, in the US Forest Service or the Bureau ofReclamation (Hays,1959; Worster, 1994). The construction of‘wildness’ (for example, in creatingCentral Park in New York or the remodelling ofNiagara Falls) reveals thehidden synergies between the two (Spirn, 1995). Here, too, conservation drawson both colonial and anti-colonial ideas in its conception and treatment ofnature.Australia shares with the US a mixture of a rational tradition and apreservationist ideology that identifies and seeks to preserve ‘pristine’wilderness. The former has underpinned a culture and economy ofresourceexploitation, the latter an ideology ofpreservationism that resists human-induced change. Until very recently, the ecocentric beliefs and practices oftheindigenous Australians have had no influence on dominant ideas aboutconservation in Australia. Certainly, there have been conservationists, mostnotably Judith Wright, who have urged their colleagues to open their hearts andminds to Aboriginal cosmology; but they remained in a minority (see Mulliganand Hill, 2001). Only when Aboriginal communities were able to regain title tosignificant tracts of land (under land rights legislation and the very laterecognition ofnative title) were they taken more seriously by conservation8Decolonizing Nature
organizations. This gave indigenous leaders such as Marcia Langton (see Chapter4) the opportunity to challenge some ofthe Eurocentric values and ideas thatcontinued to motivate a lot ofconservation practice.In sub-Saharan Africa, indigenous people have, until very recently, also beenignored in both colonial and post-colonial conservation ideas and practices.Close working relationships with non-human nature were ignored, overlain byan elitist conservation aimed initially at the preservation ofgame for colonialhunters, and latterly at the preservation ofexotic species and ‘wild’ Africa(MacKenzie, 1988; Neumann, 1998). As the contribution by James Murombedzito this book makes clear (see Chapter 5), recent ‘community-based’ conservationstrategies that involve indigenous communities have been rather half-heartedand easily undermined by political elitism and corruption. Attempts torehabilitate African ideas about simultaneously catering for the needs ofpeopleand nature have been badly compromised.Like it or not, debates about nature conservation have themselves now beenglobalized. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) provides a commonlanguage for ‘scientific’ conservation, and the continuing assault of globalconsumption on non-human nature provides a fertile seedbed for argumentsabout nature that range from the rational anthropocentrism of sustainabledevelopment to the arguments (found, for example, in ‘deep ecology’) that urgethe need to preserve nature for its own sake (Merchant, 1992; Holdgate, 1996;Adams, 2001; Lewis, 1992). In the latter discourse, indigenous and non-Westerncosmologies have attracted renewed interest. However, the global discourse onconservation – dominated as it is by people and organizations from nations thatbenefited most from colonialism – has sometimes been used to justify new formsofcolonization (see Chapter 4). Many conservationists have worked hard toadapt their agendas to discourses about dismantling the colonial legacy – forexample, in debates about ‘community conservation’ (Western et al, 1994; Hulmeand Murphree, 2001). However, even when conservation action has involvedresistance to imperial, utilitarian views ofnature, it has rarely been sensitive tolocal human needs and a diversity ofworld views. It has often been imposed likea version ofthe imperial endeavour itself: alien and arbitrary, barring peoplefrom their lands and denying their understanding ofnon-human nature.In countries such as the UK and Australia, the ‘modern’ conservationmovement reached a high point in social and political influence during the late1980s (Pepper, 1996). Since that time, concern for nature has waxed and wanedalong with broader environmental concerns. Meanwhile, in countries such asSouth Africa and Zimbabwe, conservation and development have becomeentangled in messy post-colonial transitions. Despite the global reach ofconservation concern, widespread popular support for formal conservationmeasures is confined to industrialized countries, and is hence widely dismissed asa ‘Western’ (that is, neo-colonial) preoccupation in the context ofnon-industrialized countries. While organizations such as the International Union forthe Conservation ofNature and Natural Resources (IUCN – more commonlyknown as the World Conservation Union) have shifted further and furtherIntroduction9
towards a view ofconservation as sustainable resource use, the dominant Westernideology regarding conservation has remained, paradoxically, preservationist. Thelanguage ofbiodiversity enshrined in the CBD has come to drive a programme ofaction based upon the identification and protection ofcritical biodiverse areas – a‘protected area’ strategy based largely upon a US model ofnational parks andwilderness reserves.1This tradition tends to foster a conceptual separationbetween humans and nature, and between nature and culture, which creates bothmoral and practical dilemmas, especially in poor countries where human needscannot be set aside in pursuing the ‘intrinsic’ rights ofnature.Ifthere is a need to revisit the founding ideas ofnature conservation inpost-colonial societies, that exploration also must take into account the fact thatthe cherished notion ofa ‘balance ofnature’ has now been questioned byecologists who once popularized the idea. ‘Non-equilibrium ecology’ (discussedfurther in Chapter 10), properly understood, creates some opportunities forovercoming the legacy ofseparating people from nature; yet it also makes ourtask more ethically complex. During the 1990s, for example, conservationistswere challenged to rethink the idea that nature could be preserved bymaintaining representative sections ofit free from human interference (see, forexample, Langton, 1998; Plumwood, 1993; Cronon, 1995). However, if thedisengagement ofpeople from nature (for the sake ofnature) is impossible,then we must seek new, more ethical, forms ofengagement. What this mightmean in practice is the central interest ofthis book.THE BOOKIn Chapter 2, Bill Adams reviews the ways in which nature was understood andtreated in the British Empire. He discusses, in particular, the role ofscience andideas ofthe rational exploitation ofnature, the nature ofcolonial impacts onthe environment,colonial fears about environmental degradation,theimportance ofhunting and the rise offormal conservation. He assesses thesignificance ofthis colonial inheritance for conservation. In Chapter 3, ValPlumwood extends this account with a theoretical analysis ofthe dynamics ofEuropean colonialism before turning her attention to language and conservationdiscourse and practice. Val ends her contribution with a challenging proposalabout decolonizing place names in order to begin a more ‘dialogical’ relationshipbetween people and places.In Chapter 4, Marcia Langton (writing primarily from the perspective ofindigenous Australians) outlines the features of new, globalized forms ofcolonization before offering some insights on sustainable resource use basedupon her research and consultations with Australian indigenous communities.In Chapter 5, Hector Magome and James Murombedzi (writing aboutconservation in post-apartheid South Africa) discuss negotiations between localpeople and the state conservation agency over land rights and national parks. InChapter 6, James Murombedzi then discusses the sometimes half-hearted efforts10Decolonizing Nature
to incorporate local indigenous communities within resource managementstrategies in southern Africa, particularly the Zimbabwean CAMPFIREprogramme. These chapters both support Langton’s contention that indigenouspeople face new forms of expropriation under the guise of biodiversitymanagement. They suggest a need for the negotiation oflocalized, diverseconservation strategies that put biodiversity goals alongside human needs –building conservation goals into local, national and international politicalstrategies aimed at eliminating elitism, corruption and gross social inequities.In Chapter 7, Mark Toogood brings the legacy ofBritish colonialism back‘home’ by discussing conservation in Scotland. He explores the nature andsignificance of colonial thinking within conservation in Scotland, and thesignificance oflocal grassroots opposition to conservation by governmentagencies in the Scottish Highlands. He goes on to consider ways in which arevitalized discourse on Scottish identity and history challenges, and potentiallyrefreshes, the discourse on conservation.In Chapter 8, John Cameron draws upon his experience ofteaching andwriting about ‘sense ofplace’ in the Australian context to suggest some ways inwhich conscious attention to the building ofplace attachments can lead to amore grounded exploration ofthe colonial legacy, while providing people witha starting point for building more ethical relationships with the environments inwhich they dwell.In Chapter 9, Penelope Figgis reviews new and emerging conservationstrategies in Australia. Her argument has substantial relevance for othercountries grappling with the legacy ofcolonialism. She explores new globalchallenges and constraints and new ideas about the dynamic processes involvedin the search for sustainability.In his second contribution to the book, in Chapter 10, Bill Adams exploressome ofthe implications ofthe growing discourse about non-equilibriumecology for conservation. He argues that a deeper understanding ofthe complexprocesses involved in ecosystem change can give humans a new sense ofcontrolover nature, particularly visible in the rise ofrestoration ecology.In Chapter 11, Adrian Colston offers a case study ofa long-term wetlandrestoration project at Wicken Fen in the UK. Wicken Fen has been a formalnature reserve for more than a century, containing once-common species in adrained and intensively managed agricultural landscape. But the fen has becomeincreasingly isolated and dry, and its long-term future is insecure. In response,conservation strategy has turned outwards, seeking to acquire and restorereclaimed farmland across the whole river catchment. Attempts to build morecomplex and resilient ecosystems require a serious allocation ofhuman andmaterial resources and a lot ofpatience (something that is rarely valued in result-oriented modern societies). These efforts also necessitate a more sophisticatedexploration ofpractical applied ethics in trying to ensure that such endeavourscan have optimal outcomes for both people and nature.In Chapter 12, Martin Mulligan takes up the need to deregulate our veryconception oflandscapes,arguing for more sensuous and imaginativeIntroduction11
relationships with ‘storied landscapes’ and a much more serious attempt to learnfrom the ways in which Aboriginal people conceive ofrelationships betweenpeople and ‘country’. A much deeper dialogue between indigenous and non-indigenous conservationists, Mulligan contends, is one way in which conservationwork can be re-enchanted.Inevitably, this book raises more questions than it answers and some ofourstarting assumptions have been challenged along the way. There are, ofcourse,no universally appropriate conservation strategies or models. Contradictoryideas are expressed between, and discussed within, some ofthe chapters in thisvolume. We are pleased with the way the book has grown out ofour initial idea,and with the way that contributors have expanded on our initial themes withoutlosing sight ofour central concerns. In the deliberate diversity ofthecontributions it contains, this book seeks to contribute to the vital, ongoingdiscussions that are needed in order to revitalize conservation during a periodofconsiderable uncertainty and change. New thinking is urgently needed, and itis to this need that this book is addressed.ANOTE ON TERMINOLOGYThe enormous gap between living standards in the richer and poorer countriesofthe world is universally acknowledged. However, there is no consensusabout what terms should be used to designate the richer and poorer sectors.The terms ‘First World’ and ‘Third World’ are still in use, but are widely seen asdated (with the ‘Second World’ no longer in existence). The phrases ‘developedworld’and ‘underdeveloped world’are widely used by internationalorganizations, but they imply that the poorer nations ought to developthemselves in the direction and manner ofthe richer nations. In fact, that‘development’ is often seen as being both impossible from the point ofview ofthe global environment and undesirable from the point ofview ofthe culturesand existing lifestyles within the ‘underdeveloped world’. The very concept of‘development’ is complex and double-edged (see, for example, Sachs, 1992;Cowen and Shenton, 1996; Adams, 2001).It has become common to use ‘developing world’in place of‘underdeveloped world’, to avoid the implication offailure to measure up tothe rich-world standards and model (see, for example, Edwards, 2000).However, this still implies that the sort of‘development’ manifested by richernations is a necessary goal ofpoorer nations. Environmentalists have favoured‘industrialized’ and ‘non-industrialized’ worlds, but this tends to focus on justone aspect ofthe difference between the two worlds; while the terms‘overdeveloped’ and ‘underdeveloped’ shift the blame for the gap but stillimply that a convergence is necessary and desirable. The terms ‘North’ and‘South’ are popular in some sectors – particularly in nations ofthe ‘South’ –but they don’t work for Australia (a nation ofthe ‘North’ located in the‘South’).12Decolonizing Nature
The editors ofthis volume tend to favour the term ‘Third World’ because itseems the most neutral ofall, and because it was originally coined as an act ofpolitical self-definition rather than external ‘expert’ labelling. However, we havenot insisted on a single term, preferring to leave the decision to each author.Perhaps a more widely accepted terminology will emerge at some point in thefuture but for now it seems wise to respect a diversity ofterms used for differentpurposes.NOTES1 For a discussion ofcompeting Western traditions, see ‘Local Development andParks in France’ by Andrea Finger-Stich and Krishna B Ghimire in Social Change andConservation(Earthscan, 1997), edited by Krishna B Ghimire and Michel P Pimbert.REFERENCESAdams, W M (1996) Future Nature: A Vision for Conservation. Earthscan, LondonAdams, W M (2001) Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World.Routledge, LondonBate, J (1991) Romantic Ecology: Wordsworth and the Environmental Tradition.Routledge,LondonBullock, D J and Harvey, H J (1995) (eds) The National Trust and Nature Conservation:100 Years On. Biological Journal ofthe Linnean Society 56(Suppl). The Linnean Society,LondonBunce, M (1994) The Countryside Ideal: Anglo-American Images ofLandscape.Routledge,LondonCowen, M P and Shenton, R W (1996) Doctrines ofDevelopment.Routledge, LondonCronon, W (1995) ‘The trouble with wilderness: or, getting back to the wrong nature’,in W Cronon (ed) Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. W W Norton andCo, New York, pp69–90Crosby, A W (1986) Ecological Imperialism: The Ecological Expansion ofEurope 1600–1900.Cambridge University Press, CambridgeDrayton, R (2000) Nature’s Government: Science, Imperial Britain and the ‘Improvement’ oftheWorld.Yale University Press, New HavenEdwards, M (2000) Future Positive: International Co-operation in the 21st Century, Earthscan,LondonEvans, D (1992) A History ofNature Conservation in Great Britain.Routledge, LondonGriffiths, T (1996) Hunters and Collectors: The Antiquarian Imagination in Australia.Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGriffiths, T and Robbins, L (eds) (1997) Ecology and Empire: Environmental History ofSettler Societies.Melbourne University Press, MelbourneGrove, R H (1995) Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and theOrigins ofEnvironmentalism, 1600–1800. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeGrove, R H (1997) ‘Scotland in South Africa: John Croumbie Brown and the roots ofsettler environmentalism’, in T Griffiths and L Robin (eds) Ecology and Empire:Environmental History ofSettler Societies. Keele University Press, Keele, pp139–153Introduction13
Hays, S (1959) Conservation and the Gospel ofEfficiency: The Progressive ConservationMovement, 1890–1920. Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MAHoldgate, M (1996) From Care to Action: Making a Sustainable World. Earthscan, LondonHulme, D and Murphree, M (2001) (eds) African Wildlife and Livelihoods: The Promise andPerformance ofCommunity Conservation. James Currey, Oxford and Heinemann, NewHampshireLangton, M (1998) Burning Questions: Emerging Environmental Issues for Indigenous People inNorthern Australia. Centre for Indigenous, Natural and Cultural ResourceManagement, Northern Territory University, DarwinLewis, M W (1992) Green Delusions: An Environmentalist Critique ofRadicalEnvironmentalism. Duke University Press, Durham and LondonLoomba, A (1998) Colonialism/Post-colonialism. Routledge, LondonMackay, D (1985) In the Wake ofCook: Exploration, Science and Empire 1780–1801.Victoria University Press, WellingtonMacKenzie, J (ed) (1986) Imperialism and Popular Culture. Manchester University Press,ManchesterMacKenzie, J M (1988) The Empire ofNature: Hunting, Conservation and BritishImperialism. Manchester University Press, ManchesterMacKenzie, J M (ed) (1990a) Imperialism and the Natural World. Manchester UniversityPress, ManchesterMacKenzie, J M (1990b) ‘Introduction’, in J M MacKenzie (ed) Imperialism and theNatural World. Manchester University Press, ManchesterMacKenzie, J M (1997) ‘Empire and the ecological apocalypse: the historiography ofthe imperial environment’, in T Griffiths and L Robin (eds) Ecology and Empire:Environmental History ofSettler Societies. Keele University Press, Keele, pp215–228Merchant, C (1992) Radical Ecology: The Search for a Livable World. Routledge, New YorkMoore-Gilbert, B (1997) Post-colonial Theory: Contexts, Practices, Politics. Verso, LondonMulligan, M and Hill, S (2001) Ecological Pioneers: A Social History ofAustralian EcologicalThought and Action.Cambridge University Press, MelbourneNash, R (1973) Wilderness and the American Mind. Yale University Press, New Haven, CTNeumann, R P (1998) Imposing Wilderness: Struggles over Livelihood and Nature Preservationin Africa. University ofCalifornia Press, BerkeleyPepper, D (1996) The Roots ofModern Environmentalism: An Introduction. Routledge,London and New YorkPlumwood, V (1993) Feminism and the Mastery ofNature. Routledge, LondonPratt, M L (1992) Imperial Eyes: Travel Writing and Transculturation. Routledge, LondonSachs, W (ed) (1992) The Development Dictionary: A Guide to Knowledge as Power,Witwatersrand University Press, Johannesburg and Zed Books, LondonSaid, E (1978) Orientalism. Pantheon, New YorkSheail, J (1976) Nature in Trust: The History ofNature Conservation in Great Britain.Blackie, GlasgowShenton, R W (1986) The Development ofCapitalism in Northern Nigeria. James Currey,LondonShiva, V (1989)Staying Alive: Women, Ecology and Development. Zed Books, LondonSmith, L Tuhiwai (1999) Decolonising Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples. ZedBooks, LondonSpirn, A W (1995) ‘Constructing nature: the legacy ofFrederick Law Olmstead’, in WCronon (ed) Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature, W W Norton and Co,New York, pp91–11314Decolonizing Nature
Veldman, M (1994) Fantasy, the Bomb and the Greening ofBritain: Romantic Protest1945–1980.Cambridge University Press, LondonWestern, D, White, R M and Strum, S C (eds) (1994) Natural Connections: Perspectives inCommunity-based Conservation. Island Press, WashingtonWorld Commission on Environment and Development (1987) Our Common Future.Oxford University Press, OxfordWorster, D (1994) Nature’s Economy: A History ofEcological Ideas.Cambridge UniversityPress, Cambridge (second edition)Introduction15
Chapter 2Nature and the colonial mindWilliam M AdamsINTRODUCTIONOne ofthe unsung delights ofhaving children is that you get to see films andread books that adults typically disdain. Sometimes these turn out to revealtroubling insights into accepted ways ofthinking and doing things. For me, onesuch was the Disney Corporation’s cartoon The Lion King.For anyconservationist, this film provides a sobering reflection ofidealized thinkingabout nature. For any critic ofcolonial conservation, it provides the mostwonderful ammunition.Africa, seen through the computers and pens of the great corporateiconographer, is homogenized into a placeless landscape oftowering beautyand openness. Nature is synthesized for global consumption and cast within avision ofEden, a wild yet harmonious place. The film opens at Pride Rock, amythical land ofprimitive order, where broad plains teem with wild animals inpairs and small bands – Bambicome to Serengeti or Maasai Mara. Up on therock, Mufasa, the true ruler, presents Simba, the young lion, to his assembledsubjects: social relations (age, gender, race and power) are naturalized. There is ahierarchy ofspecies, gender and age. The lions (male, ofcourse) have a sternimperial duty to maintain order for the lesser animals; the female lions live in animperial court – supportive, intelligent and subservient. Simba has much tolearn before he can take his place as a ruler ofhis world. The core ofhis learning(beyond the usual challenge of‘becoming a man’, to be expected as the valuesofthe American West are celebrated in a cartoon East Africa) is ‘the circle oflife’: the stars look down, Simba looks up, and he tunes in to the principles ofecology and environmentalism. Here is ecological responsibility as preached tothe children ofthe baby-boom generation, a ‘naturalizing’ ofconservationprinciples within Disney’s timeless and placeless (and people-less) world. It is anecological vision backed by deep religion: there is a bizarre baboon witch doctor
who authenticates the wise ruler and endorses the good management ofthePride Lands. Only the lions understand their deep responsibility to work withinlimits and respect the circle oflife. They must therefore govern for those lessercreatures who might otherwise deviate from the necessary balanced path.Ofcourse, paradise is severely challenged. Governance collapses whenMufasa is killed; Simba wimps out for a while, and degradation stalks the land inthe shape ofthe evil and destructive hyenas. This is a thinly racializedpresentation ofthe threat to the environment ofAfrica: black actors’ voicesusher in destruction, a lack ofintegrity on all sides, unsustainable huntingpractices, drought and famine. The new ruler is weak, camp, lazy and violent(and English!). In the end, ofcourse, Simba returns, trained in self-sufficiency(like Mowgli in The Jungle Book) by an unlikely combination ofa warthog and ameerkat (some very odd ecology here), reminded ofhis deep duty by thebaboon and empowered by a feisty female to do the decent thing. At the lastminute, Simba fights, Scar is ousted, the world burns and evil is overturned. Thefilm finally ends where it began, with the lions on Pride Rock and their admiringsubjects around them, the world green and fertile once more, ecological orderand moral governance restored under the firm but wise paternalism ofthe newLion King.This is an engaging and sweetly told morality tale, and a fantasticallysuccessful one; but it is also disturbing. For The Lion Kingreflects dominantideologies ofnature, and ofhuman governance ofnature, only too accurately.In Africa, and elsewhere, conservationists do speak like remote rulers, believingthat they alone understand how nature works. They call most insistently formanagement ofnature within certain bounds, and the need to respect both ‘thecircle oflife’ (even ifit is labelled differently – for example, as ‘ecologicalprinciples for economic development’ or ‘sustainable development’: Farvar andMilton, 1973; Adams, 2001) and lesser creatures (this is called ‘biodiversity’).Furthermore, when nature is described, it is often in terms that suggest a visiondisturbingly like Disney’s Pride Lands: a wilderness, a place oftimeless naturalrhythms, a place where ecology, not human choice, determines patterns oflifeand death. Innumerable television wildlife documentaries present nature inintricate and predetermined (ifquaintly brutish) harmony, with humans theexternal and disruptive force.1However, while The Lion King reflects ideas that are current today (althoughby no means universal), it also harks back to the past. Mufasa and Simba areidealized rulers, paternalistic imperialists, selflessly balancing opposing forcesand imposing the common good. Today’s ideologies ofnature and thegovernance ofnature draw directly upon the inheritance ofcolonialism. Thesense ofduty that Mufasa attempts to inculcate into Simba reflects Kipling’s‘white man’s burden’.2The Lion King reveals the specific power ofcolonial ideologies ofnature:they cast a long shadow in thinking about conservation, and in many instancesthey have been built into the structure ofestablished institutions, from nationalparks to soil conservation programmes.Nature and the colonial mind17
This chapter attempts to tease out something ofthe shape and significanceof colonial thinking about nature, particularly in the British Empire. It isnecessarily a partial and personal review ofa large and rapidly growing literature,embracing Africa, Australia, South Asia and the Caribbean, and, ofcourse,North America.3The point ofthis chapter is to explore the significance ofthecolonial mind in influencing the cast ofour own.WHOSE COLONIAL MIND?This chapter’s title speaks of‘a colonial mind’; but did such a thing ever existwith respect to conservation? The rapidly growing literature on environmentalhistory suggests not. There has been enormous diversity in the ways nature hasbeen understood, and the ways conservation has been practised, in colonialcountries. There is no consistent ‘colonial mind’, and no simple account to begiven ofcolonial ideologies ofnature.There is, in particular, now recognized to be considerable complexity in theinterplay ofenvironmental ideas from the colonial metropole and periphery.The work ofRichard Grove, for example (1990; 1992; 1995; 1997) haschallenged the conventional wisdom that environmentalism was an Anglo-American concern, merely ‘a local response to Western industrialization’, thatwas exported around the colonial world (Grove, 1990, p11). Indeed, he arguesthat the reverse was the case, with the development ofglobal trade from the15th century onwards yielding ideas and knowledge that themselves transformedEuropean ideas ofnature. The colonized world should be seen as the hearth ofideological innovation, with ideas forged there during the 17th and 18thcenturies (in the West Indies, in the islands ofthe Indian Ocean and in India)being relayed to the metropole through international scientific networks (Grove,1995; 1997; MacKenzie, 1997).There is plenty ofevidence ofdiversity in the historical emergence ofideologies ofnature and conservation under colonialism. One risk ofpost-colonial analysis is that it homogenizes this diversity in both space and time,inventing a single discourse without geography or history as a logical source ofa hegemonic colonial gaze. It is easy to hypothesize such an ideology, withcapitalist market rationality transforming diverse indigenous understandings of,and social engagements with, nature. However, it is clear that such a simplisticwriting ofhistory is highly misleading. Place, period, race, class, caste and genderall offer distinct (although inter-linked) circuits for the formation and exchangeofideas about nature in the colonial world. Not all actors have left the samesignature in the written archive: there is more recorded about the ideas ofgovernors than governors’ wives; more about the attitudes to nature ofdistrictcommissioners than ofengineers running cotton mills. There is more recordedabout what all of these individuals thought than about the ideas of theirsubjects, or their servants, or members oftheir households. Reflection suggeststhat there might be sharp distinctions between ideas ofnature, even at local18Decolonizing Nature
scales; between different kinds of actors; and subtle inter-plays betweenindividuals within them. There is every reason to expect colonial ideologies ofnature to be as diverse, confused and contested as those ofthe present day(Norton, 1991). Grove comments: ‘the ideological and scientific content ofearly colonial conservationism as it had developed under early British andFrench colonial rule amounted, by the 1850s, to a highly heterogeneous mixtureofindigenous, romantic, Orientalist and other elements’ (Grove, 1995, p12).However, within this diversity there are common themes in colonialdiscourse. This chapter tries to demonstrate this, exploring some key themesamong the many dimensions ofcolonial thought about nature. It discussescolonialism’s impact on nature and the importance ofrationality and science inunderpinning colonial ideas about nature. It explores the roles ofecology andapplied science in the service ofdevelopment planning, and the nature ofcolonial environmentalism. It then considers three particular obsessions ofcolonial views ofnature: the idea ofwilderness, the issue ofhunting and thedesire to separate nature offin protected areas. The chapter’s argument is thatideas forged under colonial rule still fly, like a comet’s tail ofideological debris,behind contemporary thinking on conservation. They have enduring power.COLONIALISM’S IMPACT ON NATUREThere has been much debate about the extent ofthe destructive impact ofcolonialism on nature. The environmentalism ofthe last three decades ofthe20th century took as its conceptual premise the unprecedented scale andsignificance ofthe impacts ofindustrial technology on nature. The roots ofthis view lie deep within Western popular consciousness; but romanticopposition to industrialism, to nuclear weapons, to urbanization and tolandscape change are all significant (Veldman, 1994; Bunce, 1994). As MeredithVeldman points out, C S Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobeis, like TheLion King, a tale of balance destroyed and restored; the pastoral world ofTolkein’s Middle Earth is threatened by Sauron’s dark arts.Alfred Crosby’s Ecological Imperialism (1986) gives this rather vagueenvironmentalist oppositionism a geography and a history. He describes thesuccess of‘neo-Europes’ in Australasia, and in North and South America,where greedy but marginally competent Europeans were able to gain colonialfootholds. In these countries, Europeans became numerically dominant, as didelements ofEuropean biota and production systems. European settlers ‘usedguns, traps and poison to kill the wildlife, steel axes and ploughs to clear theland and turn the soil’; they also placed bounties ‘on almost anything thatwalked, flew, swam or crawled’ (Dunlap, 1999, pp49, 51). The reason for thesuccess of this invasion in some places, and its sapping failure in others(notably Africa), was not the limited range ofdeveloped technologies (whetherdomestic livestock or guns). Many ofthese technologies were, anyway,developed in China or the Middle East (survival and expansion were, in manyNature and the colonial mind19
cases, dependent upon the bold and effective cooption of proven localtechnologies, such as Arabic sailing technologies in the Indian Ocean, orindigenous crops in North America). Still less did it lie in racial superiority orsuperior moral fibre, explanations beloved ofimperialistic history books.Crosby highlights the influence ofpathogens (and particularly human diseases)that decimated local populations and laid lands open to the blind, cruel butultimately profitable legal fiction ofterra nullius.4The ravages ofdisease, killingsand (more rarely) open warfare served to clear the land in North America,Australia, New Zealand and the South African Cape (Flannery, 1994; Beinartand Coates, 1995), a clearance entrenched by economic competition and legalprocess. In places like lowland tropical Africa, however, disease culledEuropean colonizers, often on arrival. Outside the salubrious highlands theywere restricted to extractive trade, and not occupation. Even in neo-Europessuch as Australia, successive attempts to eradicate malaria in the north throughthe 19th century failed (Flannery, 1994).MacKenzie (1997) places Crosby firmly in an ‘apocalyptic school’ ofimperial history. In its more extreme forms, this school would portray worldhistory as ‘one long free fall, with imperialism as its global accelerator’(MacKenzie, 1997, p220). Famously, Helge Kjekshus (1977) argued that theadvent ofcolonial rule in what is now Tanzania had remarkably destructiveenvironmental impacts, destabilizing established relations between people andnature, particularly over the control oftsetse fly (and sleeping sickness). Indoing this, Kjekshus contrasted favourable descriptions ofpre-colonialTanzania, with horrifying accounts ofcolonial times in a way that failed to takeaccount ofthe complexities ofeither situation (Iliffe, 1979; 1995). There wasno golden age in pre-colonial Africa. Poverty did not begin in the colonialperiod, and historians rightly shy away from romantic assumptions about pre-colonial social, economic and ecological equilibrium (Iliffe, 1987; Sutton, 1990).Moreover, as Beinart (2000) argues, although the ideological impacts ofcolonization were huge, it did not necessarily or immediately cause a breakdownin social constraints on the exploitation ofnature.In Africa, as elsewhere in the colonial world, historians need to understandpeople as ‘one element in complex and evolving ecosystems’ (Weiskel, 1988,p142). However, that evolution was often drastic and dramatic at the onset ofcolonial annexation. Thus, in East Africa, societies were torn apart by multiplecatastrophes at the end ofthe 19th century. In north-east Africa, pastoral peoplewere made destitute in the 1880s and 1890s by a combination of disease(especially rinderpest, introduced from the Indian subcontinent in the 1880s),drought and warfare (Pankhurst and Johnson, 1988; Waller, 1988). Theimposition ofcolonial rule was a significant factor in some ofthese, andcertainly in their significance for future patterns ofresource use and rights; butits impact was by no means simple. These political and economic catastrophes,in turn, both reflected and caused environmental change. Thus, when livestockpopulations crashed and scrub and tsetse fly expanded, Maasai socialorganization also collapsed. Incoming colonists could imagine a land scantly20Decolonizing Nature
occupied, its people warlike and turbulent cattle raiders. Rinderpest alsodrastically reduced populations ofwild ungulates (such as buffalo andwildebeest: Sinclair and Norton-Griffiths, 1979), and East Africa’s futurenational parks appeared as unoccupied plains, undergrazed and luxuriant. Theramifications of the biopolitical catastrophes of the 1880s and 1890s forcolonial visions ofAfrican ‘nature’ and the role ofpeople within it resonatedthrough the 20th century.Colonialism and capitalism not only extracted from nature, they also addedto it – here, too, with sometimes disastrous effects (Dunlap, 1999). The urge tomake colonies self-sufficient, and to supply the food and materials needed tomake a global navy self-sufficient, made what Frost (1996) describes as the ‘habitofplant transfer’ a fundamental feature ofBritish imperialism. The RoyalBotanic Gardens at Kew were central to the exchange ofknowledge and plantsin the name ofimperial economic development (Drayton, 2000). In Australia,enthusiasm for introduced species was unmatched, their toughness andfecundity a metaphor for European settlers themselves (Griffiths, 1996).Throughout the 19th century, and indeed for much ofthe 20th, non-AboriginalAustralians sought not to adapt to the country but to make Australian natureadapt to them, attempting to create a ‘second Britain’ (Flannery, 1994, p355).A wide range of temperate and Mediterranean crops and fruits wereimported to Australia by naturalization or acclimatization societies, and withthem came a wide spectrum ofaccidental arrivals. Some brought diseases thatwiped out local competitors, others ran wild (such as horses, donkeys, cattle,camels and the water buffalo, among domestic livestock alone); somepropagated prodigiously, reaching plague proportions (for example, theEuropean rabbit in Australia or the red deer in New Zealand). Indigenousspecies, particularly island species or those long isolated and ill adapted tocompetition, became extinct. The fauna and flora of islands and isolatedcontinents such as Australia were drastically simplified.5In the later 20th century, by which time conservation had everywherebecome an important element in public concern and government policy,attitudes to the introduction ofexotic species changed dramatically. In place ofthe enthusiastic colonial promotion ofthe impacts offamiliar species on wildnature, conservationists sought to exclude ‘aliens’ in the name ofecologicalpurity. In a world ofglobal capitalism and culture, local specificity is seen tohave cultural and survival value, and there are vigorous calls for the extirpationofcats or rats from oceanic islands, rhododendrons from British woodlands orthe ubiquitous Australian eucalyptus from African, South Asian or Britishlandscapes.Not all colonial introductions led to ecological disaster: in some cases,crops became indigenized, fully integrated within local production systems.Thus, for example, the African slave trade saw the introduction to the IvoryCoast ofa host ofnew crops from the New World (cassava, groundnut,tomato, maize, sweet potato, cocoyam, pineapple, papaya, avocado, hotpeppers, tobacco and New World cottons), and from Asia (Asian rice, taro,Nature and the colonial mind21
sweet banana, sugar cane, orange, grapefruit, lemon and mango; Weiskel,1988). The changes in ecology and economy consequent upon colonizationcould be rapid and complex. The cultivation ofcocoa (introduced from SouthAmerica to the island ofSao Thomé during the 15th century, but introducedto the West African mainland only in 1878) expanded very rapidly in the GoldCoast and Ivory Coast from the 1880s. Local innovation sought, withconsiderable success, to recreate some economic autonomy following ‘thebrutal destruction ofpre-colonial forms ofmanufacture and trade’consequent on military defeat (Weiskel, 1988, p167). In the South AfricanCape, Merino sheep from Spain transformed grazing husbandry on the dryKaroo, and wool was South Africa’s main export from1840 to 1930 (Beinartand Coates, 1995).COLONIALISM, RATIONALITY AND NATUREThe colonial period saw a distinctive pattern ofengagement with nature: adestructive, utilitarian and cornucopian view ofthe feasibility ofyoking natureto economic gain. Where did these ideas come from? The bedrock ofcolonialideas about nature was the European Enlightenment, and the fundamentalCartesian dualism between humans and nature. The idea that ‘man’ and naturewere separate formed the world view ofthe pioneers ofimperial trade, and ofthe annexation ofthe tropics and the new worlds in Asia, the Americas andAustralasia. In his book Nature’s Government(2000), Richard Drayton traces theidea that knowledge ofnature allows the best possible use ofresources. Thisidea emerged in medieval England (as an argument for the enclosure ofcommon land), and was progressively exported to Ireland, to the plantations ofthe New World, and then worldwide. It was the driving force ofimperialismand colonialism, and of the universal ideology of developmentalism thatdominated the 20th century as the age ofempire waned and died. Draytonargues that these ideas about the ways in which nature might be governed shapedgovernment both in the empire and in the UK.Colonialism, ‘control by one power over a dependent area or people’, can beseen as an outworking ofbureaucratic rationalization (Murphy, 1994).6Rationality has four dimensions. The first is the development ofscience andtechnology: ‘the calculated, systematic expansion ofthe means to understandand manipulate nature’, and the scientific world view’s ‘beliefin the mastery ofnature and ofhumans through increased scientific and technical knowledge’(Murphy, 1994, p28). The second dimension ofrationalization is the expansionofthe capitalist economy (with its rationally organized and, in turn, organizingmarket); the third dimension is formal hierarchical organization (the creation ofexecutive government, translating social action into rationally organized action).The fourth is the elaboration ofa formal legal system (to manage social conflictand promote the predictability and calculability ofthe consequences ofsocialaction). All these things were features ofcolonial states.22Decolonizing Nature
Raymond Murphy argues that thought since the Enlightenment has beencharacterized by ‘a radical uncoupling ofthe cultural and the social from nature,that is, by the assumption that reason has enabled humanity to escape fromnature and remake it’ (1994, p12). The acquisition ofcolonies was accompaniedby, and to an extent enabled by, a profound beliefin the possibility ofrestructuring nature and re-ordering it to serve human needs and desires.Colonial enthusiasm for the large-scale re-ordering ofnature is seen mostclearly in the area ofwater resources. Mike Heffernan describes the plans oftheFrench topographer and surveyor Élie Roudaire to flood the vast saltdepressions ofsouthern Tunisia, (named the Chotts) in the 19th century. Hecomments that European military and commercial expansion in Africa and Asiaduring the 19th century was driven by technical self-confidence and ‘an almostlimitless ambition’(1990,p94).These lands seemed underdeveloped,unmanaged and underexploited, and on the strength ofthe achievements ofthe Industrial Revolution, European faith in the power ofscience to controland manipulate nature found a significant challenge. Roudaire conceived ofaproject on a scale ‘designed consciously to convey the monolithic power andauthority ofEuropean rule in Africa’ (Heffernan, 1990, p109). The Chotts arevast salt pans that lie below sea level, and reach from very close to theMediterranean coast far into the Sahara. During the 1870s, Roudaire begansurveys to investigate whether canals could be built to flood them in order torecreate a vast inland sea (6700km2in area and up to 30m deep). Roudaire ledtwo survey expeditions. He believed that flooding would transform the climateofthe area and provide a route for trade into the interior ofAfrica. ‘[F]ertilityand life would take the place ofsterility and death; the power ofcivilizationwould drive back the forces offatalism’ (Heffernan, 1990, p103).Despite advocacy by Ferdinand de Lesseps (builder ofthe Suez Canal), theTunisian scheme was not implemented: there were technical doubts about thecanals, the area’s geology, evaporation and (by 1879) about whether the area hadever been a sea at all. The theoreticians and intellectuals ofthe French scientificcommunity were suspicious of‘men ofaction’ such as Roudaire and Lesseps.However, grand plans for the reorganization ofwater flows continued to be afeature ofcolonial thinking. In India, colonial engineers annexed and extendedvast canal irrigation systems, creating tightly regulated bureaucratic worlds ofagricultural production in seasonally arid lands.In Australia,colonialentrepreneurs promoted a similar vision of a desert in bloom: the GrandVictorian North-Western Canal Company proposed a 300km irrigation canal innorth-western Victoria in 1871 (Powell, 1997). In Egypt, a series ofbarragesand dams were built on the Lower Nile, including the original Aswan Dam in1902. The first technical studies ofthe Upper Nile (under the Anglo-EgyptianCondominium ofthe Sudan) were carried out in 1904, and through the 1920sand 1930s a series offurther dams were added in the upper basin. In 1946,studies began on a grand canal to carry water past the Sudd wetlands in theWhite Nile to yield water for irrigation in northern Sudan and Egypt (known asthe Equatorial Nile Project). The Jonglei Canal was finally begun (althoughNature and the colonial mind23
never finished) in the 1970s, by which time the Aswan High Dam had beencompleted, and there were also dams on the Niger, the Volta, the Zambezi andmany smaller rivers (Collins, 1990; Adams, 1992). At the hands ofcolonialengineers, wild nature was brought under control, its power harnessed (literally,in the form ofhydro-electric power) to serve the grand purposes ofcolonialdevelopment.NAMING AND CLASSIFYING NATUREThe classification ofnature was a critical element in the rationalizing gaze ofcolonialism: the ‘othering’ ofnature in science, art and society is ‘the ideologicalpractice that enables us to plunder it’ (Katz and Kirby, 1991, p265). In her bookImperial Eyes, Mary Pratt (1992) discusses the significance for imperialconsciousness ofthe work ofthe Swedish taxonomist Linnaeus during the 18thcentury. The Linnaean system ofclassifying organisms not only drew uponbiological collections from colonial explorers; it also ‘epitomized the continental,transnational aspirations ofEuropean science’ (Pratt, 1992, p25). Arguably,northern European taxonomic science (ofwhich Linnaeus was the most famouspractitioner) – the naming and classifying ofunknown organisms – ‘created anew kind ofEurocentred planetary consciousness’ (Pratt, 1992, p39). Morecritically,taxonomy both represented and brought into being a newunderstanding ofthe world, one that had profound implications for humanrelations with nature, and with each other. Natural history ‘asserted an urban,lettered, male authority over the whole ofthe planet; it elaborated arationalizing, extractive, dissociative understanding which overlaid functional,experiential relations among people, plants and animal’ (Pratt, 1992, p38). Thescientific definition ofspecies locked them into colonial patterns ofglobalexploitation. New knowledge was a catalyst to intellectual enquiry andspeculation in the colonial metropole; but it also stimulated imperial ambition.For Joseph Banks, for example, ‘new wonders bespoke not only new knowledge,but also, perhaps primarily, new economic and spiritual opportunities’ (Miller,1996, p3).Colonial scientific discourses about nature drew on pre-existing views ofnature in the colonial periphery (Pratt, 1992; Grove, 1995), taking possession,institutionalizing and re-exporting them to the colonized world (Loomba, 1998).Colonialism promoted the naming and classification ofboth people and places,as well as nature, in each case with the aim of control. Landscapes wererenamed, and these names were entrenched through mapping and the formaleducation system. Linda Tuhiwai Smith comments that ‘renaming the landscapewas probably as powerful ideologically as changing the land’ (Smith, 1999, p51).Colonial states occupied human landscapes whose nature,names andboundaries were to them indistinct; but they conceptualized them as specificentities, with ethnicities ‘constructed in their imagination on the model ofabargain-basement nation state’ (Bayart, 1993, p51). To achieve these ‘specific24Decolonizing Nature
entities’, the colonial state used science and bureaucratic power, including forcedsettlement (and resettlement), control ofmigratory movements, artificial fixingofethnic identity through birth certificates and identity cards, and the restrictionofindigenous people to demarcated reservations. As Bayart comments: ‘theprecipitation ofethnic identities becomes incomprehensible ifit is divorcedfrom colonial rule’ (Bayart, 1993, p51).James Scott argues, in Seeing Like a State, that legibility and simplificationwere central to the work ofbureaucracy in the modern state. In land tenure,language, legal discourse, urban design, population census and many other areas,‘officials took exceptionally complex, illegible and local social practice … andcreated a standard grid whereby it could be centrally recorded and monitored’(1998, p2). This social simplification was accompanied by similar views ofnature. Simplification allowed ‘a high degree ofschematic knowledge, controland manipulation’ (p11). Scott describes the rise ofscientific forestry in Prussiaand Saxony during the 18th century. This was developed and exported undercolonial rule (for example, to India), and persisted in government forest policyin many countries through the 20th century (see, for example, Fairhead andLeach, 1998).The 20th century saw a steady expansion in scientific exploration oftheliving world. This took place under the wing ofcolonial administrations, andincreasingly it served colonial purposes. Ecologists classified nature and chartedits boundaries, providing categories for its effective exploitation. In this, colonialattitudes to nature strongly reflect the progressive idea ofconservation ascontrolled or wise use, which developed in the US at the end ofthe 19th centuryunder President Theodore Roosevelt and the administrator Gifford Pinchot(Hays, 1959). The pattern ofscientific knowledge ofnature being accumulatedat the metropole so that its value could be assessed and amassed continued intothe second halfofthe 20th century. Robin (1997) comments that theInternational Biological Programme was ‘the last great imperial exercise inecology, with information from the periphery being sent to the metropolitancentre to be converted into “science”’ (p72).Science and conservationism developed hand-in-hand.Colonialconservation allowed resources to be appropriated, both for the use ofprivatecapital and as a source ofrevenue for the state itself. As Grove comments:‘colonial states increasingly found conservation to their taste and economicadvantage, particularly in ensuring sustainable timber and water supplies and inusing the structure offorest protection to control their unruly and marginalsubjects’ (1995, p15).NATURE, ECOLOGY AND DEVELOPMENTThe critical branch ofscience for colonial development was ecology, the ‘scienceofempire’ (Robin, 1997; Dunlap, 1999). Ecology developed at the end ofthe19th century in Europe and the US, and became established institutionallyNature and the colonial mind25
during the first decades ofthe 20th (Worster, 1985; McIntosh, 1985). In its firstissue (in 1914), the Journal ofEcologyreviewed publications on the forests ofBritish Guiana and vegetation in Natal and the eastern Himalayas. Subsequentvolumes reviewed work on the vegetation ofAden, North Borneo, Sikkim, ThePhilippines and Jamaica (Adams, 2001), and the journal soon began to publishsubstantive papers on the vegetation ofthe British Empire – for example, inSouth Africa and the forests ofthe Garhwal Himalaya. During the late 1920sand 1930s, it reported a series ofbiological research expeditions from Oxfordor Cambridge to British Guiana, Sarawak, the East African lakes and Nigeria(Adams, 2001).This engagement ofecologists with tropical environments was not simplyscholarly: ecology was explicitly presented as a scientific practice that was usefulto the wider colonial endeavour. Robin (1997) divides colonial ecology intoperiods: the science ofexploitation during the 19th century, followed, in the20th century, by the science ofsettlement and, in due course, the science ofdevelopment. The Imperial Botanical Conference, held at Imperial College inLondon in 1924, suggested that science should serve commerce: ‘it is our dutyas botanists to enlighten the world ofcommerce, as far as may lie in our power,with regard to plants in their relation to man and their relation to conditions ofsoil and climate’ (Hill, 1925, p198). A ‘complete botanical survey ofthe differentparts ofthe Empire’ was proposed (Brooks, 1925, p156). The imperialgovernment had good reason to take a prominent part in such a survey, since itdepended so much upon ‘the overseas portions ofthe Empire for the supply ofraw materials for manufacture, and offoodstuffs’ (Davy, 1925, p215). Drayton(2000) comments that scientists, and particularly botanists, were importantpartners in imperial administration.Vegetation analysis and classification could serve ‘a most practical purpose’,allowing delimitation ofnatural regions as an input to forestry and agriculturalplanning (Shantz and Marbut, 1923, p4). In 1931, Phillips proposed aprogramme ofecological investigation in East, Central and South Africa to helpdevelop natural resources, agriculture (‘the rational use ofbiotic communities’),grazing (the ‘wise utilization ofnatural grazing’), forestry (the development of‘progressive forestry policies’), soil conservation (the ‘prevention ofsoil erosionand its concomitant evils’), catchment water conservation and research intotsetse fly (Phillips, 1931, p474).The rational management ofnature as a natural resource was extensivelydeveloped in the colonial world in the context offorests. Forest policy focusedon the reservation and commercial exploitation oftimber at the expense ofotheruses ofland, tree resources and wildlife, and at the expense ofthose groups(often indigenous people) who had previously used the forest. In India, the ForestDepartment was established in 1864, and the Forest Act of1878 allowed for theclosing or reservation offorests to allow ‘scientific forestry’ to concentrate onefficient timber production (Gadgil and Guha, 1994; Jewitt, 1995). In theHimalayan hills ofKumaon and Garhwal, demand for railway sleepers led to theclosure ofvast tracts offorests to subsistence use, and practices such as burning26Decolonizing Nature
and grazing were banned, resulting in a long history ofhardship (and protestagainst state forest policy: Guha, 1989). In Burma, forests were reserved for theproduction of timber (especially teak), effectively making alternative usesinvisible (and illegal). Existing use rights for timber and non-timber forestproducts were extinguished (Bryant, 1996). In French-controlled Madagascarduring the 20th century, a ‘rational’ approach to forest management includedforest reserves and an attempt to suppress indigenous shifting cultivationpractices. This effectively removed indigenous institutions that regulated howand where the forest could be cleared; and forest cover fell dramatically due to anuncontrolled mixture ofcultivation (especially for coffee), grazing, burning andtimber extraction (especially for the railways: Jarosz, 1996).Above all, agriculture was the most favoured means oforganizing ‘nature’sgovernment’, whether in Tudor England, Irish or American plantations, or(during the mid-20th century) in the intricately jumbled fields ofAfrican peasantfarmers (Drayton, 2000). Under the doctrine ofimprovement, agriculture couldreclaim wastelands and make barbarous peoples civilized. Improvementdemanded science and planning, and in its 20th-century guise of‘development’it became an all-powerful ideology for modernization and change: a ‘self-conscious or planned construction, mapping and charting [of] both landscapesand mindscapes’ (Croll and Parkin, 1992, p31).In Africa, formal development initiatives by colonial governments followingWorld War II (the ‘second colonial occupation’: Low and Lonsdale, 1976) drewextensively on scientific ideas. Ecologists found a ready audience in the powerfulbut scientifically untrained officers ofthe colonial state who were charged withdevelopment, and scientists found new and important roles in applied fields,such as fisheries, livestock management and agriculture. Action to address the‘development problems’ ofrural Africans demanded knowledge ofthe ecologyofproduction systems and the ecosystems from which they gained subsistence.The importance ofthe biology ofagriculture, grazing, forestry and disease, andthe physical geography oferosion and water supply, were recognized. Scientificexpertise in each field won a significant role within colonial government.In Africa, science flowered following the end ofWorld War II. EmpireScientific Conferences were held in London in 1946 and in Johannesburg in1949, and new science research organizations were set up in British, French andBelgian colonial territories.7In 1953, a conference at Bukavu in the BelgianCongo led to the African Convention on the Conservation ofNature andNatural Resources, adopted by the Organization ofAfrican Unity in AddisAbaba in 1968. This convention broadened the definition ofconservation toinclude not only wild fauna and flora, but also soil and water: these resourceswere to be managed on scientific principles and ‘with due regard for the bestinterests ofthe people’ (McCormick, 1992, p46). Wildlife came to be presentedas a critical resource for development. Barton Worthington, then deputy directorgeneral ofthe UK government’s Nature Conservancy, wrote in 1961 after a visitto East and Central Africa: ‘until recent years there has been little recognition bythe governments or people ofthese countries that wildlife is a large naturalNature and the colonial mind27
resource in its own right, capable ofdevelopment to big sustained yields by theapplication of appropriate technical knowledge’ (1961, p1). There was asustained effort to change that perception.Ecology provided ample contributions to colonial aspirations ofpower andcontrol over territory and nature. As a science it was able to produce rationalstories in the face ofnovel environmental complexity (for example, the ‘usefulpurpose’ served by surveys that ‘properly analysed and classified vegetation’:Shantz and Marbut, 1923, p4). Ecology also provided a highly applicable modelofthe wider relevance ofthe rationalizing and ordering power ofscience forplanning and structuring action.In Australia, scientific research that addressed limits to settlement andproductivity had particular importance, especially agricultural and veterinaryscience, applied entomology and ecology. Federation (in 1901) brought renewedinterest in the development ofa scientific approach to agriculture and theproblem ofpests. Plant ecology began with a visit by R S Adamson to theUniversity ofAdelaide. Adamson had worked with the pioneer ecologist ArthurTansley in the UK, and had published the British Empire VegetationCommittee’s first regional monograph, on the vegetation ofSouth Africa, in1938 (Adamson, 1938; Sheail, 1987). The Department ofBotany at Adelaidesubsequently developed an applied science tradition, working, in particular, withthe Waite Agricultural Research Institute (Robin, 1997). The national Councilfor Scientific and Industrial Research was founded in 1926, partly funded by theEmpire Marketing Board. Its Division ofEconomic Entomology, under A JNicholson, developed a research tradition in the ecology ofanimal populations,subsequently carried on by Andrewartha and Birch (1954; Mulligan and Hill,2001). Their research on grasshoppers, and that ofFrancis Ratcliffe on fruitbats and, subsequently, soil erosion, set the tone for an applied ecologyharnessed firmly to economic productivity (Robin, 1997; Dunlap, 1997). By themid-20th century,ecology was offering new insights into sustainedenvironmental management. The hazards ofreckless species introductions,drastic bush clearance and rural development that was blind to drought, were bythen beginning to be widely recognized (Dunlap,1999).Australianenvironmental science had become ‘the voice of reason and restraint, ofmanagement for a long-term yield’ (Robin, 1997, p70).Science was also a critical element in the development ofthinking aboutsustainability internationally (Adams, 2001). Barton Worthington argued in 1938in Science in Africa(arising from his work with Lord Hailey’s African Survey) thatscience (especially ecology) was useful in promoting human welfare. He wrotemuch later that ‘a key problem was how Homo sapienscould himselfbenefit fromthis vast ecological complex which was Africa, how he could live and multiplyon the income of the natural resources without destroying their capital’(Worthington, 1938, p46). This insight became the basis for ideas ofsustainability in the World Conservation Strategy and Agenda 21 during the1980s and 1990s (Adams, 2001).28Decolonizing Nature
COLONIAL ENVIRONMENTALISM AND THEDEGRADATION OF NATUREThe plundering ofnature was a widespread feature ofcolonization, particularlyin its pioneer form. This did not go unnoticed. During the second halfof the19th century, the destructive power ofhuman activities was widely appreciatedin North America and Europe, most famously in George Perkins Marsh’s Manand Nature(1864). Marsh observed:…man is everywhere the disturbing agent. Wherever he plants his foot, theharmonies ofnature are turned to discords. The proportions andaccommodations which ensured the stability ofexisting arrangements areoverthrown (Marsh, 1864, p36).As we have seen, Richard Grove traces such environmentalist sentiments notonly to classical Europe but to the colonial periphery, where capitalist andEuropean imperialist expansion engaged with tropical ecosystems and peoplesfor the first time. During the 16th and 17th centuries, the increasingly intensiveexploitation ofnature by capitalism and colonialism was accompanied by theidea that tropical regions were akin to Eden (Grove, 1995; Drayton, 2000).Tropical islands, in particular, became the symbolic location for ‘the idealizedlandscapes and aspirations ofthe Western imagination’ (Grove, 1990, p11). Thequestion ofa possible geographical location for the Garden ofEden was asubject ofserious academic speculation and ofexploratory endeavour duringthe 17th century, at the interface ofthe Enlightenment’s tension between beliefand rational understanding (Withers, 1999). Ironically, what capitalism destroys,Western culture personifies as precious: ‘romantic constructions ofnatureaccompany its systematic plunder, exoticism serves exploitation; romance andrapacity are familiar partners’(Katz and Kirby,1991,p265).Imperialexploitation could destroy both natural beauty and bounty. Paradise was bothfound and lost in the Pacific from 1650 (Withers, 1999). During the mid-17thcentury, awareness of the environmental impacts of capitalism began tostimulate theories about limits to resources and the need for conservation.Experience ofrapid ecological change on islands (for example, on Mauritiusbetween the 1760s and 1810s) was translated into more general fears ofenvironmental destruction on a global scale – for example, the issue ofclimatechange (Grove, 1990; 1997; 1998a).A sensitivity to the ecological impacts of imperialism and capitalismdeveloped as colonial environmentalists felt the threat ofdeforestation, climaticchange and famine (Grove, 1995; 1998a). There followed a sense that there werelimits to nature’s capacity to meet human demands, from which grew colonialconservationism. The timing ofthe expression ofthis in legislation varied.Scientists employed by trade companies as surgeons and botanists (the FrenchCompagnie des Indes and the Dutch and English East India Companies)Nature and the colonial mind29
developed and disseminated ideas about environmental limits. Forest protectionbegan to be institutionalized in British Caribbean territories from 1764, whileduring the 19th century environmentalist ideas were developed anddisseminated through the coercive bureaucracy ofthe Indian Forest Service(Rajan, 1998; Rangarajan, 1998). In South Africa, conservation legislation waspassed during the 19th century (Grove, 1987; McCormick, 1992). Concernabout the depletion offorests led to the appointment ofa colonial botanist in1858; legislation to preserve open land near Cape Town was passed in 1846, andacts were passed concerning the preservation offorests (in 1859) and game (in1886: Grove, 1987; MacKenzie, 1987).By contrast, in Australia, settlers struggled through the 19th century to‘tame’ and ‘civilize’ what they saw as wild and primitive nature (Lines, 1991).Few ‘allowed themselves to be diverted from the task ofchopping down treeslong enough to absorb the beauty ofwhat they were destroying’ (Mulligan andHill, 2001, p27). It was predicted in 1847 that it would take five or six centuriesto clear the ‘Big Scrub’ in northern New South Wales; but it was gone within 20years ofclearance starting in 1880 (Flannery, 1994). However, even in settlersocieties profoundly wedded to the transformation oflandscapes in the nameof‘civilization’, there were early examples oflatent conservationist sensibilities.One such was Georgina Molloy, a settler in the 1830s at Flinders Bay, south ofPerth, whose enthusiasm for introduced plants was succeeded by an intelligentand sensitive interest in the plants ofthe local bush (Mulligan and Hill, 2001). Alarger-scale conservationist shift in opinion in Australian settler society beganmuch later, in Victoria, during the 1860s and 1870s, as part ofa rising interest in‘natural history’ (Griffiths, 1996). It was in the middle ofthe 20th century, onthe back offormal environmental science (as described above), that it reachedbeyond a few stalwart ecological pioneers (Mulligan and Hill, 2001).In Africa following World War II, some colonial scientists began to payserious attention to the ways in which ordinary people actually used theirenvironments. Surveys ofvegetation and soils in the context ofagriculturalland use in Northern Rhodesia (contemporary Zambia) during the 1930s (see,for example, Trapnell and Clothier, 1937) led to concepts such as ‘carryingcapacity’ and ‘critical population density’. Similar insights arose from research inWest Africa (Faulkner and Mackie, 1933). While it is paternalistic and predicatedon the superior analytical power offormal science, this work reads now like thefirst scientific recognition that African farming was ordered, intelligentlydesigned and adapted to local environmental conditions. It seems like aforerunner ofthe celebration ofindigenous knowledge that became fashionablein development studies halfa century later.However, this kind ofinsight was the exception, not the rule. Conventionalcolonial scientific wisdom emphasized the risks oflocal agriculture and stock-keeping. Farmers, pastoralists and forest users were short-sighted and ignorantofthe implications oftheir actions: local systems ofresource use threatenednature, for they led almost inevitably to degradation. William Beinart describesthe importance to colonial officers in Africa ofregulating the ways in which30Decolonizing Nature
people used the environment (2000). Regulation seemed essential to the efficientand long-term success ofnatural resource exploitation and agriculture. Bothsettlers and African peasants were, at various times, perceived to be wasteful andinefficient in their resource use, and the governmental response was to imposeenvironmental and social controls.Concern about environmental degradation associated with drought anddrylands was well established in the African Cape during the 19th century(Grove, 1987). It surfaced again in West Africa during the 1930s, in the writingsofthe forester E P Stebbing (1935). These are discussed in Chapter 11, as arethe concerns about pastoral overgrazing and desertification into which theyeventually grew. Stebbing believed that he could detect the physical advance ofthe Sahara desert into seasonally arid areas further south: essentially, an advancefrom French West Africa into Nigeria. The second decade ofthe 20th centuryhad seen a series ofdroughts in the Sahel (Grove, 1973), and the idea ofaspreading desert gained considerable credence among colonial officers in WestAfrica and more widely, despite early counter-arguments (for example, Jones,1938).These ideas received an enormous boost with the ‘dust bowl’phenomenon in the Great Plains ofthe US during the 1930s, and became partofglobal hysteria about soil erosion. The perception ofthe environmental crisisin the US travelled via newspapers and other routes to feed concern about soilerosion in arid and semi-arid environments worldwide (Jacks and Whyte, 1938).These took firm root in Africa (Beinart, 1984; Anderson, 1984), in Canada(Jones, 1987) and in Australia (Dunlap, 1999), where the disastrous implicationsofrecurrent droughts (for example, during 1864–1866, 1880 and 1896–1902)were acknowledged (Flannery, 1994).In Kenya, concern about soil erosion during the 1930s was not only aproduct offears generated by the US dust bowl, but also ofthe concurrence ofdrought, the Great Depression and fears on the part ofwhite settlers at Africanpopulation growth. The years from the mid-1920s to the mid-1930s were dry inEast Africa, and drought created periodic local food shortages and sometimesextensive cattle deaths. Famine reliefby the state was expensive, and droughtheightened the perception ofenvironmental degradation caused by Africanhusbandry. By the 1930s, the problems ofovercrowding and landlessness in theKikuyu reserves had become a matter ofconcern to both settlers and thecolonial government. Meanwhile, African farmers responded to the slump inagricultural prices caused by the worldwide economic recession by expandingthe areas under production ofcotton and coffee in Uganda and maize in Kenyaand Tanganyika, threatening to out-compete white farmers. Facing bankruptcy,the latter argued that African farming practices were damaging the environment.They did so to such effect that when colonial intervention in African agriculturefinally began, its major focus was the prevention oferosion. By 1938, soilconservation had become a major concern ofgovernment in the East Africancolonies, the cutting edge ofa policy ofstate intervention in African agriculture.Outside Africa, drought and soil erosion were more obviously problemscaused by inappropriate agricultural technologies wielded by European settlers.Nature and the colonial mind31
In Australia, repeated droughts destroyed the hopes offarming settlers, andthey, in their turn, drew down soil fertility and left sterile land behind them. Soilconservation authorities were established in New South Wales in 1938 and inVictoria in 1940 (Robin, 1997). In Canada, attempts to boost smallholdersettlement to grow wheat in the dry belt ofsouth-east Alberta and south-westSaskatchewan proved disastrous (Jones, 1987).To the colonial observer, degradation was not limited to soil erosion. JamesFairhead and Melissa Leach (1996) describe the persistence in the official mindofmisconceptions ofenvironmental change on the forest–savanna boundaryin Guinea, West Africa. This landscape is one offorest patches around villagesand corridors along streams, set in a matrix ofgrassland. In 1909, a Frenchcolonial botanist, Auguste Chevalier, reached the conclusion that people wereclearing the forest at an alarming rate, and that the mosaic landscape was subjectto rapid degradation, particularly by fire. Throughout the 20th century (up tothe 1990s), a succession ofoutside experts and administrators reached the sameconclusion. These people saw the forest patches around villages and alongstreams as fragments ofa once-continuous forest cover, and they proposedurgent and often draconian measures to conserve them (for example, theprohibition oftree-cutting and fires, and attempts to persuade local people toplant trees in open patches).Fairhead and Leach show that, in fact, the landscape that greeted the firstFrench intruders was substantially the same as it is today: ifanything, forestcover has increased in the last century. The forest islands are not relics offormerforest cover that was destroyed by agriculture, but are actually the fruit ofagricultural management and settlement that creates the conditions for foresttrees to grow. Far from causing degradation, high population densities arenecessary to allow the management and control offire. Kissi people do not seea forest landscape that is progressively losing its trees, but a savanna landscapefilling with forest. Policy-makers had managed to read the history ofthe forestin reverse. In doing so, they had:…accused people ofwanton destruction, criminalized many oftheir everydayactivities, denied the technical validity oftheir ecological knowledge andresearch into developing it, denied value and credibility to their cultural forms,expressions and basis ofmorality, and at times denied even people’sconsciousness and intelligence (Fairhead and Leach, 1996, p295).Wildlife preservation became the subject of trans-imperial concern aboutenvironmental degradation by the start ofthe 20th century. In 1900, the Africancolonial powers (Germany, France, Britain, Portugal, Spain, Italy and Belgium)met in London and signed a Convention for the Preservation ofAnimals, Birdsand Fish in Africa (although it was never implemented: McCormick, 1992). In1903, the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire(SPWFE) was established to lobby for wildlife conservation with the BritishColonial Office. Its membership drew on the British political elite, and its32Decolonizing Nature
lobbying was persistent and highly specific (Fitter and Scott, 1978; Neumann,1996). Six years later, an international organization to promote conservationwas proposed at an International Congress for the Preservation ofNature, heldin Paris in 1909. Such ideas were buried by World War I, but they resurfacedbetween the wars. In 1928, the Office International de Documentation et deCorrélation pour la Protection de la Nature was established, becoming theInternational Office for the Protection ofNature in 1934, and eventually theInternational Union for Conservation ofNature and Natural Resources (IUCN)in 1956 (Holdgate, 1999).Concern about the threat ofextinctions in the tropics, and particularly inAfrica, was widespread in Europe and North America during the 1950s and1960s. By the 1960s, African countries were winning independence fromcolonial rule and the prospect ofpoachers turning gamekeepers caused disquietin Europe and North America. Conservation in Africa was seen by IUCN as acritical challenge, and in 1961 it therefore joined with the United Nations Foodand Agriculture Organization (FAO) to launch an African Special Project withthe aim ofinfluencing African leaders (Boardman, 1981; Holdgate, 1999). Asymposium on the Conservation ofNature and Natural Resources in ModernAfrican States, held in Arusha in Tanzania in 1961, set out the arguments forconservation in independent Africa, reflecting both the ideological andeconomic importance: ‘these wild creatures amid the wild places they inhabitare not only important as a source ofwonder and inspiration but are an integralpart ofour natural resources and ofour future livelihood and well-being’(Worthington, 1983, p154).The idea of a standardized approach to conservation across colonialterritories had been proposed to the British government by the SPWFE in 1905(Neumann, 1996), and by the 1960s it was in place. The central element withinit was the idea ofnational parks. These are discussed below.WILDERNESS IN THE COLONIAL MINDKatz and Kirby (1991) argue that myths ofnature emerge from the scientificprocesses ofexploration, mapping, documentation, classification and analysis.During the 18th century, ‘nature’ came to be defined in terms ofthe absence ofhuman impact, specifically European human impact. ‘Nature’ came therefore toimply regions and ecosystems that were not dominated by Europeans (Pratt,1992). As the precursors of modern environmentalism took hold in theindustrializing North towards the end ofthe 19th century, ‘nature’ came to beunderstood not purely as something distinct from society, but somehow inopposition to culture, the city and industry, to technology and human work.Nature was wild, unrestricted, magnificently unknown.One way in which this new Romantic conception ofnature was expressedwas in the reformulation ofthe idea ofwilderness. The original meaning ofthisword in Western Europe was a wild place lacking human amenity andNature and the colonial mind33
civilization: a place beyond settlement, ofwild animals and wild people, unusedand unusable (Schama, 1995). Over this meaning was laid a new sense ofwilderness as a precious, unsullied, natural wonderland, a place ofnaturalbalance and wild order, providing a backdrop for human action, and a moralbaseline for destructive human engagements with nature (Cronon, 1995). In thesense in which it has been understood in the West during the 20th century (andwhich has increasingly spread worldwide), wilderness is valuable preciselybecause it is imagined as being free ofhuman influence, uninhabited (Langton,1998).8Wilderness is ‘the Wholly Other opposite from man’, such that anyhuman change ‘pulls wilderness down from its peak ofperfection’ (Graber,1976, p116).This conception ofwilderness was principally forged in the US. In his classicbook Wilderness and the American Mind, Roderick Nash suggests ‘a society mustbecome technological, urban and crowded before a need for wild nature makeseconomic and intellectual sense’ (1982, p343). As the US industrialized andurbanized, as the ‘open’ frontier ofthe West was progressively settled andharnessed to agriculture, as forests were progressively fed into the industrialmachine, the loss ofthe wild seemed a threat to American manhood.Ruggedness, self-sufficiency and hardihood were to be found in the wilderness,not in the effete lifestyles or degraded working conditions ofthe urban andindustrial economy. This was the tenor ofthe arguments ofeastern lobbygroups, such as the Boone and Crockett Club (formed in 1887), and, in adifferent way, that ofthe Romantic conservation movement associated withJohn Muir (for example the Sierra Club, founded in 1892). Concern to securewilderness was an important element in the foundation ofthe first US nationalparks during the closing decades ofthe 19th century, and became the leadingissue in debates about their management in the 20th (Nash, 1982; Runte, 1987).For many Europeans, both in the colonial era and after, the open savannalandscapes ofAfrica have been understood as ‘a lost Eden in need ofprotectionand preservation’ (Neumann, 1996, p80). The survival ofgreat numbers oflarge mammals (whose Pleistocene equivalents in Eurasia, the Americas andAustralasia had been extirpated) contributed to the sense that Africa was a placeapart, where nature persisted in a more complete and damaged state. Critical inthis aesthetic reading ofAfrican landscapes is the illusion that Africa is more‘natural’ than the familiar built urban and industrial cities and the manicured andcontrolled rural landscapes ofEurope and North America: the very naturalnessofAfrica allows it to be constructed as a wilderness, quite unlike the decadentmetropole (Anderson and Grove, 1987; MacKenzie, 1988; Neumann, 1998).The colonial mind found in the nature ofEmpire something more natural thanfamiliar lands at home – something wilder, conceptually remote from thedeveloped and sown lands ofEurope. During the 20th century, parts oftheBritish Empire’s scarcely known territories were imagined as wilderness, with allthe new positive connotations ofthat word (Griffiths, 1996; Dunlap, 1999).The problem with this was (obviously) that people lived in this ‘wilderness’,and had organized active agricultural, pastoral, manufacturing and trading34Decolonizing Nature
economies. In some places (particularly the plains ofEast Africa), the firstcolonial governments encountered landscapes recently artificially cleared oftheir populations by disease and war. Elsewhere, slaving and colonial annexationhad disrupted economy, society and environment before settled colonialreflection could begin. Such landscapes (like those in North America) perhapsgenuinely seemed empty, and were ‘running wild’ like the garden ofanabandoned house. To an extent, people could be airbrushed from the imaginedlandscape because they were in a sense seen to be ‘natural’ themselves – close towildness in their primitive use oftechnology and ‘savage’ customs (Neumann,1998). Africans living ‘traditionally’ were therefore an acceptable part ofnature,at least until the advent ofdevelopment planning during the middle ofthe 20thcentury, when rural population growth began to close around the vast tracts ofland set aside by the colonial state in game reserves and national parks. Thenthose same people began to be seen as unnatural, threatening the natural balanceofnature (as discussed above), hunting in unacceptable ways for unacceptablereasons and without a sense ofsustainable harvest (see below). In Africa, as inthe US, the idea ofnature as wilderness made hunters into poachers, wood-cutters into law-breakers, and farmers into the enemies ofconservation (Jacoby,2001).In colonial neo-Europes, wilderness could be important to emergentnational identity (Dunlap, 1999). The existence ofvacated (or empty)landscapes, ‘new lands’ and a frontier between them and settled, sown anddeveloped country was important to the national psyche. Such ideas offered noplace for indigenous people, and none at all for the notion that the landscapewas the product oftheir ideas and their labour (Langton, 1998). Pyne (1997)comments: ‘its wilderness made America distinctive from Europe; its ineffablebush rendered Australians something more than Europeans in exile; its veldassured African colonists that they could never be subsumed under a strictEuropean order’ (p33).The representation ofparticular spaces as ‘wilderness’ by the suppressionofknowledge ofthe extent and scope ofhuman occupation was an integralpart ofcreating ideologically significant landscapes. In Voices from the Rocks,Terence Ranger describes the various ways in which the Matopos Hills wereunderstood and represented in colonial and post-colonial Zimbabwe. Colonialconservationists recognized ancient occupation by hunter-gatherers, who leftcave paintings in the hills; but they dismissed contemporary agricultural activity,and more or less completely eradicated its traces when they declared theMatopos National Park. Land was first set aside in the name ofconservation in1926; but in 1962 the national park was divided, and part ofit was forciblydepopulated. A ‘wilderness area’ was created that could only be entered bytourists and officials on foot or on horseback, and wildlife was introduced orreintroduced. The Rhodes Matopos National Park had become a whiteRhodesian shrine, sacred to the memory ofCecil Rhodes, who was buried there(Ranger, 1999). Some colonial overtones were removed by independence, andsome ofthe other voices from the rocks were heard more loudly. However, theNature and the colonial mind35
‘wilderness values’ ofthe Matopos National Park (and especially the economicdevelopment benefits oftourism) have meant that those evicted have not beenallowed to return. The continuity ofhuman occupation and management ofthe Matopos has been expunged from official (although not local) memory.Western conceptions ofwilderness had, by the end ofthe 20th century,become global in the sense that they were very widely recognized. They have,however, never been uncontested. They were opposed from both within andoutside the colonial governments. Within government, the idea ofthepreservation of‘wild’ nature seemed bizarre to many actors. Thus, during thefirst decades ofthis century, nature enthusiasts faced considerable oppositionto establishment ofgame reserves for ‘sportsmen’ in the Transvaal andKwaZulu-Natal from Boer farmer-hunters, from industrial (mining) interests,and from settlers who saw game reserves as reservoirs of cattle diseases(particularly sleeping sickness: Carruthers, 1995).Ideas ofwilderness as wonderful and valuable also very often found littlepurchase in the thinking of colonized people, whose thoughts about wildanimals and unsettled places were perhaps closer to those ofpre-industrialEuropeans: namely, fear and mistrust. Burnett and wa Katg’ethe (1994) suggestthat a conservation ethic based upon the standard Western transcendental andRomantic idea ofwilderness is unappealing to Africans. Analysing publishedethnographies ofKikuyu people, they argue that wilderness has never meant anabsence ofpeople, but a place ofpersistent human interaction. It is a placeengaged by a frontier ofsettlement, a place ofsome danger, to be approachedas a group and transformed through a social process ofsettlement. They makethe point that whereas the American idea ofwilderness created locations wheresociety plays with transcendentalism, the closure ofthe Kikuyu frontier (in thename ofconservation and to provide land for white settlers) was sudden, andby arbitrary fiat not a communal process: ‘whole peoples were deniedopportunities as wilderness was converted from social space to the domain ofbeasts, a tourist’s pleasuring ground’ (Burnett and wa Katg’ethe, 1994, p155).Colonial and post-colonial conservationists have tended to imagine thattheir ideas ofwilderness are universal, and are bound to touch somewhere onindigenous ideas ofnon-human nature. This is, to many people, an attractiveassumption (Kemf, 1993), but it has never been a wise one. Sweepingassumptions about the relationship between religious beliefand environmentalmanagement need to be treated with considerable caution (Mukumuri, 1995).HUNTING NATUREA vital element in colonial thinking about nature is the importance ofhunting,and in both Africa and Australia hunters were among the first conservationists(MacKenzie, 1987; Griffiths, 1996; Dunlap, 1999). The most important speciesaccording to the colonial gaze were large mammals, particularly antelope anddeer, buffalo, elephant and large predators (especially lion and tiger). These were36Decolonizing Nature
classified as ‘game’, and made subjects ofa separate moral universe from otherspecies, one where only white men could engage with them legitimately. Likethe pheasants and deer ofBritish estates, they were reserved for the attention ofa racial and class elite: white hunters.In Africa, MacKenzie (1987) identifies three phases in the extension ofEuropean hunting. The first was commercial hunting for ivory and skins bywhite hunters and (from the 1850s) by African rulers who traded with them,gaining guns and seeking power over neighbours in the process. The secondphase ofhunting saw it serve as a subsidy for the European advance, providingmeat for railway construction workers or to feed missionaries and finance trade.The third phase is the most relevant to the subsequent evolution ofconservation: the development ofa ritualized and idealized practice of‘thehunt’on the part ofa white elite,with an obsession with trophies,sportsmanship and other ideals ofprivate British boys’ schools (MacKenzie.1988). Beryl Markham (herself at one time employed in spotting trophyelephants from the air) provides a nice example ofthe confused psychology ofthe hunter when she writes:…it is absurd for a man to kill an elephant. It is not brutal, it is not heroic,and certainly it is not easy; it is just one ofthose preposterous things that mendo, like putting a dam across a great river, one tenth ofwhose volume wouldengulfthe whole ofmankind without disturbing the domestic life ofa singlecatfish (Markham, 1942, p180).As rifles improved and the number ofhunters grew, vast numbers ofgameanimals were killed, their pursuit carefully choreographed, and their deathslovingly chronicled. By the last decades ofthe 19th century substantial areas ofsouthern Africa, especially near white population centres and along ox-wagonand rail routes, were more or less emptied ofgame. This carnage led to theemergence ofideas ofcontrolling hunting, and to ideas ofprotected areas. InSouth Africa, the Cape Act for the Preservation ofGame of1886 was extendedto the British South African Territories in 1891 (MacKenzie, 1987), and in 1892the Sabie Game Reserve was established (to become the Kruger National Parkin 1926). In Kenya, the Ukamba Game Reserve was created in 1899; the KenyanGame Ordinance was passed in 1900, effectively banning all hunting except bylicence (Graham, 1973).Colonial conservation tried to end hunting by Africans through control onthe possession offirearms, and latterly the establishment ofgame reserves.Hunting continued, out ofsight and illicitly, and ‘the poaching problem’ becamethe common lament ofgame departments throughout Africa (Graham, 1973;Beinart and Coates, 1995). Most commentators condemned African hunting forits barbarity (using traps, spears and bows and arrows, ancient muzzle-loaders orhome-made guns, not the high-velocity sporting rifles necessary for the whitehunter’s ritual ‘clean kill’), and for its presumed lack of moderation. Thisprimitive hunting was conventionally contrasted with the careful, consideredNature and the colonial mind37
and clinically humane big game hunter. Hingston, writing a polemic promotingnational parks, wrote:What the sportsman wants is a good trophy, almost invariably a male trophy,and the getting ofthat usually satisfies him... The position is not the samewith the native hunter. He cares nothing about species or trophies or sex, nordoes he hunt for the fun ofthe thing (Hingston, 1931, p404).Indeed not: they hunted for food and for trade materials, a base obsession withcommerce and the belly that demeaned noble wild beasts.Ifthe expression in conservation policy ofcolonial ideas about wildness islargely American in origin, the importance ofhunting and ‘game preservation’bears a strongly British imprint. Rod Neumann argues that just as the Empirewas ‘a means to extend patrician country life beyond its inevitable demise inEngland’ (1996, p81), ideas about conservation borrowed directly from theworld of English aristocratic rural estates. His argument is based on theextraordinary dominance ofaristocratic members ofthe SPWFE during thefirst halfofthe 20th century. These reformed big game hunters attempted tobuild conservation in Africa in the image ofthe great British sporting estate: ‘aswealth, power and prestige drained from the body ofthe landlord class, huntingand nature protection in the empire was one realm in which patrician normsand standards still held sway’ (p88). In 1929, the Earl ofOnslow, president ofthe SPWFE from 1926 to 1945, drew specific comparisons between theimportance ofthe country estate to game preservation in the UK and the systemofnational parks in Africa. Both needed aristocratic vision and leadership, andsupport from the state (Neumann, 1996).Jacoby (2001) describes the mixture ofBritish upper-class tradition and anAmerican desire to recreate the imagined world ofthe frontier from which ideasabout hunting in the Adirondack Park in New York State at the end ofthe 19thcentury grew:…out ofthis peculiar mixture ofhistory, militarism and upper-class pretence,there developed during the late 19th century a sportsman’s code in which howone hunted was almost as important as whatone hunted (p58, emphasis inoriginal).In Australia, despite the lack ofgratifyingly dangerous large beasts, hunting andthe freedom ofthe bush were important to the settler imagination, not leastbecause ofthe echoes ofpoaching, transportation and oppressive Englishlanded gentry (Griffiths, 1996).In Africa, too, the idea ofwhat was ‘proper hunting’ was constructed andreinforced by an elite within the colonial elite, translating centuries ofaristocratic concern with game and the proper rules under which it could bekilled, and with ‘poachers’ and other ne’er-do-wells who threatened sport, gameand class barriers by their lawlessness. The mentality ofGeorgian England,38Decolonizing Nature
when under the ‘Black Act’ poachers were transported to penal colonies orhanged, was recreated in Africa (Thompson, 1977). African rural landscapeswere conceptually (and sometimes physically) cleared ofpeasants asunthinkingly as any village moved to enhance the picturesque landscape ofanEnglish stately home.Viceroys and governors (mostly recruited from the aristocracy) hunted, asdid the lesser ranks ofcolonial officials, each (mostly) obeying the written lawsofthe colony and the unwritten laws ofhunting etiquette. The majority oftheseself-styled sportsmen railed against the poverty, ignorance and canny cruelty ofAfrican hunters, except when reformed and recruited as game scouts. In time, amajor industry developed in the plains ofEast and Central Africa, as specializedtour companies, increasingly employing the classic ‘white hunter’, took wealthyclients into the wilds to claim their trophy (Packer, 1994). The Americanobsessions with wilderness and hunting made Africa a natural destination formillionaire sportsmen,Hollywood stars and playboys.Roderick Nashcomments: ‘Africa became the new Mecca for nature tourists like Roosevelt,who were wealthy enough to import from abroad what had become scarce athome’ (1982, p343). In practice, big game hunting often lacked the noblequalities ofthe inheritance it claimed; but it was lucrative, and until the rise ofthe car-borne tourist in South Africa, and eventually the airliners, packageholiday hotels and zebra-striped tour buses of the photo-safari, huntingprovided the most visible purpose ofconservation.POLICING NATURE’S LIMITSThe classic feature ofcolonial approaches to nature was the attempt to separatepeople and wild non-human nature. Animals were to be confined to reservesand shot as ‘problem animals’ when they transgressed invisible administrativeboundaries and raided crops. People were to be kept at bay by the policing ofprotected area boundaries and the control ofincursions through paramilitaryanti-poaching patrols.By about 1880, a pattern ofconservation (derived from a mix ofIndian andCape Colony philosophies) was established in southern Africa. The utilitarianbasis ofthese ideas brought them into conflict with settler interests. Holisticconservation ideas could not be reconciled with ‘the driving interests oflocalEuropean capital’ (Grove, 1987, p36). In India these forces were resisted: 30 percent ofnon-agricultural land in some provinces was brought under the controlofthe Forest Department (Grove, 1990). In Africa, a more aestheticpreservationism became ofmuch greater importance. Conservation movedfrom a concern with the wider environment and its resources to an obsessionwith big game hunting, with parks to protect game from poaching, and with theneed for land alienation to protect nature.Although hunting and forest reserves have a much longer history in manycountries, what has come to be the dominant form ofprotected area, theNature and the colonial mind39
national park, began in the US, with the Yosemite Act in 1864 and theYellowstone Park Act of1872. Alfred Runte (1987) comments that they were‘born ofromanticism and cultural nationalism’ (p236): Americans might lackthe great artistic and archaeological treasures ofEurope; but in the waterfallsand geysers ofYellowstone, and the incomparable mountains ofYosemite, theyhad natural monuments that were world-beaters. Cultural insecurity was thecatalyst for national parks, and only later did they start to be re-imagined asplaces for tourism.Where America led, others followed, and national parks were establishedduring the 1880s and 1890s in Canada, Australia and New Zealand; in 1892, theSabie Game Reserve (later the Kruger National Park) was established in theTransvaal (Fitter and Scott, 1978). In the Canadian Rockies, what became theBanffNational Park was first established (in 1885) to regulate commercialexploitation ofthe hot springs. However, national parks in the Rockies (Banff,Yoho, Jasper, Waterton) soon became vehicles for development, particularly inresponse to the need of the Canadian Pacific Railway for tourist traffic(McNamee, 1993). Luxurious hotels were built, and the mountains packaged asAlpine resorts, European Alpine guides being recruited to see visitors safelyinto, and out of, the wild (Sandford, 1990).In colonial Africa, conservation protected areas predominantly took theform ofgame reserves for the first halfofthe 20th century, although in 1925King Albert ofBelgium created the gorilla sanctuary that became the ParcNational Albert (now the Virunga National Park: Fitter and Scott, 1978;Boardman, 1981). Kruger National Park was created in South Africa in 1926(Carruthers, 1995). During the 1940s and 1950s, South Africa provided a model(in many ways a most unhelpful one) for the rest ofBritish colonial Africa. As awhole, Africa was the chiefconcern ofcolonial lobbyists for conservation. TheSPWFE only began to press for conservation in British colonial Asia in the1930s, following the 1933 conference (MacKenzie, 1988).In most ofAfrica, national parks came somewhat later, with many oftheparks that became famous in the last quarter ofthe century being createdfollowing World War II. Thus, in 1948 Nairobi National Park was created inKenya, with Tsavo following in 1948; in 1951 Wankie was created in SouthernRhodesia and Serengeti in Tanganyika; and in 1952 Murchison Falls and QueenElizabeth National Parks were created in Uganda (Fitter and Scott, 1978). Inmany instances, these were created from pre-existing game reserves or similarareas (for example, Amboseli National Park in Kenya was created out ofthegame reserve established in 1899: Lindsay, 1987).There was a great deal ofinternational pressure at this time promoting theidea of national parks, and a determination on the part of late colonialgovernments to set them in place before decolonization, as part ofthe rapidestablishment ofsystems ofgovernance ofall kinds. E B Worthingtoncommented in 1961 that UK and African countries had been less active inplanning the conservation and development ofwild resources than in fieldssuch as administration, law or social and political development. He concluded:40Decolonizing Nature
‘there is still opportunity to catch up, and to provide in each ofthe countries asound administrative and scientific structure, ready to be taken over at theappropriate time by independent governments’ (p23).The importance ofnational political identity is well demonstrated by thecreation ofthe Kruger National Park in 1926. Jane Carruthers (1995; 1997)describes how the mostly English-speaking advocates ofthe park successfullylinked the memory ofBoer leader Paul Kruger to the history ofthe gamereserves from which the park was created. In fact, he was no enthusiast forpreservation; but by implying that the idea was his, the park’s future was secured.Indeed, ironically, it became a shrine to Boer nationalism. This may be a specialcase, but many protected areas in former colonial territories exist because theyserved a political purpose.It was the extinction ofthe large African mammals upon which calls fornational parks were founded (Hingston claimed ‘it is as certain as night followsday that unless vigorous and adequate precautions be taken, several ofthelargest mammals ofAfrica will within the next two or three decades becometotally extinct’, 1931, p402). The main reason for that extinction was seen bycolonial commentators to be hunting by Africans. The irony ofthis view isconsiderable, since the most vocal advocates ofprotected areas that excludedAfricans were, ofcourse, themselves hunters: colonial white men, ‘penitentbutchers’, as the members ofthe SPWFE were labelled (Fitter and Scott, 1978;Neumann, 1996). Their voices (Hingston’s is a prime example) dominatecontemporary colonial statements about conservation; but, in practice, colonialviews ofthe need for national parks, and especially ofthe fairness ofexcludingrural people, were very mixed. The attempts ofthe SPWFE to apply pressure tothe colonial office in London were at times both resented and resisted(Neumann, 1996). There were also awkward relations between the staffof gamedepartments (who had established a low-key modus operandi, enjoying a ‘Boy’sOwn’ existence, touring remote areas and shooting problem animals such aslion or elephant, and generally attempting to keep the peace between peopleand wildlife), and the new national park bureaucracies (see Kinloch, 1972).Nonetheless, national parks came to dominate state-run conservation almosteverywhere in the former British colonial empire.Until the1990s, the establishment ofnational parks conventionally meantthe suppression ofresource use by local people and the forced abandonment ofestablished rights and resource-use patterns. The economic impacts ofevictionfrom protected areas can be considerable, as Brockington (2002) demonstratesin the case ofpastoralists evicted from the Mkomazi Game Reserve in Tanzania.The exclusion ofpeople by colonial regimes from parks set aside for nature hasoften had particularly drastic impacts upon indigenous people. In the US, homeofthe created wilderness concept and wilderness park, these impacts are wellknown and widely discussed. Jacoby (2001), for example, describes theprogressive restriction ofthe freedom ofthe Havasupai people to hunt inwinter on the plateau above the Colorado River as land was designated first as aforest reserve and (in 1919) as the Grand Canyon National Park. Unable toNature and the colonial mind41
survive by farming in the tiny canyon reservation, the Havasupai were eventuallyreduced to working for the Park Service as labourers, building trails and facilitiesfor urban visitors who came to view the wilderness. By the 1920s, the plateaulands above the Havasupais’ reservation, which for the tribe had once been anintimate geography offamily camping grounds, hunting areas and places forgathering wild foodstuffs, had instead become a symbol oftheir diminishedstatus as wage-workers in a touristic wilderness (Jacoby, 2001, p191).In Canada, residents were evicted upon the creation ofnational parks until1970 (McNamee, 1993). Two hundred families were evicted from ForillonNational Park in Quebec,and 228 households (1200 people) fromKouchibouguac National Park in New Brunswick. However, violence arisingfrom the latter forced removal led to a change in policy and amendment oftheNational Parks Act. Indigenous people have been particularly affected byevictions for national parks in Canada as elsewhere; but a succession oflegalcases and land claims have established indigenous rights to various extents (Berget al, 1993). In the Arctic, protected areas have been an issue in the InuvialuitFinal Agreement (1984) and the establishment ofNunavut. In Pacific RimNational Park (designated in 1970), there are 28 reserves belonging to sevenIndian groups in and near the park; but they have had little influence on itsdeclaration and management. By contrast, in the South Moresby National ParkReserve/Gwai Hanaas on the Haida Gwaii (Queen Charlotte Islands),indigenous people have far more influence (Berg et al, 1993).COLONIALISM’S LEGACY FOR CONSERVATIONThe ‘fortress’ approach to conservation is a significant and enduring legacy ofcolonial conservation in the former British Empire. However, contemporarythinking about nature in former colonial territories bears the imprint ofcolonialideas in a variety ofways. While the phenomenon ofcolonialism is, at one level,one ofuniformity, experiences are diverse. Nonetheless, the colonial legacyexhibits a series ofcommon features that reflect the ideological ordering ofthecolonial mind.Firstly, there is the way knowledge has been acquired, formalized, storedand passed on. Colonialism favoured modern techno-scientific knowledge overfolk knowledge, and privileged centralized and formalized ways ofknowingnature over localized and informal ways. Those undertaking conservationpriority-setting for international conservation organizations based inindustrialized countries at the start ofthe 21st century inherit a rich (ifdubious)heritage ofcolonial expertise and top-down planning ofnature and humaninteractions with it.Secondly, colonial ideas ofnature repeatedly portrayed it as separated fromhuman life and not engaged with it. Nature was a resource to be plundered orpreserved, a wilderness to be researched or protected from the ravages ofhuman demands. In the colonial mind, nature was ‘out there’, never ‘in here’,42Decolonizing Nature
and the possibility of knowing human engagement with nature was rarelyconsidered (whether in the form ofknowledgeable and sustainable use offarmland, or the hunting ofgame). White men feared nature in the form ofdisease and the dark forest, and did their best to overcome it. They veneratednature in the shape offormalized hunting rituals and wilderness preservation;but always the distance between human and non-human was maintained, anapartheid at species level.Thirdly, the colonial mind proposed an engagement with nature that wasregulated by bureaucratic control. Colonial states showed an enthusiasm for thedevelopment ofnature (and later for its conservation) that made the colonialmetropole seem feeble. But behind the pioneer spirit was an instinct forclassification and standardization. Nature (and the peoples who subsistedthrough its direct exploitation) was not treated as diverse and unique, and notengaged with on its own terms. Standardized models oflandscape managementand social administration were applied wholesale. Haste and arrogance madepowerful but often disastrous precursors to the ignorant imposition ofuniformity.Fourthly, colonialism approached its engagement with nature throughregulation and coercion. Nature was there to be disciplined and regulated,harnessed to the imperative ofimperial development. It was regulation andcontrol that were important, and the disciplining ofunruly nature and unrulypeople was achieved not through self-regulation or self-discipline, but bypaternalistic external imposition. The relations between local people and naturewere restructured by the colonial state, and made subject to external rules.Fifthly, while colonial ideas ofnature involved a deliberate engagement withthe aim ofincreasing productivity, the resulting strategies rarely worked withnature,but against it.Colonial scientific knowledge was harnessed toproduction, to the specialization ofhuman benefits from nature (whetherthrough agriculture or, latterly, through conservation). Colonial nature was madeproductive, but only through drastic restructuring. New species, new systems ofproduction, new forms ofsocial relations were all the out-workings ofthecolonial mind. Nature was conquered, made productive despite itself. Peoplewere dealt with in the same way.It might seem from this catechism ofcolonialism’s narrow-mindedness thatits legacy for conservation is grimly negative.There were,however,compensatory gains and practical achievements. Colonial conservation provideda counterbalance to the megalomania ofdevelopment planners. By making‘nature’ a land use (in the form ofprotected areas), conservationists reserved aspace for it in the economic landscapes being carved up by planners, whosedisregard for the ideas and aspirations ofordinary people made conservationistsseem models ofsensitivity. Protected areas, for all their history ofmisanthropy,thoughtlessness and often arbitrary cruelty, have served a wider social purposein buying time for colonized peoples to identify the impacts of modernindustrial economies, and make choices about their relations with nature. Ideassuch as wilderness, the value ofbiodiversity and the moral unacceptability ofNature and the colonial mind43
extinction are Western in origin, but no more so than representative democracy,private property in land or the notion that economics is an appropriate way tomake decisions about development projects. Like other once-imposed Westernideas, some conventional notions widely accepted in conservation might needto be rejected, while others are accepted as decolonization is worked through.Conservationists have much to learn about their past, and much ofit will bepainful. Many ideas that are commonly taken to be intuitive will be seen to bebaseless dogma. Many practices will be seen to be dramatically unfair to somegroups ofpeople. It will be recognized that many views common in the Westseem bizarre to those living alongside wild nature on the ground who are tryingto wrest a living from the land. Learning these lessons is vitally important. Thechallenge ofdecolonizing the mind is urgent and ofhuge significance to thefuture ofconservation. However, recognizing these truths is not enough. Thisnew understanding will not necessarily tell conservationists what to suggest inthe future. The real work ofre-imagining conservation for a post-colonial era isjust beginning.NOTES1 The importance ofideas ofbalance in nature is explored further in Chapter 10.2 The phrase is from the title ofa poem that is a reflection on the colonialism oftheUS; its full title is ‘The White Man’s Burden 1899 (The United States and thePhilippine Islands)’. It is reprinted in Rudyard Kipling: Selected Verse, selected by JamesCochrane, 1981, Penguin Books, Harmondsworth.3 For example, see MacKenzie, 1988; Lines, 1991; Gadgil and Guha, 1994; Beinartand Coates, 1995; Grove, 1995; Arnold and Guha, 1995; Grove, Damadoran andSangwan, 1998; Griffiths and Robin, 1997; Grove, 1998a; Drayton, 2000.4 Joseph Banks, in Australia with Cook in 1770, concluded that the land had little toexcite Europeans, and was ‘essentially unoccupied’ (Mulligan and Hill, 2001, p27;see also Chapter 4 in this book).5 Flannery, 1994; Chapters 3 and 4 in this volume.6 Longman Dictionary ofthe English Language, 1991, Longman, London.7 These included the British Colonial Research Council (under Lord Hailey), theFrench Office de Récherche Scientifique et Technique d’Outre Mer (ORSTOM)and the Belgian Institut pour la Récherche Scientifique en Afrique Central (IRSAC):Worthington, 1983.8 The issue ofwilderness is discussed by Val Plumwood in Chapter 3 and MarciaLangton in Chapter 4.REFERENCESAdams, W M (1992) Wasting the Rain: Rivers, People and Planning in Africa. Earthscan,LondonAdams, W M (2001) Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World.Routledge, London (second edition)44Decolonizing Nature
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Nash, R (1982) Wilderness and the American mind. Yale University Press, New Haven,Connecticut (first published 1967)Neumann, R P (1996) ‘Dukes, earls and ersatz Edens: aristocratic naturepreservationists in colonial Africa’,Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, vol14, pp79–98Neumann, R P (1998) Imposing Wilderness: struggles over livelihood and nature preservation inAfrica. University ofCalifornia Press, BerkeleyNorton, B C (1991) Toward Unity Among Environmentalists. Oxford University Press,LondonOates, J F (1999) Myth and reality in the Rain Forest: how conservation strategies are failing inWest Africa. University ofCalifornia Press, BerkeleyPacker, C (1994) Into Africa. University ofChicago Press, ChicagoPankhurst, R and Johnson, D H (1988) ‘The great drought and famine of1888–1892in Northeast Africa’ in D Johnson and D Anderson (eds) The Ecology ofSurvival.Lester Crook, London, pp47–70Phillips, J (1931) ‘Ecological investigations in South, Central and East Africa: outline ofa progressive scheme’Journal ofEcology, vol 14, pp474–482Powell, J M (1997) ‘Enterprise and dependency: water management in Australia’ in TGriffiths and L Robin (eds) Ecology and Empire: environmental history ofsettler societies.Keele University Press, pp102–121Pratt, M L (1992) Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. Routledge, LondonPyne, S J (1997) ‘Frontiers offire’ in T Griffiths and L Robin (eds) Ecology and Empire:environmental history ofsettler societies. Keele University Press, pp19–34Rajan, R (1998) ‘Imperial environmentalism or environmental imperialism? Europeanforestry, colonial foresters and the agendas offorest management in British India1800–1900’ in R H Grove, V Damodaran and S Sangwan (1998) (eds) Nature and theOrient: the environmental history ofSouth and Southeast Asia. Oxford University Press,New Delhi, pp324–371Rangarajan, M (1998) ‘Production, desiccation and forest management in the Centralprovinces 1850–1930’ in R H Grove, V Damodaran and S Sangwan (eds) Nature andthe Orient: the environmental history ofSouth and Southeast Asia. Oxford University Press,New Delhi, pp575–595Ranger, T (1999) Voices from the Rocks: nature, culture and history in the Matopos Hills ofZimbabwe. James Currey, OxfordRobin, L (1997) ‘Ecology: a science ofempire?’ in T Griffiths and L Robin (eds)Ecology and Empire: environmental history ofsettler societies, Keele University Press,pp63–75Runte, A (1987) National Parks: the American experience. University Nebraska PressSandford, R W (1990) The Canadian Alps: the history ofmountaineering in Canada, Volume 1.Altitude Publishing, BanffSchama, S (1995) Landscape and Memory. HarperCollins, LondonScott, J C (1998) Seeing Like a State: how certain schemes to improve the human condition havefailed. Yale University Press, New HavenShantz, H L and Marbut, C F (1923) The Vegetation and Soils ofAfrica. AmericanGeographical Society Research Series 13, American Geographical Society andNational Research Council, New YorkSheail, J (1987) Seventy-five Years ofEcology: the British Ecological Society. BlackwellScientific, OxfordNature and the colonial mind49
Sinclair, A R E and Norton-Griffiths, M (1979) (eds) Serengeti: Dynamics ofan Ecosystem.University ofChicago Press, ChicagoSmith, L Tuhiwai (1999) Decolonising methodologies: research and indigenous peoples. Zed Press,LondonStebbing, E P (1935) ‘The encroaching Sahara: the threat to the West AfricanColonies’,Geographical Journal, vol 85, pp506–524Sutton, J (1990) A Thousand Years ofEast Africa. British Institute in Eastern Africa,NairobiThompson, E P (1977) Whigs and hunters: the origin ofthe Black Act. Penguin,HarmondsworthTrapnell, C G and Clothier, J N (1937) The Soils, Vegetation and Agricultural Systems ofNorth-Western Rhodesia. Government Printer, LusakaVeldman, M (1994) Fantasy, the Bomb and the Greening ofBritain: romantic protest1945–1980. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeWaller, R T (1988) ‘Emutai: crisis and response in Maasailand 1883–1902’ in DJohnson and D Anderson (eds) The Ecology ofSurvival. Lester Crook, London,pp73–112Weiskel, T (1988) ‘Toward an archaeology ofcolonialism: elements ofecologicaltransformation ofthe Ivory Coast’ in D Worster (ed) The Ends ofthe Earth:perspectives on modern environmental history. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,pp141–171Withers, C W J (1999) ‘Geography, enlightenment and the paradise question’ in D NLivingstone and C W J Withers (eds) Geography and Enlightenment. Chicago UniversityPress, Chicago, pp67–92Worster, D (1985) Nature’s Economy: a history ofecological ideas. Cambridge UniversityPress, CambridgeWorthington, E B (1938) Science in Africa: a review ofscientific research relating to tropical andsouthern Africa. Royal Institute ofInternational Affairs, LondonWorthington, E B (1961) The Wild Resources ofEast and Central Africa: a report following avisit to Kenya, Tanganyika, Northern and Southern Rhodesia and Nyasaland in February andMarch, 1960. HMSO, LondonWorthington, E B (1983) The Ecological Century: a personal appraisal. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge50Decolonizing Nature
Chapter 3Decolonizing relationships with natureVal PlumwoodCOLONIZATION, EUROCENTRISM ANDANTHROPOCENTRISMThis chapter begins by giving a general outline ofthe logical structure ofcolonial and centrist relationships. This is then used to cast light on severalissues. Firstly, at this post-colonial remove, many ofus are accustomed to seeingcolonial relationships between peoples as oppressive, damaging and limiting forthe colonized. Colonial centres, which during the 18th and 19th centuries weretypically drawn from European and North American powers, thought ofthemselves as superior, bringing ‘civilization’ as an unalloyed benefit to thebackward races and regions ofthe world. Usually, however, the colonial systemplundered the wealth and lands ofthe colonized, whose peoples were eitherannihilated or left severely damaged – socially, culturally and politically.Colonizers made use of, and often accentuated, divisions between privilegedand non-privileged groups in colonized societies, and, for the benefit ofthecentre, they created boundaries that divided colonized groups from one anotherand from their lands in ways that guaranteed a legacy ofconflict and violencelong after the colonial rulers departed.The Eurocentric colonial system was one ofhegemony – a system ofpowerrelations in which the interests ofthe dominant party were disguised as universaland mutual, but in which the colonizer actually prospered at the expense ofthecolonized. The analysis presented below ofthe colonizing conceptual structurethat justifies all ofthis (often in the name ofbringing reason or enlightenment)is extracted from some ofthe leading thinkers who have analysed and opposedEurocentric systems ofhegemony. It is also drawn from my own experience ofboth sides ofthe colonization relationship, as a member ofa colonizing culture
(with respect to Australian indigenous people and the Australian land) and as amember ofa culture which, in some respects, has also been a colonized one(with respect to ‘the mother country’, as well as in the contemporary context ofglobal US hegemony). It is a significant, but often insufficiently remarked,feature ofsuch centric relationships that many ofus experience them fromboth sides and that they can mislead, distort and impoverish both the colonizedand the centre – not just the obvious losers.It is usually now acknowledged that in this process ofEurocentriccolonization, the lands ofthe colonized and the non-human populations whoinhabit those lands were often plundered and damaged, as an indirect result ofthe colonization ofthe people. What we are less accustomed to acknowledgingis the idea that the concept ofcolonization can be applied directly to non-humannature itself, and that the relationship between humans, or certain groups ofthem, and the more-than-human world might be aptly characterized as one ofcolonization. This is one ofthe things that an analysis ofthe structure ofcolonization can help to demonstrate. Analysing this structure can cast muchlight upon our current failures and blind spots in relationships with nature,because we are much more able to see oppression in the past or in contextswhere it is not our group who is cast as the oppressor. It is a feature ofcolonizing and centric thought systems that they can disguise centricrelationships in a way that leaves the colonizer (and sometimes even thecolonized) blind to their oppressive character.An analysis ofthe general structure ofcentric relationships can thereforehelp us to transfer insights from particular cases where we are colonized to caseswhere we are, instead, the colonizers, and thus to transcend the colonizingperspective and its systematic conceptual traps (Plumwood, 2002b). In the caseofnature, such analysis can help us to understand why our relationships withnature are currently failing. To make this discussion more concrete, this chapterlooks at two contemporary examples ofa nature-colonizing system in practice:firstly, the way the conceptual framework ofcolonization has helped to bringabout the mistreatment by the Australian colonizing culture ofthe land to whichit has supposedly brought progress and reason; and, secondly, the way thenaming ofthe land can both reflect and reinforce colonial relationships andalso give us powerful opportunities to subvert them.Although now largely thought ofas the non-human sphere, in contrast withthe truly or ideally human (identified with reason), the sphere of‘nature’ has, inthe past, been taken to include what are thought of as less ideal or moreprimitive forms ofthe human. This included women and supposedly ‘backward’or ‘primitive’ people, who were seen as exemplifying an earlier and more animalstage ofhuman development. The supposed deficit in rationality ofthesegroups invites rational conquest and reordering by those taken to best exemplifyreason – namely, elite white males ofEuropean descent and culture (Said, 1978).‘Nature’ then encompasses the underside ofrationalist dualisms that opposereason to nature, mind to body, emotional female to rational male, human toanimal, and so on. Progress is the progressive overcoming, or control of, this52Decolonizing Nature
‘barbarian’ non-human or semi-human sphere by the rational sphere ofEuropean culture and ‘modernity’. In this sense, a culture ofrationalcolonization in relation to those aspects ofthe world, whether human or non-human, that are counted as ‘nature’ is part ofthe general cultural inheritance ofthe West (Plumwood, 1993), underpinning the specific conceptual ideology ofEuropean colonization and the bioformation ofthe neo-Europes (Crosby,1986).An encompassing and underlying rationalist ideology applying both tohumans and to non-humans is thus brought into play in the specific processesofEuropean colonization. This ideology is applied not only to indigenouspeoples but to their land, which was frequently portrayed in colonialjustifications as unused, underused or empty – areas ofrational deficit. Theideology ofcolonization, therefore, involves a form ofanthropocentrismthatunderlies and justifies the colonization of non-human nature through theimposition ofthe colonizers’ land forms and visions ofideal landscapes in justthe same way that Eurocentrismunderlies and justifies modern forms ofEuropean colonization, which see indigenous cultures as ‘primitive’, less rationaland closer to children, animals and nature (Plumwood; 1993; 1996). Theresulting Eurocentric form ofanthropocentrism draws upon, and parallels,Eurocentric imperialism in its logical structure. It tends to see the human sphereas beyond or outside the sphere of‘nature’, construes ethics as confined to thehuman (allowing the non-human sphere to be treated instrumentally), treatsnon-human differenceas inferiority, and understands both non-human agencyand value in hegemonic terms that deny and subordinate them to a hyperbolizedhuman agency.The colonization ofnature thus relies upon a range ofconceptual strategiesthat are employed also within the human sphere to support supremacism ofnation, gender and race. The construction ofnon-humans as ‘Others’ involvesboth distorted ways ofseeing sameness, continuity or commonality with thecolonized ‘Other’,and distorted ways ofseeing their difference orindependence. The usual distortions ofcontinuity or sameness construct theethical field in terms ofmoral dualism, involving a major boundary or gulfbetween the ‘One’ and the ‘Other’ that cannot be bridged or crossed. This canbe seen, for example, in the gulfbetween an elite, morally considerable groupand an out-group defined as ‘mere resources’ for the first group. Such an out-group need not, or cannot, be considered in similar ethical terms as the firstgroup. In the West, especially, this gulfis usually established by constructingnon-humans as lacking in the very department that Western rationalist culturehas valued above all else and identified with the human – that of mind,rationality, or spirit – and what is often seen as the outward expression ofmindin the form oflanguage and communication. The excluded group is conceived,instead, in the reductionist terms established by mind/body or reason/naturedualism: ‘mere’ bodies, which can thus be servants, slaves, tools or instrumentsfor human needs and projects. Reductionist and dualistic constructions ofthenon-human remain common today, especially among scientists.Decolonizing relationships with nature53
DUALISM: EXAGGERATING DIFFERENCES; DENYING COMMONALITYCentric and reductionistic modes ofconceiving nature as Other continue tothrive. Like the conceptual forms that characterize the treatment ofhumancolonies, the forms of‘othering’ the non-human that are outlined below are theprecursors ofmany forms ofinjustice in our relations with non-humans. Theyprevent the conception of non-human others in ethical terms, distort ourdistributive relationships with the non-human, and legitimate insensitivecommodity and instrumental approaches. My sketch ofthe chiefstructuralfeatures ofhegemonic centrism draws upon some analyses ofcentrism by thefeminists Simone de Beauvoir, Nancy Hartsock and Marilyn Frye, and uponcriticisms ofEurocentrism made by people such as Edward Said and AlbertMemmi. Analyses framed in terms ofcolonization models are especiallyappropriate ifwe are attracted to thinking ofEarth ‘others’ as other nations‘caughtwith ourselves in the net oflife and time’, as Henry Beston has expressed it sopowerfully (1928). Human-centredness is inflected by its social context, and themodel outlined below is drawn from critiques (developed, in particular, byEdward Said) ofappropriative colonization. These may be adapted to model thecapitalist-scientific appropriation ofnature. The model is illustrated withexamples drawn from counter-centric theorists and from the colonizationexperiences of indigenous peoples, especially Australian Aboriginal people,whose oppression combines elements ofethnocentrism and Eurocentrism.Radical exclusionUnder this heading we meet, first,hyper-separation– an emphatic form ofseparation that involves much more than just recognizing difference. Hyper-separation means defining the dominant identity emphatically against, or inopposition to, the subordinated identity, by exclusion oftheir real or supposedqualities. The function ofhyper-separation is to mark out the Other for separateand inferior treatment. Thus, ‘macho’ identities emphatically deny continuitywith women and try to minimize qualities seen as being appropriate for, orshared with, women. Colonizers exaggerate differences – for example, throughemphasizing exaggerated cleanliness, ‘civilized’ or ‘refined’ manners, bodycovering, or alleged physiological differences between what are defined asseparate races. They may ignore or deny relationship, conceiving the colonizedas less than human. The colonized are described as ‘stone age’, ‘primitive’ or as‘beasts ofthe forest’, and this is contrasted with the qualities ofcivilization andreason that are attributed to the colonizer.Similarly, the human ‘colonizer’ treats nature as radically Other, and humansas emphatically separated from nature and animals. From an anthropocentricstandpoint, nature is a hyper-separate lower order, lacking any real continuitywith the human. This approach stresses heavily those features that make humansdifferent from nature and animals, rather than those we share with them.54Decolonizing Nature
Anthropocentric culture often endorses a view ofthe human as outside, andapart from, a plastic, passive and ‘dead’ nature, which lacks agency and meaning.A strong ethical discontinuity is felt at the human species boundary, and ananthropocentric culture will tend to adopt concepts ofwhat makes a ‘good’human being that reinforce this discontinuity by devaluing those qualities ofhuman selves and human cultures that it associates with nature and animality.Thus, it associates with nature ‘inferiorized’ social groups and their characteristicactivities. Women are, therefore, historically linked to ‘nature’ as reproductivebodies and through their supposedly greater emotionality, while indigenouspeople are seen as a primitive, ‘earlier stage’ ofhumanity. At the same time,dominant groups associate themselves with the overcoming, or mastery of,nature, both internal and external. For all those classed as nature, as Other,identification and sympathy are blocked by these structures of‘othering’.Homogenization/stereotypingThe Other is not an individual but a member ofa class stereotyped asinterchangeable, replaceable, all alike – that is, as homogeneous. Thus, essentialfemale and ‘racial’ nature is uniform and unalterable (Stepan, 1993). The colonizedare stereotyped as ‘all the same’ in their deficiency, and their social, cultural,religious and personal diversity is discounted. (Memmi, 1965). Their nature isessentially simple and knowable (unless they are devious and deceptive), notoutrunning the homogenizing stereotype (Said, 1978). The Other is stereotypedas the homogeneous and complementary polarity to the One. Edward Said writes:‘The Oriental is irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, “different”; thus, theEuropean is rational,virtuous,mature,“normal”’(Said,1978,p40).Homogenization is a major feature ofpejorative slang – for example, in talk of‘slits’, ‘gooks’ and ‘boongs’ in the racist case, and in similar terms for women.Ronald Reagan’s famous remark ‘You’ve seen one redwood, you’ve seenthem all’ invokes a parallel homogenization ofnature. An anthropocentricculture rarely sees nature and animals as individual centres ofstriving or needs,doing their best in their conditions oflife. Instead, nature is conceived in termsofinterchangeable and replaceable units (as ‘resources’), rather than as infinitelydiverse and always in excess ofknowledge and classification. Anthropocentricculture conceives nature and animals as all alike in their lack ofconsciousness,which is assumed to be exclusive to the human. Once nature and animals areviewed as machines or automata, minds are closed to the range and diversity oftheir mind-like qualities. Human-supremacist models promote insensitivity tothe marvellous diversity ofnature, since they attend to differences in natureonly ifthey are likely to contribute in some obvious way to human interests,conceived as separate from those ofnature. Homogenization leads to a seriousunderestimation ofthe complexity and irreplaceability ofnature. These twofeatures ofhuman/nature dualism – radical exclusion and homogenization –work together to produce, in anthropocentric culture, a polarized understandingin which the human and non-human spheres correspond to two quite differentsubstances or orders ofbeing in the world.Decolonizing relationships with nature55
PolarizationTypically, supremacist classifications use radical exclusion, combined withhomogenization, to construct a polarized field. A highly diverse field, in whichthere may be many forms ofcontinuity, is reconstructed in terms ofpolarizedand internally homogenized ‘superior’ and ‘inferior’ racialized, genderized ornaturalized classes of‘us’ versus ‘them’. In post-colonial liberation movements,much effort is put into countering this polarization: thus, the women’smovement disrupts this structure (known as ‘sex-role stereotyping’) to revealthat men can be emotional, bake cakes and do childcare, while women can berational, scientific and selfish. In the ecological case, these two features ofhuman/nature dualism – radical exclusion and homogenization – work togetherto produce in anthropocentric culture a polarized understanding in whichoverlap and continuity between the human and non-human spheres are deniedand discouraged.Human nature and identity are treated as hyper-separated from, or ‘outside’of, nature, and are assumed to exist in a hyper-separate sphere of‘culture’.Ecological identity is assumed to be a contingent aspect ofhuman life andhuman cultural formation. On the other side, nature is only truly nature ifit is‘pure’, uncontaminated by human influence, as untouched ‘wilderness’. Such anaccount ofnature prevents us from recognizing its importance and agency inour lives. In this form, ‘nature’, instead ofconstituting the ground ofour being,has only a tenuous and elusive hold on existence and can never be known byhuman beings. Nature and culture represent two quite different orders ofbeing,with nature (especially as pure nature) representing the inferior and inessentialone. The human sphere of‘culture’ is supposedly an order ofethics and justice,which apply not to the non-human sphere but only within the sphere ofculture.Thus, human/nature dualism reconstructs in highly polarized terms a fieldwhere it is really essential to recognize overlap and continuity in order tounderstand our own nature as ecological, nature-dependent beings and to relatemore ethically and less arrogantly to the more-than-human world.The polarized structure itselfis often thought ofas characterizing dualism;but dualism is usually symptomatic ofa wider hegemonic centrism, and involvesa further important dynamic ofcolonizing interaction in the features set outbelow. This is a dynamic ofdenial, ‘backgrounding’, assimilation and reduction,which frames and justifies the processes ofcolonization and appropriationapplied to the radically separated and subordinated party in the logic ofthe Oneand the Other.Denial, backgroundingOnce the Other is marked, in these ways, as part ofa radically separated andinferior group, there is a strong motivation to represent them as inessential.Thus, the centre’s dependency upon the Other cannot be acknowledged, sinceto acknowledge dependence upon an inferiorized Other would threaten the56Decolonizing Nature
One’s sense ofsuperiority and apartness.1In an androcentric context, thecontribution of women to any collective undertaking is denied, treated asinessential or as not worth noticing. ‘Women’s tasks’ will be ‘backgrounded’ tothe aspects oflife considered important or significant, and they are oftenclassified as ‘natural’ in involving no special skill or care. This feature enablesexploitation ofthe denied class via expropriation ofwhat they help to produce;but it also carries the usual problems and contradictions ofdenial. Denial isoften accomplished through a perceptual politics ofwhat is worth noticing,what can be acknowledged, ‘foregrounded’ and rewarded as achievement, andwhat is relegated to the background. Women’s traditional tasks in house labourand child-raising are treated as inessential, as the background services that make‘real’ work and achievement possible, rather than as achievements or as workthemselves. Similarly, the colonized are denied as the unconsidered backgroundto ‘civilization’. They become the ‘other’ whose prior ownership ofthe land andwhose dispossession and murder is never spoken or admitted. Their trace in theland is denied, and they are represented as inessentialbecause their land and theirlabour embodied in it are taken over as ‘nature’ or as ‘wilderness’. AustralianAboriginal people, for example, were not seen as ecological agents, and theirland was taken over as unoccupied,terra nullius(no-one’s land), while the heroicagency ofwhite pioneers in ‘discovering’, clearing and transforming the land iscelebrated.Nature is represented as inessential and massively denied as theunconsidered background to technological society. Since anthropocentricculture sees non-human nature as a basically inessential constituent oftheuniverse,nature’s needs are systematically omitted from account andconsideration in decision-making.Dependency upon nature is denied,systematically, so that nature’s order, resistance and survival requirements arenot perceived as imposing a limit upon human goals or enterprises. For example,crucial biospheric and other services provided by nature, and the limits theymight impose upon human projects, are not considered in accounting ordecision-making. We only pay attention to them after disaster occurs, and thenonly to ‘fix things up’ for a while. Where we cannot quite forget how dependentupon nature we really are, dependency appears as a source ofanxiety and threat,or as a further technological problem to be overcome. Accounts ofhumanagency that background nature’s ‘work’ as a collaborative co-agency feedhyperbolized concepts ofhuman autonomy and independence from nature.AssimilationThis is synonymous with what Mazama (1994) called incorporation. Inandrocentric culture, the woman is defined in relation to the man as central,often conceived as lacking in relation to him, sometimes crudely (as in Aristotle’saccount ofreproduction), sometimes more subtly. Simone de Beauvoirexpressed this well in her classic statement that:Decolonizing relationships with nature57
…humanity is male and man defines woman not in herselfbut as relative tohim; she is not regarded as an autonomous being...she is defined anddifferentiated with reference to man and not he with reference to her; she is theincidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential . He is the Subject, he isthe Absolute, she is the Other (de Beauvoir 1965, p8).His features are set up as culturally universal, making her the exception, negationor lack ofthe virtue ofthe One. The Other is marked as deviation from thecentrality ofthe One, as colour is a deviation from the ‘normal’ condition ofwhiteness. Her difference, thus represented as a lack and represented asdeficiency rather than diversity, becomes the basis ofhierarchy and exclusion.The Other’s deficiency invites the One ‘to control, contain and otherwise govern(through superior knowledge and accommodating power) the Other’ (Said,1978, p 48).The colonized, too, is judged not as an independent being or culture but asan ‘illegitimate and refractory foil’ to the colonizer (Parry, 1995, p42), as a lackin relation to the colonizer, and as negativity (Memmi, 1965). The colonized aredevalued as having an absence ofthe colonizer’s chiefqualities, usuallyrepresented in the West as reason. Differences are judged as deficiencies,grounds ofinferiority. The order that the colonized possesses is represented asdisorder or unreason. The colonized, and their ‘disorderly’ space, are availablefor use, without limit, and the assimilating project ofthe colonizer is to remakethe colonized and their space in the image ofthe colonizer’s own self-space,culture or land, which are represented as the paradigm ofreason, beauty andorder.The speech,voice,projects and religion ofthe colonized areacknowledged and recognized as valuable only to the extent that they areassimilated to that ofthe colonizer.Similarly, rather than according nature the dignity ofan independent otheror presence, anthropocentric culture treats nature as Other in the sense ofbeingmerely a refractory foil to the human. Defined in relation to the human, or as anabsence ofthe human, nature has a conceptual status that leaves it entirelydependent for its meaning upon the ‘primary’ human term. Thus, nature andanimals are judged as lacking in relation to the human colonizer, as negativity,and as devalued in having an absence ofthose qualities said to be essential forthe human condition, such as rationality. We consider non-human animalsinferior because they lack, we think, human capacities for abstract thought. Butwe do not consider as superior those positive capacities that many animals haveand which we lack, such as remarkable navigational capacities. Differences arejudged as grounds ofinferiority, not as welcome and intriguing signs ofdiversity.The intricate order of nature is perceived as disorder, as unreason, to bereplaced, where possible, by human order in development – the assimilatingproject ofcolonization. Where the order present in nature is not seen, or seenas representing a constraint on human action, nature is treated as available foruse without restriction.58Decolonizing Nature
InstrumentalismSimilarly, the colonized Other is reduced to being a means to the colonizer’sends. Their blood and treasure, as Said (1978) notes, are available to thecolonizer and used as a means ofincreasing central power. The colonizer, as theorigin and source of‘civilized values’, denies the Other’s agency, socialorganization and independence, and subsumes them under his own. The Otheris not the agent oftheir own cultural meanings, but receives these from thehome culture ofthe centre through the knowledgeable manipulations oftheOne (Said, 1978, p40). The extent to which indigenous people were ecologicalagents who actively managed the land, for example, is denied, and they arepresented as largely passive in the face ofnature. In the colonizer’s history, theiragency is usually disappeared: they do not present any resistance to colonization,and do not fight or win any battles. Since the Other is perceived in terms ofinferiority, and their own agency and creation ofvalue are denied, it isappropriate that the colonizer imposes his own value, agency and meaning, andthat the colonized be made to serve the colonizer as a means to his ends, (forexample, as servants, or ‘boys’). The colonized, so conceived, cannot presentany moral or prudential limit to appropriation.In anthropocentric culture, nature’s agency and independence are denied,subsumed in, or remade to coincide with human interests, which are thought tobe the source ofall value in the world. Mechanistic world views especially denynature any form ofagency ofits own. Since the non-human sphere is thoughtto have no agency of its own and to be empty of purpose, it is thoughtappropriate that the human colonizer impose his own purposes. Human-centredethics views nature as possessing meaning and value only when it is made toserve the human/colonizer as a means to his or her ends. Thus, we get the splitcharacteristic ofmodernity in which ethical considerations apply to the humansphere but not to the non-human sphere. Since nature itselfis thought to beoutside ofthe ethical sphere, imposing no moral limits on human action, wecan deal with nature as an instrumental sphere, provided we do not injure otherhumans in doing so. Instrumental outlooks distort our sensitivity to, andknowledge of, nature, blocking humility, wonder and openness in approachingthe more-than-human, and producing narrow types of understanding thatreduce nature to raw materials for human projects.COUNTERING CENTRIC STRUCTUREThe injustice ofcolonization does not take place in a conceptual vacuum; rather,it is closely linked to these desensitizing and ‘othering’ frameworks foridentifying selfand other. The centric structure imposes a form ofrationality, aframework for beliefs, which naturalizes and justifies a certain sort ofself-centredness,self-imposition and dispossession.Dispossession is whatEurocentric and ethnocentric colonization ventures accomplish,as doanthropocentric frameworks. The centric structure achievesthis by promotingDecolonizing relationships with nature59
insensitivity to the Other’s needs, agency and prior claims and by promoting abeliefin the colonizer’s apartness, superiority and right to conquer or masterthe Other. This promotion ofinsensitivity is, in a sense, its function. It providesa highly distorted framework for perception ofthe Other, and the project ofmastery that it gives rise to involves dangerous forms ofdenial, perception andbeliefthat can put the centric perceiver out oftouchwith reality about the Other.Think, for example, ofwhat the Eurocentric framework led Australiancolonizers to believe about Aboriginal people. These highly diverse people, whospoke over 300 languages and whose complex culture revolved around theirspiritual relationship to their land, were thought (even ‘perceived’) to lack allreligion, to possess a single ‘primitive’ or ‘stone-age’ culture and language, to beecologically passive ‘nomads’ with no deep relationship to any specific areas ofland, and so on. Frameworks ofcentrism do not provide a basis for sensitive,sympathetic or reliable understanding and observation ofeither the Other or ofthe self. Centrism is (it would be nice to say ‘was’) a framework ofmoral andcultural blindness.To counter the first dynamic of‘us–them’ polarization, it is necessary toacknowledge and reclaim continuity and overlap between the polarized groups,as well as internal diversity within them. However, countering the seconddynamic ofdenial, assimilation and instrumentalization requires recognition ofthe Other’s difference, independence and agency. Thus, a double movement orgesture ofaffirming kinship and also affirming the Other’s difference, as anindependent presence to be engaged with on its own terms, is required. Tocounter the ‘othering’ definition ofnature that is outlined above, we need adepolarizing re-conception ofnon-human nature that recognizes the deniedspace of our hybridity, continuity and kinship, and which is also able torecognize, in suitable contexts, the difference ofthe non-human in a non-hierarchical way. Such a nature would be no mere resource or periphery to ourcentre, but another, and prior, centre ofpower and need whose satisfaction canand must impose limits upon our conception ofourselves, and on our ownactions and needs. The nature we would recognize in a non-reductive model isno mere human absence or conceptually dependent Other,no mereprecondition for our own star-stuffofachievement,but is an activecollaborative presence capable ofagency and other mind-like qualities. Such abiospheric Other is not a background part ofour field ofaction or subjectivity,not a mere precondition for human action, not a refractory foil to self. Rather,biospheric Others can be other ethical and communicative subjects and otheractors in the world – others to whom we owe debts ofgratitude, generosity andrecognition as prior and enabling presences.The re-conception of nature in the agentic terms that deliver it fromconstruction as background is perhaps the most important aspect ofmoving toan alternative ethical framework, because ‘backgrounding’ is perhaps the mosthazardous and distorting effect of‘othering’ from a human prudential point ofview. When the Other’s agency is treated as background or denied, we give thatOther less credit than is due to them; we can come to take for granted what they60Decolonizing Nature
provide for us; and we pay attention only when something goes wrong. This is aproblem for prudence, as well as for justice. When we are, in fact, dependentupon this Other, we can gain an illusory sense ofour own ontological andecological independence, and it is just such a sense that seems to pervade thedominant culture’s contemporary disastrous misperceptions ofits economicand ecological relationships.To counter the features of‘backgrounding’ and denial, ecological thinkersand green activists try to puncture the contemporary illusion of humandisembeddedness and self-enclosure, raising people’s consciousness ofhowmuch they depend upon nature, and ofhow anthropocentric culture’s denial ofthis dependency upon nature is expressed in local, regional or global problems.There are many ways ofdoing this. Through local education, activists can stressthe importance and value ofnature in practical daily life, enabling people tokeep track ofthe ways in which they use and impinge upon nature. This cancreate understandings ofthe fragility ofecological systems and relationships.Those activists prepared for long-term struggles can work to change systems ofdistribution, accounting, perception and planning so that these systems reduceremoteness, make our dependency relationships more transparent in our dailylives, and allow for nature’s needs and limits. Bringing about such systematicchanges is what political action for ecological sustainability is all about.Countering a hegemonic dualism, such as that between nature and culture,presents many traps for young players. A common temptation among thosewho mistake a hegemonic dualism for a simple value hierarchy is to attempt areversal ofvalue that fails to challenge the hegemonic construction oftheconcepts concerned (see also Langton, 1993, p41). For example, we may decidethat traditional devaluations of nature should give way to strong positiveevaluations ofnature as a way offixing the environmental problem, but fail tonotice the polarized meaning that is commonly given to ‘nature’. Dualisticconcepts ofnature insist that ‘true’ nature must be entirely free ofhumaninfluence, ruling out any overlap between nature and culture. This reversal,which suggests that only ‘pure’ nature (perhaps in the form of‘wilderness’) isvaluable or has needs that should be recognized and respected, leaves us withoutadequate ways ofrecognizing and tracking the agency ofthe more-than-humansphere in our daily lives, since this rarely appears in a pure or unmixed form.Yet, this is one ofthe most important things we need to do to counter thewidespread and very damaging illusion that modern urban life has ‘overcome’the need for nature or has become disconnected from nature.Polarized concepts ofwilderness as the realm ofan idealized, pure natureremain popular in the environment movement where they are often employedfor protective purposes, to keep, for example, market uses ofland at bay. Theconcept ofwilderness has been an important part ofthe colonial project, andattempts by neo-European conservation movements to press it into service as ameans ofresisting the continuing colonization ofnature must take account ofits double face. On the one hand, it represents an attempt to recognize thatnature has been colonized and to give it a domain ofits own; on the other hand,Decolonizing relationships with nature61
it continues and extends the colonizing refusal to recognize the prior presenceand agency ofindigenous people in the land. Ifwe understand wilderness inthe traditional way, as designating areas that are purely the province ofnature,then to call Australia, or parts ofit, wilderness is to imply that no humaninfluence has shaped its development. We imply that it is purely Other, havingno element ofhuman culture. However, the idea that the Australian continent,or even substantial parts ofit, are pure nature, is insensitive to the claims ofindigenous peoples and denies their record as ecological agents who have lefttheir mark upon the land. Indigenous critics such as Marcia Langton have rightlyobjected that such a strategy colludes with the colonial concept ofAustralia asterra nulliusand with the colonial representation ofAboriginal people as merelyanimal and as ‘parasites on nature’ (Langton, 1996). To recognize that bothnature and indigenous peoples have been colonized, we need to rethink, relocateand redefine our protective concepts for nature within a larger anti-colonialcritique.2Attempts by the Green movement to redefine the concept ofwilderness inorder to meet these objections have often involved minimal rethinking and havenot really allayed this important class ofobjections to the conventionalwilderness framework and terminology. Thus, wilderness is often defined, forexample, as land that is in, or is capable ofbeing restored to, its pre-settlementcondition. However, this strategy is just a conceptual shuffle: it continues toassume implicitly that the pre-settlement condition ofthe land was ‘the purestate ofnature’, because ifthe land was not wilderness before settlement, howcould restoring it to its pre-settlement condition make it wilderness now? So,this sort offormula seeks to evade, rather than come to terms with, the realitythat the pre-settlement condition ofthe land was rarely pure nature but was amix ofnature and culture and included a substantial human presence andecological agency. Restorative definitions ofwilderness that attempt to harnessthe colonial mystique along the lines so strongly developed in the US collaboratewith discredited colonial narratives ofpast purity (Cronon, 1983; 1995; Spence,1999).Alternative approaches to wilderness that might avoid this collaborationcould be performative rather than descriptive, and future oriented rather thanpast oriented, so that the designation ofsuch areas as, say, ‘biodiversity reserves’(Callicott and Nelson, 1998; Preston and Stannard, 1994) would represent adecision to treat the appropriate management and ethical stance as one wherenon-humans should come first, rather than making a descriptive and historicalclaim to purity.3An alternative protective concept could aim to identify healthycommunities of biodiversity in structural terms and specify standards forkeeping them healthy, thus providing a basis for deciding what is overusewithout appealing to colonial narratives ofthe past purity ofnature (Mackey,1999; Preston and Stannard, 1994; Whitehouse, 1994).The framework ofcolonization that is outlined here and elsewhere, whileforming a basis for appropriation and commodification ofthe land (Plumwood,2002b), has many disabling and undesirable implications for deeper land62Decolonizing Nature
relationships. In the present context ofcrisis in our relationships with nature,colonial and centric relationships of the sort outlined in this chapter areespecially dangerous because they are monological rather than dialogical.Humans are seen as the only rational species, the only real subjectivities andagents in the world, and nature is a background substratum that is there to beexploited. This is the rationality ofmonologue, termed monological because itrecognizes the Other only in one-way terms. It is a mode ofinteraction wherethe Others must always hear and adapt to the One, and never the other wayaround. Monological relationships block mutual adaptation and its corollaries innegotiation, accommodation, communication and attention to the Other’sneeds, limits and agency (see Plumwood, 2002b). The colonizing task is to makethe land accommodate to us rather than we to it, leading to the rejection ofcommunicative and negotiated ecological relationships ofmutual adaptation infavour ofone-way relationships ofself-imposition. Thus, the Eurocentriccolonization ofnature insists that the land be adapted to European models. Thegeneral cultural consequences ofcolonizing relationships with nature then leadto failures ofecological identity and ecological rationality; they include thedisabling ofcommunicative and mutually adaptive modes ofrelationship, andthe reduction ofland to something to be experienced instrumentally – asresource rather than as ancestral force. For this reason alone we must abandonthe centric paradigm that has governed Western civilization for so long andmove towards a framework that encourages listening to the other andencountering the land in the active rather than the passive voice.DISABLING LAND RELATIONSHIPS: AN EMPTY, SILENT LANDColonizing frameworks ofthe sort outlined above can occupy both a generalbackground role as ‘deep structures’ regarding nature, in general (thesestructures are rarely put up for conscious examination), and a more local andspecific political role in subordinating colonized areas to places ofthe centre, or‘home’. For specific, recently colonized countries, such as Australia, we mustadd to the background level ofWestern colonizing consciousness (seePlumwood, 1993) further attitudes and practices that are more specificallyassociated with neo-European and Australian colonial origins. Thus, we canhave colonizing frameworks operating at several levels, reflecting both thepersistence of the sort of colonial framework that treats the basic landrelationship as one ofEuropean centre to colonial periphery, and also ofthekind ofanthropocentric conceptual framework that treats the human homelandofrational modernity as the centre and nature, in general, as a background,periphery or instrument – as a silent emptiness that provides no meaning andimposes no real constraint.4Both ofthese frameworks persist in dominant post-colonial land relationships. Modern Australians are among the most mobile andurbanized ofpopulations in the world, only exceptionally encountering the landDecolonizing relationships with nature63
in any intense way and conceiving it as largely inessential to their lives as dwellersin the globalized city. For both urban and rural populations, the land existsprimarily in instrumental terms, as a resource to be drawn upon to support theeconomy and to maintain their livelihood or identification with affluent global,urban lifestyles. Yet, this background resource role as adjunct to, and enabler of,‘the Australian way oflife’ systematically inflicts catastrophes upon the land inthe name ofeconomic development.New arrivals must, ofcourse, learn their land, and can be excused someearly mistakes. But this kind of ignorance cannot fully explain the harshcharacter ofAustralian land relationships or the persistence ofthis harshnessinto recent times. To understand this, we must revert to the framework ofcolonization. Firstly, in the context ofthe colonial project, rapid conversion ofland into profitable and productive private property is strongly emphasized byambitious governments anxious to expand their own economic base. There areusually no older or gentler traditions ofland relationship for settlers to drawupon (Lines, 1991). Secondly, in the Australian colonial context, Eurocentricprojects ofassimilation that value land according to its conformity to Europeanagricultural ideals have been especially influential in settler land culture. Theimposition ofthese Eurocentric ideals has been especially damaging for a fragileland whose ecology bears little resemblance to that ofEurope. The result inAustralia, over the 200 years ofcolonization, has been damage to the land on anunprecedented scale, damage that is reflected in soil loss, desertification,salination and extinction rates that are among the worst in the world. Almosthalf of Australia’s indigenous species are threatened or vulnerable. Landdegradation over areas used as rangeland (75 per cent ofthe continent) hasreached a point where 13 per cent is degraded beyond probable recovery, andover halfis in an earlier stage ofthe same process (Commonwealth ofAustralia,1996; Rose, 1996, p.79). These figures are a testament not primarily to ignorancebut to the monological land relationships encouraged by colonial frameworks.In many cases, for example the western Australian wheat belt, scientific adviceas far back as the 1920s gave clear advance warning that severe land degradationor salination would be the outcome ofland opening and clearance projects; butsuch advice was dismissed and clearing projects went ahead.Colonial projects ofassimilation clearly lie behind the deliberateintroduction offeral predators and competitors from Europe, such as the foxand the rabbit, which along with habitat destruction has done much ofthedamage to native fauna. Assimilative projects continue to insist upon theimposition ofEurocentric agricultural regimes that are inappropriate to fragileand vulnerable environments. The imposition of Eurocentric agriculturalmodels presupposes a quiet, benign and malleable nature that imposes few limitson high-intensity tillage or grazing. It is not only the economic and politicaldrive to develop Eurocentric agriculture but the colonial failure to value thedifference ofAustralian biodiversity, plants and animals that is expressed in thewidespread, and often indiscriminate, destruction ofindigenous ecosystems inorder to create short-term productivity. The ongoing clearance ofwoodland64Decolonizing Nature
and arid-zone vegetation in Australia at the present time has no shreds ofjustification where long-term consequences in salination, desertification andspecies extinctions are clearly predictable. Yet, Australians adhere to thesecolonizing traditions, continuing to destroy indigenous vegetation at one ofthehighest rates in the world in order to create a standardized ‘open’ agriculturallandscape. Bird care groups have pointed out that the continuation ofsuch apractice is likely to result in the extinction ofas many as one third ofindigenousbird species, especially those that rely on arid-zone woodland.Damage to the land is traceable not just to ignorance or to the contemporaryeconomic rationalist subservience to ‘the economy’, but also to the waycolonizing Eurocentric paradigms have imagined the continent as inferior, assilent and empty. Traditional devaluing attitudes associated with colonizationencouraged Eurocentric nostalgia for the European homeland, leading to viewsof the new country as inferior to, or as an extension of, the old, to beexperienced and judged primarily in relation to the old, or to be remade in theimage ofthe old, rather than as an independent presence to be engaged with onits own terms. This practice corresponds especially to the dynamic ofassimilation discussed above, in which the Other is seen to have worth or virtueonly to the extent that it can be seen as an extension of, or as similar to, thecentre or the One. So, for example, when British settlers first arrived in Australia,they encountered a highly unfamiliar fauna and flora. For them, the unfamiliarbirds and land were silent, so they set about forming acclimatization societies tointroduce ‘real’ (familiar) songbirds to these supposedly barren shores (Marshall,1966; Bolton, 1981; Lines, 1991).5It is amazing to think that they were unableto hear superb and now well-loved indigenous songsters such as the grey shrikethrush, mountain thrush, lyrebird, magpie and butcher bird, as well as the livelysongs ofcountless smaller birds such as the yellow-throated scrub wren and thenumerous honey-eaters. These birds, and many others, make up what has cometo be recognized as one of the world’s most impressive and unique aviancommunities.Although an element in what we must construe as the deafness ofthesettlers was the strangeness and unfamiliarity ofthe colony, another major partofit was the colonial mindset and Eurocentric conceptual framework thatconsidered Australia as a deficient, empty land, a mere absence ofthe positivequalities ofthe homeland. It is not only that the settlers were ignorant and hadnot yet ‘learned their land’; rather, the colonizing framework sets up powerfulbarriers to such learning. In the colonizing framework, the Other is not apositively-other-than entity in its own right, but an absence ofthe self, home orcentre, something ofno value or beauty ofits own except to the extent that itcan be brought to reflect, or bear the likeness of, home as standard (Plumwood,2000a). Hence, the colonized land in its original state had to be – could only be– improved by the introduction ofthe fauna ofhome, including the fox and therabbit. To the extent that colonizing conceptual frameworks comprehend orexplain experience rather simply, they can have an important filtering effect inblocking the learning ofthe land.6Decolonizing relationships with nature65
Frameworks ofcolonization, ofboth the local and cultural backgroundvariety, breed insensitivity to the land, blocking imaginative and dialogicalencounter with the more-than-human-world, and treating it as an inessentialconstituent ofidentity. Both distortions ofdifference, such as assimilation, anddistortions ofcontinuity, such as hyper-separation, have a role here. The radicalseparation ofhuman from non-human and the reduction ofthe non-humanthat is part ofWestern thought means that the more-than-human world isconsigned to object status and cannot comfortably occupy the role ofnarrativesubject. The colonizing framework’s exclusion ofthe non-human from subjectstatus and from intentionality marginalizes the non-human as narrative subjectand agent, and pushes the more-than-human sphere into a background role as amere context for human thought and life. Since the non-human world is a veryimportant source ofnarratives and narrative subjects that define thedistinctiveness ofplace, this exclusion also marginalizes place, in general, as aconstituent ofhuman identity and meaning. By contrast, these same elementsthat are disempowered in modern Western thought systems – place, narrativeand non-human agents as narrative subjects and life context – have a centralstructural place in indigenous land relationships and in environmentalphilosophies. The recognition ofEarth others as fellow agents and narrativesubjects is crucial for all ethical, collaborative, communicative and mutualisticprojects that involve them, as well as for place sensitivity. Recent ethical theoristshave emphasized the importance ofnarrative for constituting the moral identityofactors and actions (Gare, 1998; Warren, 1990). Legitimating rich narrativedescription ofthe non-human sphere is crucial to liberating the narrative moralimagination that ‘activates our capacity for thinking ofpossible narratives andact descriptions’ (Benhabib, 1992, p129). This can help us to configure nature asa realm ofothers who are independent centres ofvalue and need and whodemand from us various kinds ofresponse, especially ethical responses ofattention, consideration and concern.Features ofthe colonizing framework, like radical exclusion, that denyintentionality and subject status to the more-than-human world not only denyand background nature as agent and context but also deny the importance andagency ofplace. The contrast between this nullification ofplace and contextand the sensitivity to, and recognition of, agency, centrality and specificity ofplace that is a feature ofindigenous life could hardly be greater. In‘backgrounding’ particularity, place and narrative as factors in human thoughtand life, colonizing frameworks make places into mere passive instruments orneutral surfaces for the inscription ofhuman projects. The marginality oflandand place for identity in modernist culture contrasts sharply with its centralityfor indigenous culture. For indigenous philosopher Bill Neidjie, ‘obligationsconcerning the land are at the centre ofsocial, moral and religious life. Thenatural world is not, as in our case, the unconsidered background to human life– it is in the foreground’ (Plumwood, 1990, p531). Bill Neidjie’s statement that‘Our story is in the land/ it is written in those sacred places’ (p47) articulatesthis centrality. Ifenvironmental thought and questions about relationships with66Decolonizing Nature
the natural world are on the margins, at best, within modernist culture, they aresurely at the heart ofindigenous philosophy and spirituality, where non-humanlife forms take their place as narrative subjects in a speaking and participatingland, full ofnarratives and mythic voices.7There are a group offactors that combine to explain the especially damagingcharacter ofAustralian land relationships. The insensitivity and human-centredness ofthe Western framework ofhuman–nature relationships areamplified in the colonial context. Lifestyle factors collude with symbolic ones topromote relationships with place and land that are primarily instrumental.Sensitivity to the land seems to require a deep acquaintance with a place, orperhaps a group ofplaces. It also requires an ability to relate dialogically to themore-than-human world, a crucial source ofnarratives and narrative subjectsdefining the distinctiveness ofplace. The mobility and urbanism ofmodernitycombines with the ethical and perceptual framework ofcolonization to dis-empower both place and the more-than-human sphere as major constituents ofidentity and meaning. Western moderns mostly do not relate dialogically to thenon-human sphere and have come to believe that the land is dumb, that cultureand meaning are ‘exclusively an interaction ofman on man’ (Thoreau 1862,p655), thus strengthening both ‘placelessness’ and what David Abram (1996)calls ‘the project ofhuman self-enclosure’. As a result, there are several differentkinds ofreasons why many ofus now lack sensitivity to place and land. Onereason is that mobile modern urban life-ways do not allow the necessary depthof familiarity; but another, more basic, reason is that our perceptions arescreened through a colonizing conceptual sieve that eliminates certaincommunicative possibilities and dialogical encounters with the more-than-human world. Such an analysis suggests that our main problem lies not insilence, but in a certain kind of(constructed) deafness.THE COLONIZING POLITICS OF PLACE NAMES: RENAMING AS DECOLONIZATIONA colonial dynamic ofseeing Australian land and nature as silent and emptyappears clearly in the Australian culture’s response to the naming of thecontinent. However, ifcolonizing frameworks and relationships are clearlyexpressed in the naming ofthe land, as is demonstrated below, then renamingcould become a decolonization project aimed at reconciling the culture ofthecolonizers with the land and with indigenous people and their culture.Not only do many Australian place names express colonizing world viewsand naming practices,but these naming practices tend to be bothanthropocentric and Eurocentric, registering a monological or non-interactiverelationship with a land conceived as passive and silent. What is often expressedin place names is the dynamic ofassimilation: the land is defined in terms ofcolonial relationships that exhibit Eurocentricity and nostalgia for the Europeanhomeland. Such naming practices refuse to relate to the land on its own terms,Decolonizing relationships with nature67
denying it the role ofnarrative subject in the stories that stand behind its name.Instead oftreating the land dialogically as a presence in its own right, colonizingnamings speak only ofthe human, or ofwhat is ofuse to the human asresource, and ofcertain kinds ofhumans at that. The outcome is a reductionand impoverishment ofAustralian land culture that parallels the extinction andimpoverishment ofits biodiversity. However, through decolonization strategies,there are possibilities ofopening this land culture to change and enrichment –ofcreating places in our culture so that the empty, silent land can begin to speakin many tongues and reveal some ofits many names.The significance ofnames and ofnaming is often underestimated in themodern West. Different cultures have different bases for ownership ofthe land:these differences can be so radical that they amount to different paradigms ofland relationship, which are incomprehensible to those from a differentframework. In some cultures, it is the paradigm ofexpenditure, or mixing in, ofhuman labour that validates the claim to own the land. As we have seen above,this formula – which corresponds to John Locke’s criteria for forming propertyfrom land conceived as ‘wilderness’ by adding human labour – validates capitalistand colonial models ofappropriation and ownership. It creates a one-way,monological form ofrelationship in which nature’s agency and independenceare discounted and the land is conceived as an adjunct to, or raw resource for,human projects. An alternative paradigm of ownership and belonging iscommunicative, relying upon narrative methods for naming and interpreting theland through telling its story in ways that show a deep and loving acquaintancewith it, and a history ofdialogical interaction. In terms ofthis second paradigm,non-indigenous Australians have a long way to go in achieving ownership andbelonging. Aboriginal narrative patterns of naming can help to show uspossibilities for a richer dialogical relationship.We can see these different paradigms at work in the naming ofthe MurrayRiver. The difference between dirt and country, between a muddy irrigationchannel and a rich, winding river, includes the difference between beingconceived, on the one hand, as a mute medium for another’s projects (perhapsas a transparent intermediary between the owner and the investment agent) and,on the other, as an ancestral force, speaker and giver ofmyth. In the latter, ariver such as the Murray can be a narrative subject and agent in a story ofitsown making, in which its course is created by, and follows, the struggles ofitscharacteristic being, a great Murray cod. The river’s name draws upon thisnarrative. This gives the river’s name a solid foundation in evolutionary time:river and fish are made by, and for, each other. Conceived in the other way as amute medium, however, the river’s name can be arrived at by processes that arequite arbitrary and human-centred, having nothing at all to do with the riveritselfor its characteristics. Its naming can be made to serve the purposes offlattery or influence, by having it bear the name ofsome august colonial figure,for example. Just so did Charles Sturt on 23 January 1830 name Australia’s majorriver, then as now a profoundly Aboriginal place, in honour ofSir GeorgeMurray, Britain’s secretary ofstate for the colonies (Sinclair, 2001, p17).68Decolonizing Nature
I made a close acquaintance with the first paradigm, growing up on a smallNew South Wales farm whose front gate bore the hand-lettered name Wyeera.The name, my father told me, meant ‘to dig the soil’. He said it was an Aboriginalword, but it was very conveniently detached in his mind from specific triballanguages and locations.8Ifthe name ofour place did have this meaning, itseems likely that the nature ofthe digging designated by wyeerawas very differentfrom the digging we practiced. Digging and the hard work that went with itwere venerated on our land, a piece oflow-fertility Sydney sandstone my fatherhad to strip ofits trees in order to make our farm. Digging was my father’smost characteristic exertion, his most memorable pose leaning on his spade,throwing fat, white wichetty grubs to swooping kookaburras. Nobody, least ofall the people like us who did the hard clearing work, questioned how far theseEuropean regimes and values ofcultivation were appropriate for the new landand soils, or how they destroyed the indigenous economy or the forests we felledto make it possible. In our pioneering mythology, it was cultivation (interpretedas digging), and the exemplary hard work of altering the land to fit theEurocentric formula ofcultivation and production, that supposedly made usEuropean settlers superior to other races and species.However, it is not just the romantic call ofanother culture that makes methink, now, that digging and sweating in order to force the land into the idealLockean form ofthe European farm is not the best basis for land relationship.The kind ofnarrative basis for ownership typical ofmany indigenous culturesseems to me to have much more to offer. A communicative paradigm – thereflexive relationship that Deborah Bird Rose (1992) describes in her classicstudy of the Yarralin of the Victoria River Downs region and their landrelationship,Dingo Makes Us Human– makes good sense for non-indigenousAustralia, too, in the context ofthe ecological failure ofEurocentric farmingmodels in Australia.As we have seen, a narrative project ofsensitivity to place requiresdiscarding the mechanistic,reductionist and human-centred conceptualframeworks that strip intentionality (and thereby narrative subjecthood) fromthe land and from non-humans generally. Human self-enclosure, which deniessubject positioning to all but the human, vastly contracts the range ofsubjectsand possible narratives that give meaning and richness to place. Human-centredness reduces the land to a passive and neutral surface for the inscriptionofhuman projects. Capitalist versions ofhuman-centredness reduce the agencyand value ofthe land to a mere potentiality for aiding or realizing these projects(such as profit-making). These are monological modes ofrelating that reducethe land to an instrumentalized Other upon which projects are imposed, ratherthan an interactive and dialogical relationship that recognizes agency in the land.Monological modes ofrelating are dysfunctional, especially in the context ofthe current environmental crisis. They allow no space for two-way adaptation tothe Other, or for negotiation, attentiveness or sensitivity.These contrasting paradigms are reflected in our respective cultures’ namingpractices. The way in which we name places reflects our land-related spiritualityDecolonizing relationships with nature69
and the depth of our relationship to the land and its narratives. Westernphilosophy’s theories of naming the land illustrate this. Logical positivistphilosophers treated names as purely conventional, neutral markers withoutcultural content, mere pointers or numbered labels. They could not have beenmore wrong. Names are only conferred in individualistic, and therefore arbitrary,ways when there is no recognition ofthe importance ofcommunity, in whoseabsence there is no such thing as meaning. Conventionalism reflects the conceptof the land as neutral, passive and silent; as such, it is an index of theshallowness ofrelationships to place. A completely instrumental approach mayrequire only a number as a name because this could represent the shortestdistance between two points – that ofthe namer and his purpose – and wouldrequire the least possible investment ofattention and effort in understandingthe Other. Naming workers are often required to follow positivist practice. Afriend who had worked on creating and registering street names told me ofthearbitrary lists they used to select from – lists compiled from dictionary words,first names and surnames. These official namers never saw the places they werenaming and knew nothing oftheir histories, but followed conventionalistic ruleslike ‘a short name for a short street’.There is an important politics embedded in names and naming. Colonizingmodes ofnaming the land are often blatantly incorporative, as well as beingmonological. Consider Frederick Turner’s account ofColumbus’s naming ofthe New World:To each bit ofland he saw he brought the mental map ofEurope with whichhe had sailed. Anciently…place names arose like rocks or trees out ofthecontours and colors ofthe lands themselves…as a group took up residence inan area, that area would be dotted with names commemorating events thattook place in it…where one tribal group supplanted another, it too wouldrespond to the land, its shapes, moods, and to tribal experiences had there.Now came these newest arrivals, but the first names by which they designatedthe islands were in no way appropriate to the islands themselves. Instead, theAdmiral scattered the nomenclature ofChristianity over these lands, firinghis familiar names like cannon balls against the unresisting NewWorld.…One group was called Los Santos because the Christ-bearer sailedpast them on All Saints’ Day.… An armoured Adam in this naked garden,he established dominion by naming (Turner, 1986, p131).Several things emerge from this account. Firstly, Columbus’s naming was an actofpower over the land and those who inhabited it – an act ofincorporating thenamed places into what is thought ofas an empire. Secondly, Turner contrastsdialogical indigenous modes ofnaming with colonial monological modes thatare not a response to the character ofthe land and are ‘in no way appropriate’to the lands themselves. Columbus’s naming does not record any ofthe land’sfeatures or any real encounter with the land, but merely registers its conquestand incorporation within the empire. Beyond this incorporative meaning, these70Decolonizing Nature
names invoke no depth of knowledge or narrative, being little more thanmnemonic devices holding place for a neutral marker, like the logical positivistlabels.It seems to me that far too many Australian namings are in the Columbiantradition, with the difference that the names ofChristian saints were replacedby those ofthe bigwigs ofthe British colonial office, many ofwhom nevervisited the places that were named after them. Seen in this light, the names ofmany of Australia’s capital cities – such as Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane,Adelaide and Hobart – are but empty reminders oflargely forgotten powerplays.9Such naming practices overlay the land, conceived as neutral, with a gridofbureaucratic or political power that registers obeisance to the empire, orcommemorates those in the surveyor’s office in 1903.10The names ofthosecities and many ofthe suburbs within them sadly locate us in terms ofa grid ofcolonial power that is now largely meaningless.ASSIMILATION, COLONIAL NOSTALGIA AND FERAL NAMESAnother group ofnames exhibits the colonial dynamic in a different way fromthose commemorating major figures ofcolonial power. These are the namesthat refer back to the places ofa European homeland, usually bearing noresemblance at all to the new place ‘named after’ them. (‘To each bit ofland hesaw he brought the mental map ofEurope with which he had sailed’, Turner,1986, p131.) It is now hard to connect Perth, the commercial capital ofa statelargely driven by industrial mining, with the small town on the upper reaches ofthe River Tay in Scotland. Ipswich, Camden and Penrith are places in Britain;these names have no relevance to the places upon which they were imposed inAustralia.For the purpose ofintroducing the biota ofthe homeland into the colonies,settler societies formed ‘acclimatization societies’. Perhaps we can regard the‘acclimatized’ place names as being the equivalent ofthe feral fauna that thecolonists tried (sometimes with unfortunate success) to introduce in their effortsto assimilate the new land to the old; hence we might refer to such place namesas feral names. Feral names, like feral biota, register the colonial dynamic ofperiphery and centre: the assimilation and devaluation ofAustralian landscapesand biota in comparison to those of‘home’. Feral names such as Perth andIpswich are pointedly assimilationist in their references to home, and in theirlonging inscription ofthe landscape ofBritain, and occasionally Europe, on thenew ‘featureless’ land. They invoke no shared narratives and provide noevidence ofaffection for, attention to, or even interaction with, the land.A third category of names we should focus upon comprises blatantlymonological colonial namings that take no notice ofthe land when it is nearlyimpossible to ignore it. (‘One group was called Los Santos because the Christ-bearer sailed past them on All Saints’ Day’, Turner, 1986, p131.) The contrastbetween the empty egoism or nostalgia ofthese monological colonial namingsDecolonizing relationships with nature71
and the rich dialogical practice ofAboriginal narrative namings impressed itselfupon me strongly in a recent bushwalk in the Mount Brockman area ofArnhemLand. In this region you encounter fully the Kakadu region’s extraordinaryqualities ofbeauty, power and prescience. The massifwe know as MountBrockman is part ofan extravagantly eroded sandstone plateau weathered toimmense, fantastic ruins that bring to mind enigmatic artefacts from sometitanic civilization ofthe past. In the place where my party camped on BaraolbaCreek, on the second day ofour walk, an inchoate sphinx face and a perfectsarcophagus, both the size ofbattleships, topped the great towers ofthe domedred cliffs to the south. Everywhere, strangely humanoid figures ofshroudedgods and finely balanced sandstone heads gazed out over country formed by1000 million years ofplay between the sandstone and the hyperactive tropicalatmosphere. Yet namings such as Mount Brockman take no notice at all ofthisextraordinary place, or ofits power and agency.11The puzzling, pointless andEurocentric naming ofthis great outlier ofthe escarpment, marked byremarkable and ancient Aboriginal places and rock art galleries, commemoratesa European ‘discoverer’ finding the place notable only for the accident ofitsbeing on the path ofa member ofthe colonial aristocracy who was travellingby. Such monological namings treat the place itselfas a vacuum ofmind andmeaning, to be filled through the power plays ofthose in favour with the currentpolitical equivalent ofthe old colonial office.In what I call ‘deep naming’, names connect with a narrative, as they sooften do in Aboriginal patterns ofnaming. In deep naming, a narrative givesdepth, meaning and a voice to the land and its non-human inhabitants. Walkingin the upper stretches ofBaraolba Creek during Yegge (the early dry season), Iencountered the kunbak, a small waterplant whose fine green fronds representthe hair ofthe Yawk Yawk sisters (Nawakadj Nganjmirra, 1997, p172). TheYawk Yawks live in the slowly moving water along the edges ofthis little stream,which drains a huge area of the stone country. In the narratives of theKunwinkju people ofthe western part ofKakadu, these sisters are little spiritmermaids with fish tails instead oflegs. They dwell in the holes beneath thebanks and come out to sing and play where the pandanus plants grow. Fromunderneath the water, they watch women swimming, ever on the lookout forone ready to become their mother, to birth them as human. For a balandawomanlike myself, the Yawk Yawks offer welcome sisterly and binitj(Aboriginal)travelling companions in the landscape, enticing Westerners across the high wallwe have tried to build between the human and non-human worlds.12Many binitjnamings invoke narratives such as those ofthe Yawk Yawks. These strikingstories function to cunningly and irresistibly impress their meanings withinmemory, and to bind together botanical, experiential, practical and philosophicalknowledge. They build community identity and spiritual practice in a rich andsatisfying integration ofwhat we in the West usually treat as opposites: life andtheory.Binitjstories and namings envelop a journey in their land within a web ofnarrative, so that one travels as a communicative partner through a speakingland that is encountered deeply in dialogical mode.72Decolonizing Nature
DECOLONIZING THE NAMING RELATIONSHIPThe deeply colonized and colonizing naming practices discussed above stillfigure too prominently on the Australian map. Neither they nor their underlyingnarratives ofEurocentrism and ofcolonial power are in any way challenged byformal and superficial decolonization exercises, like recent efforts to move fromour monarchical political model to that ofa republic. Since, in my view, it is amuch more important decolonizing project to work on these cultural modes ofnaming than to tinker with the way a head ofstate is appointed, I am temptedto call the project ofcultural change suggested here ‘deep republicanism’. It isprecisely such cultural practices that we have to take on ifwe Australians areever to belong culturally to this land and to develop a mode ofexchange thatattends to, and respects, the uniqueness and power ofplace, while recognizingits prior naming and occupation by Aboriginal people. A renaming project ofthis kind must recognize the double-sidedness of the Australian colonialrelationship, in which non-indigenous Australians were historically positionedboth as colonizers ofindigenous Australians and as colonized themselves (inrelation to the British).An empty and highly conventionalized naming practice is both a symptomand a partial cause ofan empty relationship to the land. Ifwe want a meaningfulrelationship with the land that expresses a healthier pattern than the colonialone, we have to look to naming it in meaningful terms that acknowledge itsagency and narrative depth. This chapter therefore proposes the renamingproject as a project ofcultural convergence, cross-fertilization, reconciliationand decolonization. It might be helpful to start the cultural decolonizationproject from locations, and based upon issues, that offer the possibility ofgenerating some common culture through involving and engaging indigenousand non-indigenous communities. This might create some possibilities fordeveloping shared spiritual meaning and ritual observance, not just an individualsearch for privatized spiritual meaning. A shared renaming project might enableindigenous and non-indigenous communities to come together in order torework their relationship with each other and with the land. This chapterproposes that we start a joint renaming project that is part of‘re-mythologizing’the land and that prioritizes for replacement the categories ofnames discussedabove, as well as others that are particularly disrespectful ofindigenous people.At the very top ofthe list might be those names that commemorate and honourthe makers ofmassacres against indigenous people, such as the name for themajor highway that runs right through the middle of Perth – the StirlingHighway. We might better call it the Jack Davis Highway, to honour the greatAboriginal poet and activist, another kind ofhero who surely better deservesour commendation.In terms ofencounters with the land, however, such a renaming appears toremain monological. Where nature is dominant over culture, as in Kakadu, wecould hope that a dialogical naming practice might engage with the land.However, where culture is highly dominant over nature, as in the city, it mightDecolonizing relationships with nature73
be reasonable to begin with naming practices that draw more upon humancultural engagements and elements. Even so, these urbanized namings could bemuch more adventurous, witty and less colonial than the ‘neutral marker’suburban place names we often have now, and they could connect with real orimaginary narratives ofevents that have occurred there or with people worthremembering. For example, it might be worth renaming Germaine Greer’sbirthplace (Mentone) after her.Ofcourse, it can be objected that names that honour the colonial office arenow a genuine part ofour history, a story that might be lost ifthey wereeliminated. They are a part ofhistory, it’s true, but not everyone’s history, andnot for all time. We don’t have to passively remain in the mindset that createdthem. We can take charge ofhow our land is named and make it relevant totoday. I do not suggest that colonial names should be just thrown away andforgotten; they may have something important to tell us about where we havecome from. But that is not necessarily who we are now, and I believe we needalternatives that do not force us to honour slayers ofAboriginal people andothers responsible for similar atrocities. Ifwe are a dynamic and evolvingsociety, we should be able to democratize, de-bureaucratize and put ourprocesses ofnaming places up for community cultural engagement and debate.This will be a long-term process, but one that we should get started on now. Toallow for cultural difference, I think we should aim for the formal possibility ofmultiple naming, and also for names that are worked through communities aspart ofa democratic cultural process in which a broad range ofgroups canparticipate.13It might surprise some individuals to hear that, in my view, we should alsoreconsider the many Aboriginal place names that appear on our maps. Thesenames were primarily imposed upon places by non-indigenous namers, and aretreated by the dominant non-indigenous population in logical positivist style asneutral markers. What is most important, now, is that non-indigenouscommunities should make an effort to understand their historical and narrativesignificance. Where these names correctly acknowledge Aboriginal presence,commemorate tribal land, or have other appropriate meanings, then non-indigenous communities should learn about them, in cooperation with therelevant indigenous communities. However, many ofthese names reflect thelarger cultural practice in which features ofAboriginal culture are appropriatedby settler culture in order to create the air ofa distinctive national identity, acolonizing practice that often leads to inappropriate or paradoxical use ofAboriginal words and symbols. To overseas visitors, these names are part ofwhat makes Australia interesting; they mark out our unique ‘Australianness’. Butwhere we use them shamelessly for this purpose, without understanding orrespect, we should think ofthem as stolen names. We must develop a critiqueofthis practice ifAboriginal place names are to become part ofour preciouscultural heritage.In summary, recovering a popular naming practice that decolonizes the mindand generates meaningful dialogical names is part ofrecovering a meaningful74Decolonizing Nature
relationship with the land. We need to construct new naming practices toreplace, or at least provide alternatives for, the problem categories ofpowernames, feral names and monological names, and we need to rethink ourrelationship to stolen names. In this decolonizing project, indigenous patterns,models and practices have much to teach non-indigenous culture; but we needan active, dynamic practice ofnaming and narrating that can also incorporateelements from non-indigenous Australian cultures – not a slavish imitation orcolonizing assimilation, or incorporation, ofindigenous naming and narrative.14Such a dynamic outcome could only be possible ifwe make the project ofrenaming the land one of cultural cooperation and convergence betweenindigenous and non-indigenous communities.NOTES1 This is also for the more general reasons that appear in Hegel’s master-slavedialectic.2 As a centric position, Eurocentric anthropocentrism equates the absence ofthecentre, the lack ofa (rational) European human presence, with emptiness or, insome versions, with wilderness. This wilderness concept plays a key role incolonization because it justifies a system ofappropriation based upon the way thelands ofothers are represented as pure nature, as terra nullius, containing neither anyEuropean-style labour that needed to be recognized, nor any other trace ofculture.This is especially clear with respect to the Lockean model ofland acquisition, whichrequires that the appropriated land was originally wilderness, bearing no trace ofhuman labour. This model provides the mythological basis for the recipe forproperty formation, which founded contemporary capitalism. In the context ofthe‘New World’, it also provided, as Deloria (1970) notes, the basis for erasing theownership ofindigenous people and for appropriating their lands. Locke’s recipefor property formation allows the colonist to appropriate that into which he hasmixed his own labour, as part ofthe self. He thus transfers his ownership ofself towhat is laboured on, on condition that it falls under the category of‘nature’ and isnot under any prior ownership – that is, as terra nullius. But since the colonist wasnot able, or not disposed, to recognize either the prior ownership ofindigenousOthers or their different expression oflabour and agency, the formula aided thelarge-scale appropriation ofindigenous lands by those individuals who imposedhighly transforming and destructive European-style agricultural labour.Applying the formula retrospectively led to a regress, a failure to recognize asconferring ownership indigenous hunting and gathering activities that did nottransform the land significantly in ways European colonists recognized as sufficient‘labour’ to qualify for past or present property ownership. (Even until very recently,as Deloria notes, it was held that the failure ofindigenous people to make properlyindividualistic and maximally transformative use oftheir land was a sufficientreason for taking it away from them.) To the extent that indigenous people wereseen as ‘nature’, ‘nomads’ or ‘parasites on nature’, who were incapable ofeffectiveecological agency or the kind ofagricultural labour that was considered, accordingto the European model, to be the true mark ofhumanity, the Lockean formulahelped to erase their claim to prior ownership. In the context ofthe hyperbolizedDecolonizing relationships with nature75
autonomy and hegemonic conceptions ofagency associated with Westernindividualism and colonial property formation, the Lockean formula (including theassumption that the land is wilderness) is virtually an invitation to appropriate whatothers have made their own, often in much deeper and less exploitative ways thanthe Western method ofconverting land to resource and market-based uses.3 This might be appropriate for some areas; but for others, non-humans might be thebeneficiaries, together with some specified group of indigenous people. SeeRobinson and Robinson (1994) and Preston and Stannard (1994). It can be arguedthat a future-oriented performative is already what the designation ‘wilderness’represents in practical terms, since many areas that the environment movementwants to protect are well known to no longer be ‘untouched’ nature. The focus onpurity works at least as strongly against conservation as for it. See Callicott andNelson (1998) and Gomez-Pompa and Kraus (1992).4 For a discussion of‘the great Australian silence’, see Stanner (1979).5 Even poets who extolled the land, such as Adam Lindsay Gordon, wrote ofits‘bright, silent birds’.6 It also sets up a positive feedback mechanism in which conceptual impoverishmentfeeds ecological impoverishment, as Weston (1996) argues.7 ‘No traditional Aboriginal myth was told without reference to the land, or to aspecific stretch ofcountry where the incidents it narrates were believed to havetaken place. No myth is free-floating, without some local identification. Withouttheir anchorages, they could be regarded as being simply “just so stories” (Berndtand Berndt, 1989, p5) The land was a communicating and participating land, and‘through the attention [Aboriginal people] give to their country, communicationbecomes two way’ (Rose, 1996, p13). Another component ofAboriginal worldviews, according to anthropologist Deborah Bird Rose, is the idea that ‘nothing isnothing…there is no alien world ofmere things,or ofthings withoutmeaning….For many Aboriginal people, everything in the world is alive: animals,trees, rain, sun moon, some rocks and hills, and people are all conscious’ (Rose,1996).8 In those days, many non-indigenous people supposed that there was just oneAboriginal language and tribe.9 Ofcourse, power names do tend to become conventionalized, empty and irrelevantvery quickly, which is another good reason for avoiding them. An exception mightbe highly rationalized and systematized power names, such as those ofthe Canberrasuburbs commemorating prime ministers.10 The bushwalking community has long contested these colonial power names, andhas worked at its own renaming – on their maps names such as Mount Cloudmakerreplace names such as Mount Renwick, which commemorates the survey office.11 There is no single equivalent Aboriginal name for the area we know as MountBrockman.12 Some Aboriginal people ofArnhem land use the terms binitjfor Aboriginal peopleand balandafor non-indigenous people.13 Local councils, schools and community groups might set up literary contests togenerate names and narratives, for example.14 For a wonderful example ofsuch cultural convergence in the field ofnarrative, seeCraig San Roque (2000) ‘The Sugarman Cycle’,PAN, vol 1, pp42–64.76Decolonizing Nature
REFERENCESAbram, D (1996) The Spell ofthe Sensuous. Pantheon, New YorkBenhabib, S (1992) Situating the Self. Routledge, New YorkBerndt, R M and Berndt, C H (1989) The Speaking Land: Myth and Story in AboriginalAustralia. Penguin Books, MelbourneBeston, H (1928) The Outermost House.Ballantine, New YorkBolton, G (1981) Spoils and Spoilers. Allen and Unwin, SydneyCallicott, J B and Nelson, M (eds) (1998) The Great New Wilderness Debate.University ofGeorgia Press, Athens, GeorgiaCommonwealth ofAustralia (1996) The Australian State ofthe Environment Report.CanberraCronon, W (1983) Changes in the Land: Indians, Colonists and the Ecology ofNew England.Hill and Wang, New YorkCronon, W (1995) ‘The Trouble with Wilderness: or, Getting Back to the WrongNature’ in W Cronon (ed) Uncommon Ground: Toward Reinventing Nature. W W Nortonand Co, New York, pp69–90Crosby, A W (1986) Ecological Imperialism: the Biological Expansion ofEurope. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridgede Beauvoir, S (1965) The Second Sex. Foursquare Books, London/New YorkDeloria, V (1970) We Talk, You Listen. MacMillan, New YorkFrye, M (1983) The Politics ofReality. Crossing Press, New YorkGare, A (1998) ‘MacIntyre, Narratives and Environmental Ethics’,Environmental Ethics,vol 20, no 2, pp3–18Gomez-Pompa, A and Kraus, A (1992) ‘Taming the Wilderness Myth’,BioScience, vol42, pp271–279Harrison, R P (1992) Forest: the Shadows ofCivilization. University ofChicago Press,ChicagoHartsock, N (1990) ‘Foucault on power: a theory for women?’ in L Nicholson (ed)Feminism/Postmodernism. Routledge, New YorkLangton, M (1993) Well, I Heard It on the Radio and I Saw It on the Television. AustralianFilm Commission, SydneyLangton, M (1996) ‘What Do We Mean by Wilderness? Wilderness and terra nulliusinAustralian Art’,The Sydney Papers, vol 8 (1), pp10–31, The Sydney InstituteLines, W J (1991) Taming the Great South Land. University ofGeorgia Press, Athens,GeorgiaMackey, B (1999) ‘Regional Forest Agreements: Business as Usual in the SouthernRegion?’National Parks Association Journal, vol 43 (6), pp10–12Marshall, A J (ed) (1966) The Great Extermination.Heinemann, MelbourneMazama, A (1994) ‘The Relevance ofNgugi Wa Thiong’o for the African Quest’,TheWestern Journal ofBlack Studies, vol 18 (4), pp211–218Memmi, A (1965) The Colonizer and the Colonized. Orion Press, New YorkNawakadj Nganjmirra (1997) ‘Kunjinkwu Spirit’ in N McLeod (ed) Gundjiehmi: CreationStories from Western Arnhem Land. Miegungah Press at Melbourne University Press,Melbourne, p172Neidjie, B (1985) Kakadu Man. Mybrood, CanberraNiedjie, B (1989) Story About Feeling. Magabala Books, WyndhamParry, B (1995) ‘Problems in Current Theories ofColonial Discourse’ in B Ashcroft etal (eds) The Post-Colonial Studies Reader. Routledge, London, pp36–44Decolonizing relationships with nature77
Passmore, J (1974) Man’s Responsibility for Nature. Duckworth, LondonPlumwood, V (1990) ‘Plato and the Bush: Philosophy and the Environment inAustralia’,Meanjin,vol 3, pp524–537Plumwood, V (1993) Feminism and the Mastery ofNature. Routledge, LondonPlumwood, V (1996) ‘Anthrocentrism and Androcentrism: Parallels and Politics’,Ethicsand the Environment, vol 1 (2), University ofGeorgia, Fall, pp119–152Plumwood, V (1998)‘Wilderness Skepticism and Wilderness Dualism’ in J B Callicottand M. Nelson (eds) The Great New Wilderness Debate. University ofGeorgia Press,Athens, Georgia, pp652–690Plumwood, V (2000) ‘Deep Ecology, Deep Pockets, and Deep Problems: a FeministEco-Socialist Analysis’ in A Light, E Katz and D Rothenburg (eds) Beneath theSurface: Critical Essays on Deep Ecology. MIT Press, Cambridge MA, pp59–84Plumwood, V (2002a) ‘Feminism and the Logic ofAlterity’ in M Hass and R JoffeFalmagne (eds) Representing Reason: Feminist Theory and Formal Logic. Rowman andLittlefield, Totowa, New JerseyPlumwood, V (2002b) Environmental Culture: the Ecological Crisis ofReason. Routledge,LondonPolanyi, K (1974) The Great Transformation. Beacon Press, BostonPreston, B J and Stannard, C (1994) ‘The Re-creation ofWilderness: the Case for anAustralian Ecological Reserve System’ in W Barton (ed) Wilderness – the Future.Envirobook, Sydney, pp127–147Read, P (2000) Belonging. Cambridge University Press, MelbourneRobinson, P and Robinson, M (1994) ‘Wilderness “After” Native Title’ in W Barton(ed) Wilderness – the Future. Envirobook, Sydney, pp68–77Rose, D B (1992) Dingo Makes Us Human. Cambridge University Press, MelbourneRose, D B (1996) Nourishing Terrains. Australian Heritage Commission, CanberraSaid, E (1978) Orientalism. Pantheon, New YorkSan Roque, C (2000) ‘The Sugarman Cycle’,PAN, vol 1, pp42–64Sinclair, P (2001) The Murray: the River and Its People. Melbourne University Press,MelbourneSoper, K (1994) What is Nature?Routledge, LondonSpence, M D (1999) Dispossessing the Wilderness: Indian Removal and the Making oftheNational Park. Oxford, New YorkStanner, W E H (1979) White Man Got No Dreaming. Australian National UniversityPress, CanberraStepan, N L (1993) ‘Race and Gender: the Role ofAnalogy in Science’ in S Harding(ed)The Racial Economy ofScience. Indianapolis, Indiana University Press pp359–376Thoreau, H D (1862) ‘Walking’ in Walden and Other Writings(edited by B Atkinson,1992). Modern Library, New YorkTurner, F (1986) Beyond Geography. Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, NewJerseyWalls, L D (1995) Seeing New Worlds. University ofWisconsin Press, WisconsinWarren, K J (1990) ‘The Power and Promise ofEcological Feminism’,EnvironmentalEthics, vol 12, no 2, pp121–146Weston, A (1996) ‘Self-validating Reduction: Toward a Theory ofEnvironmentalDevaluation’,Environmental Ethics, vol 18, pp115–132Whitehouse, J F (1994) ‘Legislative Protection for Wilderness in Australia’ in W Barton(ed) Wilderness – the Future. Envirobooks, Sydney78Decolonizing Nature
Chapter 4The ‘wild’, the market and the native:Indigenous people face new forms ofglobal colonizationMarcia LangtonINTRODUCTIONIndigenous and traditional peoples worldwide are facing a crisis, one thatsupersedes that inflicted on indigenous peoples during the imperial age. Just as,during the last 500 years, imperialism caused the encapsulation ofindigenoussocieties within the new settler nation states, their subjection to colonialpolitical formations and their loss ofterritory and jurisdiction, so have theglobalizing market and the post-industrial/technological complex broughtabout another phase ofprofound change for these societies. The furtherencapsulation ofindigenous societies by the global complex, to which nationstate formations are themselves subservient, has resulted in continuing loss ofterritory as a result oflarge-scale developments, urban post-colonial populationexpansion, and ongoing colonization ofthe natural world by the market. Thislast point is illustrated, for example, by the bioprospecting and patenting oflifeforms and biota by new genetic and chemical engineering industries.Coincidental with the new colonization is the crisis ofbiodiversity loss – acritical issue for indigenous peoples, particularly hunting and gatheringsocieties. The massive loss ofbiota through extinction events, loss ofterritoryand species habitats,and environmental degradation,together withconservationist limitation of indigenous harvesting, constitute significantthreats to indigenous ways oflife.While Aboriginal rights to wildlife are restricted to ‘non-commercial’ use,the pressures increase for indigenous peoples to forge unique economic nichesin order to maintain their ways oflife. Ofparticular importance is the vexedissue ofAboriginal entitlements to commercial benefits from the utilization of
wildlife arising both from developing standards oftraditional resource rightsand from customary proprietary interests.IMPACT OF THE GLOBAL MARKET ON THEINDIGENOUS WORLDThe new threats to indigenous life-ways in the era ofthe globalizing markethave been brought about by the increasing commodification offeatures ofthenatural world, putting at risk the very survival ofancient societies who aredirectly dependent upon the state oftheir natural environment. In June 1978,Inupiat leader Eben Hobson, then founding chairman ofthe Inuit CircumpolarConference and spokesperson for the Alaska Whaling Commission, appealed tothe London Press Corps for understanding and support in the legal recognitionofInuit rights: ‘We Inuit are hunters. There aren’t many subsistence huntingsocieties left in the world, but our Inuit Circumpolar community is one ofthem.’1The dilemma for indigenous peoples is also a political one, especially forthose groups encapsulated by settler states that oppose developing standards ofrights for indigenous peoples. As well as the opposition by some governmentsseeking to appropriate indigenous lands and resources, conservationistorganizations resist compromise on land-use issues because they believe thatglobal biodiversity preservation goals take precedence over the needs oflocalpeople. In some instances, because ofconflict between indigenous andconservationist groups, common biodiversity conservation goals, in locationswhere development projects have threatened environmental values, have notbeen achieved. In their feasibility study in the Torres Strait Islands region, Dewset al (1997, p48) explain that while indigenous concerns are often pressing andimmediate, ‘biodiversity defenders look to the distant future’. Of criticalrelevance here is their conclusion: ’ in the final analysis, property rights andespecially the management ofcommon property resources, may become thefocal issue for both camps’.A number of cases of the suppression, or attempted suppression, ofindigenous economic activity provide evidence of environmental racism.Conservationist lobbying at the International Whaling Commission to preventInuit hunting ofthe bowhead, narwhal and beluga whales is one infamous caseamong many.2By targeting small-scale indigenous groups in their campaignsagainst national and multinational environmental violations, conservationorganizations privilege global commercialization ofthe natural world overancient economic systems in their increasing demands for the suppression oftraditional forms ofwildlife exploitation. Thus, subsequent to the deterioratingenvironmental circumstances ofsmall-scale hunting and gathering peoples isthe further limitation oftheir territorial base and traditional economic means byenvironmental racism. The high dependence ofmarginalized native peoplesupon wildlife resources for basic subsistence needs is typically ignored by80Decolonizing Nature
conservationists whose goal ofbiodiversity conservation is not based uponlocal knowledge ofparticular small-scale societies that are co-located withspecies targeted by conservation campaigns. Little regard is paid to the actualimpacts oflocal populations; instead, highly emotive claims are made about thepresumed threats without substantial or rigorous scientific research to supportsuch claims. With their minimal and often inaccurate understanding ofindigenous societies, environmental scientists, planners and managers have thepotential to cause great harm to native peoples. Capacity-building anddeveloping enterprise and investment strategies may well contribute toconservation goals more directly than any purely conservationist strategy aimedat national goals. Indigenous societies face increasing hardships as governments,conservation campaigners and the private sector further marginalize them.Furze, de Lacey and Birckhead (1996, p3), referring to a range ofinternationalcase studies, make the point that:…many protected areas are at risk because ofthe hardship they place onlocal communities. The protection ofbiodiversity may therefore be seen to beone ofthe most pressing issues in development.With the recognition that conservation often fails to achieve its goals whenlocal people are unsupportive, or are not meaningful partners, the question oflocal participation is now firmly on international conservation and sustainabledevelopment agendas. As a result, many people involved in the conservation,development and academic communities, as well as local people themselves, areinvolved in the search for sustainable futures.Posey and Dutfield (Posey, 1996; Posey and Dutfield, 1996) have offeredcomprehensive accounts ofthe nature ofthe rights oflocal traditional peoplesin resources and cultural and intellectual property, and the protection ofsuchrights in the context ofsustainable traditional use ofresources. They observethat environmental concerns increasingly focus upon the roles ofindigenouspeoples and local communities in enhancing and maintaining biological diversity.Detailing the provisions ofeach ofthe relevant conventions, statements andcase laws that impact upon traditional peoples, they provide a wealth ofknowledge for local groups wanting to pursue their rights. They must do so inthe context, however, ofan absence ofeffective measures. For instance, asPosey observes, ‘The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) does notprovide specific mechanisms to protect the rights ofindigenous peoples andlocal communities to their genetic materials, knowledge and technologies’ (1996,pxiii). As he points out, however, the CBD does recognize that ‘knowledge,innovations and practices ofindigenous and local communities embodyingtraditional lifestyles’ are central to successful in situconservation. Moreover, thefundamental importance ofbenefit-sharing and compensation for the peoplesand communities providing traditional knowledge, innovations and practices isalso acknowledged. Posey’s approach is to present the concept ofTraditionalResource Rights ‘to guide the development ofsui generissystems, premised onThe ‘wild’, the market and the native81
human rights principles’ (1996a, pxiii). The concept ofTraditional ResourceRights, he explains, is a process and a framework to develop multiple, locallyappropriate systems and ‘solutions’ that reflect the diversity ofcontexts wheresui generissystems are required.The coincidence at the end ofthe second millennium ofthe remnantindigenous territories and high biodiversity values, the globalizing market, andthe growing recognition ofresource rights for traditional peoples requiresspecial attention as a problem ofbiodiversity maintenance. This is evident inAustralia where indigenous societies have lost 85 per cent oftheir traditionalland base since British colonizers arrived in 1788. The remaining 15 per cent ofthe Australian landmass under various forms oftitle owned by Aboriginalgroups is an exemplary locus ofthis predicament.The impact ofglobalization upon the indigenous world brings with itsthreats and benefits a profound contradiction: the global market itselfposes theend ofancient ways ofhuman life. Yet, at the same time, it offers opportunitiesfor accommodating these life-ways to the new market forces with benefits forall ofhuman society. The central benefit is the maintenance ofbiodiversitytypical ofthe last 10,000 years ofhuman history and sustained throughout theimperial and industrial ages by local indigenous peoples. As the imperative forfurther commercialization of the natural world, by, for instance, wildlifeharvesting, intrudes into the indigenous domains, there are opportunities forindigenous societies to maintain their fundamental ideas about, and relationshipswith, the natural world while exploring what may be offered by the applicationofecologically sustainable development practices in their territories.3THE ROLE OF INDIGENOUS PEOPLE INBIODIVERSITY CONSERVATIONIn spite ofthe unsubstantiated claims ofsome conservationist organizations,there is increasing recognition ofthe role ofindigenous cultures in supportingbiodiversity.For example,Nietschmann made this point eloquently(Nietschmann, 1992, p7):The vast majority ofthe world’s biological diversity is not in gene banks, zoos,national parks, or protected areas. Most biological diversity is in landscapesand seascapes inhabited and used by local peoples, mostly indigenous, whosegreat collective accomplishment is to have conserved the great variety ofremaining life forms, using culture, the most powerful and valuable humanresource, to do so.The critical role ofindigenous peoples in biodiversity conservation is no lessthe case in Australia. Indigenous involvement is essential to the Australianproject ofland, water and biodiversity conservation for a number ofreasons.Land and water subject to indigenous ownership and governance constitute a82Decolonizing Nature
significant proportion ofthe Australian continent. Those lands and waters thatconstitute most ofthat area are not subject to high-density settlement,degradation ofnatural values by industries such as agriculture, forestry, fishing,pastoralism and tourism, and are high-integrity areas, both in terms ofnaturaland cultural values. Much ofthe land and water within the indigenous domainremain subject to indigenous management systems that have persisted since thelate Pleistocene and include, for instance, the wet tropics and the wet–drytropics, parts ofwhich are listed as world heritage areas and other InternationalUnion for the Conservation ofNature and Natural Resources (IUCN)categories.4In these regions, there have been few, or no, extinctions ofnativefauna and flora. This contrasts starkly with the southern settled areas ofAustralia where the majority ofextinctions have occurred, placing the nationamongst the worst offenders, despite the small population and relatively shortrecord ofcolonial settlement.Within the indigenous domain, there are indigenous systems ofgovernance,both customary and Australian, with significance for the conservation challengesofthis area. These are discussed further below. One ofthe important aspects ofindigenous governance is the existence ofvast indigenous knowledge systemsthat are based upon the very long periods ofliving on the continent (currentlyunderstood to exceed 40,000 years), as well as the intimacy ofindigenous sociallife with the physical world, the biota and its systems. The loss of theseknowledge systems would constitute an irretrievable loss to human culturaldiversity and, therefore, to our capacity to understand human relationships withthe world, upon which our search for sustainable futures depends.In Australia, the extant territory within the contemporary indigenousdomain – especially the large land and marine estates remote from non-urbanareas – is the result ofa colonial history that, especially over the first 150 yearsfollowing invasion, favoured occupation ofcoastal regions in the south and eastofthe continent. Non-Aboriginal land use in Australia proceeded from earliestcolonial times by radically altering extant environments, through extensive land-clearing, water capture and other means. British settlers perceived their newenvironments as harsh and inhospitable and they actively supplanted these‘wild’, uncultivated lands with familiar European land-use and managementsystems, which they believed they could control, regardless ofwhether or notthese imported management regimes were suitable to local conditions. As aresult, settlers engaged in wide-scale clearing ofvegetation, suppression offire,development of irrigation systems, widespread use of pesticides, and theattempted eradication ofnative animals such as dingoes.Spinks (1999, pers comm) reports that 76 per cent ofAustralia’s 20,000 orso species ofplants are now extinct, while some 5000 others are considered tobe rare or threatened (see, also, Spinks, 1999b). Significant proportions ofnativemammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, freshwater fish and marsupials are alsothreatened or extinct. Land and water resources have been degraded: agriculturalland is plagued by salination, caused by clearing and irrigation, while fish andother aquatic life are at risk in inland waterways from the effects oftoxic algae,The ‘wild’, the market and the native83
exotic competitors, inbreeding, and through the removal or degradation ofsomeoftheir natural habitats. Introduced agricultural regimes were ill suited to thearid rangelands and deserts that cover most ofAustralia’s landmass. Therefore,with some exceptions, the indigenous domain has tended to be concentrated indesert and wetland environments oflittle apparent use to the colonizers.The biological integrity ofthe indigenous domain has suffered considerablyless than that ofthe lands which have been radically altered to suit the importedmanagement systems and understandings ofthe settler society. Ofcourse, thispattern ofremnant indigenous territory being located on the remote peripheryofsettler states is a worldwide phenomenon, and similar patterns ofenvironmental degradation in the non-indigenous domains are evident incountries other than Australia. The indigenous knowledge systems that haveshaped and governed the Australian continent and its natural systems survive inmany areas. It is in those areas ofAustralia – where high levels ofbiologicalintegrity coincide with indigenous customary governance and knowledgesystems – that opportunities exist to maintain that biological integrity through astrategic process which includes indigenous management systems.With the exception ofrelatively small-scale mining operations and low-capital settler pastoralism, which was highly dependent upon largely unpaidindigenous labour, it was not until the expansion of large-scale resourceextraction from the 1950s that this indigenous domain came under significantthreat. This expansion into indigenous lands by large-scale extractive industries,together with substantial technological changes within the pastoral industry, hascoincided with an upsurge in the assertiveness ofre-politicized indigenouspeoples and moves away from protectionism and assimilation that previouslycharacterized Australian colonialism. One ofthe consequences ofthis historyhas been the development, in more recent times, ofrelationships betweenindigenous and non-indigenous people in land, sea and resource management,based upon an acknowledgement ofthe special knowledge and practices thatindigenous people bring to the task.Few people seriously doubt any longer that Aboriginal people managetheirlands and seas. Aboriginal management oftheir land and sea estates isunderstood as being based upon their detailed knowledge ofall ofits features.Much ofthat knowledge is embedded in religious beliefs and practices, and isinextricably linked to the system ofland tenure. The question ofwhether themanagement is explicit and principled, or merely a consequence ofpracticesrecognized post facto, is, however, still sometimes raised.James Kohen, an archaeologist, in his book Aboriginal Environmental Impacts(1995), makes a distinction between management and exploitation: ‘Essentially,management involves the utilization ofthe landscape without any long-termdeterioration, whereas exploitation involves long-term degradation to thedetriment ofthe environment.’ He identifies two main interrelated factors thatdetermine whether land-use practices can be defined as management orexploitation. The first is the nature ofthe land-use strategy and the second isthe human population density (Kohen, 1995, pp125–127). Both ofthese factors84Decolonizing Nature
may seem intuitively obvious; but they need to be justified because oftheimplications for our understanding oftraditional and contemporary Aboriginalsocieties and the nature oftheir impact upon the environment. Once landmanagement practices were adopted by early human populations on theAustralian continent to increase the productivity ofthe landscape, there werepressures on their communities to maintain the environments they had createdin order to feed the growing population.The environment that confronted Europeans in 1788 was certainly one thatwas managed. The biogeographical history ofAustralia determined the range ofplant and animal species that would occur within the region; but, to some extent,the balance and distribution ofspecies had been altered, not only by climatechange, but also by Aboriginal impacts. Most significant ofthese was the humanuse offire as a management tool in a fire-prone continent, resulting in seasonalmosaic patterns across landscapes that prevented destructive, hot wildfires.Such Holocene-period land management practices continue in theindigenous domain today, and Aboriginal leaders advocate that environmentalprotection and wildlife management depend upon the protection ofindigenouscultural values and lifestyles because ofthe co-dependency ofthe natural worldand indigenous use and management. Aboriginal strategies include local andregional multiple-use management planning for sustainable terrestrial, marineand coastal resources. To achieve conservation objectives, traditional practicesalone are no match for the rapid population and development ofindigenousterritories by the settler state. Indigenous people and their local and regionalbodies require collaborative relationships with other individuals andorganizations in order to meet particular, identified challenges. Success in suchcollaboration depends upon highly qualified and experienced collaborators witha high level ofcommitment to the integrity ofindigenous laws.As an example, we can look at strategies needed to control outbreaks ofinvasive weeds such as Mimosa pigra and Salvinia spp. Because mechanical andchemical controls are limited in their capacity to prevent such outbreaks,regional multiple land-use planning and inter-agency coordination and sharingof resources are required for long-term control. Indigenous people havedeveloped regional plans, particularly at the catchment level, in coastal northernAustralia. Examples ofsuch exercises include the projects ofthe DhimurruLand Management Corporation in north-east Arnhem Land, the ArafuraCatchment Management Plan in central Arnhem Land, and the Alice–MitchellBasin management plan developed by the Kowanyama community in westernCape York Peninsula.It is also in these biodiversity-rich areas of Australia that Australiangovernments are permitting commercial harvesting ofwildlife. A number oflarge and small corporations are presently carrying out bioprospecting activitiesfor commercial gain on indigenous land in Australia. While some oftheseactivities are subject to satisfactory agreements, most are not. Commercialutilization ofwildlife is also gaining increasing support from governments thathave established licence regimes for commercial harvesters. Except whereThe ‘wild’, the market and the native85
indigenous people have established their own wildlife harvesting enterprises ornegotiated agreements with bioprospecting companies, they receive no benefitsfrom the industry. Their involvement in any capacity is minimal, and the notionthat indigenous groups may have customary proprietary interests in these wildresources has not been considered. Such appropriation ofnatural resourcesfrom the indigenous domain is a new form ofdispossession.ARGUMENTS ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY ANDINDIGENOUS USE OF WILDLIFEIndigenous people are subjected to highly political demands from anuninformed public to cease customary hunting and gathering based uponconjecture regarding indigenous contributions to population declines ofsomespecies, such as dugong and turtle. That such declines are more likely to beattributed to large-scale commercial, agricultural and industrial activities(particularly pollution ofseabed grasses by run-offofagricultural chemicals)than to small-scale customary use has only recently become the subject ofresearch in plant and animal population studies. Emotive public campaigns(notably by extremist animal-rights lobby groups) threaten legislative andstructural reforms that are necessary to develop viable enterprises; suchcampaigns can only be countered by sound scientific evidence regarding thesustainable use ofany particular species.Scientific and government responses to the use ofwildlife by indigenouspeoples, and popular concern over its possible impact upon the conservation ofwildlife, have led to demands for planning and regulation. Such regulation andplanning severely limit Aboriginal hunting in Australia, particularly whenindigenous hunting-and-gathering practices have been targeted as being theprinciple threat to endangered species. A specific objection that is often raised isthat traditional hunters should not be permitted to use modern technology, suchas vehicles and guns. However, such views can be best understood as settler-state cultural hangovers from a frontier society who almost achieved theextinction ofAboriginal peoples on the Australian continent. The primitivistconception ofAboriginal life as a remnant ‘Stone Age’ is a powerful culturalforce in Australian life and is typically expressed in highly contradictory ways.For instance, on the one hand, there is the insistent demand that Aboriginalpeople should assimilate (or ‘become like white people’) according to the whitesupremacist premise that white settler ways oflife are better. On the other hand,the use ofvehicles or guns by Aboriginal people is highly unpopular in theelectorate because ofthe clash with the primitivist ideals that Aboriginal peopleare required to fulfil. The result is that most governments in Australia haveeffectively banned traditional hunting and gathering.Conservationist objections to Aboriginal life, when rationally analysed, arealso cultural in the sense that the objections are often aesthetic in nature,inferring a contempt for ‘distasteful’ aspects of Aboriginal economic life,86Decolonizing Nature
particularly hunting practices.The contribution ofsuch practices toconservation aims is consequently ignored. A good example ofthis culturalblindness is a report prepared for the Australian Bureau ofResource Sciencesby Bomford and Caughley (1996). The stated aim ofthis work was to assess‘the appropriateness ofplanned wildlife use in terms ofbenefits to Aboriginalpeoples and Torres Strait Islanders, and the sustainability ofwildlife use, and ofthe land, waters and other components ofthe natural systems they are part of’.The authors propose various forms ofsocial engineering in order to achievesustainable levels ofwildlife resource use, as defined by environmentalmanagers. The euphemistic use oflanguage to discuss highly contentious issuessuch as Aboriginal use offirearms is exemplified in the followingrecommendation:…a process to address community concerns over the use ofmodern technologyin traditional hunting practices and a recognition and integration ofindigenousand non-indigenous cultural perceptions and aspirations concerning thesustainability ofindigenous wildlife use (Bomford and Caughley, 1996,p1).The authors further speculate about ‘possible overexploitation ofresourcesthrough subsistence hunting due to the loss oftraditional regulatorymechanisms caused by societal changes and the interface ofthis with cash-based economies’. Contrary to all available rigorous research in the field, theseenvironmental ‘experts’ recommend for indigenous people ‘an analysis oftheneed for access to a cash income to underwrite an indigenous subsistencelifestyle’. Yet, despite offering uninformed speculation about Aboriginal use ofguns and the impact ofthis on biota, the authors admit that there is a need for‘more data on the ecological factors that affect the sustainability ofwildlifeharvests. Data on many wildlife species is lacking and is required to fit complexharvest models’ (Bomford and Caughley, 1996, p2) The authors also admit thatthere is a need for:…case studies where wildlife use is an important component ofthe culture ofAustralian indigenous peoples. This includes the need for data on harvestingand its relevance to the communities concerned, as well as the legal constraintsin the management ofthe resource (Bomford and Caughley 1996, p2).The report advocates that government agencies should respond to requests byindigenous peoples for increased funding to manage their natural resources byconsidering, as part their decision-making processes, ‘a complex array ofscientific, economic and social issues’. The recommendations ofthis report failto acknowledge traditional resource rights and ignore indigenous rights in favourofconservation objectives for wildlife protection without regard to indigenouscultural relationships with, and dependence upon, ‘wildlife’. In studies such asthis, indigenous people are marginalized to the extent that their own aspirationsThe ‘wild’, the market and the native87
for their futures are diminished. It is assumed in this report, and many otherslike it, that settler society aspirations should take precedence over all other life-ways. Thus, the authors believe it is sufficient to emphasize the need forprotocols for consultations with indigenous people as if they were mere‘stakeholders’ like other settler-state stakeholders in the wildlife-use planningprocesses.At the same time, commercial exploitation of wild plant and animalproducts is widespread in Australia in industries such as commercial fishing;pharmaceutical bioprospecting; gardening and horticultural enterprises; edibleplant and animal marketing; skin, hide and other animal product marketing; thepet food industry; the timber and sylviculture industries; and others. Theindigenous participation in these industries is minuscule.Moreover,government-sponsored culling ofnative species such as kangaroos, emus andkoalas goes without comment. Such inconsistencies between the actual situationand public perceptions raise the problem ofenvironmental racism. This chapterdraws attention to this issue because ofits contribution to perpetuating socialand economic inequity and injustice for indigenous peoples.In contrast to the speculation of such quasi-scientific reports as thatcommissioned by the Bureau ofResource Sciences, the policy and researchprogrammes in which indigenous people have played a substantial role haveproduced quite different outcomes – outcomes that present the possibility ofaviable future for indigenous life ways. For example, in response to the 1992Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), ratified by Australia in 1993, theAustralian government consulted Aboriginal representatives in producing theNational Strategy for the Conservation ofAustralia’s Biological Diversity(DepartmentofEnvironment, Sport and Territories (DEST), 1996). This recommends aframework in which governments, industry, community groups and individualland-owners can work cooperatively to ‘bridge the gap between current effortsand the effective identification, conservation and management ofAustralia’sbiological diversity’ (DEST, 1996, p3). The report acknowledges that Australianindigenous cultures ‘maintain a lively interest in, practical knowledge of, andconcern for the well-being ofthe land and natural systems’ (DEST, 1996, p14).Moreover, the strategy recognizes that ‘The maintenance ofbiologicaldiversity…is a cornerstone ofthe well-being, identity, cultural heritage andeconomy ofAboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities’ (DEST, 1996,p14).Objective 1.8 ofthe National Strategy is the recognition and maintenance of‘the contribution ofthe ethnobiological knowledge ofAustralia’s indigenouspeoples to the conservation ofAustralia’s biological diversity’ (DEST, 1996,p14). The strategy also acknowledges that indigenous law and cosmologyestablish intimate associations between land, people and other species andensure the transmission ofthis knowledge across the generations (DEST, 1996,pp14–15). While the strategy notes that traditional Aboriginal and Torres StraitIslander management practices have already proved significant for themaintenance ofbiodiversity and should be incorporated within mainstream88Decolonizing Nature
management programmes where appropriate, it also cautions that access to thisspecialist knowledge is not guaranteed:Although Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples may be willing to sharesome oftheir cultural knowledge, aspects ofthat knowledge may be privilegedand may not be available to the public domain (DEST, 1996, p14).The strategy recommends that governments provide resources for theconservation oftraditional biological knowledge through cooperativeethnobiological programmes. It further proposes that because Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander peoples have access to accurate information aboutbiological diversity, they should be involved in research programmes relevant tothe biological diversity and management ofthe lands and waters in which theyhave an interest. However, all collaborative agreements, the report insists, mustrecognize existing intellectual property rights ofthe indigenous people andestablish royalty payments in line with relevant international standards. The useofbiological knowledge in scientific, commercial and public domains shouldonly proceed with the approval ofthe traditional owners ofthat knowledge,and the further ‘collection’ of such knowledge should deliver social andeconomic benefits to the knowledge owners. Recognizing that Aboriginal andTorres Strait Islander communities have an interest in the preservation ofendangered and vulnerable species, the strategy also recommends cooperativestrategies aimed at species recovery and habitat preservation, especially onAboriginal lands. At the same time, it acknowledges that traditional harvestingofwildlife is important to both the cultural heritage and economy ofindigenouscommunities; consequently, it supports the continuation ofsuch harvestingpractices. To safeguard the rights ofindigenous communities, the strategyrecommends that all arrangements aimed at fulfilling Australia’s obligationsunder the CBD should also take into account the protocols developed by theUnited Nations Commission on Human Rights.However, in practice, promising ethnobiological programmes have not beenable to sustain government support. For example, the Northern Territorygovernment has radically reduced funding to the very productive ethnobiologyprogramme ofthe Northern Territory Parks and Wildlife Commission, in aregion where the encyclopaedic wealth ofthe extant indigenous languages andknowledge systems is in danger ofbeing lost as Aboriginal peoples areincreasingly pressured to assimilate into the white settler society. Since thepublication ofthe National Strategy, there has been no progress made towardsachieving its recommendations that specifically concern Aboriginal and TorresStrait Islander peoples. The proposed new approaches to collaborativeconservation programmes with indigenous peoples have been undermined byAustralian governments that increasingly favour sectoral interests over theinterests ofindigenous communities, to the extent that the rights ofindigenouspeople have been further reduced by statutory regulation.The ‘wild’, the market and the native89
RECONCEPTUALIZING INDIGENOUS RELATIONSHIPSWITH THE NATURAL WORLDThe rubric ofWestern discourses ofconservation can be misleading whenexamining indigenous capacity to respond to resource-use challenges. Basicterms in the conservation literature require some reconceptualizing in order toaddress the issues for Aboriginal engagement with sustainable management ofwildlife, including the commercial use of wildlife. For instance, the term‘conservation’ cannot be used in a presumed commonsense way withoutbringing within the ambit ofthe term some ofthe cultural differences oftenoverlooked in the conservation literature. A typical example ofthe absence ofthe human dimensions when considering resource-use problems is the socialand, often, statutory privilege granted to environmental impact assessment oversocial impact assessments. The pre-eminence given to scientifically adducedenvironmental questions over human issues is unfortunately unremarkable inthe indigenous world, where human populations are regularly relocated and life-ways disrupted by major projects, such as dams, mines, roads, and pipelines.Western conservationists are increasingly aware ofthe dilemmas forindigenous peoples; and, yet, considerations of equity and justice remainperipheral in the delivery ofnational and regional conservation programmesand resources. For example, the attention that conservation organizationsdevote within developing nations to the protection of non-human biota,including pets, is staggering when compared to the level ofunderstandingdisplayed towards small hunter–gatherer populations. Conservation – as ageneral descriptor ofhuman activities that are intended to mitigate againstenvironmental degradation and biodiversity loss – refers primarily to humandecision-making about the wise use ofresources and the maintenance ofthenatural and cultural values of land, water and biota. How humans makedecisions, however, depends upon their cultural, social, political and economiccontexts. Aboriginal decision-making styles are ofrelevance to the developmentand design ofconservation policy and planning; yet this is rarely acknowledgedin the conservation literature. Furthermore, such literature ignores even morefundamental questions, such as how a resource is defined by different resourceusers and owners. A typical example ofa cultural assumption in conservationthinking, especially in the science disciplines, is that a resource is defined simplyas a physical commodity without regard to its human values and significance.It was only during the 1980s and 1990s in Australia that the biota and humanand technological resources have been studied, surveyed and understood as aresult of regional studies by research bodies.5The ongoing accretion ofscientific literature and data collection by a myriad ofgovernment agencies,statutory authorities, research institutions and universities has extended ourknowledge ofthese issues. Researchers from a range ofdisciplines concernedwith the natural world were attracted to the regions where high biodiversityvalues remain. However, the coincidence of these research areas with the90Decolonizing Nature
indigenous domain was not a significant factor in the research design. As aresult, much ofthe data was oflittle use to indigenous conservation managers,nor was it intended to help them. The value ofthe data for indigenous peoplehas been further reduced by the apparent unwillingness ofrelevant bodies toreturn the information to indigenous land-owners in a form that can be accessedby people with low levels of Western education. It is not accidental thatconservation policy and research that has been most useful to indigenous land-owners has usually been commissioned by indigenous representative bodies,such as local councils, land councils and regional resource-management groups.This reflects the differing priorities and economic, social and culturalframeworks employed by indigenous and non-indigenous interests.As a subject for human decision-making, conservation cannot be deemed adiscrete field because ofthe relevance ofsocial, cultural, economic and politicalfactors that must be taken into account by any group ofdecision-makers. Inshort, the problem is not one ofconservation alone, or one ofconservationversus development. There is a much more complex mix ofconservation andsubsistence and development issues. Furthermore, decision-making takes placein a range ofsituations. ‘Traditional’ institutions ofindigenous societies – suchas customary kin-based corporations – and indigenous jurisdictions provide justone context for decision-making. There are also indigenous organizations –such as community councils, socio-territorial associations, land councils,statutory bodies and other administrative and representative bodies – thatconstitute another significant context ofdecision-making. Such a diversity ofinstitutional contexts demands an analytical approach that focuses on the overallgoal ofenhancing indigenous participation in conservation.Other basic concepts in the conservation literature require special discussionto explain their use and relevance in explaining indigenous involvement inconservation activities. Key words in Aboriginal conservation and managementinclude: ‘traditional’ or indigenous knowledge system, ’ intellectual and culturalproperty’, ‘customary law’, ‘native title’ and ‘traditional resource rights’. Theseought to be more widely understood among the community ofscientists andplanners involved in indigenous wildlife management projects.The point is well made by Dews et al:…it is important to keep in mind that indigenous peoples and conservationorganizations have overlapping interests, but their perceptions ofwhat is atstake in managing resources for the future may be quite different (Dews etal, 1997, p48).These authors identify the conflicting values between indigenous peoples andconservationists with which environmental researchers must contend:Conservation biologists commonly operate from ideological stances, which viewnature as being significant apart from human involvement, while indigenousgroups do not separate the two. Indigenous peoples must provision themselvesThe ‘wild’, the market and the native91
from the natural environment, whereas conservation agencies are interested inprotecting vanishing wilderness areas from human predation and excessiveexploitation (Dews et al, 1997, p48).Issues ofscale – especially in conservation planning and programme deliveryfor small-scale societies with traditional, as opposed to post-industrial, relationsto land – assume a special significance. As Dews et al (1997) note, indigenousgroups tend to operate from a local perspective, whereas conservation biologistsand planners are concerned with large-scale, regional, ifnot hemispheric orglobal, processes, and believe they are acting on behalfofthe planet as a whole.It is often the case, however, that the claims by conservationists to globaloutcomes are grossly overstated. Even the Convention on International Tradein Endangered Species ofWild Flora and Fauna (CITES) and the Conventionon Biological Diversity (CBD), which are global agreements among countries,rely upon implementation within countries for their effectiveness. The CITESpublic material explains that effective conservation actions generally take placenationally and locally, and not at the global level. There are very few mechanismsto conserve species above the national level.Most indigenous groups who are resident on their traditional territories aresmall scale; moreover, indigenous societies have been classified in thesociological literature as small scale on the basis not just oftheir populationsize, but ofthe types ofinstitutions and decision-making styles that are typicalin these societies. It is important, however, to emphasize that while traditionalecological knowledge is undeniably local, and specific to place and people(Rose, 1996, p32), it is nevertheless the case that some responses ofindigenousgroups to global pressures show that innovative, small-scale commercialvaluation and monitoring ofwildlife – which rely upon indigenous knowledge– can lead to sustainable management ofspecies endemic to regions with evenwider migration patterns. Such responses can deliver solutions that are farbetter than the ‘solutions’ advocated by remote and standardized nationalsystems.In Australian Aboriginal societies, there is an established body ofindigenouslaws that allocates rights and interests ofparticular people to features ofthenatural world. Aboriginal property relations are, as Nancy Williams (1998) hasnoted, ‘a sacred endowment’. They derive from the sacred ancestral past thatimbues the present, shaping and forming the world we inhabit with its distinctivefeatures, and, notably, placing individual and group entities and polities in juralrelationships (that is, bound by Aboriginal laws) with attendant rights andresponsibilities, according to religious principles. These property relations arethen expressed metaphorically in the Aboriginal discourse ofpossession andstewardship, symbolized in a variety ofways – particularly as iconic or totemicrelationships with the species and features ofthe natural world.Such ways ofconceptualizing the world have been referred to throughoutthe indigenous literature that has emerged during the last few decades. Forexample, a conference held in Vancouver in February 2000 on Protecting92Decolonizing Nature
Knowledge: Traditional Resource Rights in the New Millennium issued ‘TheSpirit ofthe Conference Statement’, which stated in part:Indigenous Peoples’ heritage is not a commodity, nor the property ofthenation-state. The material and intellectual heritage ofeach Indigenous Peopleis a sacred gift and a responsibility that must be honoured and held for thebenefit offuture generations.6Similarly, the foundation ofAustralian Aboriginal biogeography is thisengagement with the non-human world through the lens ofthe a priorisacredlandscape, peopled by spiritual Beings and imbued with the essence ofbothhuman and non-human beings. The appropriation ofa landscape full ofdangerand serendipity by the geomantic reading ofplaces imbued with spiritual Beingsinscribes the landscape with the laws ofritual engagement with ancestors andspiritual Beings. This is a process overseen by a hierarchy ofElders, who haveacquired the ritual knowledge and a system ofproperty relations from thoseancestors. The ancestral legacy is both the nature ofour being and the nature ofour relationship to places in the landscape.Anthropologist Nancy Williams (1998, pp4–5) describes ‘the relationship ofAboriginal Australians to their environment’ as arising from ‘the religious basisoftheir proprietary interests in land and the plants and animals that are a partofthat environment’. From three decades ofstudy with Yolngu people, sheconcludes that:This relationship is expressed inter aliain terms that have been labelled‘traditional ecological knowledge’. Within that body ofknowledge areembedded the principles and prescriptions for the management oftheenvironment as well as their moral basis. Aboriginal people regard theenvironment as sentient and as communicating with them.Jean Christie (1996, p65) refers to the intellectual integrity of indigenouspeoples:For indigenous peoples, their lands and waters underpin who they are and arethe foundation oftheir very survival as peoples. Over and over again, whenreflecting on biodiversity or indigenous knowledge, indigenous people from allover the globe insist that living things cannot be separated from the land theygrow on, and that peoples’ knowledge and myriad uses ofnatural resourcescannot be separated from their culture, and their survival as peoples on theland. This oneness – ofland and the things that live in it, ofpeople, theirknowledge and their cultural connection with the land – is the only basis formeaningful consideration ofbiodiversity and indigenous knowledge about it.What is at stake is the intellectual integrity ofpeoples, not simply intellectualproperty.The ‘wild’, the market and the native93
In his study ofcentral Australian Aboriginal peoples’ perceptions ofland-management issues, Bruce Rose found that:Aboriginal people see caring for country as an integral part ofliving on theirland. Caring for country forms part ofthe relationship individuals have witheach other and with the land. It is not seen as a separate activity which mustbe ‘carried out’. From this perspective the most important issues are land-ownership and access to land so that Aboriginal people can care for theircountry (Rose, 1995, pix).When he questioned these people about ‘European notions ofconservation’,Rose found that:Aboriginal ‘management’ ofthe environment is understood through song andceremony. It is seen to be more ofan integrated process whereby knowledge ofthe natural world is gathered through personal experience and passed onthrough tradition and culture. Aboriginal management links people to theirenvironment rather than giving them dominion over it. Aboriginalrelationships to land are defined in terms ofculture and site protection, landusage and harvesting ofnatural resources (Rose, 1995, pxvii).Extant indigenous cultures in Australia regard land not just as a physicalresource, but as a social resource – as customary estates or landscapes shapedby a priorispiritual forces and imbued with spiritual power. Indigenous lawsacknowledge that the world around us is constructed spiritually and socially. InAustralian Aboriginal land-tenure systems, the basic nature ofproperty as athing is that it is transmissible across generations – it is a bequest or anendowment – and that the temporal dimension ofendowment implieslegitimacy derived from the authority ofthe past. The temporal dimensionimbues an instance ofproperty – an owned place – with a meaning beyond itsfate ofbeing already there: its meaning is social and institutionalized, and, aboveall, rule-governed or subject to law. The transmission ofrights acrossgenerations involves applications oflaw relating to the nature ofa bequest thatis acceded to by other members ofa society or group. The regulation ofmatters,such as who may inherit the property and under what conditions, constituteslaw when it is acceded to as tradition and custom among members ofa group.Under Aboriginal law, permission to enter another person’s territory and touse the resources ofthat place must be sought from the appropriate traditionalowners. Upon granting their consent, these owners would perform particularrituals to ensure the spiritual safety oftheir guests during their visit to the estate.Entry to an Aboriginal estate, and access to its resources, are subject toAboriginal laws. As Williams has further observed, in north-eastern ArnhemLand, Yolngu land-owning groups organize responsibility for managing theirestates through a set ofchecks and balances expressed through links ofkinship.A patrilineal group (a clan) holds title to an estate; but that group cannot94Decolonizing Nature
unilaterally make decisions on important matters concerning the estate, whetherthe issue is deemed to be – in non-Aboriginal terms – religious or economic.Not only must individuals related through women to the land-owning group beconsulted; they must concur in the decision. Within the title-holding group,authority determined by age prevails in decision-making related to the land ofthat group. The authority of elders, as knowledgeable persons capable ofensuring spiritual safety, is a fundamental feature ofindigenous life. Such eldersare not merely senior in age, although that is often the case. Such persons, byvirtue oftheir knowledge and, typically, ritual status, hold jural positions basedupon a range ofpersonal, organizational and structural factors. These wouldinclude seniority in a particular kin-based group, religious responsibilitiesacquired through attention to ceremonial duties, and authority in matters ofland tenure and local political and economic issues that affect the affairs ofthegroup over which the elder has influence.Although religious, social, economic and geographic understandings oftheworld are interwoven, to greater or lesser extents, in indigenous understandingsofthe phenomenal world, it is nevertheless important to draw some distinctionsand conclusions from Aboriginal understandings ofthe natural world. Theprimary ethic expressed in indigenous relationships with the natural world isthat of the responsibility of stewardship for the non-human species andhabitats, with these responsibilities having the force ofjural principles. Thesejural principles are expressed, for instance, in the so-called ‘totemic’ affiliationsestablished by the ancestral beings whose adventures are recorded in religiousmythology. Aboriginal beliefs about the place ofhumans in the natural worldconstruct a different concept ofpersonal identity from that which isconventionally understood in Western epistemology. The Aboriginal person –as the socialized cultural being – is conceived ofas not merely as a bodyenclosing a singular conscious being. Rather, the person is conceived ofasspatialized by virtue oftotemic affiliations. Persons with inherited spiritualessence, in common with non-human beings, share the world ofthose beings –including their natural habitats – as a personal responsibility.Aboriginal people hold, therefore, that the possibility ofthe extinction ofaspecies, whether fauna or flora, or the destruction ofwhat is called ‘biodiversity’in environment-speak, is offensive to the nature ofhuman existence. Aboriginalresistance to attempts to suppress their involvement with the natural world, bycontinuing to use fire according to tradition, for example, or by organizing withexperts to sustain biodiversity through weed control, are expressions ofthesecultural values. They sit alongside, and interrogate, the initiatives taken in orderto ensure the viability ofAboriginal culture through its incorporation within theglobal economy and related developments, such as the spread oftechnologicalinfrastructure. The maintenance of Aboriginal culture, particularly socialrelationships with land conceived ofin a supra-kinship discourse, is held inAboriginal law to be fundamental to the well-being ofhuman society and non-human society alike – the former bearing a special responsibility for wise andrespectful use ofthe latter.The ‘wild’, the market and the native95
The Aboriginal cosmology poses a different set ofrelational values betweenhumans and non-humans from the inherent (and often explicit) hierarchy ofvalues attributed to biota, landscape features and other subjects ofWesternnatural science, and the application ofthose values under the rubric of‘naturaland cultural values’. In practical applications, such as in the privileging ofenvironmental over social impact assessment, this Western hierarchy assumesthat Aboriginal traditional relationships with the non-human environment areirrelevant to the capacity offauna and flora populations to reproducethemselves. Biological research concerning early human populations and fire intropical northern Australian regions in recent times shows that this assumptionmust be reconsidered for the traditional Aboriginal domain.This is not to deny that the Aboriginal domain is changing because ofpopulation growth, increasing Aboriginal participation in the economy ofruralAustralia, changes in the biophysical environment, and changes in the political,social and legal climate. Nevertheless, the influence ofAboriginal customs andlaw remains significant, and this has global implications for conservation ofbiodiversity. The activities ofAboriginal land managers demonstrate that amaterialist consideration is necessary to an understanding ofhuman–naturerelations in the indigenous domain; and those relations are, necessarily,economic, and have been so since the evolution ofthe human species. Ifweadmit that Aboriginal people are fully sentient and intellectual beings, we canadmit that they would engage with the effects ofthe global economy andinformation society, and that they would bring to these problems interestingand innovative approaches.INDIGENOUS RESPONSES TO THE PRESSURESOF DEVELOPMENTThe pressures for developing the remote areas in which the indigenous domainis largely located are a persistent and dominant feature ofnational political life.The key industries in rural and remote Australia are mining, pastoralism andtourism – are all land based. Because ofthe primacy ofthese industries in therural economy, the models ofeconomic development currently available toindigenous communities require radical alteration at various scales ofthe landand water and the importation ofconventional European management systemsand expertise. This occurs also in protected areas, to one extent or another,because all national parks are subject to management plans, many ofwhichmarginalize indigenous land use and management.In the context oftheir limited ability to resist incorporation within theglobal economy,increasing reliance upon Western technology andinfrastructure, and facing a population explosion and increasing poverty anddisadvantage, the challenge for indigenous groups is to develop economic nichesto sustain their ways oflife and to sustainably manage their environments. ForAboriginal groups considering their futures, wildlife harvesting is regarded as a96Decolonizing Nature
high priority for further development because they already have the necessaryskills and knowledge that flow, ironically, from a localized way oflife. There area number ofindigenous enterprises that utilize wildlife. These include crocodileegg-harvesting for sale to hatcheries with royalty payments to traditional owners;harvesting ofseed for regeneration ofmine sites; harvesting ofmarine life,such as fish pearl shell, trochus and crayfish; supply of‘bush tucker’ and bushcondiments to the restaurant trade; the use ofsubsistence hunting by-products(such as feathers and bone) in craft products; the production ofartefacts andart from bush materials; the harvesting ofdidgeridoo sticks; the semi-domestication ofnative honey-bag bees;trepang-harvesting and processing; theharvesting and production ofbush medicines; and the propagation oftrees andshrubs for regeneration and landscaping. Because industries based upon wildlifeharvesting enable indigenous people to use their existing knowledge and skills,they offer opportunities for small-scale enterprises that create small but usefullevels ofincome. Where the operation ofthese enterprises is a natural adjunctto life in their homelands, the levels ofbenefits derived could be significantgiven the marginal effort required.Small-scale commercial use of natural resources presents options fordeveloping Aboriginal approaches to the sustainable stewardship of theirtraditional land and water estates. The benefits include the expansion ofappropriate levels ofeconomic development under the control oftraditionalhunting-and-gathering groups whose ways oflife are jeopardized bysedentarism. These economic activities are a suitable accompaniment to thepractices oftraditional hunting and gathering; importantly, they do not createcultural conflicts over potential breaches ofAboriginal law concerning totemicaffiliation with the particular species. Appropriate senior clan members mustauthorize access to estates and any activities carried out on them, includingtraditional hunting and gathering and commercial harvesting ofnative and non-native species. Small-scale ventures are compatible with traditional law andculture because compliance is possible at this scale and non-compliance can beredressed according to tradition.Initiatives taken in this area, so far, have been based, in part, upon thenotion that commercial valuation ofwildlife constitutes a fundamentalprotective measure for sustaining populations ofspecies under threat fromhuman impacts. The valuation itselfaccords the species a status as a potentialnon-renewable resource that must be managed sustainably. For example, incentral Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory ofAustralia, an Aboriginalland management scheme operated by an association of traditional land-owners, Bawinanga, manages a crocodile (Crocodylus porosus) egg-harvestingventure. During the 1980s, commercial crocodile farms sought permissionfrom the Northern Territory government to harvest crocodile eggs onAboriginal land.The Yolngu response was to commence harvestingarrangements oftheir own in order to prevent the opening up ofthe resourceto non-Aboriginal operators who might have been given the opportunity toexploit the resource unsustainably (Crocodylus porosuswas almost hunted toThe ‘wild’, the market and the native97
extinction by commercial white hunters before bans were introduced in early1971). Since 1990,Djelkrangers have gathered crocodile eggs from a numberofcentral Arnhem Land river systems. The eggs are hatched and transportedto a specialist agency in Darwin for sale to domestic and international markets(Webb et al, 1996).The harvesting is monitored by experts and Aboriginal staff. Webb et al(1996, p181–182) report that following the recovery ofthe crocodile populationafter their protection in 1971, over 100,000 eggs and 6000 animals have beenharvested in the Northern Territory by commercial operators until 1994. It is noteasy to monitor the impacts ofsuch harvesting; but the authors conclude, uponthe basis ofstudies ofhatchlings at monitoring locations, that ‘recruitment intothe older age classes is continuing and there is every reason to expect the harvestto be sustainable’ (Webb et al, 1996, p182). However, in 1997, senior elders ofthe local Yolngu clans rejected a proposal for a trial harvest ofadult saltwatercrocodiles for the skin trade and local subsistence use ofmeat, reasoning thatcommercial harvesting ofadults ran counter to the great respect accorded incustomary beliefs to these creatures. The religious observance ofthe ancestralcrocodile totemic being in ceremonial life is regionally important, uniting allhuman descendants and their reptilian cohorts in common interest.The application oflocal indigenous laws and the concern oflocal traditionalowners for high biodiversity values are critical to sustaining highly localizedspecies populations in the indigenous domain. Gongorni leader from theBawinanga association, Dean Yibarbuk, makes this point well about the impactofpoorly managed fire in his homelands:Today fire is not being well looked after. Some people, especially younger peoplewho don’t know better or who don’t care, sometimes just chuck matches anywherewithout thinking ofthe law and culture ofrespect that we have for fire. This isespecially true for people just going for weekends away from the big settlement.Fire is being managed well around the outstations where people live all the time.The other big problem is large areas ofcountry where no one is livingpermanently now. Where grasses and fuels are building up, sometimes over acouple ofyears, until one day someone’s little hunting fire, or a cigarettechucked out ofToyota gets going and hundreds or thousands ofkilometresare burned out in very hot fires. (Yibarbuk, 1988, pp5–6)It was Yibarbuk’s attention to such environmental details that alertedenvironmental scientists to the problem ofwildfires in the regions that hadbeen vacated by Aboriginal people under the Australian government’sassimilation programme ofthe 1950s. Yibarbuk and other men ofthe centralArnhem Land region have addressed this problem (which they identified in1998) by taking traditional people to these areas and replicating, with somecaution, the burning regimes that once protected the region from hot wildfires.They have obtained the cooperation and assistance ofa number ofagencies intheir efforts.98Decolonizing Nature
As mentioned,Aboriginal communities are attracted to small-scaleharvesting ventures because they are amenable to the traditional forms ofgovernance; increasingly, throughout Arnhem Land and central Australia, suchcommunities have collaborated with research bodies to undertake monitoring inorder to guide their decisions regarding the sustainable harvesting ofspecificspecies and the protection oftheir habitats. There is, ofcourse, an ancienttradition ofwildlife trading within and between the indigenous nations inAustralia and with our near Asian neighbours. Now it offers new opportunitiesfor developing sustainable industries that are accessible to indigenous people.There is scope to develop industries that are appropriate in scale and in capitaland technical requirements, and which are conducive to traditional practicesregarding the management ofnatural and cultural environments.RECOGNIZING TRADITIONAL RESOURCE RIGHTSAND SUSTAINABLE PRACTICESThe recognition oftraditional resource rights, benefit-sharing, control ofaccessand intellectual property, and the development ofmechanisms to facilitate thecommercial involvement ofindigenous people in resource exploitation, areimportant for the success ofindigenous peoples’ lives in their homelands.However, there is a different starting point in terms ofthe resource rights ofindigenous peoples in the jurisdictions ofdifferent settler states throughout theworld. There is wide variation in both the rights ofindigenous peoples and theextent to which they are able to enjoy those rights. As UN Special RapporteurMadame Daes pointed out in a 1999 report to the UN Human RightsCommission, most countries where indigenous peoples live assert a power toextinguish the rights ofthose people ‘most often without just compensation’.The doctrine ofextinguishment, Madame Daes noted, is something that ‘cameinto prominent use during the colonial period’ (p12).Australia is unique among the former British colonies in that no recognizedtreaty was ever concluded with any indigenous group. The indigenous peoplesin Australia are in a comparable situation to the native peoples ofSouth Americaand Asia, where there is a low standard ofdomestic recognition ofcivil andpolitical rights, and, indeed, high levels ofbreaching human rights in general.Under the doctrine ofterra nullius, Aboriginal traditional resource rights werebelieved to be wiped away by Crown sovereignty and possession for a period of200 years. Even though some limited legal recognition ofindigenous rights hasemerged during the last 25 years, this has coincided with the advance ofmarketforces into the indigenous domain. In recent years, these limited rights havebeen eroded by a resurgent white nationalist agenda pursued by the federalgovernment and some ofthe states.Traditional resource rights in Australia have been procured in two ways: bystatutory recognition ofrights under the ‘grace and favour ofthe Crown’ or bycase law. Statutory recognition ofresource rights has concerned, primarily,The ‘wild’, the market and the native99
access rights to special forms oftitle over Aboriginal land for mineral, gas andoil exploration and extraction. Case law – following the Mabo No 2 decision ofthe High Court ofAustralia – has found, for limited areas, Aboriginal customaryrights and entitlements in resources, including water. In the Mabo No 2 case,the judges found that native title (the land tenure system that pre-existed thearrival ofBritish law) had survived the annexation ofAustralia to the Crownunder particular circumstances, and that it could be recognized at common law.However, they also confirmed the power ofthe sovereign to extinguish nativetitle.Two recent cases have particular significance. Firstly, in supporting a nativetitle claim by the Miriuwung and Gajerrong people in western Australia, thefederal court ruled that they had the right to ‘possess, occupy, use and enjoy’ theland that they claimed and either use it as they saw fit or ‘receive a portion ofany resources taken by others’. Ofparticular significance is the fact that thejudgement included the allocation and use ofwater rights, and it could lay theground for a new configuration ofjural, economic and social relationshipsbetween the indigenous and settler societies ifit survives an appeal lodged bythe government ofwestern Australia and other parties. Secondly, the HighCourt ofAustralia recently upheld the right ofAboriginal activist MarandooYanner to hunt for crocodiles in the area where his people come from after hehad initially been charged with killing a protected species under the QueenslandFauna Act. Yanner had succeeded in having the charges against him dismissedin a magistrates court before the magistrate’s decision was overturned on appeal.In a majority decision, the judges ofthe High Court ofAustralia found that themagistrate had been right in ruling that the fauna act ‘did not prohibit or restrictthe appellant, as a native title holder, from hunting or fishing for the crocodileshe took for the purpose ofsatisfying personal, domestic or non-commercialcommunal needs’. Although this ruling imposes limits on Aboriginal resourcerights (that is, for non-commercial use only), it was a breakthrough inrecognizing Aboriginal rights in Australia.In the US, by contrast, treaty rights have given the indigenous peoplestronger legal protection as long as the courts have been willing to support theintention ofthe treaties.Guerrero (1992) notes that treaties betweengovernments and Indian peoples included the premise that water – like trees,grass and air – was integral to the concept ofland dealt with under such treaties.Over the years, increasing development pressures have encouraged a variety offorces to seek to separate land and water rights; yet a number ofsignificantdecisions have resisted this separation. This is especially the case in relation tofishing rights, and Levy (1998) comments:In the US, the Supreme Court has expanded this right from a mere accessright to a right to avoid licence fees, and to include a harvest share. In theUnited States v Washington (Phase I), Justice Boldt held that theIndians were entitled by the treaty to receive halfofthe harvestable fish topass their fishing grounds.100Decolonizing Nature
Indian rights to water in the US are also supported by the Winter’s Decision of1908, which ruled that the doctrine of‘prior use’ applied to the use ofwater(Guerrero, 1992, p192–193). Sixty years after this decision, the UmatillaConfederated Tribes in Oregon were able to cite the Winter’s doctrine in asuccessful 1977 suit, in which they argued that the Army Corps ofEngineers, inconstructing the ChiefJoseph Dam, had illegally interfered with the water flownecessary for the spawning ofsalmon and steelhead trout that were the basis ofthe Umatilla people’s economy (Guerrero, 1992, p203).At the same time, case law in the US has also resulted in the extinguishmentor impairment ofIndian rights. For example, in the case ofthe Tee-Hit-TonIndians versus the US, the US Supreme Court extinguished the rights oftheTee-Hit-Ton peoples without compensation even though the US constitutionexplicitly states that the government may not take property without due processoflaw and just compensation (Daes, 1999). The legal doctrine created by thiscase has been widely invoked and, indeed, the US Congress relied upon it in1971 when it voted to extinguish the land claims ofnearly all ofthe 226 nationsand tribes ofAlaska under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act. This acttransferred some ofthe land to profit-making corporations that the indigenouspeople were required to set up so that these same corporations could then sellthe land at much less than the market value. The tribes themselves were paid nomoney at all, and the land that was not claimed by indigenous corporations wasturned over to the state ofAlaska or the federal government. Needless to say,the Alaskan tribes did not consent to this legislation.In 1978 the Canadian Inupiat leader Eben Hobson said:Ifwe are to enjoy our Inuit hunting rights we must also be able to manage ourland. With great care taken, our land can yield its subsurface wealth to theworld; but we Inuit have the right to determine just how much care must betaken. Proceeding from our native hunting rights is the right to manage andprotect our subsistence game habitat safe from harm. Our subsistence huntingrights must be the core ofany successful Arctic resource management regime.7This followed the settlement ofa pioneering land claim in the James Bay NorthernQuebec Agreement (Editeur official du Quebec, 1976). This agreement has beenfollowed by two other important land claim agreements affecting the Arcticregion: the Inuvialuit Final Agreement (Anonymous, 1984) and the Nunavut LandClaims Agreement (Anonymous, 1993). These three agreements establishconstitutionally protected access to resources. They establish rights, titles andinterests in land and provide various degrees ofland ownership, including accessby non-beneficiaries. Surface and subsurface rights are detailed, as well as theestablishment ofco-management bodies with varying degrees ofresponsibilityand funding for research and resource-use planning. The agreements allow formonetary compensation and environmental and social impact assessmentprocesses. There is no ownership ofwildlife under the agreements; rather, thereare varying degrees ofconstitutionally protected priority access.The ‘wild’, the market and the native101
Even before these agreements came into effect there was a recognition thatthe Inuit people should have the right to hunt for whales, even though commercialwhaling has been banned in Canada since 1972. This right was confirmed in 1996by Dan Goodman ofthe Canadian Department ofFisheries and the Oceanswhen he said that Canadian policy on whaling accepted that ‘whales are animportant source offood for the Inuit and…whales and whaling are an importantpart ofInuit culture’ (Goodman, 1996, p5). Eben Hobson put it rather moredirectly back in 1978 when he said: ‘Our native hunting and whaling rights proceeddirectly from our basic right to eat.’ (Hobson, 1978, p2). It should be noted that allthree ofthe land claim agreements mentioned above list conservation as a coreprinciple ofcommunity-based resource management.The extinguishment doctrine has been applied in Canada just as it has inAustralia and the US, with courts deciding that Aboriginal rights, includingAboriginal land title, are not absolute but may be ’ infringed’ by the federal orprovincial governments when the infringement is ‘justified’ by the needs ofthelarger society. In a recent case, ChiefJustice Lamer ofthe Supreme Court ofCanada wrote:In my opinion, the development ofagriculture, forestry, mining, andhydroelectric power, the general economic development ofthe interior ofBritishColumbia, protection ofthe environment or endangered species, the buildingofinfrastructure and the settlement offoreign populations to support thoseaims, are the kinds ofobjectives that are consistent with this purpose and, inprinciple, can justify the infringement ofaboriginal title (cited by Daes,1999, p13).In New Zealand, resource rights ceded to the Maori under the Treaty ofWaitangi have also been abrogated on numerous occasions. For example, in1999, the Waitangi Tribunal released a report on a Maori claim to the WhanganuiRiver, which found (with one dissenting opinion) that:…in Maori terms, the Whanganui River is a water resource, a single andindivisible entity, which was owned in its entirety by Atihaunui in 1840. Wehave further found that the Treaty has been breached by the Crown indepriving Atihaunui oftheir possession and control ofthe Whanganui Riverand its tributaries and its failure to protect Atihaunui rangatiratangainand over their river were and are contrary to the principles ofthe Treaty ofWaitangi. Atihaunui have been and continue to be prejudiced as a consequence(The Waitangi Tribunal, 1999, pxi).This was a landmark decision, with the tribunal yet to rule on numerous otherclaims lodged with it.However, while some national jurisdictions may offer limited protection ofindigenous resource rights acknowledged under treaties, case laws or statutes, itis the international jurisdiction that constructs the regulatory space in which102Decolonizing Nature
trade in wildlife is limited. The Convention on International Trade inEndangered Species ofWild Fauna and Flora (CITES) has been in effect since1975, and the capacity ofindigenous peoples to comply with the Conventionhas so far been proven to be at least as good as that ofratifying nation states.Specifically,CITES protects threatened species from all internationalcommercial trade, regulates trade in species not threatened with extinction butwhich may become threatened iftrade goes unregulated, and gives countries theoption oflisting native species that are already protected within their ownborders. The convention embraces the view that trade in protected plant andanimal species can be carried out on a sustainable basis, and its effectiveness isregularly reviewed at conferences and other forums where amendments can beproposed and adopted. CITES conferences allow for attendance ofnon-votingnon-governmental organizations (NGOs) representing conservation, animalwelfare, trade, zoological and scientific interests, and they frequently discusstraditional resource rights in the context ofother political agendas. Indigenousspokespeople are generally marginalized by the aggressive and well-resourceddelegations representing the member states and large internationalorganizations.The ‘regulatory space’ constructed by CITES and other internationalconvention monitoring bodies has impacted on the indigenous world bothbeneficially and detrimentally. Traditional resource rights ofindigenous peoplesmay be discussed more often; however, it is in the hegemonic discourses ofsuch international bodies that local traditional and indigenous discoursesbecome ensnared when global interests – whether corporate or regulatory –oppose the local populations and claim a regulatory authority over them.International law of previous centuries, which authorized or justified thecolonization ofindigenous peoples, constituted a hegemonic discourse withprofound impacts. The powerful members ofCITES are the very same nationstates that systematically discriminated against the encapsulated indigenouspopulations, and they continue to appropriate indigenous property according toremnant imperial doctrines still held at law.CONCLUSIONSustainable use ofbiodiversity in remnant indigenous homelands provides bothopportunities for maintaining indigenous cultures and ways oflife and, at thesame time, for developing an enduring indigenous economic base that wouldreduce social and economic inequity typical ofmost indigenous populations.Yet, for many indigenous peoples, the options for economic pathways tosustainability ofancient ways oflife are hampered by the restriction oftheirharvesting rights to customary rights by both national and internationalregulation.As we have seen, customary hunting and gathering is a contentious issue,and one can expect from the present antagonism to indigenous use ofnaturalThe ‘wild’, the market and the native103
resources that indigenous commercial use ofnatural products might be evenmore contentious.In these circumstances, the framework for developing sui generisoptions forprotection and compensation for indigenous peoples from traditional resourceuse, as proposed by Posey (1996) and Posey and Dutfield (1996), has a specialsignificance in the absence ofprotection ofthese rights by any convention andthe vulnerability ofsuch rights in domestic jurisdictions.The injustice that this situation involves for indigenous peoples is not just acontinuation ofthe long and terrible history ofimperial dominion. There ismore at stake, in general, than the impoverishment and dispossession oflocalsmall-scale societies, such as hunting-and-gathering peoples. The issue is one ofa steadily advancing environmental crisis. Along with the potential or actualenvironmental degradation, the slowness ofthe advances, where there are anyat all, in recognizing the contribution ofindigenous peoples to maintainingbiological diversity may contribute to the collapse offaunal and floral speciesthat have been sustained by these groups for much ofhuman history.Arguments and the accretion ofevidence as to the contribution that indigenouspeoples might make to sustaining biodiversity through cautious commercialharvesting in their local areas, where the global market persistently encroaches,thus become more urgent.This survey ofthe vexed web ofissues relating to sustainable environmentsin indigenous domains shows just how fragile the resource rights ofindigenouspeoples are, and this fragility itselfemerges as a factor ofgreat significance in theproblem ofthinking about indigenous futures. Hence, the issue ofindigenousproprietary interests in the features ofthe natural world poses the potential forstrategies for successful indigenous management ofnatural resources. Ifsuchproprietary interests were interpreted more widely than the fossilized post-colonial view ofnative peoples as having mere customary subsistence rights, theopportunities for rigorous assessment ofnon-subsistence harvesting might beelaborated beyond the rare instances we find, at present, on this subject.NOTES1Eben Hobson (1922–1980) was an Inupiat (Northern Eskimo) leader, founder ofthe North Slope Borough (a county-like home rule municipal government servingthe people ofAlaska’s vast 222,740-square kilometre Arctic Slope between PortHope and the border ofthe Yukon Territory) and founder ofthe Inuit CircumpolarConference. See Hobson’s Address to the London Press Corps, 23 June 1978 atwww.buchholdt.com/EbenHobson/papers/1978/London.html.2 See the account by Eben Hobson in Hobson’s Address to the London Press Corps, 23June 1978 at www.buchholdt.com/EbenHobson/papers/1978/London.html andD Goodman (1996) ‘Land Claim Agreements and the Management OfWhaling inthe Canadian Arctic’, Proceedings ofthe 11th International Symposium on Peoplesand Cultures ofthe North. Hokkaido Museum ofNorthern Peoples, Abashiri,Japan, at www.highnorth.no/Library/Policies/National/la-cl-ag.htm.104Decolonizing Nature
3 The term ’ indigenous domain’ is used to refer to indigenous governance ofterritory, including title under settler or indigenous legal systems. This would includeland and water, whether owned under Australian title or not, and in the latter case,whether or not under claim under native title or other legislation; and land andwater under contemporary forms of indigenous governance, including localcustomary forms ofgovernance, representative bodies, community councils, etc.4 The IUCN is also known as the World Conservation Union.5 Examples ofsuch research include the reports ofthe Cape York Peninsula LandUse Strategy (see Cape York Regional Advisory Group, 1996), the CooperativeResearch Centre for the Sustainable Development of Tropical Savannas (seeCooperative Research Centre for the Sustainable Use ofTropical Savannas, April1996), Wet Tropics Management Authority (see Wet Tropics ManagementAuthority, 1992), the Great Barrier ReefMarine Park Authority (see Bergin, 1993),and, as well, the studies and inquiries conducted by the Resource AssessmentCommission (see Resource Assessment Commission, Coastal Zone Inquiry, 1993),and the Australian Heritage Commission (see, for instance, Smyth, 1993;Sutherland, 1996; Department ofCommunications and the Arts; 1997).6 Protecting Knowledge: Traditional Resource Rights in the New Millennium, Spirit oftheConference Statement, Espirtu de la Conferencia, Thursday, 24 February toSaturday, 26 February 2000, First Nations House of Learning and the UBCMuseum ofAnthropology, University ofBritish Columbia (UBC), Vancouver,British Columbia, Canada, Hosted by the Union ofBC Indian Chiefs. See statementat www.ubcic.bc.ca/protect.htm.7 For information about Eben Hobson see endnote 1.REFERENCESAnonymous (1984) ‘The Western Arctic Claim: The Inuvialuit Final Agreement’,Indianand Northern Affairs CanadaAnonymous (1993) ‘Agreement between the Inuit ofthe Nunavut Settlement Area andHer Majesty the Queen in Right ofCanada’,Indian and Northern Affairs Canada andthe TungavikAustralia International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS) (1997, revisedversion) The Burra Charter (The Australia ICOMOS charter on caring for places ofcultural significance). Kingston, ACTBergin, A (1993) Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Interests in the Great Barrier ReefMarine Park. Great Barrier ReefMarine Park Authority (Research Publication No31), Townsville, QueenslandBomford, M and Caughley, J (1996) (eds) Sustainable Use ofWildlife by Aboriginal Peoplesand Torres Strait Islanders. Bureau ofResource Sciences, Australian GovernmentPublishing Service, CanberraCape York Regional Advisory Group (1996) CYPLUS Draft Stage 2: A Strategy forSustainable Land Use and Economic and Social Development. Department ofLocalGovernment and Planning, Cairns, and Department ofthe Environment, Sport andTerritories, CanberraChristie, J (1996) ‘Biodiversity and intellectual property rights: implications forindigenous peoples’ in Sultan et al (eds)Ecopolitics IX Conference; Perspectives onThe ‘wild’, the market and the native105
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Chapter 5Sharing South African National Parks:Community land and conservation ina democratic South AfricaHector Magome and James MurombedziINTRODUCTIONEnvironmental policy initiatives in the recently democratized South Africa (since1994) are attempting to strike a delicate balance between two urgent sets ofpolitical issues. The first are the pressing needs and aspirations ofpreviouslydisenfranchized, but now politically powerful, majority ofblack people (90 percent ofthe 44 million population).1The second are the requirements ofthehighly politicized but equally powerful global environment. Having beenmarginalized for nearly a century, the previously disenfranchized constituencynow derives power from their vote or potential subversive actions, both ofwhich can be used to unseat politicians. To avoid this, livelihoods must beimproved as a matter ofurgency. Already there is a plethora ofappealing terms,such as ‘black economic empowerment’ and ‘fast-tracking development’, thatact as constant reminders to politicians about the promises they made duringelections. Indeed, the lesson ofhistory in decolonized African states is thatdemocratization must mean more that just creating new political institutions;increasingly, it must bring about the trickle-down of‘visible’ economic benefitsto the broader constituency. However, since the ‘peaceful’ transition to majorityrule, South Africa has shed more jobs than it has created and the local currencyhas lost over 100 per cent ofits value. This situation does not augur well for acountry that is dependent on imports.South Africa is expected to take action on its signature to Agenda 21 and itsratification ofthe Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The country isalready feeling the dictates ofglobal environmental issues, and it is hosting twomajor international meetings, the Rio Plus 10 Earth Summit in 2002 and the
World Parks Congress in 2003. Politicians are being pressured to deliversomething quantifiable at these events. In terms ofthe number ofendemicplant species, South Africa ranks among the top ‘biodiversity hot-spots’ in theworld (Cowling and Hilton-Taylor, 1994; Johnson, 1995). The Cape FloralKingdom, with some 8500 plant species, 6500 ofwhich are endemic, is the‘hottest spot’ and unequalled botanical reserve ofglobal importance. However,with only 6 per cent (70,000km2) ofthe land surface under state protected areas,the country is far from the 10 per cent goal set by the World ConservationUnion (the International Union for the Conservation ofNature and NaturalResources – IUCN). To complete a system ofnational parks, over UK£300million (US$480 million) will be required for land purchase.The financial burden associated with expanding national parks must betraded offagainst social needs such as health care and other welfare services. Infact, the state is struggling to fund existing protected areas, and in some areasmanagement borders on criminal neglect (Kumleben et al, 1998). Someneglected protected areas from nearly bankrupt provincial conservation agenciesmight be added to the portfolio ofSouth African National Parks (SANParks) tocurb widespread criticism that the country cannot adequately manage itsconservation mandate. However, SANParks is also financially burdened and haslaid off1000 ofits 4000 employees. To achieve the 10 per cent IUCN ideal,some 50,000km2ofadditional land (2.5 times the size ofScotland) must beacquired. Equally, to meet the imperatives ofland restitution, the state mustsomehow provide land to the majority ofits citizens, currently restricted to 15per cent ofthe country’s total land surface. This chapter analyses the SouthAfrican state’s difficulty in trying to combine land restitution for thedisenfranchised majority ofits citizens and in taking a lead in biodiversityconservation, particularly in the context oftrans-frontier conservation areas.LAND DISPOSSESSIONThe history ofland conquest in South Africa is well documented (Magome,1996; Tordoff, 1997; Reader, 1998; Ross, 1999). Briefly, land dispossession inSouth Africa was based upon apartheid policy, a racially based separatedevelopment strategy that was designed by government to advance and benefitthe interests ofits minority white citizens at the expense ofits majority blackpeople. Although colonial influence in South Africa dates back to 1652, whenthe first European settlers arrived, the land conquest was institutionalized whenthe apartheid government passed the Natives’ Land Acts of1913 and 1936,which restricted land ownership by black people to just 13 per cent ofthecountry’s total land area.The land set aside for black people consisted offragments scattered inselected areas ofthe country, first called ‘native reserves’ and later ‘homelands’.This land was,with few exceptions,infertile and thus agriculturallyunproductive. This situation forced many black males into the migrant labourSharing South African National Parks109
system ofthe gold mines. Black families were also forced to settle for cheapwages on maize farms. For this reason, these acts have been described as theproduct of the alliance of ‘gold and maize’ (Worden, 1995). Most forcedremovals took place between 1958 and 1988, over which period over 3.5 millionblack people were compelled to settle in unsuitable areas.LAND REFORMApartheid officially ended on 27 April 1994, when a transition to democraticrule was made. However, its land conquest legacy still lives on. To redress thislegacy, the government legislated its Restitution ofLand Rights Act 22 of1994,which is dominated by three factors (see Table 5.1). The first is the restitution ofland rights, which aims to restore or compensate people for land rights lostbecause ofracial laws passed since 19 June 1913. The limitation here is thatemphasis is placed on restitution, not restoration. This applies a strict judicialprocedure to what, in essence, is a political problem (Winberg and Weinberg,1995). The second is land redistribution, which aims to provide the poor withland for residential and productive use in order to improve their livelihoods.The rationale is that it will be difficult for the poor to buy land on the openmarket without state assistance. The third is land tenure reform, which issupposed to restructure land rights. The dilemma is that the post-apartheidconstitution protects the land rights ofthose unfairly privileged by the previouspolitical order.110Decolonizing NatureTable 5.1 The key elements ofthe land reform process, South Africa, post-1994FactorKey relevant issues to be addressedRestitution•Ensure that rural and urban claimants dispossessed of land after 1913 receive restitution in the form of land or other acceptable remedies.•Ensure that proper administrative and financial arrangements are developed and implemented in order to respond to claims in the time limit set.Redistribution•To respond to differing needs and aspirations for land in rural and urban areas in a manner that is equitable and affordable and, at the same, to time contribute to poverty alleviation and economic growth.•To address cases of landlessness that often results in land invasions.Tenure reform•To resolve the overlapping and competing tenure rights of people forcibly removed and resettled on land to which others had prior rights.•To strengthen the benefits of communal tenure systems and, at the same time, bring changes to practices, which have eroded tenure rights and the degradation of natural resources.•To extend security of tenure to the millions of people who live in insecure arrangements on land belonging to other people, especially the predominantly white farming areas.
Land claims must be validated through extensive research in order to ascertainwhether people were removed under discriminatory legislation or practices, andwhether restoration of land rights is feasible and, if not, what alternativecompensation can be offered. Valid claims are subjected to the land claimscourts, which follow bureaucratic procedures and require due processes oflistening to conflicting testimony. However, that is the way democracy works,slowly, with painful attention to detail and substance, so that new forms ofjustice do not create new injustices (Winberg and Weinberg, 1995). This mightexplain why only 9 per cent ofhouseholds removed have lodged land claims(see Table 5.2). Therefore, in practice, land reform is a cumbersome legalprocess (Murombedzi, 1999). Claimants must, as a matter offact, balance thecosts ofa legal battle against the benefits ofrestitution because winning a courtbattle is only the first step on a rough road ofeconomic development that mightnot be achieved in the lifetime ofmany claimants.LAND CLAIMS IN NATIONAL PARKSNational parks are conventionally viewed as sacred in global conservation –places where human habitation is excluded, except for employees and payingtourists (see Chapter 2). Yellowstone National Park in the US, established in1872 through forced removal ofindigenous Indians, remains the icon and themodel followed by many countries. Icons are rarely challenged; but in SouthAfrica national parks are increasingly being targeted for land restitutionobjectives. Indeed, the White Paper on the Conservation and Sustainable Use ofSouth Africa’s Biological Diversity(Republic ofSouth Africa, 1997) specificallystates that:The government will through the Land Restitution Programme, and inaccordance with the Constitution ofSouth Africa and the Restitution ofLand Rights Act 22 of1994, facilitate the settlement ofland claims, takinginto account the intrinsic biodiversity value ofthe land, and seeking outcomesSharing South African National Parks111Table 5.2 Number ofhouseholds reclaiming their land in South Africa, post-1994ProvinceNumber movedNumber reclaiming Per cent reclaiming landlandEastern Cape51,69530616Free State122800KwaZulu-Natal8228269733Mpumalanga11,995189116North West22,373250011Northern Province46,07522525Total141,59412,4019Source: South African Institute of Race Relations (1999)
which will combine the objectives ofrestitution with the conservation andsustainable use ofbiodiversity (p34).So far, there are two case studies where the land rights oflocal people havebeen restored in national parks. These land claims were, at the insistence ofthestate, resolved outside ofthe courts. In this climate, conflicting objectivesbetween the claimants, often preoccupied with resource use, and SANParks,primarily concerned with non-use ofresources, were harmonized using foreignmodels of joint management. Sadly, these models have not had extendedimplementation periods; but there are already mixed feelings within theconservation fraternity about their desirability. The concern is whether localpeople can be entrusted with co-management. In contrast, we question theseco-management models.The Richtersveld National ParkThe Richtersveld National Park (Richtersveld), 1625 km2in extent, is situated inthe north-western corner ofthe Northern Cape Province (Figure 5.1).2Richtersveld represents the unique arid mountain landscapes ofthe endemicsucculent Karoo vegetation and wilderness features ofthe Namib Desert. TheOrange River cuts between Richtersveld and Ai-Ais National Park in Namibiabefore draining into the Atlantic Ocean. Richtersveld evokes conflictingemotions because it captures the harshness ofthe desert and the endurance ofthe human spirit. Its diverse wild fauna and flora have adapted to an annualrainfall between 50mm and 300mm. Similarly, the Nama community has adaptedto this hostile climate and has, for centuries, led a pastoral nomadic life.In 1990, the communal land rights ofthe Nama in the planned nationalpark were affirmed. The apartheid regime had wanted to ‘protect’ this landscapesince the late 1960s; but it was only in 1991 that part ofthe land was proclaimedas a national park. The proclamation was made only after a successful courtinterdict by some 3000 affected Nama people. Indeed, the establishment ofRichtersveld, as originally conceived, had met with strong opposition from theNama, as they would have lost access to communal rights, such as grazing forlivestock, firewood, medicinal plants and honey. SANParks (then the NationalParks Board) conceded defeat and subsequently agreed to enter intonegotiations with Nama representatives. At the time, the political climatefavoured the Nama because it was during the dying days ofthe apartheidgovernment and the rights oflocal people were being affirmed (Archer et al,1996).The outcome ofthe negotiations granted the Nama significant concessions,including:•creating a contractual agreement that recognized the Nama as rightfullandowners;•a lease fee ofUK£20,000 (US$32,000);3112Decolonizing Nature
•maintaining grazing rights for a total of6600 livestock, mainly goats andsheep;•reducing the duration ofthe lease ofland for the proposed park from 99 to30 years in order to allow renegotiation ofNama rights;•reducing the size ofthe park from 2500 to 1625km2and providing 800km2additional grazing land;•guaranteed job opportunities; and•creating a Management Planning Committee between SANParks and theNama, with the latter having more representation than the former; the chairofthis committee alternates annually between SANParks and the Nama.These concessions resulted in SANParks taking less and giving more ascompensation for reduced grazing rights than they had originally proposed. Allofthe operational costs ofmanaging Richtersveld are borne by SANParks.Sharing South African National Parks113Figure 5.1 Richtersveld National Park, South AfricaN A M I B I AS O U T H A F R I C AAlexander BayProposed TFCABoundaryPotential expansionto the NorthPotential FarmsMoedhouCanyon Nature ParkHunsbergFive-Farm050kilometresRichtersveldNationalParkAi-AisCapeTownS O U T HA F R I C AN A M I B I AWindhoekA N G O L AB O T S W A N ARichtersveld/Ai-Ais TFCA0500km
The Kruger National ParkThe Kruger National Park (Kruger) covers 20,000km2ofland – an area the sizeof Scotland or the state of Massachusetts (see Figure 5.2). Although theecological importance ofKruger is now advanced as the key reason for itsnational park status, political agendas were at the core ofits creation(Carruthers, 1995). Kruger was initially established as a game reserve in 1898 inorder to rebuild wildlife numbers following overhunting in the area. Throughforced removals oflocal people and the consolidation ofvarious state gamereserves, Kruger was consolidated to its current size during the 1970s. Thereserve gained popularity as ‘a hunting ground’ for a limited number ofprivileged white South Africans; and when it gained the national park status, it114Decolonizing NatureFigure 5.2 Kruger National Park and the Makuleke land claimSOUTHAFRICA050kilometresZIMBABWEGaza/Kruger/GonarezhouTransfrontier parkGreater GKG TFCAConservation AreasBanhineBanhineNationalNationalParkParkZinaveZinaveNationalNationalParkParkBanhineNationalParkZinaveNationalParkMOZAMBIQUEGonarezhouNational ParkGaza /CoutadaKrugerNationalParkHarareZ I M B A B W ES O U T HA F R I C AZ A M B I AMaputoMALAWIM OZAMBI QU ELESOTHOSWAZI-LAND5000kmSengwaCommunallandMakulekeCommunityPrivateGamesReservesGaza/Kruger/GonarezhouTFCA
became ‘a playing ground’ for local and international tourists. Black people werelegally restricted from entering Kruger, which also acted as a military buffer areaagainst the so-called terrorists from Mozambique, hence its shape. The forcefulremoval of1500 Makuleke in 1969 is a recent act in the history ofKruger. Theirprevious residence is still demonstrated by vivid marks on a huge baobab tree(Adansonia digitata) and the remnants ofdemolished buildings.In December 1995, the Makuleke lodged a land claim ofabout 250km2against the northern section ofKruger (see Figure 5.2). The claim was on thegrounds that they were deprived oftheir land rights based upon discriminatorylegislation, as they were forcibly removed with no adequate compensationoffered for land and possessions lost. From the outset, the Makuleke land claimraised both hopes and fears (Steenkamp, 1998). Some saw it as a test ofpoliticalcommitment to the goals ofbiodiversity conservation and ofland restitution.This sparked hopes oftrue community participation in the management ofnational parks. To others, particularly conservative officials ofSANParks, theclaim touched raw nerves. When the land restitution commission confirmed thevalidity ofthe claim, SANParks wanted to fight to the bitter end; but there wasmuch political pressure to settle amicably. From this perspective, the settlementrepresented a ‘worst fear come true’ and a sure sign ofimpending disintegrationofthe national parks system (Steenkamp, 1998). However, to those sympatheticto the Makuleke, the claim symbolized the biblical fight between ‘David andGoliath’, and the Makuleke did win despite the odds being heavily stackedagainst them.The state’s precondition for restoring the land rights ofthe Makuleke wasthat the claimed land would continue in its current use ofbiodiversityconservation (De Villiers, 1999). The Makuleke agreed that their land would beused subject to the following conditions:•No mining or prospecting may be undertaken and no part ofthe land maybe used for agricultural purposes.•No part ofthe land may be used for residential purposes other than fortourism, but these must meet the requirements ofan environmental impactanalysis.•The land will be used solely for conservation and its related commercialactivities.•A servitude must be granted to SANParks to ensure that it can perform itsobligations in terms ofthe agreement and the National Parks Act.•No act shall be performed that is detrimental to the obligation ofthe stateshould the area be declared a Ramsar site.•SANParks will be afforded the right offirst refusal should the land beoffered for sale.Under these strict conditions, the Makuleke are only entitled to commercialdevelopments on their land with limited harvesting of abundant wildlifespecies. Despite these restrictions, the Makuleke still agreed to have the landSharing South African National Parks115
declared part ofKruger for 50 years provided that the agreement may becancelled after 25 years. The Makuleke further agreed that even ifthe reclaimedland were to lose its status as national park, it would still be used for biodiversityconservation purposes. A joint management board, with equal representationfrom both parties (and its chair rotating annually), is supposed to be responsiblefor the day-to-day management ofthe reclaimed land; and decisions are alsosupposed to be taken by consensus. In reality, SANParks is the managementauthority because it has control over wildlife, the key resource that can make adifference to the lives ofthe Makuleke. Control over wildlife is, indeed, thegreatest source ofconflict between representatives ofthe Makuleke and ofSANParks.SIMILARITIES AND DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THETWO CASE STUDIESIn South Africa, protected areas are fenced in, thereby limiting opportunities forlocal people to be involved in their management. As a result, there is a strongtemptation to use case studies such as the Nama and the Makuleke as SouthAfrican models ofcommunity-based natural resources management (CBNRM).We caution against this, for even though these case studies may, in time, evolveto mirror the rhetoric of CBNRM, currently they do not. South AfricanCBNRM models in their ‘true’ form might exist in situations where traditionalpeoples such as the San have developed their own institutions (rules ofthegame) to try and approximate sustainability ofresource use. In this context,state agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) either ‘accelerate’or ‘decelerate’ what is already in motion. In contrast, our two case studies can betermed conservation and development initiatives (CDIs) that are designed andoperationalized by government agents or NGOs advancing a discourse thatconservation and the development ofrural people can be linked to mutualadvantage (Magome, 2000).The discourse on CDIs is often couched and packaged with the rhetoric ofappealing terms, such as ‘community participation and empowerment’ or ‘jointmanagement’, in order to disguise its main agenda ofbiodiversity conservation.CDIs offer the lure ofa win–win solution to the human–wildlife conflict(Adams, 2001) and are often used as a ‘tactic’ to convince local people about theimportance ofwildlife conservation (Fabricius et al, 2001). Local people areexpected to trade off their short-term livelihood needs against long-termsurvival ofwildlife, to tolerate their conflict with wildlife, and, in the extremeform, to endorse Western conservation ideals. These crypto-conservationstrategies partly explain why individuals who advance this discourse often rushto judge projects on the ground, and, invariably, conclude that results are‘mixed’, or that linking conservation and rural development ‘does not work’(Adams and Hulme, 2001). This begs the question: whose discourse is beingadvanced? We avoid this trap, preferring to highlight similarities and differences116Decolonizing Nature
between the two case studies and drawing conclusions based upon the objectivesofdifferent actors involved in CDIs.Similarities between the case studiesThe similarities between these two case studies are mainly geographical. TheNama (Northern Cape) and the Makuleke (Northern Province, now renamedLimpopo Province) are located in the furthest and most neglected corners ofSouth Africa’s extremely poor provinces. Both communities are far away fromthe metropolitan areas oftheir provinces and must survive under extremelydifficult situations. Unemployment levels in these provinces are high (40 percent) and are matched by high proportions ofadults without education (30 percent). In the two case studies, unemployment is as high as 80 per cent, andlivelihoods depend upon a mixture oflivestock farming and cash income. Forthe Makuleke, some oftheir cash is derived from limited trophy hunting ontheir land, and from manufacturing industries located 200–500km away fromtheir villages. In the Nama case, some cash is earned from concessionsnegotiated in Richtersveld; but most ofit is derived from direct employmentfrom a diamond mine located inside the national park. In both situations, limitedemployment opportunities are realizable from the national parks.Richtersveld is a ‘biodiversity hot-spot’ that is complemented by the Ramsarsite status of Orange River Mouth wetland.4In contrast, Kruger is not abiodiversity hot-spot, but to the privileged South Africans it is a model nationalpark. The Makuleke land benefits from the Kruger brand – its huge size and‘big five’ status, including lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino and elephant. TheMakuleke land contains the unique floodplains and wetlands ofthe Limpopoand Levhuvu rivers, and the latter awaits the Ramsar site listing. Each ofthe twocase studies attracts some 30,000 tourists a year; but these are ‘extremeadventure-seeking’ tourists, as the temperatures in these areas often climb ashigh as 40° Celsius.Differences between the case studiesThe differences in the two case studies are socio-political in nature. During theapartheid era, the Nama region was classified as a ‘coloured reserve’.5Thismeant that the Nama were treated marginally better than black people in ‘nativereserves’or ‘black homelands’.For instance,although the apartheidgovernment wanted to declare both areas parts ofnational parks during thelate 1960s, in the case ofthe Nama this was only achieved in the early 1990s.No forced removal took place, and the Nama gained significant control oftheir land. Other inhabitants, referred to as ‘late arrivals’, keep to differentsections ofRichtersveld. Therefore, the social structures and identity oftheNama have remained relatively intact, and they retained some oftheirtraditional practices. However, Richtersveld is isolated from key economic hubsofthe country, such as Johannesburg, Pretoria and Cape Town; as result, itsinhabitants feel trapped.Sharing South African National Parks117
In stark contrast, the apartheid government, using brutal military force,peremptorily removed the Makuleke in 1969. The Makuleke lost their identity,pride, history and access to a rich diversity ofresources. They were dumpedsome 100km away from their original area and were made subject to a powerfulethnic group, the Mhinga. This destroyed most oftheir social structures, whichhad to be rebuilt through determination and good leadership. The Makulekewaited 30 years to get their land back. When they did, the settlement was seen assymbolic because it limited their ability to optimize use ofthe reclaimed land,and the concessions they won were relatively insignificant, making them appearas ‘losers’ and SANParks as ‘winners’.CONTRACT NATIONAL PARKS OR JOINT MANAGEMENT?The Nama and the Makuleke experience ofagreements with the state areparticularly interesting in the light ofa South African model ofmanagingnational parks in partnership with private landowners. Contractual nationalparks are becoming increasingly popular in South Africa as a model throughwhich it is hoped that biodiversity conservation, social and developmentobjectives can be met (Reid, 2001). This model evolved during the apartheidperiod, when the state, desirous ofexpanding national parks, entered into legalagreements with politically powerful private landowners. These were whitefarmers, and thus the state could not afford to upset them through landexpropriation. The National Parks Act 57 of1976 was amended to allow joiningprivate land with national parks to mutual advantage. Such land was registeredas a ‘contract national park’ and was reclassified as a ‘schedule II’ national park,denoting its lesser status compared to ‘schedule I’ national parks, which arestrictly state owned.In contract national parks, there is provision for landowners to generateincome, primarily through tourism-related activities, including limited harvestingofsurplus wild plants and animals. By entering into contract national parkagreements, SANParks gains additional land for biodiversity conservationpurposes, resulting in increased movement ofwildlife over a larger system. Thelandowner retains title and undisputed management rights to his or her land,but must harmonize land-use practices with conservation. This often meansgiving up agriculture. However, agriculture in most areas adjacent to nationalparks is unprofitable, mainly due to marginal rainfall. Under a contract nationalpark, the price ofland can more than double in value because ofthe economicpotential ofconservation-related tourism activities.Devised under the apartheid regime, the contract national park model wasnot meant for the disadvantaged majority ofblack people. Nor were contractnational parks needed to mediate relations with black people: the governmentcould, ifit required their land for any purpose (including for a protected area),simply remove them. Those resettled had no legal recourse. Conservativeofficials ofSANParks did not know how to handle cases in post-apartheid118Decolonizing Nature
South Africa involving communal land under the existing contract national parkmodel. The notion ofsuddenly passing such a potential windfall to local people,who were typically treated by officers ofSANParks with utter disdain anddisrespect, was simply mind-boggling. The established approach to conservationwas a classic one of‘fences and fines’. Officials ofSANParks were regarded as‘police boys’ and local people as ‘poachers’ (Carruthers, 1995). However, tolocal people, the contract national park model was attractive because it offeredreal business opportunities. Indeed, ifa new joint venture between communaland state land could be given the same status as that between private and stateland, this would be like winning at lotto.The conservative officials ofSANParks, desirous ofchanging the fences-and-fines approach to a ‘fences-and-friends’ approach, modelled communalcontract national parks after those of the Aboriginal people of Australia.However in post-apartheid South Africa, black people are a major constituencyand have political power in a way that the Australian Aboriginals do not.Therefore, the unequal treatment ofprivate and communal landowners in theircontracts with the state represents a new form of‘ecological apartheid’ in thedemocratic South Africa. It perpetuates a dual tenure system (individual freeholdfor white farmers and communal tenure for black farmers; see Chapter 6 in thisbook). Furthermore, it fails to recognize the different political realities in SouthAfrica and Australia. Therefore, the co-management agreements oftheRichtersveld and Kruger National Parks are the result ofunequal negotiationbetween relatively disadvantaged community representatives and sophisticatedand advantaged officials ofSANParks. They are like chefs with quite differentideas on menus, and different powers to cook them. There is a conflict betweencommunities who favour consumptive use recipes (especially safari hunting),and SANParks, who insist on non-consumptive use or preservationist recipes.In this new imperialism, communities are prevented from reaching the fullpotential ofpossible resource utilization (Murombedzi, 1999). Indeed, co-management has seldom succeeded elsewhere in South Africa (Cock and Fig,1999) and contract national parks are unlikely to be a panacea for allconservation and development problems (Reid, 2001). Local people areincreasingly becoming aware ofthe problems associated with co-management.To circumvent these problems, the Nama and the Makuleke have adopteddifferent strategies to ensure that the menu that is served fits their recipe.The Nama strategyThe concessions that the Nama negotiated provide them with a ‘guaranteedincome in a highly variable environment’ and that with ‘no sweat’ on their part.The lease fee paid into the community trust fund is not linked to either themanagement costs ofRichtersveld or to the income generated by tourists. The6600 Nama livestock allowed into Richtersveld have not been properlyregulated, and the number has, on occasions, exceeded this limit (Hendriks,2000). As already stated, the costs ofmanaging Richtersveld are carried bySharing South African National Parks119
SANParks, and these include improving infrastructure. The Nama do nothingspecific to improve the status ofRichtersveld. They are, as a result, often seenby SANParks as presenting either a managerial dilemma, because they cannotbe wished away, or a nightmare because the ‘sweet dream’ of biodiversityconservation cannot be enjoyed under what is interpreted as ‘open-accessregime’ (with free exploitation ofresources).To the Nama, the big fuss about biodiversity, as exemplified by the interestsoftourists in rare plant species, seems very strange. There is, therefore, blatantconflict of interest between long-term biodiversity goals and short-termlivelihood strategies. Nama residents do not understand why tourists spend alloftheir money to see plants that are not ‘pretty’ and are totally useless to theirlivestock (Boonzaier, 1996). On the other side, the officials ofSANParks, unableto implement their Western model ofbiodiversity conservation, assume that thedonkeys and goats that the Nama keep in Richtersveld destroy nature. However,there is no evidence that livestock are incompatible with biodiversityconservation objectives (Hendricks, 2000). In fact, perceived incompatibilitybetween livestock and biodiversity conservation is more often based upon taste,cultural ethics and value judgement than upon empirical evidence.The main objective ofthe Nama is to maintain their livelihoods. To achievethis they have adopted a strategy that frustrates the objective ofSANParks,which is to conserve biodiversity through non-use principles. The Nama haveadopted a ‘wait-and-see’ attitude with SANParks. This has involved arriving lateat meetings or not turning up at all, contributing little or nothing at all inmeetings, and complaining about SANParks and its officials. Complaining aboutSANParks has, indeed, worked, because the managers ofRichtersveld get wornout and are quickly transferred to other national parks. The Nama delayed thedevelopment ofa management plan for Richtersveld and obtaining a title deedto their land. Any ofthese documents would have meant added responsibilityand management costs on their part. However, these strategies are now startingto show serious limitations. The park management plan and the title deed arenow much needed instruments in order to secure them a stake in the trans-frontier conservation area between South Africa and Namibia (discussed below).Their land title is still entrusted in the state, which has made its plans clear tothe Nama about the urgency ofestablishing a trans-frontier conservation area.The Nama are concerned that the state might appropriate or modify their landrights to achieve the objectives ofthe trans-frontier conservation area.The Makuleke strategyThe strategy ofthe Makuleke people with respect to Kruger is different. It fitsthe biblical analogy of‘David and Goliath’, with the ‘poor and weak’ Makulekeagainst the ‘powerful and strong’ Kruger. Over time, Kruger has establisheditself as a world leader in wildlife conservation by re-establishing thrivingpopulations ofelephant (over 10,000), white rhino (4500) and black rhino (300).These charismatic mega-herbivores – the major lure to foreign tourists – were at120Decolonizing Nature
one stage nearly extinct in the Kruger area. Recognizing the park’s preservationachievements, the Makuleke made it very clear that they endorsed biodiversityconservation in much the same way as SANParks and the ‘Green public’ did. Todemonstrate this, they planned to improve their livelihoods through developingtheir area for ecotourism – exactly what the Green public and SANParks wantedto hear – and this made the Makuleke ‘a model community’.Like David defeating Goliath, the Makuleke strategy had two well-executedelements: intensive home ground training and carefully targeted stones. TheMakuleke leadership rallied their constituency, harmonizing differences andachieving coherence on the use ofthe claimed land. This involved frequent andwell-planned community meetings and special formal education for the youngMakuleke in tourism hospitality and conservation management. This is the stuffthat appeals to donor agencies, and they poured in support, both technical andfinancial. The Makuleke also built a strong alliance with highly qualified andarticulate white South African professionals in community development andplanning of protected areas – ‘the Friends of Makuleke’. The Friends ofMakuleke took on the roles of coaches and mentors, and this dovetailedperfectly with the hunger for success that the Makuleke expressed. UnlikeDavid’s single lethal stone, the Makuleke have used a combination ofapproaches to make SANParks succumb. The arguments ofthe Friends ofMakuleke matched the esoteric language ofthe officials ofSANParks. TheMakuleke, using lawyers, finally obtained title to control their land.Two years after reclaiming their land, the Makuleke now find that theecotourism bandwagon that they had jumped on has been very slow in reachingtheir remote area. Investors are not ‘pouring in’ with bags full ofmoney. Afeasibility study on the development options in their region concluded that theirarea was marginal for viable tourism activities, but that limited hunting couldhelp the Makuleke bridge their financial hardship (Davies, 1999). In early 2000,the Makuleke, armed and informed by this study, proposed concessions fortrophy hunting oftwo elephant and two buffalo bulls in order to raiseUK£50,000 (US$80,000) for community projects. This initially met with strongobjections from the management ofKruger, who argued that hunting shouldnot take place in a national park. To this the Makuleke responded that it wasappropriate in a contract national park. The hunt took place. In May 2001 theMakuleke earned a further UK£80,000 (US$130,000) from a second huntingquota.TRANS-FRONTIER CONSERVATION AREASThe experience ofthe Nama and the Makuleke at Richtersveld and KrugerNational Parks are highly relevant to another major conservation initiative insouthern Africa, the establishment oftrans-frontier conservation areas(TFCAs). TFCAs are conceived ofas relatively large areas ofland within one ormore protected areas that straddle boundaries between two or more countriesSharing South African National Parks121
and allow the protection oflarge-scale ecosystems. Although TFCAs havebecome fashionable, and something ofa political bandwagon in conservationactivities, they are not a new initiative. Albert Park, first established by theBelgian regime in 1925, spanned the colonial states ofRuanda-Urundi and theCongo (van der Linde et al, 2001). Following independence in the early 1960s,the Rwandan part became Parc des Volcans while the Congolese part becameVirunga National Park (Wilkie et al, 2001). In 1932, Canada and the US jointlydeclared Waterton/Glacier as a ‘peace park’. By 2001, the number ofidentifiedadjoining protected area complexes had more than doubled, since 1990, to 169in 113 countries involving 667 individual protected areas (van der Linde et al,2001). In Africa alone, there are 35 complexes involving 34 countries and 148protected areas (Zbicz, 2001).In most potential TFCAs, ecosystems have been fragmented by arbitrarilydrawn political boundaries and fences have cut traditional migration routes(Hanks, 2000). A few functional trans-frontier protected areas still exist in Africadating from the colonial eras. For instance, the world-renowned Serengeti-Maraecosystem straddles the boundaries of Kenya and Tanzania, and migratoryspecies such as wildebeest and zebra cross between the two countries with totaldisregard for political boundaries. However, common trans-boundary resourcessuch as rivers are susceptible to overexploitation because users rarely bear thecosts ofabuse, typical ofthe ‘tragedy ofthe commons’ (Hardin, 1968). To avoidthis, the Southern African Development Community (SADC) emphasizes that‘regional cooperation is not an optional extra; it is a matter ofsurvival’ (SouthernAfrican Development Community, 1994). A good example is the Zambesi RiverBasin, which alone spans eight countries in the SADC region (Chenje, 2000).Since virtually every country in the SADC region shares a major river basin withat least one other country, the management of rivers becomes central toeconomic growth and political stability (Katerere et al, 2001). Other importantreasons for establishing TFCAs include improved biodiversity conservation(particularly, free movement ofwildlife); increased political cooperation (leadingto peace in the region); and economic growth based upon increased economiesofscale (merging resources is now a major global phenomenon). The key step inestablishing a TFCA is for the relevant governments to sign an agreement inwhich the principles ofthe TFCA are enshrined.In April 1999, the presidents ofBotswana and South Africa signed aninternational agreement to manage two adjacent national parks – Gemsbok(28,500km2) in Botswana and Kalahari (9500km2) in South Africa – as one singlelarge ecological unit covering 38,000km2in extent. In May 2000, the presidentsofthe two countries officially opened the ‘joined land’, Kgalagadi TransfrontierPark (Kgalagadi), as Africa’s first post-colonial TFCA. However, Kgalagadi wasthe easiest TFCA to establish. Wild animals have always moved freely betweenthe two countries, and for the governments ofBotswana and South Africa, thiswas a win–win situation. However, the San peoples ofboth countries weremarginalized in the whole TFCA negotiation process. Consequently, those inSouth Africa are now pursuing legal action to entrench their rights.122Decolonizing Nature
The ‘success’ ofKgalagadi has encouraged reduced time frames for realisinga further five new TFCAs by 2006 (see Figure 5.3). Two ofthese (theRichtersveld Ai-Ais and the Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou TFCAs) affect nationalparks and communities discussed in this chapter. The inventors ofTFCAs,business people, politicians, ecologists and NGOs, eager to be counted asfacilitators and ‘dream-makers’, are preoccupied with biodiversity conservationand promoting peace in the region under the banner ofimproved economicgrowth. However, they are often far removed from the realities on the ground,and cannot imagine the potential negative impacts that TFCAs can impose uponthe lives of local people. In this case, the Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou andRichtersveld Ai-Ais TFCAs threaten the relative stability ofthe Makuleke andthe Nama communities, who have just asserted their land rights and werebeginning to enjoy the fruits ofthe decolonization ofnature.Gaza-Kruger-GonarezhouOn 10 November 2000, the governments ofMozambique, South Africa andZimbabwe signed an international agreement on the development ofa secondTFCA, Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou (GKG). Three adjoining cross border areas– 10,000km2ofGaza Province in Mozambique; Kruger National Park,20,000km2(South Africa);and Gonarezhou National Park,5000km2(Zimbabwe) – together form a 35,000km2reserve. The planners ofthe GKGSharing South African National Parks123Figure 5.3 Proposed southern African trans-frontier conservation parksDurbanCape TownHarareZ I M B A B W ES O U T H A F R I C AJohannesburgGaboroneN A M I B I AWindhoekLusakaZ A M B I AA N G O L AMaputoPretoria5000km5000milesRichtersveld/Ai-Ais TFCAMaloti/DrakensbergTFCAKgalagadiTransfrontierParkShashe/LimpopoTFCABOTSWANAMALAWIMOZ AMB IQ UEGaza/Kruger/GonarezhouTFCALubomboTFCALESOTHOSWAZI-LANDN
TFCA, desirous ofsetting a new record, wanted to realize an area bigger thanPortugal, where ‘4000 beds in one park are turned into 7000 beds in a biggerTFCA’ (Peace Parks News, November 2000). The temptation to extend the TFCAto 100,000km2, literally gobbling up nearly halfofMozambique, is irresistible(see Figure 5.2). The TFCA was launched in November 2001 and renamedGreat Limpopo Trans-Frontier Park (GLTP), but neither Mozambique norZimbabwe was ready. Mozambique had requested that the opening ceremonybe delayed to April 2002 in order to allow them to ‘quickly’ build a tourismlodge facility so that they can show the world ‘something’ on the opening day.Zimbabwe, meanwhile, had become preoccupied with its internal political unrestand had not benefited from donor funding to the same extent as Mozambique;local people resettled themselves to some 110km2ofGonarezhou NationalPark. There were also concerns that South Africa was ‘rushing’ the process andpaying little attention to local people living inside the areas ofMozambique andZimbabwe. There had been no mention of the effects of the proposedconservation area on the Makuleke. It was, in fact, common knowledge thatSouth Africa was ‘pushing very hard’ and had, indeed, announced plans to startmoving, in August 2001, 300 of1100 elephants earmarked for Mozambique’sprotected area, now renamed Limpopo National Park.6The Makuleke region ofKruger is part ofthe union ofthe GLTP. If,indeed, free movement between country borders will lure tourists, then theMakuleke land will become the tourism hot-spot ofthe economically depressedLimpopo Province (previously Northern Province). However, the Makuleke arenot involved in the planning processes ofthe GLTP. The preparations andsigning ofthe memorandum ofunderstanding (MoU) between governmentsaffected by the GLTP went ahead without attention being paid to the aspirationsofthe Makuleke. Equally, no attention was paid to the aspirations and concernsofaffected local people in both Zimbabwe and Mozambique. The Makuleke areaware ofthe implications ofa fully functional GLTP. They will be pressured togive up hunting concessions and any management practices that Western idealsconsider distasteful in the core ofa TFCA. After four years, only two investorslook likely to build lodges on their land, and this is despite the Makuleke offeringinvestors lucrative lease arrangements, such as 33 years with options to renew(compared to a 20-year lease elsewhere in the larger Kruger). Even ifthedevelopers were to start building lodges immediately, there is usually a time lagbefore the full benefits oftourism activities are realized (Magome et al, 2000;Magome, 2001). For tourism to benefit local people, a critical mass is required.It is the number of‘bodies in beds’ that creates significant job opportunitiesand viable multiplier effects.Richtersveld Ai-Ais TFCAEnthusiasts for TFCAs, fully aware that the delayed opening ofthe GreatLimpopo Trans-Frontier Park might start to raise questions about thepracticality ofTFCAs as a whole, increased pressure to move ahead with an124Decolonizing Nature
‘easier’ project, to precede or run in parallel with the GLTP. The two adjacentnational parks, the South African Richtersveld National Park and Namibia’s Ai-Ais National Park, became the next logical TFCA (see Figure 5.1). RichtersveldAi-Ais will follow a different model from GLTP, in that land belonging to thecommunity on the South African side will be joined to state land on theNamibian side. Planners are also talking about extending this TFCA to link upwith the Huns National Park in Namibia and then, through the Namib NaukluftPark, Skeleton Coastal Park, and Commercial and Communal Conservancies inNamibia, to join, ultimately, the Iona National Park in Angola. Ifthis proposed‘Three-Nations Namib Desert TFCA’ is realized, it would, at 115,000km2, beenormous. Planning for Richtersveld Ai-Ais TFCA is at an advanced stage; butsigning the MoU was delayed when the Nama opposed what they saw as a crude‘cut and paste’ ofthe Kgalagadi model. The negotiations between communitiesand the state in both cases are interesting.KEY ACTORS IN TRANS-FRONTIER CONSERVATION AREASTo understand negotiations about TFCAs, it is necessary to understand thebehaviour ofkey actors. Debnam (1984) analyses the ability ofactors to usesources ofpower in order to influence the actions ofother actors, henceachieving their desired outcomes (see Figure 5.4). Interaction occurs in adynamic continuum ranging from weak to strong power extremes, so that at anypoint in time actors with weak power can suddenly, as in a ‘see-saw’, acquirestrong power, and vice versa. However, in situations where actors need buy-inor support from other actors in order to achieve favourable outcomes,compromises become imperative. As shown in Figure 5.4, the process can bedictated either by the desired outcomes or by the actors involved. In this analysis,we stretch the term ‘community’, despite its limitations, to cover all thecommunal landowners who are potential beneficiaries ofTFCAs – in this case,the Nama and the Makuleke people. ‘Government’ here refers mainly to itsagent SANParks, while NGOs are mainly the Peace Parks Foundation(interested in both Richtersveld Ai-Ais and Great Limpopo TFCAs) andConservation International (CI) (only interested in Richtersveld Ai-Ais TFCA).Government and NGO influence on TFCAsThe state and NGOs seek to establish TFCAs for a variety ofpopularizedpolitical reasons, such as ‘promoting peace in the region’, ‘pooling resources toimprove economies ofscale’, and the ecological principles ofreserve design(for example, the single, large or several small – SLOSS – principle, whichsuggests that the prospects for biodiversity conservation are improved ifreserves are large). The agenda is towards large reserves, with no limit ofhowlarge the system ofprotected areas should be. These promoters ofTFCAs areenergized by romantic ideals ofrecreating Eden, and the myth ofwild Africa,where wildlife roams free and is supported by revenue from a ‘Mecca ofSharing South African National Parks125
tourism’ that is free ofimmigration requirements. The power ofthe state islegislation and the discretion to exercise it, while NGOs derive their power fromtheir technical expertise and the ability to fund TFCAs. In this context, NGOssell grand ideas to the state, which, after buy-in, make these ideas governmentpolicy. As a result, these powerful NGOs are close to power holders and,therefore, powerfully influence decisions about TFCAs.Community influence on TFCAsThe key intention ofthe community is to improve livelihoods, and it tends tofavour smaller reserves. Communities are not certain how single, large reserveswill benefit them, and they demand that the benefits are quantified. In fact, thenumber and range ofstakeholders tend to be greatest in large-scale, multiple-tenure/land-use TFCA initiatives, involving many different levels (van der Lindeet al, 2001). The ‘single, large reserve’ model can be problematic forcommunities. For instance, the San were completely ignored in all the planningand implementation phases ofKgalagadi. This was despite the fact that, on theSouth African side, they will have restitution to 500km2ofthe national parkland. On the Botswana side, the government strongly contests the traditionalrights ofthe San. The benefits that the community already enjoy in contractnational parks, though somewhat limited, might be seriously threatened underTFCAs. Both the Nama and the Makuleke have lodged complaints about theseTFCAs because they feel that their land is being recolonized. In the words ofthe Makuleke elders (in Steenkamp and Grossman, 2001): ’ in 1969 John Vorster[then South African president] took our land away. In 1998 Mandela gave itback to us and in February 2000 SANParks tried to take it away.’In Mozambique, concern is for the recently proclaimed Limpopo NationalPark, where some 20,000 people live in abject poverty, located around riverbeds,126Decolonizing NatureFigure 5.4 The analysis ofpower in trans-frontier conservation areasOutcomesKey ActorsSources ofpowerActionIntentions
and eke out a subsistence living in the form offishing, grazing livestock andlimited agricultural production. What will happen to these people? Must they bedisplaced again? The first time displacement was caused by war – the secondtime it will be conservation (Mayoral-Phillips, 2000). Ofthe 20,000 affectedMozambicans, 6000 ofthem live in the core ofarea ofLimpopo National Parkand their fate appears sealed. They are most likely to be relocated elsewhere,while those living along the Limpopo River might be accommodated throughzoning their location as a multiple-use area. The irony is that lodge operators areunwilling to invest in Limpopo National Park until the product (mainly wildlifeand road infrastructure) is fully developed. In Zimbabwe, the Sengwecommunity, who are in the proposed corridor to link both Kruger andGonarezhou National Parks, are also uncertain oftheir future. If, under theCommunal Area Management Programme for Indigenous Resources(CAMPFIRE), their rights have not being devolved to the local level, why wouldpoliticians concerned with the GLTP behave otherwise?7The Nama have effectively stopped the signing ofthe MoU oftheRichtersveld-Ai-Ais TFCA, as originally scheduled. As the owners ofthe land,they argued that they had not given the government the mandate to sign theMoU on their behalf. The government and its supporting NGOs, unable tocontinue as planned, instituted a survey on the concerns ofthe Nama. Thesurvey revealed that the major concern ofthe Nama was insecurity oftenurebecause they do not hold title to their land. Secure title to land is the sine quo nonofpower in state, private and community partnerships (Magome et al, 2000).Their title is still with the state, which may use its fullest discretion to imposenew restrictions on the Nama. Even though the Nama have challenged this, theTFCA will happen with or without their full support. To understand this, weneed to discuss the politics and potential benefits ofmanaging community landin national parks, including TFCAs. The emerging pattern so far is that TFCAsare forcing rural local people into ‘choiceless’ partnerships with the state(Katerere et al, 2001). TFCAs attract huge foreign donor-funding, nationalprestige and international recognition, all ofwhich are much needed in thesouthern Africa region. As a result, state agencies and NGOs view them as aquick fix to lack ofdevelopment, particularly in remote rural areas. TFCAs arenot a universal panacea for joint management oftrans-boundary resource andwill not succeed ifinternal natural resources management does not work (vander Linde et al, 2001).POLITICS, COMMUNAL LAND AND NATIONAL PARKSLinking biodiversity conservation to the development of local people is apolitical matter because conservation is a political issue. Therefore, the naive,idealized picture ofapolitical conservation in Africa or anywhere else is absurd(Anderson and Grove, 1987). Indeed, in much ofAfrica, the key concern ofthestate has always been control over conservation and its associated benefitsSharing South African National Parks127
(Gibson, 1999). To the community, insecure tenure – in land and its biodiversityresources – is perhaps one ofthe greatest obstacles to achieving their statedobjectives. However, the call for vesting secure rights in local people issometimes portrayed as dangerous because government might lose its power toprotect wider societal interests. This creates conflict at three levels ofscale.Firstly, at the local level within the community itself, local politics spawnconflict. The Nama are an excellent example, and as stated by Archer et al (1996,p173):Various factions and individual interests, antagonistic towards each other,compete for political power and economic advantages. Attempts to achievecommunity consensus on issues such as land management, local governmentstructures, or development initiatives are intricate, time consuming, and oftenfutile. Ethnic differences such as those between the indigenous Nama peopleand the more recently arrived Basters are responsible for only part ofthecomplexity ofcompeting interests.Local people often lack effective leadership required to harmonize and toharness competing interests to mutual advantage. Within their constituency,arrays offuzzy entitlements abound, with all their members claiming rights tothe same resource. With a high ratio ofbeneficiaries to available resources,conflict intensifies. In Richtersveld, the affected Nama people have difficultiesexcluding the 3000 recent arrivals. Similarly, the 10,000 people in Makuleke feelas entitled to benefits from the claimed land as do the 5000 that were actuallyaffected by the removal. In this climate, the little benefits derived from contractnational parks become a source ofconflict.Secondly, at the national level, the greater public feels entitled to some ofthe benefits accruing from natural resources located in the spheres oflocalpeople. As summarized by Murphree (1995, p47):The mixed profile ofsuccess and failure in CBNRM [community-basednatural resource management]…in the region owes much ofits ambiguity toour strategic pragmatism in its implementation. We have placed policy andpractice before politics and thus have encouraged the birth ofCBNRM (in its‘modern’ version) into a politico-legal environment, which, ifnot hostile, ishardly a nurturing one. In so doing we have put an ironic twist on theconventional approach to planned change.The political environment is still hostile to local people and this is unlikely tochange, particularly as the pressure ofglobalization intensifies. Forced to takeup a ‘follow-the-stream role’, rather than craft their own strategies, developingcountries drag their constituencies along, including rural local people.Thirdly, at the international level, global politics take the centre stage ofconflict and, as stated by Peuhkuri and Jokinen (1999, pp133–134):128Decolonizing Nature
The complicated nature ofthe biodiversity issue makes it possible to emphasizeits different aspects. In other words, different interests tend to own the problemofthe loss ofbiodiversity and define it in their own terms. There are divisions,for example, between actors recognising or denying the problem, betweenproperty owners and groups without property rights, between anthropocentricand ecocentric values, and between local and global spheres ofaction.These are issues ofpower and, where a global resource such as biodiversity isinvolved, conflict becomes intensified. This begs two key questions: Why is theresuch a discrepancy between theory and practice when it comes to achievingworkable solutions in linking biodiversity conservation with the development oflocal people (Magome, 2000)? Are there cracks in the paradigm (Steenkamp andGrossman, 2001)? We argue that the idea ofa joint management model mightnot be flawed, but that its assumptions or expectations are incongruent withreality. As a concept, biodiversity conservation means different things to differentpeople and this alone creates management puzzles. The puzzles are constructedfrom different cultural backgrounds with false expectations ofwhat the outcomeshould look like. The two pillars ofbiodiversity conservation, altruism andposterity, are human-devised puzzles that do not fit with reality (Hardin, 1977).Indeed, biodiversity conservation has an appeal, in terms ofaltruism, that theindividual must constrain their own actions, to their own immediate detriment,for later benefit, or for the benefit of individuals of present and futuregenerations (Bell, 1987; Mentis, 1989). However, many contemporary values,attitudes and institutions militate against altruism (Caldwell, 1990). The reality isthat biodiversity conservation is a long-term strategy that conflicts with short-term individual interests, and this leads to resistance. Biodiversity conservationhas serious implications on how people use land – a highly limited resource.Most attempts to link biodiversity conservation to the development oflocalpeople are flawed for two reasons. The first flaw is the dogged beliefby mostpolicy-makers and practitioners that the ‘community’ exists and that it is thebest vehicle for implementing biodiversity conservation programmes. Thenotion that a ‘community’ is a group ofhomogenous people, all with commoninterests and purpose, is false. Despite this, it is difficult to dispel this beliefbecause it is already part ofreceived wisdom that is conveyed by a durablenarrative (Leach et al, 1999). The second flaw is a strong beliefthat the ancientrural past – prior to modernization – was compatible with nature and that it canbe easily recreated. However, there can be no return to a harmonious state ofnature. Hence, the pieces ofthe puzzles rarely fit because the issues surroundingbiodiversity conservation continually present themselves as moving targets in afierce battlefield ofcompeting and conflicting interests (Magome, 2000). Theright fit between local, national and international actors remains difficult to find.However, although the politics ofbiodiversity conservation creates unworkablepuzzles when it comes to implementing models, the potentials that can berealised from cooperation between various actors encourage the quest for bestpractice. Let us now consider these potentials.Sharing South African National Parks129
THE POTENTIAL FOR COOPERATIONWhy does the contract national park model work well with private landowners?There might be a variety ofreasons for this, but four are key. Firstly, the officialsofSANParks treat private landowners with respect because private ownershipis often perceived as superior to all other forms ofownership. In some extremecases, they are feared because oftheir wealth and ability to use legal systems todefend their rights. Secondly, private landowners are registered individuals,conservancies (group ofindividual landowners) or corporate bodies. At anygiven time, SANParks know exactly whom they are dealing with. Thirdly, theprivate landowners share both the management costs ofcontract national parksand benefits accruing therefrom. Fourthly, and very importantly, privatelandowners often reside or conduct their daily business inside contract nationalparks; therefore, SANParks cannot afford to ignore or marginalize them.In stark contrast, local people reclaim land in national parks in order to tryand maximize tourism benefits (Hanekom, 1996). They are, from the start,expected to co-manage with veterans against their position ofweakness, whichis compounded by ignorance ofthe highly globalized tourism sector. In thiscut-throat business, their ability to perform efficiently and effectively is severelylimited by the constant need to harmonize differences within themselves andthose arising between their veteran partners (the state and private sector).Therefore, to overcome problems related to an unequal power balance betweencommunities and SANParks under contract national parks, the mode ofconducting business might have to change. Critically, they need institutions withsufficient ‘hardness’ and solidity in order to manage their interests effectively(Steenkamp, 1998). The challenge facing local people in a contract national parkmodel is to approximate successful attributes displayed by private landowners.To put it bluntly, hardness ofinstitutions is, today, often linked to privatizing oroutsourcing the management ofassets. Indeed, despite the existence ofsuccessful communal tenure systems elsewhere, the increasingly globalizedworld accords more respect to private property rights than it does to other typesofproperty regimes.The central question is: do local people want to maximize returns on theirinvestment or do they want symbolic rights? Ifthey want to maximize returns,then they may have to use conventional business principles. We suggest thatlocal people should privatize or commercialize the management oftheir equityin protected areas to competent individuals, companies or corporations that canmatch the sophisticated and complex business world ofmanaging tourism-related activities. Privatizing in this context does not mean selling off, butoutsourcing. If, and when, they do, two potentials from such an arrangementcan be realised. Firstly, they can ‘hire or fire’ the privatized management basedupon its ability to maximize returns on their investment. Secondly, they canafford to invest time in training their own people to be future managers oftheirinvestment.130Decolonizing Nature
CONCLUSIONThe need to link biodiversity conservation to the development oflocal peopleis a critical issue in most developing countries. Post-colonial countries sufferfrom ‘poverty ofchoices and ofopportunities’ (see World Bank Report, 2000).What local people can or cannot do with biodiversity resources is largely drivenby available choices and opportunities. In most cases, they are helplessparticipants in biodiversity conservation processes over which they have littleinfluence. Where national parks are concerned, the agenda, disguised or blatant,is that biodiversity conservation should assume top priority, and developmentpaths based upon alternative uses ofthe land should receive a low priority(Magome, 2000). In southern Africa, trans-frontier conservation initiatives are areality and the choices ofaffected local people appear limited (Katerere et al,2001). The failure or success ofvarious models that try to link local people tobiodiversity management should be seen in the greater context oflocal, nationaland international politics. We conclude that ifthe dominant agenda isconventional biodiversity conservation, the political expediency that facilitatedthe decolonizing ofnature at the national level will cause its re-colonization atthe international level.NOTES1The definition ofblack people in the democratic South Africa is politically extendedto include Indians/Asians and ‘coloured’ people (see endnote 5), who form 12 percent ofthe population. Black people, ofAfrican origin, only constitute 78 per centofthe population and white people constitute 10 per cent.2 Thanks to Ian Agnew for redrawing the maps.3 In 2001, it was UK£10,000 (US$16,000) due to currency devaluation.4 The Convention on Wetlands,signed in Ramsar,Iran,in 1971,is anintergovernmental treaty that provides the framework for national action andinternational cooperation for the conservation and wise use ofwetlands and theirresources. There are currently 130 contracting parties to the convention, with 1129wetland sites designated for inclusion in the Ramsar List ofWetlands ofInternational Importance (www.ramsar.org).5 ‘Coloured’ refers to a mixed race resulting from interbreeding between white andblack people. During the apartheid era, coloured people were treated marginallybetter than black people.6 Limpopo National Park was proclaimed on 27 November 2001, following thelaunch ofthe Great Limpopo Trans-Frontier Park. During the launch, 30 elephantswere released into Mozambique as a symbolic gesture, but 3 adult bulls have sincehomed back to Kruger National Park. There has also been a ‘Limpopomania’because the Northern Province ofSouth Africa was renamed, in February 2002,Limpopo Province.7 The Zimbabwean National Parks and Wildlife Act (1975), amended in 1982, givesappropriate authority over wildlife to rural district councils, allowing communitiesto profit from safari-hunting revenues (see Chapter 6).Sharing South African National Parks131
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Chapter 6Devolving the expropriation ofnature: The ‘devolution’ of wildlifemanagement in southern AfricaJames MurombedziINTRODUCTIONThe idea ofintegrating conservation with development is an important themein debates about conservation in Africa. It offers the lure ofa win–win solutionto the problem ofconflict between the interests ofwildlife conservationistsand rural people, and it fits the broader model ofsustainable development(Adams, 2001). The idea ofconsumptive use ofwild resources by communitiesthemselves, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), toprovide both incomes to rural people and sustained populations ofwildlifespecies is central to the notion that wildlife should pay its way (see, for example,Western et al, 1994; Hulme and Murphree, 2001). In southern Africa, debateabout CBNRM centres on the experience ofthe Zimbabwean Communal AreaManagement Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE),andanalagous policies in countries such as Namibia (Olthof, 1995; Hasler, 1996;Murombedzi, 1999; 2001; Jones, 2001; Bond, 2001).However, the implementation of CBNRM policies in southern Africacannot be understood except in the context ofthe broader politics ofland. Thepost-independence political settlements ofthose southern African countrieswhose colonial histories are histories of settler expropriation (principally,Namibia, South Africa and Zimbabwe) are centrally concerned with protectingthe property rights of the settler class. The state’s capacity to implementmeaningful land reform is severely constrained by the nature oftheseconstitutional dispensations, as well as by the pressure brought on the state bythe ’ international community’, through aid or the threat to withhold it, torespect the constitutions and the so-called ‘rule oflaw’ (that is, legal protection
of colonial property relations). The Lancaster House Constitution, whichdefined the transition process from Rhodesia to Zimbabwe, made provision fora limited transfer ofland from the settler colonial class on a market driven basis,while at the same time making it impossible for independence government tochange that aspect ofthe constitution for the first ten years ofits existence.Similarly, the independence constitution ofNamibia, negotiated between theliberation movement in Namibia and the South African land and other property-owning classes, guaranteed the property rights ofmostly white South Africansin Namibia. Section 25 (1) ofthe South Africa constitution is typical: ‘No onemay be deprived ofproperty except in terms ofthe law ofgeneral application,and no law may permit arbitrary deprivation ofproperty.’Yet, the liberation struggles ofthese societies were also fought on the logicoffreeing the land and restoring it to its rightful owners. The oral histories ofmost communities in these countries remain histories ofthe brutal force usedby the colonial state to dispossess them and create new property rights for itscitizens. Thus, the fighters in Zimbabwe’s liberation war, for instance, werereferred to as Vana Vevhu(children ofthe soil). The post-colonial state insouthern Africa is, in effect, tasked with the responsibility ofprotecting andensuring colonial property rights regardless ofhow these rights were acquiredin the first place, and in direct contradiction to the ideals ofthe liberationmovement, which brought this state into being. The denial ofland and resourcerights to the indigenous populations is the fundamental injustice ofthese post-colonial dispensations.The post-colonial state has to control demands for land and other propertyrights by its ’ indigenous’ citizens – the erstwhile subjects ofthe colonial state –and to channel them into ‘development’ initiatives that do not threaten (andmay sometimes even reinforce) colonial land divisions. This is a problem akin tothe ‘native question’ that faced the colonial powers in the first place, and thatwas partially resolved through native administration (Mamdani, 1996). In dealingwith this problem ofcontrolling popular demand for an overhaul ofcolonialproperty rights, while at the same time extending some land and resource controlto indigenous citizens, the post-liberation state has not sought to change thecolonial dispensation. Rather, it has maintained, in some cases even perfected,colonial practices ofresource control. While it has espoused the rhetoric ofdevolution, it has continued to strengthen colonial institutions, includingtraditional authority (as redefined by colonial indirect rule imperatives), as a wayofexerting and increasing its own control over the countryside. Despite thediscourses of‘communal tenure’ and devolution to local communities, the statehas also retained rights to and control over the so-called ‘communal lands’ ofthe region.In this regard, devolved natural resources management, particularly throughcommunity-based natural resource management (CBNRM) programmes andprojects, has become a convenient intervention. It gives the state theopportunity to extend its control over certain economically and financiallyvaluable resources while, at the same time, appearing to be empowering local136Decolonizing Nature
‘communities’ regarding the control and use ofthese resources. Invented bywell-meaning donor organizations, CBNRM in southern Africa has thus cometo disguise the real dilemma faced by the state, which is powerless to resolve thecontradictions ofcolonial property rights. At the same time, its centralizingtendencies lead the state to want to increase its control over the countryside(Murombedzi, 1994). Thus, CBNRM in this region basically means enabling thecommunities to acquire property rights on land to which they were assigned bycolonial history, without questioning the legitimacy ofsuch historical origin, orchallenging the property rights ofthe colonial classes. CBNRM, in effect, actsto pre-empt such demand. The implementation ofCBNRM tends to strengthenlocal government in the same way that native administration was strengthenedby various colonial property laws that placed ownership ofcommunal propertyrights in the hands ofthe ‘Tribal Trusts’.The CBNRM programmes of the region are articulated on a logic ofpoverty alleviation and development. Control over natural resources is devolvedto local communities in order to create new opportunities so that communitiescan benefit economically from their exploitation. In practice, this means thatthese communities, particularly those involved in devolved wildlife managemententerprises, enter into arrangements with private-sector safari operators toutilize these resources, usually through safari-hunting and related enterprises, inexchange for concession and other fees. In return, the communities guaranteeunlimited access to these concessioned resources for the private operators.These guarantees are usually in the form ofrestricting all local contestations foraccess to the same resources, and usually involve increasing the policing by thecommunities ofthe use ofthe resources in question by individual communitymembers. Thus, local game guards and committees are created to develop newforms ofpolicing and to enforce regulations that secure the access ofprivateoperators to the ‘communal’ wildlife resource. The effect ofthis newarrangement is to increase the access ofthe private sector (typically representingwhite sectional interests) to the previously restricted ‘communal’ resources.Three propositions are advanced in this chapter. Firstly, the devolution of‘rights’ and control over natural resources in southern Africa, and the associatedCBNRM projects and programmes,have the effect ofextending andstrengthening the state’s control over the countryside through the strengtheningofrural local government, the creation ofnew community institutions, andland-use planning. Secondly, the devolved natural resources managementprogrammes function to strengthen and reinforce colonial racial and classpatterns ofaccess to, and use of, the natural resources in question. Thirdly,devolved natural-resources use has the effect ofcurtailing accumulation byindividual households in the communities who gain new rights to naturalresources, rather than promoting significant benefits for these households, asclaimed. The Zimbabwean CAMPFIRE programme will be used as a case inpoint.1Devolving the expropriation ofnature137
THE COLONIAL STATE, LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCESSouthern Africa today, and especially Zimbabwe, South Africa and Namibia, ischaracterized by a distinctive dual land-tenure system, with individual freeholdtenure for a ‘modern’, mostly white, farming sector and ‘communal tenure’ forthe ‘traditional’, exclusively black, farming sector. The historical origins ofthisinequitable land division are well documented. From the 1890s, the power ofthe settler colonial state in southern Africa grew on the basis ofthe state’scontrol ofland use and land tenure. The central concern ofthe state was landdistribution, with the aim ofdisenfranchising the indigenous population andcreating a large pool oflabour. Thus, the so called ‘communal lands’ oftheregion refer to those areas, formerly known as reserves and later as tribal trustlands, or Bantustans, that were created for the African population throughcolonial expropriation oflands for white settlers, and through subsequentpolicies aimed at creating reserves ofAfrican labour and at undermining Africanagricultural self-sufficiency (Phimister, 1986).In this scheme, native administration developed with dual objectives. Firstly,it sought to limit accumulation by individuals through expropriation, taxationand other extra-economic forms ofcoercion, thereby forcing them into wagelabour in settler-colonial enterprise. Secondly, native administration was a meansofstreamlining the administration ofthe reserves through the cooptation ofexisting institutional frameworks within the colonial administration through asystem ofindirect rule.The colonial process of establishing state ownership and control overnatural resources was, in essence, one ofreadjusting the power ofthe state withrespect to local communities regarding the use and management ofthoseresources. This consisted ofthe disempowerment ofthe local communities andthe concentration of power in the state and its agencies. The loss of thecommunities’ capacity to manage natural resources was therefore preceded by acapture ofpower over these same resources by the state. The disempowermentoflocal communities by the colonial state was achieved largely through thedestruction oflocal institutional arrangements for natural resourcesmanagement. In particular, local people’s rights to natural resources wereappropriated by the colonial state and vested largely with native administrators.Local institutions themselves atrophied through desuetude, largely because theybecame irrelevant due to their replacement by state institutions. At the sametime, however, the colonial state did not necessarily develop the capacity toreplace the existing local institutions, with the result that resource useincreasingly occurred without management in the communal tenure regimes ofthe region. The resultant resource degradation contributed to driving the nativesoffthe land and into wage labour; this could not have unduly concerned thenative administrators, at least initially.It is evident that even as the state sought to assume greater control overlocal natural resource use by local communities, this did not diminish theimportance ofthese resources to the sustenance oflocal livelihoods. It has138Decolonizing Nature
been demonstrated that where resources have been key to local productionsystems or livelihoods, local communities have invested in developing andimplementing appropriate regimes for managing the use ofthese resources(Scoones and Wilson, 1989). While, in some instances, local people did respondto state control by devising new mechanisms to manage their own use ofresources that were critical to their livelihoods, in most instances resource usecontinued without appropriate management.THE POST-COLONIAL STATE AND LAND TENUREThe issue ofland tenure (ownership, control, access and use ofland), togetherwith the extraction ofsurplus through extra-economic forms, are the mostimportant aspects ofthe agrarian question in southern Africa today. Thesequestions have their origins in the land appropriation strategies ofcolonialism,and the subsequent land policies adopted by successive colonial regimes, whichinvolved the alienation of land from the indigenous populations and itsconcentration in the hands ofsettler farmers (or large companies). In most ofsouthern Africa today, land distribution continues to demonstrate a distinctlydualistic nature, between so called ‘modern’ and ‘traditional’ sectors. Themodern sector typically comprises land held under freehold or leasehold tenure,mostly by the white settler farmers, while the ‘traditional’ sector is primarilymade up ofthe indigenous populations, supposedly engaging in subsistenceagriculture. Thus, an enduring impact of settler colonialism has been thecreation ofracially based land-distribution and tenure systems.Current concerns with land reform across post-independence Africa includeland ownership, distribution and access; land-use patterns and policy optionsfor optimizing sustainable land use; legal and institutional frameworks andprocesses governing land administration; land markets; and rural labourprocesses. There is considerable debate, particularly in Zimbabwe, concerningthe exact nature and characteristics ofthe tenure system operating in the so-called communal areas today. According to Cheater (1989), the currentdefinition ofcommunal tenure is largely normative and based upon anideological construct, starting in the colonial era, to rationalize the racial divisionofland. It was also designed to create an effective basis for the indirect controlofland and natural resources by the colonial state through the chiefs, and wascontinued by the post-colonial state in order to justify continued state controlover land. It has also been observed that the current idea ofcommunal tenureresulted from the colonial usurpation ofland, and power over land, from thetraditional chiefs. This created a power vacuum that the state was not anxious tofill, thus leading to local and consensual systems ofland allocation and use(Ranger, 1985; 1988).The growing power ofthe colonial state from 1893 onwards was basedupon state control of land use and land tenure in a process where landdistribution was the state’s central concern (Drinkwater, 1991). Bruce (1998)Devolving the expropriation ofnature139
and Scoones and Wilson (1989) maintain that the current system ofallocatingland to ‘communities’ originated with the colonial government, rather than priorto it. In this view, the attachment ofcommunities to a discrete piece ofland wasa function ofthe colonial system ofindirect rule, which passed control overland to chiefs and headmen as a substitute for direct political power. Pre-colonialself-allocation ofland (Bruce, 1990), significant and recurring inequalities inland-holding size among the indigenous African population (Ranger, 1985;1988), and African readiness to purchase land in freehold areas (Bourdillon,1987) are all cited as suggesting that the communal nature ofland tenure inZimbabwe’s communal areas may have been overstated.While this debate has continued, however, several programmes ostensiblydesigned to improve the management of‘communally held natural resources’for community benefit have been developed and implemented in the region.CBNRM in southern Africa has tended to focus upon the development ofprogrammes that address the use of specific high-value natural resources,particularly wildlife and trees. These programmes have tended to secure income-earning opportunities for a new entrepreneurial class, with its origins in thecolonial settler class, allowing them to earn income from opportunities in theformer native areas. It also creates the context for coopting at least somesections of the traditional authority, as corrupted by colonialism, in themanagement ofthese opportunities.Thus, CBNRM policies affirm colonial dispossession. Regarding wildlife, inparticular, colonial game practice has largely been retained intact by the post-colonial state because it seems to make good economic sense. The richpopulations of‘game’ in southern African countries seemed to convince theinheritor governments that tourism was a worthwhile sector ofthe post-colonialeconomy. Post-colonial governments have been attracted to this sector becauseofits ability to earn foreign exchange. Consequently, little attention is paid tolegislation that restricts social access to game and associated resources, with theresult that the wildlife industry in southern Africa has remained a class issue.CBNRM is justified in terms ofa decentralization-devolution ethic, whichquestions the centralizing interests ofthe state (both pre- and post-colonial).However, it does not question the property rights in which decentralizationoccurs.LAND REFORM ANDCBNRMLand-tenure reform redistributes not land, but rights in land. Similarly, resource-tenure reform redistributes rights to resources. The reform process constitutesadjusting the relative powers and responsibilities among the state, communitiesand individuals. To the extent that the region’s CBNRM programmes constituteadjustments ofthe rights ofthe state vis-à-vis local communities regarding certainnatural resources, they are, in fact, tenure reform programmes that attempt toreform the historical property relations ofcolonialism. CBNRM constitutes an140Decolonizing Nature
adjustment ofthe relationship between the state and society regarding valuablenatural resources located in the erstwhile reserves and Bantustans.Another major problem is the absence ofany legal status for the communities.This is only partially addressed in the devolved natural-resources managementprogrammes in the region. However, these programmes typically devolveproprietorship ofnatural resources to some level or other oflocal government,and stop short ofrecognizing community rights to natural resources.There is a tendency among practitioners and proponents ofCBNRM tolook to traditional authority as a natural repository ofthe community’s authoritysystem over natural resources. However, as with the ‘community’, there remainsno clear definition ofwhat ‘traditional authority’ is. The historical role ofthestate in designing, inventing, creating and recreating traditional authority to playcertain specific roles is problematic. Starting with the colonial project ofindirectrule, traditional authority in southern Africa has been engineered and re-engineered so many times that it is hardly fair to refer to the contemporaryauthority structures as ‘traditional’ at all. The concept of‘tribe’ was a particularlyuseful tool for colonial indirect rule, and was also the basis upon which varioustribal authorities and customary laws were created and enforced. Most CBNRMinitiatives profess an intention to further develop and enhance the capacity ofthese tribal authorities to regulate and manage natural resource use. In my view,what is required are approaches that, at least, problematize the position andimplications oftribal authority before identifying it as the necessary solution tothe authority problem for natural resource management.Ofconcern, also, is the continued dual legal systems that recognizecustomary law as some kind of ancillary legal system to which the more‘traditional’ members ofour society (that is, the black rural communities) canhave recourse when it suits them and the state. The migrant wage-labour systemcontinues to negate the customary law because migrants become subject to adifferent jurisprudence, while in wage employment, and typically choose not tobe subject to customary law when it suits them (Mamdani, 1996). A further legaland policy problem concerns tenure. By implication, CBNRM operates withincommunal tenure regimes. Yet, communal tenure is hardly secure, as most legalsystems in southern Africa do not provide for adequate security oftenure. Thiswas deliberately so, to allow for forced removals, privatization and otherdevelopment initiatives in both the colonial and post-colonial eras.CAMPFIRE AND RESOURCE-MANAGEMENTINSTITUTIONSIn Zimbabwe, the post-colonial Communal Lands Act of1982, in effect, vestsownership ofcommunal lands and resources with the state, and assigns to ruraldistrict councils the power to regulate land holding and land use in thecommunal areas under their jurisdiction. According to the act, access tocommunal land is in terms ofthe customary law relating to the allocation,Devolving the expropriation ofnature141
occupation and use ofland. Rural district councils (RDCs) regulate land use interms ofcommunal land by-laws produced by the ministry oflocal government,which provides for the planning and control ofland use within council areas.In some RDCs, the constituency also includes owners and occupiers ofalienated lands, held under private freehold or leasehold tenure. In such cases,the RDC has a dynamically different relationship to these private land-holders.In particular, private land-holders have full control over the planning and use ofthe land to which they have title or which they lease. The role ofthe RDC, inthis case, is to provide services. This contradiction has resulted in tensionsbetween the RDC and its constituencies. In South Africa, as the integration ofthe former Bantustansinto the post-liberation state continues, no solution hasyet been agreed regarding the question oflocal governance. Tensions continueto exist, especially between the traditional authorities (more commonly referredto as ‘tribal authorities’), ‘modern’ local municipalities (with their origins in theapartheid era) and the state’s own local councils.Natural resource management in southern Africa has been interpreted tomean the management ofnatural resources through some formal project orprogramme, rather than the everyday interactions between people and naturalresources in their daily struggle for livelihoods. Thus, CBNRM, in particular,refers to programmes that are usually sponsored by outsiders and backed by thestate, through policy or legislation, or both. Such programmes tend to bedominated by the wildlife management programmes – the Communal AreaManagement Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) inZimbabwe, Living in a Finite Environment (LIFE) in Namibia, and the variousgame lodge and tourism-based development projects ofSouth Africa. In theZimbabwe case, the National Parks and Wildlife Act of1975, as amended in1982, gives appropriate authority over wildlife to the RDCs for the communalareas, and to the land-owners for the private/leasehold tenure sector. Communalresidents typically do not determine how wildlife is going to be ‘produced’ andhow the ‘benefits’ generated are to be utilized. These decisions tend to be madeby the RDC and other ‘outsiders’. The level ofbenefit is thus affected by policydecisions over which the ‘wildlife producers’ themselves have little or no control.Moreover, communities also have to pay a variety oftaxes and charges tothe RDC for managing ‘their’ wildlife. Communities do not have the right touse wildlife, only the right to benefit from the use ofwildlife by others. Ownersand occupiers ofprivate lands on, the other hand, can decide on appropriatewildlife uses without any external influences and are free to appropriate all thebenefits ofuse, or to share some ofthese benefits with their communal landsneighbours in the case of ‘conservancies’. In practice, then, appropriateauthority has come to represent the decentralization ofauthority and controlover wildlife only to the statutory land authorities with jurisdiction overcommunal lands – the RDCs.Because ofthe absence offormalresource-management institutions in mostcommunities, a significant component ofimplementing CAMPFIRE has beenan institutional development programme aimed at creating new forms of142Decolonizing Nature
communal organization for wildlife management. In practice, this has beenimplemented through the creation ofvillage, ward and district wildlifemanagement committees in a process led by the Zimbabwe Trust, a local non-governmental organization (NGO) that has become the leading implementingagency for CAMPFIRE. The new committees are, in effect, subcommittees ofthe devolved local government units, the village development committee(VIDCO), the ward development committee (WADCO) and the RDC. As such,they get their legal authority over wildlife through both the Parks and WildlifeAct and the Rural District Councils Act.While this evolving institutionalization ofwildlife management at the locallevel defines some local legal authority over the resource, the institutionaldevelopment process itselfhas not developed into a process ofdefining localrights over the wildlife resource. Management has, instead, tended to be basedupon RDC control over wildlife. As such, wildlife management has beencompletely divorced from other local systems ofrights to communal resources.The institutional development programme has not attempted to identify existingways by which communities manage other communal resources, to which theyhave rights (for example, grazing or trees), or to define a place for wildlifemanagement within this system ofcommunal rights.Partly because ofthis, evidence suggests that most local people still do notview themselves as the joint owners ofwildlife; rather, they continue to see it asa resource belonging to either the government or the RDC (Murombedzi, 1994).Because institutional development in CAMPFIRE has taken the form ofcreating new‘formal’ institutions, it has tended to completely ignore thepreponderance ofexistingtraditional institutions in most land and resource-management situations in many communities in Zimbabwe today. This is largelybecause, in the absence ofclear rights to wildlife for the local communities,institutional development has tended to be defined outside ofthe communitiesthemselves, rather than to be responsive to internal micro-political dynamicswithin these communities. As a result, a lack ofregard for local resource-management decision-making mechanisms has contributed to the alienation ofcommunities from the CAMPFIRE initiative.Traditional authorities continue to play a leading role in managing andregulating the use ofcommunal resources. It has been demonstrated that whereresources are critical to the household economy, communities will invest in theirmanagement (Scoones and Wilson, 1989). Typically, such management isundertaken through the operation ofdiffuse systems ofrights to theseresources, adjudicated locally by traditional leaders and authorities. Lack ofrecognition from government and programmes such as CAMPFIRE has notcompromised traditional leaders’ authority, particularly over land and naturalresources (Ahmed, 1998). ‘Traditional leadership draws much ofits legitimateauthority from its embeddedness in the social and cultural life ofruralcommunities, where discourses of“tradition” associated with cultural identityare still persuasive for many’ (Cousins, 1998).Devolving the expropriation ofnature143
To the extent that institutional development in CAMPFIRE ignores localrights and knowledge systems completely, it is fundamentally informed by acentralizing and ‘modernizing’ ethic. This constitutes a huge contradiction in aprogramme that is supposedly a decentralization programme,creatingcommunity forms ofresource ownership.CAMPFIRE AND DEVOLUTIONAttempts are currently underway in CAMPFIRE to stimulate the furtherdevolution ofauthority over wildlife from the RDCs to the ‘producercommunities’ (CAMPFIRE News, 1998, p8). The Tenure Reform Commissionof1994, for instance, recognizes that communal land tenure in Zimbabwe, ineffect, gives all rights to communal lands to the government, and recommendsthat new village assemblies are created as communal property associations withclear and unambiguous rights to communal lands and resources.Thecommission bases this recommendation upon the operation ofthe CAMPFIREprogramme, and its demonstration ofthe capacity ofcommunities to controland manage resources over which they have clearly defined rights. However, asthe foregoing section has demonstrated, the CAMPFIRE programme woulditselfbenefit from the implementation ofthis recommendation, to the extentthat it will define more clearly rights for local communities to wildlife.It would appear that that CAMPFIRE has not sufficiently devolved rights inwildlife to local communities to the extent that these communities can use theserights to gain an increased stake in wildlife utilization enterprises at their multiplelevels ofvalue. Thus, communities have little control over wildlife management,little or no equity in wildlife utilization, and very few opportunities to providegoods and services to the wildlife utilization industry. In this regard, communityparticipation in CAMPFIRE can be seen as constituting little more than thereceipt ofhandouts.It has been observed that attempts to entice people’s participation inconservation through the distribution ofrevenues from some forms ofresourceutilization will not necessarily improve local stewardship ofresources (regardlessofthe extent ofthese revenues), unless, at the same time, rights to theseresources are devolved to local people. In this view:…such benefactions exacerbate the land-owners’ beliefthat they do, as anaspect ofcommon sense and natural justice, have a prior right to both use andbenefit from the natural resources on their land. Further, such benefit isinseparable from the powers ofdecision regarding general use that go withownership (Parker, 1993, p3).Because ofthe weak tax base ofmost local authorities, wildlife has become themost taxable commodity. For this reason, and also because ofthe traditionalmistrust oflocal people by local government staff, it has become increasingly144Decolonizing Nature
difficult to further devolve proprietorship ofwildlife to local communities. Thetaxation ofwildlife by local authorities has significantly reduced the levels oflocal financial and economic benefit, while, at the same time, facilitatingcontinued local authority control over wildlife management. The inevitableresult has been that nowhere in CAMPFIRE has wildlife come to represent aviable mechanism for household level accumulation. Consequently, CAMPFIREis seen as beneficial not to the extent that it contributes to household incomes,because this is an insignificant contribution, but to the extent that it subsidizesthe local authorities.In CAMPFIRE, then, wildlife management continues to be driven, in themain, by external policy interests rather than responding to local dynamicsstimulated by proprietorship. The RDCs, with appropriate authority, use thisauthority to provide services to a broad range ofwildlife resource users, as wellas to control potentially negative local community activities, such as livestockgrazing and arable expansion. RDCs also serve to mediate conflicts betweenlocal and other resource users, as well as to regulate the conditions under whichoutsiders actually access the wildlife resources. In addition, the mitigation oflocal contestations for access to the wildlife resource, expressed primarilythrough poaching, is a major function ofthe appropriate authority.CAMPFIRE AND THE SAFARI BUSINESSCAMPFIRE’s focus upon financial benefits appears to emphasize wildlifemanagement for the purpose ofsupplying the market demands for safari-hunting and tourism. Consequently, the management ofother natural resourcesupon which household livelihoods depends, perhaps to an even greater degreethan wildlife revenues, is ignored. Thus, the greatest beneficiaries ofthe wildlifemanagement services provided through CAMPFIRE are the safari operators,who benefit through increased security ofaccess to the wildlife, as well asprotection from the negative local community threats to wildlife throughagriculture, poaching and so on. Land reorganization and land-use planning alsoensure reasonable long-term security for wildlife habitat. Yet, communities donot manage natural resources in isolation. Systems ofrights that determine themanagement ofnatural resources are diffuse; however, CAMPFIRE attemptsto introduce an exclusive wildlife management regime without reference to thesediffuse and nested systems ofrights and management.Employment is often cited as one ofthe benefits ofCAMPFIRE. Althoughthere has been no attempt to document the number ofjobs created in thedifferent communities who participate in the programme, it is quite evident thatthe safari industry is capital intensive rather than labour intensive. Furthermore,the actual management ofwildlife by communities is undertaken by electedcommittees, rather than by dedicated organizations employing stafftoundertake routine tasks. Thus, most local people volunteer, rather than getemployed, in wildlife management in the CAMPFIRE programme. Moreover,Devolving the expropriation ofnature145
the actual methods ofwildlife utilization under CAMPFIRE are patently racist,and obviously alienating and humiliating for the local populations. The safarioperation industry continues to be dominated by whites, with very littleparticipation ofblacks in the skilled worker categories ofthese operations(hunters and guides). The majority ofblack employees in the safari industry arecooks and camp attendants. The success ofmost safari hunts depends upon thetracking skills and knowledge oflocal conditions and animal habits ofthe localtrackers, who are an integral part ofevery safari operation. Yet, these trackersare treated as unskilled labourers, rather than being recognized as qualifiedguides. Besides constituting another instance ofdevaluing local environmentalknowledge, this treatment oflocal trackers also demonstrates the contemptwith which local people tend to be regarded by the white safari operators.The historical reasons for the domination ofthe safari industry by whitesoriginate in the appropriation ofrights from the local population by the colonialstate. The racist conditions under which the safari industry in Zimbabwedeveloped exist to this day almost unchanged. Furthermore, in their desire toperpetuate the myth ofa wild, pristine African experience for their clients, mostsafari operations prohibit all local access into the safari-hunting camps, exceptas lowly paid labourers. Livestock and dogs are shot or otherwise harassed ifthey are seen as interfering with hunting operations (they indicate the presenceofhuman life in the ‘pristine’ wilderness).Individual safari operators also impose restrictions upon local activities inthe hunting areas, ranging from total prohibition ofany form ofaccess to someforms ofnegotiated access. This can only be possible because ofthe lack ofclarity regarding the nature oflocal rights to these resources in the CAMPFIREprogramme. In the hunting operations themselves, where locals have insistedthat members ofthe local communities should be attached to huntingoperations for monitoring or training purposes, there is no evidence that the so-called training programmes have actually resulted in any skills acquisition by thelocal people. To date, not a single community trainee in any ofthe CAMPFIREtraining programmes has qualified as a guide. Locals attached to monitor thehunting operations are typically left stranded in the village due to ‘lack ofspacefor them in the hunting trucks’; consequently, the communities remainsuspicious about what actually goes on out in the bush. Where local guides andmonitors participate in the hunt, the treatment they receive is absolutelydeplorable – they are viewed more as a nuisance than as an aspect ofcooperation between hunter and community.CAMPFIRE AND POVERTYThe poverty crisis facing rural households in Africa has been generally welldocumented. What is not as well documented, however, are the differentialimpacts ofpoverty on different households. One determining factor ofsuchdifferentiation is micro-climatic conditions. The CAMPFIRE programme146Decolonizing Nature
postulates that wildlife management is probably the most productive form ofland use in marginal ecosystems. CAMPFIRE is thus being implementedpredominantly in these marginal ecosystems, where there continue to be viablewildlife populations, and where there are obvious climatic limitations to arableagriculture and pastoralism. In essence, ifCAMPFIRE is to become a viableland use in such areas, it must offer a potential solution for the crisis ofaccumulation to the residents ofthese areas. Accumulation means assigningsocial and economic resources to improving the production process, and hasboth qualitative and quantitative aspects. Quantitatively, accumulation meansmore implements, more land for arable agriculture, more marketing points, moreinputs, and so on. Qualitatively, accumulation means the adoption ofnew andmore sophisticated production technologies (mechanization, improved seedvarieties, fertilizers, etc), better land protection, and the allocation ofland tomore productive uses (Barker, 1989).Viewed through the lens of household accumulation, the premise ofCAMPFIRE is that it will foster accumulation by allocating land to moreproductive land use (wildlife utilization) and by ensuring that the benefits ofsuch land use accrue directly to the individual household. Consequently, thesuccess ofCAMPFIRE in stimulating household accumulation in the marginalecosystems has to be tested against this premise. Wildlife management inCAMPFIRE, at least for the communities involved, means local programmes toenable the RDCs and communities to control arable expansion ofagriculture,grazing and livestock, through collaboration in land-use planning. In a few areas,such as in Masoka, land-use planning is itselfdevolved to the local community,although this alone has been insufficient to stop the expansion of arableagriculture.Elsewhere, wildlife management appears to entail the imposition oflimitations on quantitative accumulation. There is sufficient evidence from theinvestment ofCAMPFIRE dividends to demonstrate that accumulation formost households in the CAMPFIRE wards continues to be seen as a functionofexpanding arable agriculture and investment in livestock. In most communalareas, this accumulation depends upon access to offfarm incomes. Wildlifeincomes, on average, are too insignificant to constitute a source ofaccumulationcapital for most CAMPFIRE households. However, at the community level,wildlife revenues can constitute a source ofcapital for qualitative accumulation,mainly through the investment ofrevenues in providing agricultural services(marketing points, warehouses, sources ofinputs and food processingtechnology).In quantitative terms, available evidence suggests that CAMPFIREimplementation has actually constituted a constraint on the ability ofhouseholds to accumulate through arable expansion or the acquisition oflivestock. This has occurred through restrictions on the importation ofcattleand donkeys (for draught power) into those CAMPFIRE districts that did nothave them because oftsetse fly infestation, as well as through restrictions onarable agricultural expansion achieved through land-use planning. WildlifeDevolving the expropriation ofnature147
revenues have tended to be used as a carrot to encourage individuals to conservewildlife while land-use planning has been used as the stick to prevent theexpansion ofagriculture and to control domestic livestock.CONCLUSIONSIn small, discrete and relatively homogenous communities with access toexpansive wilderness, CAMPFIRE has been a phenomenal success in terms ofstimulating people to demand more secure rights to the wildlife resources fromlocal authorities. In such communities, it is evident that as community rightsover resources become clearer, and control enhanced, communities also beginto exert considerable influence over the actual utilization ofthe resource itself.The cases ofMahenye and Masoka are especially instructive (Murombedzi,2001; Murphree, 2001). According to Bond (1997), ‘there are a relatively smallnumber ofwards in which benefit per household is very high and comparablewith average household income figures for households in semi-arid communallands’. In such cases, CAMPFIRE appears to have been particularly successfulas a means for qualitative accumulation. Wildlife revenues have been invested inthe development ofagricultural infrastructure and equipment, which, in turn,are seeing as having the potential to improve the conditions for individualhousehold quantitative accumulation.In both respects, then, it would appear that local valuations ofCAMPFIRErelate to the ways in which CAMPFIRE revenues become available forindividual household accumulation. Bond (1997) further observes that ’ in atleast 50 per cent ofthe wards, the revenue earned from wildlife can at best onlybe considered supplementary to other sources ofincome’. In such cases, then,it is debatable whether, in fact, land-use allocation will be determined by localeconomic imperatives. It is more likely that the households in these wards arebeing constrained by RDC policies to participate in wildlife management, andthat the CAMPFIRE programmes in such wards will be heavily contested.It is doubtful that in situations where wildlife management only contributesmarginally to the local and household economies, individuals will be motivatedto manage the wildlife beyond a certain minimum threshold. That minimumthreshold is determined by existing coercive measures exercised by theappropriate authority, rather than by individual commitment to the resource. Inother words, where wildlife costs continue to be greater than the benefits,management of wildlife will continue to be top down, authoritarian andcoercive, and communities are not likely to seek greater rights to the wildliferesource.Given the nature ofwildlife management programmes in southern Africa,as characterized by the development ofthe CAMPFIRE programme inZimbabwe, it is evident that these programmes play a dual role for the post-liberation state. Firstly, they serve to re-channel the legitimate demands for landreform in the direction ofsecondary rights to natural resources, and thereby act148Decolonizing Nature
to defer local struggles for land. Secondly, they also serve to provide localauthorities with new sources ofrevenue. These are then applied to increasingthe control of the state over local communal lands and natural resourcesthrough a process ofcreating new ‘democratic’ institutions that function toimplement state programmes at the local level.NOTES1 The National Parks and Wildlife Act of1975, amended in 1982, gives appropriateauthority over wildlife to rural district councils, allowing communities to profitfrom safari hunting revenues.REFERENCESAdams, W M (2001) Green Development: environment and sustainability in the Third World,second edition. Routledge, LondonAhmed, M (1998) ‘Urban and peri-urban land tenure in southern Lusophone Africa:lessons from post socialist countries’ experiences’ in Proceedings ofthe InternationalConference on Land Tenure in the Developing World with a Focus on Southern Africa,University ofCape Town, Cape Town, pp10–20Barker, J (1989) Rural Communities under Stress: Peasant Farmers and the State in Africa.Cambridge University Press, CambridgeBond, I (1997) ‘An assessment ofthe financial benefits to households fromCAMPFIRE: The wildlife benefit-cost ratio’,CAMPFIRE News, 15 May 1997,CAMPFIRE Association, HarareBond, I (2001) ‘CAMPFIRE and the incentives for institutional change’ in D Hulmeand M Murphree (eds) African Wildlife and Livelihoods. James Currey, Oxford,pp227–243Bourdillon, M F C (1987) The Shona Peoples. Mambo Press, GweruBruce, J W (1990) ‘Legal Issues in Land Use and Resettlement’, Background Paper forthe Agriculture Division, Southern Africa Department ofthe World Bank,Zimbabwe Agriculture Sector MemorandumBruce, J W (1998) ‘Learning from the Comparative Experience with Agrarian LandReform’ in Proceedings ofthe International Conference on Land Tenure in the DevelopingWorld with a Focus on Southern Africa, University ofCape Town, Cape Town, pp39–48CAMPFIRE News(1998) ‘Further devolution needed’,CAMPFIRE News17,CAMPFIRE Association, HarareCheater, A P (1989) ‘The ideology of“communal” land tenure in Zimbabwe:mythogenesis enacted’,Africa, vol 60, pp188–206Cousins, B (1998) ‘How do rights become real? Formal and informal institutions inSouth Africa’s tenure reform program’ in Proceedings ofthe International Conference onLand Tenure in the Developing World with a Focus on Southern Africa, University ofCapeTown, Cape Town, pp88–100Derman, B W (1990) ‘The Unsettling ofthe Zambezi Valley: an examination oftheMid-Zambezi Rural Development Project’, CASS Working Paper, Centre forApplied Social Sciences, University ofZimbabwe, HarareDevolving the expropriation ofnature149
Drinkwater, M (1991) The State and Agrarian Change in Zimbabwe’s Communal Areas.Macmillan Publishing, LondonDzingirai, V (1994) ‘Politics and Ideology in Human Settlement: getting settled in theSokomena Area ofChiefDobola’, CASS Working Paper, Centre for Applied SocialSciences, University ofZimbabwe, HarareFarquharson, L (1993) Commercial Wildlife Utilization in Zimbabwe: are commercial farms theappropriate model for CAMPFIRE?, unpublished Masters thesis, McGill University,MontrealHasler, R (1996) Agriculture, Foraging and Wildlife Resource Use in Africa. Kegan PaulInternational, New YorkHulme, D and Murphree, M (eds) (2001) African Wildlife and Livelihoods: The Promise andPerformance ofCommunity Conservation. James Currey, OxfordJones, B (2001) ‘The evolution ofcommunity-based approaches to wildlifemanagement in Kunene, Namibia’ in D Hulme and M Murphree (eds) AfricanWildlife and Livelihoods: The Promise and Performance ofCommunity Conservation. JamesCurrey, Oxford, pp160–176Mamdani, M (1996) Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy ofLateColonialism, Princeton University Press, Princeton, New JerseyMartin, R B (1986) Communal Areas Management Program for Indigenous Resources(CAMPFIRE). Government ofZimbabwe, Department ofNational Parks andWildlife Management, Branch ofTerrestrial Ecology, HarareMoyo, S K (1998) Speech by S K Moyo, Minister ofMines, Environment and Tourism,reproduced in CAMPFIRE News, No 17, March 1988, p8Murombedzi, J C (1992) ‘Decentralization or Recentralization? ImplementingCAMPFIRE in the Omay Communal Lands ofthe Nyaminyami District’, CASSWorking Paper, Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University ofZimbabwe,HarareMurombedzi, J C (1994) The Dynamics ofConflict in Environmental Management Policy in theContext ofthe Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources.Unpublished PhD thesis, University ofZimbabwe, Centre for Applied SocialSciences, HarareMurombedzi, J C (1999) ‘Devolution and stewardship in Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIREProgramme’,Journal ofInternational Development, vol 11, pp287–294Murombedzi, J (2001) ‘Why wildlife conservation has not economically benefitedcommunities in Africa’ in D Hulme and M Murphree (eds) African Wildlife andLivelihoods: The Promise and Performance ofCommunity Conservation. James Currey,Oxford, pp208–226Murphree, M W (1997) ‘Congruent Objectives, Competing Interest and StrategicCompromise: Concept and Process in the Evolution ofZimbabwe’s CAMPFIREProgramme’, Paper presented to the Conference on Representing Communities:Histories and politics ofCommunity-Based Resource Management, Helen, Georgia,JuneMurphree, M W (2001) ‘A case study ofecotourism development from Mahenye,Zimbabwe’ in D Hulme and M Murphree (eds) African Wildlife and Livelihoods: ThePromise and Performance ofCommunity Conservation, James Currey, Oxford, pp177–194Olthof, W (1995) ‘Wildlife resources and local development: experiences fromZimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE Programme’ in J P M Breemer, C A van den Drijver, andL B Venema (eds) (1995) Local Resource Management in Africa. Wiley, Chichester150Decolonizing Nature
Parker, I (1993) ‘Natural justice, ownership and the CAMPFIRE Programme’,unpublished essay, CASS Library, University ofZimbabwe, HararePhimister, I (1986) ‘Discourse and the discipline ofhistorical context: conservationismand ideas about development in Southern Rhodesia’,Journal ofSouthern Africa Studies,vol 12, pp264–275Ranger, T O (1985) Peasant Consciousness and Guerrilla War in Zimbabwe. James Currey,LondonRanger, T O (1988) ‘The Communal Areas ofZimbabwe’,Land in Agrarian SystemsSymposium. University ofIllinois, Urbana-ChampaignScoones, I and Wilson, K (1989) ‘Households, Lineage Groups and EcologicalDynamics: issues for livestock development’ in B Cousins (ed) People, Land andLivestock: proceedings ofa workshop on the socio-economic dimensions oflivestock production inZimbabwe’s Communal Lands. GTZ and Centre for Applied Social Sciences, Universityof Zimbabwe, HarareWestern, D, White, R M and Strum, S C (eds) (1994) Natural Connections: perspectives incommunity-based conservation. Island Press, Washington, DCDevolving the expropriation ofnature151
Chapter 7Decolonizing Highland conservationMark ToogoodINTRODUCTIONFor the last 35 years, ecologists and conservationists working for governmentorganizations in Scotland, and in the Highlands and Islands ofthe north andwest ofthe country, in particular, have been publicly criticized by sectors ofsociety as diverse as nationalists, the hunting lobby and crofters. These criticismsare broadly oftwo interrelated types. On the one hand, there is criticism ofhow state conservation ’ interferes’ with, and exercises control over, other landuses and ways oflife in the Highlands and Islands, especially with small-scaleland uses, such as crofting, and the large, dominant sporting estates.1,2On theother hand, and more significantly, is the criticism ofstate conservation’s owninstitutional culture, forms ofscientific knowledge and assumptions aboutnature and society. The practices and ideology ofthis kind ofconservation arewidely regarded in Scotland as being at odds with widespread aspirations andadvances towards rural development through land reform – a process that canbe termed rural ‘reconstructionism’.3This chapter argues that these critiques ofScottish statutory conservationcannot be understood without reference to several interleaved dimensions ofthe politics ofnature and land ownership in the Highlands.Firstly, few issues in Scotland are as sensitive as land ownership and itsmanagement. This centrality ofland represents a distinctive political awareness,rooted in collective memory ofthe formalization and concentration oflandownership in the Highlands and Islands that took place during the 18th and19th centuries. Present-day political issues surrounding land ownership are thusdirectly linked to the historic shift from small communal settlement to large,private agricultural and sporting estates; the concurrent conversion ofruralsociety and economy; and the subsequent transformation of nature, bothliterally and symbolically. This chapter examines this politicized imagination of
the Highlands and, in particular, how it relates to three actors central to landreform politics:•the estates – the most historically powerful land-owning group, who regardthemselves arbiters ofthe present and future stewardship ofthe Highlands;•the crofters, their supporters and Gaeltacht culture generally – increasinglyregarded in Scotland as inherently the rightful guardians ofthe Highlandenvironment;4and•the state conservation system – regarded by many as a bureaucratic‘outsider’.Secondly, the authority ofstatutory conservation in the Highlands and Islandscannot be examined without placing it within the context ofthe resurgence ofcultural nationalism in Scotland during the last 20 years, and an attendant rushofnew ideas and debate about land reform, the environment and its futuremanagement. The Scottish parliament, established in July 1999, has put in placelegislation that emphasizes ‘community’ ownership and ‘community-ledplanning’ as the basis ofrural development in the Highlands and Islands.5However, institutional state conservation, narrow minded in its expertise andburdened by a lack ofreflexivity about its basic assumptions and practices, isfrequently identified as a barrierto renewal – as more ofan ‘ecological despot’than a catalyst for reconstruction.Thirdly, this chapter is also concerned with how state conservation as amodern, progressive social institution has, however unconsciously, established arationalized, ecologically defined and frequently asocial construction ofnature.This both reflects conservation’s colonial legacy and, because ofits narrowfocus on ‘science’ and ‘heritage’, has, at the very least, side-stepped issues ofpower and justice connected with the land. At worst, it has reinforced theconstruction ofthe Highlands most closely associated with the large estates andtheir practices.In particular, this chapter will examine the culture ofstate conservation asone that has frequently failed to engage meaningfully with people andorganizations outside ofscientific and official circles. This culture is exemplifiedby the official concept of ‘value’ being defined in technical and rationallydefended terminology that often distances and devalues other forms ofexpression. Despite the recent efforts ofthe current state conservation body,Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH), to produce objectives and mission statementsthat suggest a more human-centred and participatory approach,conservationists, acculturated to bureaucratic and inflexible modes ofthinking,are arguably still limited by assumptions and practices that fail to resonate witha dynamic Scottish civic culture.6Before beginning a discussion ofthe above issues, it is necessary to specifyhow such concerns can be framed in terms ofdecolonization. As certain post-colonial writers have observed, the historical experience ofcountries such asScotland and Ireland can be properly considered as one ofcolonization (Said,Decolonizing Highland conservation153
1993; Williams and Chrisman, 1993). The term colonization in this sense relatesto the Scottish experience ofpolitical, institutional and cultural authority byEngland. Many ofthe issues raised by post-colonial critiques ofthe structuresofcolonialism (language, resistance, nationalism, migrancy and diaspora) aredirectly relevant when considering how this experience shapes modern Scotland.Yet,post-colonialism offers a set ofconcepts too sweeping to useunproblematically in relation to Scotland. From one point ofview, Scots mayconsider themselves a colonized people; yet, from another view, in other partsof the British Empire, Scots prospered under colonial regimes and had asignificant role as a driving force ofcolonialism. It is therefore necessary tospecify, at the outset, that the ‘decolonizing frame’ which this chapter isconcerned with is contingent and relates specifically to the relationship betweenthe key social groupings named above, their historic and symbolic relation tothe Highlands, their material practices, and their bounded areas of socialknowledge.IMAGINING THEHIGHLANDSFor people around the world, as well as for the population ofBritain andScotland, the Highlands and Islands have long been symbolic ofScotland, as awhole. Historically, they have been imagined through the romantic arts, tourism,film and TV, and associated with a range ofearnest and ironic ersatzrepresentations and iconography that include Walter Scott’s novels, the clansystem, tartans, bagpipes and Highland games – and, not least, an apparentlyunique natural environment ofglens, lochs and beinns, and the habitats giventheir common name by the hunting traditions ofthe large estates: deer forest,salmon rivers, grouse moor. This section delineates two distinctive constructs ofthe Highlands and Islands. It is valid to do this here because these arrays ofsymbols, beliefs and iconography are directly relevant to the politics ofland,nature and society in the contemporary context.The history ofthe Highlands is therefore briefly examined in terms ofhowthat history relates both to the iconography of18th-century ‘Highlandism’ and19th-century ‘Balmoralism’. These are processes that have, in many respects,come to be regarded as theHighlands, rather than as historically specific formsof discourse that naturalize the form of land ownership, landscapes andpractices ofthe current sporting estate system. This section also explores theconstruction ofthe Highlands, associated with the material history and popularmemory ofclearance, the disenfranchisement associated with contemporaryresistance to the estates, nationalism and the process ofreformism.To understand why the Highlands are materially and symbolically contested,it is necessary to sketch out briefly the history ofideas relating to it. From themid 18th century, British attitudes to the people and landscape ofthe HighlandsofScotland began to be transformed so that, by the early 19th century, widerScottish cultural identity came to be synonymous with the symbols and154Decolonizing Nature
landscapes ofthe Highlands. Until this transformation, popular and elite societyin Lowland Scotland and England alike had regarded the Highlands as alien andhostile. The people were judged inferior, backward and untrustworthy, and thelandscape as barren, ugly and desolate. This change ofattitudes is significantbecause it was immediately preceded by open conflict: the Jacobite rebellion of1745 marked the last ofa number ofrisings involving Highland clans againstthe British Crown.7The absorption ofHighland symbols, such as the kilt and tartans, and theelevation ofits people and landscape to romantic icons was ’ invented’ byLowland elites and the English upper classes as the foundation ofa freshScottish identity (Womack, 1989). However, this process of‘Highlandism’ wasdeeply ironic in that it:…took offprecisely at the same time that commercial landlordism, marketpressures and clearances were destroying the old order in northern Scotland.Indeed...some ofthe main protagonists ofthis new and fashionabletraditionalism were themselves Highland proprietors who had long ceased tobe clan chiefs and were now becoming rapacious improving landowners(Devine, 1999, p233).During this period, Anglicized clan chiefs and new landlords and land-ownersfrom Lowland Scotland and England, while laying claim to, and adapting, thesymbols and culture ofHighland life for their own ends, also exploited therights that ownership gave them over their tenants. These customary powerswere used to ‘modernize’ land use, destroying small-scale subsistence andcommunal land use in favour ofprofit-focused, privatized, ranch-style farmingofsheep and cattle in order to take advantage ofthe market ofindustrializingcities in Lowland Scotland and northern England. The tenant farmers and land-holders affected were not protected by common law, or by state or wider publicconcern. They were subject to a system offeudal land rights, clan custom andduty to protect their chiefs’ interests, a system controlled by the landlordsthemselves. This infamous period ofrural social change in the Highlands isknown as the Clearances – the injury and sorrow ofwhich is still felt by manyScots, both in Britain and elsewhere in the world.8It may be remarkable to some that areas ofindustrializing colonial countriesin Europe were themselves affected by processes often associated only withcolonized countries or internal frontier areas in countries such as the US. In thecase ofthe Highlands, such colonial processes included the imposition ofdrastic agricultural change, minimal property rights for local inhabitants, socialdisenfranchisement and forced evictions, males beholden to military service,and the establishment ofcategories ofland primarily for the use ofelites. Craig(1990, p7) comments:In the aftermath of[1745], the Highland chiefs evolved into landlords, benton maximizing the income from their estates. Big sheep from the Lowlands,Decolonizing Highland conservation155
often managed by Lowland or English farmers and their shepherds, invaded away oflife in which families with small lands grew their own food and fattenedblack cattle for the market. The big sheep, caoraich mhòr, must winter onthe best grass – the glen bottoms, lochside meadows and coastal machair wherethe villages had been... From the early 1800s onwards, peaking after 1815and again after the Potato Famine in 1846, the estate managers drove thefamilies out by the thousand, serving eviction orders, using fire and force ifneed be, and they joined the influx to the industrial cities, the efflux to theNew World and the Antipodes.The history ofthe estate system is one in which the large sheep estates thatreplaced the crofting townships through clearance were themselves, in turn,partly replaced by sporting estates. Their origin is situated in the process ofthe‘Balmoralization’ ofthe Highlands from about 1840, when wealthy aristocratsand industrialists,following Queen Victoria,adopted the fashion ofHighlandism and brought up the estates to create a world based upon huntingand their own version ofHighland tradition.During the era ofBalmoralization, the fashion for the Highlands spreadthroughout the world, and travel to Highlands from this period, for Scots,English and for wealthy classes from overseas, can be regarded as producingone ofthe key effects ofcolonialism in the Highlands. 19th-century travel inpursuit ofaesthetic experience, whether to the Highlands ofScotland, theAfrican savanna or the Canadian north, is one ofthe principle discourses ofimperialism by which peoples living in ‘remote’, ‘wild’, ‘spiritually uplifting’places were ennobled and exoticized as uncorrupted peoples, repositories oftradition and value. This process made such places functionally ‘unreal’: theybecame places ofescape for the estate owner, traveller and tourist; in so doing,they became effectively marginalized from the broader political and socio-economic realities that determined their existence and future (Pratt, 1992;Gilroy, 2000; MacDonald, 2001).The historical legacy ofthis process in Scotland is that land ownership and,therefore, control ofmuch ofthe Highland socio-economy are concentratedinto relatively few estates. Crofting itselfis a form oftenure that was establishedin the late 19th century after the enclosure ofcommon land, and is widelyregarded as a tardy response to clearances. In a recent survey, it was estimatedthat 343 people or bodies own more than halfofall private rural land inScotland, with 85 estates accounting for one third ofthe land area oftheHighlands and Islands (Cahill, 2001).The large estates, therefore, have a central position in the debate aboutcurrent land use and land reform. They have been the subject ofconsiderablecriticism for a historical responsibility for the creation ofan impoverishedecological community, and for feeding a myth ofa backward and romanticizedHighlands that has contributed to poor social and economic development in theregion. The estates are also of key significance in this imagination of theHighlands because oftheir iconic status (Toogood, 1996; Darier, Tabara and156Decolonizing Nature
Toogood, 1999). This iconography has symbolic force in two ways. Firstly, theestates symbolize status nationally and internationally, and wealthy overseasowners are regularly attracted to the market in these estates as a form ofpower:‘our country remains the last place in Europe where a rich man can buy a largechunk ofwilderness to act out his dreams ofowning a kingdom’ (Hunter, 1997).Secondly, they are symbolic in the sense that an elite group ofpeople enact,reproduce and consume the Highland myth as explained above.In the context ofresistance to the estates, the Highland landscape andculture can be regarded, in one sense, as an ‘ethnoscape’: a mythic hybrid ofnature and culture that contributes to a sense ofthe survival of‘Scottishness’during a period of ‘Anglicization’ of the landscape. This ‘ethnoscape’ hasbecome essential to other ways ofcharacterizing the land in that it gives shapeto a sense ofcontinuity in ‘a manner that satisfies the drive for meaning byproviding new identities that seem to be also very old, and restoring locations,social and territorial, that allegedly were the crucibles ofthose identities’ (Smith,1999, p62).This examination ofthe history ofthe Highlands and Islands thuscontributes a background to understanding the symbolically contesteddimension ofcurrent social and land-use debates.REFORMING THE LANDThe Scottish parliament is advancing legislation that promises to challenge thestatus ofthe sporting estate. The legislation makes provision to abolish thefeudal law that endows land-owners with ‘ancient’ rights over tenants, and,perhaps more importantly, acknowledges the need for a shift from state-ledplanning towards encouragement ofso-called community-based ownership andstewardship (Scottish Executive, 1999). Furthermore, a new Scottish Land Fundhas been established to facilitate participation in land ownership andmanagement.9The way to legislation has been paved by a succession ofsmallrural communities running successful and often high-profile public campaignsto take control ofland from landlords. Notable cases have included Borve andAnnishadder crofting township on the Isle ofSkye, North Assynt, the Isle ofEigg and Knoydart.There has been widespread moral and financial support in Scotland forthese community buy-outs. While the definition ofthe community in thiscontext is often problematical and frequently romanticized, there is little doubtthat these ‘victories’ would not have occurred without popular hostility to therecollection ofclearance, discrimination and injury: ‘The folk memory ofthishistorical period is so strong that it engenders feelings of empathy, evensolidarity, with any societal group appearing, however remotely and/orirrationally, to be attempting to redress these historical wrongs’ (Rennie, 1998).Andy Wightman in his book Who Owns Scotland(1996) describes the frontline in the land debate. For reformers like him, the Highland sporting estate is aDecolonizing Highland conservation157
gratuitous indulgence that the term ‘economy’ ill fits because such estates arepurely the extravagances ofthe wealthy. For such a system to be regarded as arural economy is a misnomer that no rural development agency would consideras sensible or sustainable. This view ofthe estates tends to dominate bothpopulist reports ofthe land-ownership debate in the media, as well asoriginating from those in positions ofpower within Scottish government. Forexample, James Hunter, the current chair ofthe Highlands and IslandsEnterprise agency, has stated that ‘there can be no future in Britain in the 21stcentury for a rural economy dependent on tweedy gentlemen coming from thesouth to slaughter our wildlife. That is not the way to run the Highlands andIslands’ (reported in Wightman, 1996, p173).On the other side ofthe divide, such sentiments have been countered bydie-hard comments on behalfofland-owners who regard populist opinion asviewing the vast tracts ofland under their ownership as some kind ofnaturalparadise, relatively untouched by economic activity. They make the case that thetraditional sporting estates offer a solution to many ofthe pressures that theHighlands face. They argue that the expensive management incurred by privateland-owners should receive public support because ifthey were forced out, thepublic purse would be liable for such management (Wigan, 1998)Some government-funded opinion, such as from the Community Land Unit,intimates that a prerequisite for sustainable rural community development couldinvolve the break up oflarge estates (Highlands and Islands Enterprise, 2001).But ifcommunities are to be handed a greater role in managing the land, thenthis also presents issues about the role ofstate institutions and bureaucracies,such as planning and, particularly, conservation expertise. The current situationis one that is evolving fairly rapidly, especially as Scottish government will have toattempt to resolve the contradiction that power cannot be handed to localcommunities ‘without altering the fundamental rights oflandowners to decideoutcomes affecting communities’ (Bryden and Hart, 2000, p115).CONSERVATION, THE ESTATES AND CROFTINGGiven that land is such a major issue in Scotland, it is to be expected thatstatutory conservation, concerned with ‘heritage’ and the management ofwildlife, would have a role to play. This role, however, has generally been a veryproblematic one. State conservation in Scotland has a relatively poor relationshipwith both the sporting estates and with small-scale farmers and crofters. Theestates have accused state conservation as interfering with private propertyrights and the hunting tradition, and, effectively, being a stalking horse for thefurther state control and public ownership ofland.Conversely,stateinterference is also a complaint ofcrofters, who also regard state conservationas favouring large owners with conservation funding and advice. This sectionwill examine both ofthese positions, turning first to statutory ecology andconservation’s relationship with the estates.158Decolonizing Nature
State conservation in Great Britain and in Scotland, in particular, is basedupon an accommodation with, rather than a challenge to, land-owners andmanagers. For example, from 1981, the legal designation ofSites ofSpecialScientific Interest (SSSIs) was based upon the principle that a land-owner shouldbe compensated for profit foregone from any operation damaging to thatinterest, which they were proscribed from carrying out. This effectively providedan incentive for land-owners to threaten to carry out damaging operations.Other proposed designations did not make it as far as the statute book. At thetime ofthe first UK government wildlife conservation legislation in 1949, therewas a suggestion that national parks should be designated in Scotland as theywere to be in England and Wales. The land-owning classes in Scotland werehorrified that anything apparently so regulatory oftheir interests could besuperimposed onto their Highlands. No national parks were declared. Instead, aparticular view ofthe Highlands was advanced: that Highland Scotland was apicturesque wilderness, already benignly stewarded and maintained by the land-owners ofthe Highlands and therefore hardly in need ofsuch designation.A more recent example ofhow state ecology and conservation have beenthe subject ofcriticism is in respect ofthe estates’ management ofred deer(Cervus elaphus) and the restoration of‘native’ habitats. The stalking ofred deerstags is ofprimary importance to both the estate system and the ecology oftheHighlands and Islands. Red deer ranges can cover several estates and red deerbelong to nobody in law, only coming into possession once shot. Hence theestates’ traditional management ofdeer has been to encourage them to build uphind numbers, thereby, according to received wisdom, maximizing the numberofshootable stags.Red deer numbers in the Highlands have doubled since 1960 (ScottishNatural Heritage, 1994). This is one ofthe primary reasons for a clash withnature conservation interests, as conservationists contend, based upon a sizeableamount ofresearch, that red deer graze and destroy regenerating trees, causesoil erosion and generally overgraze the open hills. They have long proposedthat red deer numbers should be drastically cut by increased culls. Speakingabout pinewood habitat, Max Nicholson, director general of the NatureConservancy – the first state conservation body – demonstrated in forcefulterms, now unlikely to pass any state conservationist’s lips, the desire ofconservationists to regulate human activity and to approach nature throughscience, and a conception of‘health’ that would involve the restoration ofpastHighland environments:Ruthless overburning and overgrazing by successive generations have sodestroyed [and] degraded these forests that only the most painstaking researchin the surviving remnants can show what they were like and how; by workingwith nature, part, at least, ofthe Highlands may be restored to health andfreed from the curses oferosion, soil impoverishment and the spread ofbracken and other consequences ofwrong land use and mistaken landmanagement (Nicholson, 1957, p133).Decolonizing Highland conservation159
The regeneration ofthe Caledonian pine forest, a habitat popularly understood,rightly or wrongly, to have rapidly declined as a result ofthe establishment ofHighland sheep and sporting estates, has remained a priority for stateconservationists (Aldhous, 1995; Ramsay, 1996) The idea ofa Caledonian foresthas considerable symbolic appeal in the context ofHighland reconstructionbecause it is an apparently ‘native’ habitat whose decline parallels thedisenfranchisement ofHighland people from their lands (Toogood, 1995).For the estates, the land degradation and forest regeneration issue causesinternal division. For some, it suggests a need for the estate system to divestitselfofthe short-term approach of’ international playboy’ landlords who buyinto and leave the Highland land market on a whim. Instead, estates shouldembrace a new ‘land ethic’ based upon rural development and more ‘ecologicallyguided’management that would create wider forest cover throughcomprehensive culling of red deer (Lister-Kaye, 1994). However, for themajority ofthe estates, conservationist views on red deer are symbolic ofthewider struggle to influence the future character ofthe Highlands and to takecontrol ofrural politics (Wigan, 1993; 1998). For such voices, the dispute overwhat constitutes habitat health, and the preoccupation by state natureconservationists with establishing scientific definitions ofhabitat damage andofecological limits to grazing, are ’ in truth, a political struggle. Private land-owners’ rights are being dismantled to make way for state control. The TrojanHorse is conservation’ (Wigan, 2000, p66).The role ofnon-statutory conservation bodies in the Highlands also needsto be alluded to in this context. The restoration ofCaledonian forest and‘wildland’ has been supported by a range oftraditional voluntary conservationbodies, such as the World Wide Fund for Nature and the National Trust forScotland, as well as newer organizations, such as the John Muir Trust. Suchactors have themselves become players in the Highland land market, purchasingestates for conservation objectives, frequently with financial support from thestate National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF). This development has beenregarded as, on the one hand, another form ofstate interference by the estatesand, on the other, as state-sponsored landlordism by land-reform and croftinggroups. To land reformers, such organizations are viewed in a comparable wayto Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) – as distant elites who tend to use localcommunities, and who ideologically reinforce the power structures that lie atthe root of the problem of disenfranchisement of Highland people andcommunities from the land.Land reformers point out the contradiction that NHMF, advised by SNH,has been content to support the purchase ofland by fund-raising voluntaryorganizations. However, where power was to be shared with local people – as inthe case of the purchase of the Isle of Eigg – funding was not secured:conservation seems more likely to be successful ifit does not involve localpeople. Where local active participation is assured, this is regarded as beingsuperficial and in name only (Wightman, 1997). The persistence oftheconcentration ofland-holding is regarded as a sign ofthe failure by Scottish160Decolonizing Nature
government, including statutory conservation, to tackle the issue ofprivatepower over land.CROFTERS AND CONSERVATIONISTSThe success ofpopular campaigns to back crofting communities to purchase‘their’ land from estates illustrates the growth of‘reconstructionism’ in ruralScotland. This reconstructionism fuses together a collective beliefin threethings:•indigenous links to the land through memory, language and tradition;•feelings ofinjustice about the concentration ofownership ofthe land andresources in the hands of‘outsiders’;•a discourse conceiving a Scottish ‘traditional belief’ that humans and natureare an indivisible whole.At the heart ofthis:The crofting community is seen by many as a natural champion in thisreconstructionism, despite the last 200 years ofdecline, retrenchment andmarginalization from what is perceived as the ‘mainstream’ ofrural society.This tentative, vaguely described and even more vaguely rationalized image ofthe ‘typical’ Highland community can be considered as a powerful ‘culturallandscape’. This term effectively conjures up the mental picture, or stereotypicalimage, ofa landscape which has been created and/or maintained by theactivities ofthe human community living and working on that land, andwhich lies close the heart ofthe imagination ofthe nation (Rennie, 1998).Crofting, as previously described, has taken on a broad symbolic resonance inScotland as a whole. In a mixture ofromanticism and cultural politics, croftingfinds meaning as a practical model ofdemocratic sustainable land use andeconomy. Most ofrural Scotland is dominated by capital-intensive farming,subsidized by the European Union Common Agricultural Policy (CAP); onaverage, Scottish farm holdings are five times the size ofthose in continentalEurope. In contrast to intensive land use, crofts are held up as a ‘model forintegrating social and environmental values with agricultural activities’ (A Raven,1999, p129). This assigned role places high expectation on crofting, locating itboth as a venerated way oflife and a spring ofmoral significance in relation tothe land.The crofting position is one that contests both the positions of stateconservation and the estates (MacDonald,1998).While the ‘croftingcommunity’ itselfis fairly heterogeneous in terms ofsocio-economic status, itsself-definition ofitselfis one ofcommon history, culture and values. Thisidentity is activated in reaction to other groups. It also has a common voice withDecolonizing Highland conservation161
respect to two issues. The first, as reported above, is about access to land andself-determination in managing resources. The second is the challenge to SNHas the beacon ofgood conservation practice in the Highlands.There have been at least two decades of hostility by crofters to thedesignation ofprotected areas in the Highlands, as well as a general enmitytowards state conservation’s self-assured expertise, bureaucratic remoteness and’ interference’ in the use ofthe land. This is sometimes framed simply in termsofenvironmental protection ofnature, imposing extra costs on crofting activity.A fairly recent example were the extra costs the Assynt Crofters’ Trust had tobear when planning a small-scale hydroelectric power unit because ofSNH’sconcerns about the potential effects ofthe scheme on the breeding habitat ofapair ofblack-throated divers (Gavia artica).10However, this critique runs deeper. In state conservation discourse, thetraditional cultural use ofland and the crofters’ use ofthe land are considered ageneral threat to nature. This is particularly so in the legal designation ofSSSIs,where deviations from prescribed activities are described as ‘operations likely todamage’ (OLD) the scientific interest.11While these constraints apply to land-owners and managers ofSSSIs, wherever they are, what is significant is that forcrofters they are regarded not only as official interference, but as betraying anoutsider’s ignorance oftheir role as a living society who had survived manyassaults on its integrity. Conservation is therefore subject to a twofold criticism:firstly, that it is statutory scientism, legalism and bureaucracy; secondly, becauseofthe ignorance and implicit lack ofrespect for crofting culture and traditionthat is perceived as tacit within the approach ofinstitutionalized conservation inScotland. These criticisms are compounded by the reporting, in the media, ofthe former practice ofstate conservation agencies in compensating land-ownersfor profits foregone should they not be able to carry out an OLD. Well-organized large land-owners have, in the past, been able to claim huge financialrecompense for refraining from felling an ancient woodland, or damming a loch,for example. The rhetoric in the pro-crofting media is, thus, ofthe ‘aristocraticvillain’ sanctioned by ‘state bureaucracy’ to benefit from ruining the ’ indigenousheritage’.The issue ofplace is quite central to this decolonizing framing because, inthe Gaelic culture ofthe Highlands and Islands, place and land are central toidentity formation and reproduction. Place does not become a particular issueuntil powerful forces, such as the legal, technical discourse ofinstitutionalconservation, represent place as natural space through a process ofsurveyevaluation and designation. The social content ofthese places is thendisengaged from their location by scientific representations and designations.The scientific and partitioning approach of nature conservation, althoughunderlain by a complex ofmotives that are non-scientific, can be contrastedwith the Gaelic Highland tradition ofpoetry and song as being too self-aware,too distant from such heritage. The designation ofspace into ordered categories,such as SSSIs and National Nature Reserves (NNRs), and giving account ofnature in conceptual terms such as biodiversity, sustainability and even162Decolonizing Nature
conservation itself, lacks connection with the immediate experience ofnature inthe context ofthis culture.This dissociation ofunderstanding between crofters and state conservationcan be taken further. Ecology and conservation are a particular form ofknowledge and practice that bring together a complex set ofscientific, aesthetic,progressive and legal ideas that interleave with each other. Its scientific framingofissues, classification ofspecies and land, and so forth, is based upon therational authority of science and also upon (national and European) legalframeworks. As such, this authority is a system that mediates between natureand people. It is a form of power over nature and society that is oftennaturalized. The ‘neutral’ pursuit ofecological knowledge and the definition ofthe limits ofenvironmental systems, as well as the attribution ofvalue to speciesand habitats are presented as a primary basis for what constitutes ‘naturalheritage’. As Fraser MacDonald argues, this form ofnatural heritage is thendisseminated in conservation texts and communications as ‘ourheritage’, ‘nationalheritage’ or even ‘worldheritage’, thereby linguistically distancing ‘heritage’ fromits local meaning and geographical context (MacDonald, 1998, p240).Conservation’s representation ofthe Highlands and Islands is alsoambivalent. The use, in conservation texts, of‘classic’ Highland imagery islargely from a picturesque perspective. In this idiom, the land in which peoplelive and work is rendered into a landscape: one that is lookedat and visuallyconsumed. The representation ofthe Highlands in conservation literature ashabitat (often viewed from a distance, often from the air) – ofmountains andCaledonian forest, for example – is a representation that eliminates local peoplefrom the scene, and renders the Highland landscape a depopulated ‘wilderness’.As noted above, this way ofrepresenting and looking at people and landscapehas concurrent processes ofmarginalization attached to them:The importance of‘Scottish nature’ and nature imagery is that it eases theappropriation ofa local cultural resource and makes apparent the particularaudience (Lowland urban Scotland) that conservation must court, in order tomaintain its dominance ofthe Highland rural (MacDonald, 1998, p242).Part ofthe problem for SNH and its predecessors may be the dependence uponthe scientific approach as a foundation ofall that it does. This sees nature as abasis not only for its knowledge ofthe state ofecology, but as a basis for stateconservation practice. Therefore, regardless ofhow sympathetic institutionalconservation is to the crofting tradition as a producer of‘environmental goods’and ‘benefits’, and however much it trades on the landscapes produced bygenerations of crofting and farming practice, the historical and discursiveframework upon which state conservation is based is arguably incompatiblewith a socialmodel ofconservation – which better relates to the self-definitionofHighland culture and to political aspirations for community control andmanagement. It is institutional conservation’s static and abstract view ofnatureas ‘ecology’ or ‘heritage’ that lacks any resonance with the sense ofplace andDecolonizing Highland conservation163
relationship to nature that is inextricably bound up with the social interaction,identities and practices ofHighland culture.CONSERVATION’S COLONIAL INHERITANCEThis lack ofreflexivity and flexibility in the institutional framework ofstateconservation in Scotland can be located in a legacy of colonialism. Thiscontributes to making it inflexible and ill equipped to creatively react to locallyled land ownership and control. In Chapter 2 ofthis book, Bill Adams set outsome ofthe common features ofthe colonial legacy that can be used, here, todescribe how certain assumptions ofstate conservation in Scotland flow, bothdirectly and obliquely, from this context.Firstly, in Scotland, scientific knowledge and classification in conservationare orientated towards formalization, analysis and theory and have been givenpriority over lay knowledge. Thus, in the Highlands and Islands, lay knowledgeis often referenced to emotional traditions based upon the use ofthe localenvironment. It is implicitly assigned a lower value in conservation thanknowledge-based experiment and universal verification. This tension is stillsignificant in the contemporary Highlands and Islands, where there isdislocation between public understanding ofnature in everyday life and officialdiscourse ofecological science and sustainability. However, while this is a veryreal tension, it is not a clear-cut one because the notion ofa homogenousHighland community sharing traditional knowledge and values is itself aparticular discourse about that community, often one that the community itselfgenerates in dealings with state bureaucracy.Secondly, colonial constructs ofnature position it as separate from culture,not formed as part ofit. The process ofconserving the Highlands and Islandsinvolves survey, designation, classification and monitoring, paralleling thedivision and parcelling up ofspace in the British colonies. In this process, theland is mapped and redrawn according to scientific criteria – this is a processwhere scientific classifications ofhabitat importance, ‘biochemical boundaries’or ‘landscape character’ (Usher, 1999), for example, overwrite local definitions.In the colonies this process often involved displacing local human settlement, aswell as policing oftraditional land uses. The extreme ofcolonial science – forexample, the legislation in the late 19th century after the massive decline ofmany species because ofthe excesses ofelitist hunting in South and East Africa(MacKenzie, 1988) – can be detected in the thinking of‘home’ stateconservation: to use science and legislation to control land; to simplify theenvironment into ‘blocks’ that are more easily policed.Curiously, however, there was a period in Scottish conservation thatdemonstrates an appreciation by some conservationists that nature and societyare related rather than separate realms. Their ideas seem to reflect a much morecontingent case for conservation, and demonstrated greater awareness oftheissues surrounding the ‘Highland condition’ ofsmall, marginalized land users,164Decolonizing Nature
depopulation and inadequate access to resources. The Scottish Wild LifeConservation Committee, established in 1945 to investigate how stateconservation should function, advocated that the best form ofconservation forScotland would be to feature a range ofdesignations and practices that wererelatively innovative for the period. For example, one ill-fated designation thatwas suggested was the ‘conservation area’, reflected later in the holistic approachset out in Fraser Darling’s West Highland Survey(1955). Although ignoring thepolitics ofland ownership, this thinking suggested that, with proper technicalknowledge principally based upon ecological knowledge, integrating with localknowledge ofagro-ecosystems, the impoverished crofters ofthe Highlandswould be able to develop natural resources in a sustainable way. The committeealso suggested in its report that there should be an independent BiologicalService ofScotland, based upon the notion that the situation, as well as thenature in the country, was distinct from the rest ofthe Great Britain.Unfortunately, perhaps, all ofthese ideas were eventually not given any space inthe final report to government, and there was to be no separate scientific bodyor designations reflecting particular contingencies in Scotland.Thirdly, bureaucratic control and standardization ofnature have takenprecedence over other forms ofengagement with land. As environmentalhistorians ofcolonialism have pointed out, ideas about the scientific study ofnature and the application ofthat knowledge for the efficient management of‘resources’ often were freely exchanged between colonized nations and Britain,with many concepts – such as categorization ofanimals and land forconservation purposes and the idea of‘rescuing’ endangered species – foundedin such bureaucracies (Philip, 1994; Grove, 1995; MacKenzie, 1990). Theapplication ofscientific knowledge to the designation and management oflandhad also achieved a large part ofits development in the particular context ofcolonialism, which subsequently transferred into the shaping ofterritory andregulation that formed the basis for state institutions in the ‘home’ countries.Fourthly, British bodies were also closely involved in ‘post-colonial’management ofnature outside ofScotland. For example, the NatureConservancy had statutory responsibility for advising the British Colonial Officeon nature conservation until 1961. The Nature Conservancy was also in theheart ofnegotiating post-colonial structures for conservation after Britishcolonies in Africa achieved their independence during the late 1950s and 1960s.British conservationists promoted the idea that African nature was ofglobalimportance, therefore legitimating a regime of‘shared’ international interests inthe management ofnatural resources there. This approach was epitomized byInternational Union for the Conservation ofNature and Natural Resources(IUCN) national parks definitions and, later still, the biosphere reserves concept.The International Biological Programme (IBP), which ran from 1964 to 1974(see Chapter 1 in this book) and was a significant neo-colonial treatment of‘global’ nature, had a considerable amount ofpractical involvement from theNature Conservancy. The headquarters ofthe IBP’s ‘Conservation Terrestrial’section was situated at the Nature Conservancy’s London headquarters. ManyDecolonizing Highland conservation165
Nature Conservancy scientists and reserves in Scotland were involved inongoing projects under the IBP.The significance ofnoting these continuities and connections is that theyform cultural processes that have established, in conservation, a distinctive setofcommitments and symbolic meanings that are not subject to consciousrecognition, but which underlie the policies and practice visible in contemporaryScotland.CONCLUSIONState nature conservation in Scotland is a descendent ofthe colonial legacy ofBritain, in as much that it is a bureaucracy based upon science and‘progressive’ rationalized planning – and the roots ofmany such bodies lay inthe colonial era. However, the Highlands and Islands are a context that throwsthis legacy into stark focus. They are a place where common lands andstewardship were transferred from common to private ownership; by the 20thcentury, they were turned into a playground for the wealthy and, in thepejorative terms ofmany conservationists, ‘miles and miles ofbugger all’.The Highlands were transformed through processes ofclearance,modernization and Balmoralization, through the practices ofhunting estatesas well as travel and tourism, into a place romantically constructed as a Celticand natural world separate from the world ofthe metropolitan cities and coreeconomic areas.This chapter has contended that nature conservation by the state in theHighlands and Islands of Scotland uses a particular construction of theHighland environment. It makes particular assumptions about the relationshipbetween nature and society that can conflict with other groups – most notably,the land-owners and managers ofHighland sporting estates, and crofters andtheir supporters. The conservationists’ framework and approach are rooted in acolonial tradition: embodied in the designations and knowledge and, indeed,woven into the very identity ofstate conservation science and practice. Incontrast, the other groups involved have their own distinctive identities,definitions and commitments that are also grounded in particular notions ofthe Highlands and their own sense ofhistory. These different groups activelyengage with each other, which makes these identities and commitments veryreal and negotiated in material interactions rather than being abstract, andsomething handed down in some disembodied sense (Macnaghten and Urry,1998). For example, crofters’ own ideas about the land, while drawing uponnotions oftheir own relationship to the Highlands and nature, are not merely alegacy oftheir cultural traditions. They are constantly negotiated andrenegotiated through interplay with other social groups, such as stateconservation. State conservation itselfhas been shown to be an important socialforce because it controls land and ecological and other forms ofscientificknowledge. It also possesses a very particular power in that the reliability ofits166Decolonizing Nature
practices and knowledge still largely conforms to government assumptionsabout nature conservation being properly based upon ‘science’, ‘rationality’ and‘neutrality’.However, as already suggested, we need to be wary ofpurified definitionsofthese positions. The construction ofreal crofters in real locations as thecollective ‘crofting community’ has become a double-edged sword forcontemporary Highland reformers who seek to actively affect environmentalmanagement and control ofland. To position Highland life, land use andtradition in this fashion runs the risk ofreproducing the rhetoric ofHighlandism:The Gaeltacht becomes, in every sense, an ideal country, until even those whoseek to uphold its interests against the core find that they are doing so in theglowing and reverent language that ratifies its oppression’, (Womack, 1989,quoted in MacDonald, 2001, p168)We should also be wary ofcasting statutory conservation in the guise ofan all-powerful behemoth empowered by the apparently universal reliability of‘value-neutral science’ to protect ‘scientific’ and ‘public interest’, and ‘nationalheritage’. In the first place, many nature conservationists are, at least, vaguelyaware ofthe limitations ofthe inheritance they work within. This reflexivity,albeit thinly spread, makes it curious that conservation as a social institution isstill largely oblivious ofthe need to openly consider its colonial legacy.Furthermore, as described in this chapter, the political and cultural tide forconservation in Scotland may have already turned. We can see signs that thenew Scottish political masters ofconservation are not comfortable with theheat ofsocial criticism about particular aspects ofconservation – especially theassumption that ‘they know best’. In addition, within the intense debate inScotland about state regulation giving way to land reform and community-basedrural development, crofters and their version of the Highlands have beenconstructed as a reference point for conservation’s future development.This consideration ofthe politics ofnature and society in the Highlandsand Islands has contrasted, and reflected upon, how nature and socialrelationships are contested through history and culture, and how definition andmaterial practices might be transformed in the future.The power ofconservation to define the Highlands and Islands will, no doubt, be subject to acontinuing and sustained critique for some time to come.NOTES1Crofting is a way oflife based upon small, low-intensity agricultural holdings (onaverage, 5ha in size), with intergenerational tenure guaranteed by legislation. Croftscurrently account for about 20 per cent ofthe land use ofthe Highlands and Islandsarea ofScotland and number around 17,700 holdings, with a population ofabout33,000 (A Raven, 1999). Crofting development and regulation are controlled by aDecolonizing Highland conservation167
government agency called the Crofters’Commission:see www.crofterscommission.org.uk.2 The estate system has its roots in the Victorian obsession with hunting and theHighlands. The Highland estate is frequently regarded as a fantasy ofpre-modernnature, actually based upon enormous legal and economic power arising from ahistoric process ofdepopulation, Anglicization and modernization. These estatesform the single most concentrated form ofland ownership in Europe. In 1872, 15people owned halfofthe Highlands; in 1995, 484 owners owned a similar amountofland, with an average estate size ofjust over 7280 hectares (Wightman, 1996,pp21, 142). Land ownership in Scotland conveys enormous legal rights, and theseestates have historically, and still do, wield considerable social and economic power.3 Good overviews ofthe Scottish land-use debate can be found in Cramb (1997),Lambert (2001) and Cameron (2001). For a general history ofScotland, includingcrofting and the sporting estates, see Devine (1999). Descriptions ofthe role andrange ofactivities ofstate agencies in the Highlands and Islands can be found inMacKinnon (2001).4 The Gaeltacht is the Gaelic-speaking part ofthe Highlands and Islands.5 The Scottish parliament, currently made up ofaround 130 elected Members oftheScottish Parliament (MSPs), exercises a range oflegislative powers in areas such asthe environment and education. The Scottish Executive has its own decision-making departments, in the present case most notably Scottish ExecutiveEnvironment and Rural Affairs Department (SEERAD). These powers are devolvedbut not independent from the UK government in London. In many areas ofpolicyand legislation, the Scottish parliament remains subordinate to Westminster. Thus,Scotland is in a condition ofsemi-autonomy rather than being a state in its ownright.6 Scottish conservation until 1990 was under the control ofbodies covering all ofGreat Britain: the Nature Conservancy (1949–1976) and the Nature ConservancyCouncil (1976–1990). The Nature Conservancy Council for Scotland (1990–1992)was an interim forerunner ofScottish Natural Heritage, which has responsibilityfor nature conservation as well as landscape and amenity protection (seewww.snh.org.uk).7 Many Highland clans were loyal to the Catholic Stuart line ofmonarchs that hadbeen overthrown by the ‘Glorious Revolution’ of1688–1689, installing a Protestantmonarchy. The aim ofthe supporters ofthe Stuarts – known as the Jacobites – wasto mobilize a range of Catholic supporters, at the centre of which were keyHighland clans, in a counter-revolution that would, ifsuccessful, displace theHanoverian succession in Scotland and England to reinstate the Stuart dynasty tothe throne ofGreat Britain.8 The Clearances were not a single event, but a transformation that covered about acentury, beginning in the latter decades ofthe 18th century. This was a period thatreflected the decline in traditional social systems, land uses and patterns ofsettlement, not just in Scotland but in certain parts ofEurope as modern, market-orientated land uses eroded away traditional settlement, knowledge and landhusbandry. The rate ofloss ofthose systems, and their relative persistence to thisday, reflects differences between countries in relation to the extent poor rural peoplewere lacking in, or ignorant of, statutory protection. Clearly, in differentcircumstances, this ‘modernization’ found parallel in the contemporary colonizationofthe countries ofempire.168Decolonizing Nature
In the Highlands, people were removed from their homes both by the erosionofrights and by direct force. The Clearances were a major factor driving migrationto the Lowland cities in search ofwork and also, ofcourse, massive emigrationabroad (see Devine, 1994; Hunter, 1976). A further factor compounding this wasthe Potato Famine of1846–1847, when landlords ‘aided’ 17,000 tenants struck byfailed crops to emigrate to Canada and Australia (Devine, 1999, p419). Anothercustom land-owners were able to exploit, especially when tenants’ food productionor incomes were inadequate, was an obligation for men to serve in their privatearmies, most ofwhich were integrated within the Highland regiments ofthe Britisharmy founded during this period. Paradoxically, given that such men’s families werenot infrequently forced out oftheir homes in their absence, Highland regimentsbecame a significant force in imperial pursuits in North America, Africa and Asia.9 The fund amounts to UK£10 million at the time ofwriting (see www.hie.co.uk).10 The black-throated diver is a nationally rare species ofbird.11 OLDs were formerly known as ‘potentially damaging operations’. Crofters are oftenhighly reliant on government support, notably through the Crofting CountiesAgricultural Grants Scheme (CCAGS). Ifthe land has a legal conservationdesignation affecting it, the grant may be objected to by SNH, and crofters areadvised that even ifthe relevant land is not within an SSSI they may be refusedfunding ifSNH or a SEERAD office consider a CCAGS proposal to have negativeenvironmental effects.REFERENCESAldous, J (ed) (1995) Our Pinewood Heritage. Conference proceedings, 20–22 October,Inverness Forestry Authority, EdinburghBryden, J and Hart, K (2000) ‘Land reform, planning and people: an issue ofstewardship? in G Holmes and R Crofts (eds) Scotland’s Environment: the future.Tuckwell Press, East Linton, pp104–118Cahill, K (2001) Who Owns Britain: the hidden facts behind land ownership. Canongate,EdinburghCameron, E A (2001) ‘Unfinished business: the land question and the ScottishParliament’,Contemporary British History, vol 15, pp83–114Craig, D (1990) On the Crofters’ Trail: in search ofthe Clearance Highlanders. Jonathan Cape,LondonCramb, A (1997) Fragile Land: the state ofthe Scottish environment. Polygon, EdinburghDarier, É, Tabara, D and Toogood, M (1999) ‘The “natural” object ofnationalidentities: hybrids in Catalunya, Quebec and Scotland’. Paper presented at the ThirdCatalan Sociology Congress, Lleida, 20–21 MarchFraser Darling, F (1955) West Highland Survey: An Essay in Human Ecology, OxfordUniversity Press, OxfordDevine, T M (1994) Clanship to Crofters War: the social transformation ofthe ScottishHighlands. Manchester University Press, ManchesterDevine, T M (1999) The Scottish Nation: 1700–2000. Allen Lane, Penguin Press, LondonGilroy, A (ed) (2000) Romantic Geographies. Manchester University Press, ManchesterGrove, R (1995) Green Imperialism: colonial expansion, tropical island Edens and the origins ofenvironmentalism 1600–1860. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeDecolonizing Highland conservation169
Highlands and Islands Enterprise (2001) Community Land Unit Action Framework 2001.HIE, InvernessHunter, J (1976) The Making ofthe Crofting Community. John Donald, EdinburghHunter, J (1997) ‘Return ofthe natives? IfScotland’s parliament has no stomach forland reform is it a parliament worth having?’Scotland on Sunday,14 December, p16Lambert, R A (2001)Contested Mountains: nature, development and environment in theCairngorms region ofScotland 1880–1980. The White Horse Press, CambridgeLister-Kaye, J (1994) Ill Fares The Land: a sustainable land ethic for the sporting estates oftheHighlands and Islands ofScotland. Barail Centre for Highlands and Islands PolicyStudies, Sabhal Mòr Ostaig, Sleat, Isle ofSkyeMacDonald, F (1998) ‘Viewing Highland Scotland: ideology, representation and the‘natural heritage’,Area, vol 30, pp237–244MacDonald, F (2001) ‘St Kilda and the sublime’,Ecumene, vol 8, pp151–174MacKenzie, J M (1988) The Empire ofNature: hunting, conservation and British imperialism.Manchester University Press, ManchesterMacKenzie, J M (ed) (1990) Imperialism and the Natural World. Manchester UniversityPress, ManchesterMacKenzie, J M (1997) Empires ofNature and the Nature ofEmpires: imperialism, Scotlandand environment. Tuckwell Press, East LintonMacKinnon, D (2001) ‘Regulating regional spaces: state agencies and the production ofgovernance in the Scottish Highlands’,Environment and Planning A, vol 33,pp823–844Macnaghten, P and Urry, J (1998) Contested Natures. Sage, LondonMcVean, D N and Lockie, J D (1969) Ecology and Land Use in Upland Scotland.Edinburgh University Press, EdinburghNicholson, E M (1957) Britain’s Nature Reserves. Country Life, LondonPhilip, K (1994) Imperial Science Rescues a Tree: global botanic networks, local knowledge and thetranscontinental transplantation ofChincona.The Nature ofScience Studies, a workshopon the environment, science and politics, 15–17 April 1994, Department ofScienceand Technology Studies, Cornell University, CornellPratt, M L (1992) Imperial Eyes: travel writing and transculturation. Routledge, LondonRamsay, P (1996) Revival ofthe Land: Creag Meagaidh National Nature Reserve. SNH,EdinburghRaven, A (1999) ‘Agriculture, Forestry and Land Use’ in E McDowell and JMcCormick (eds) Environment Scotland: prospects for sustainability. Ashgate, Aldershotpp127-138Raven, H (1999) ‘Land Reform’ in E McDowell and J McCormick (eds) EnvironmentScotland: prospects for sustainability. Ashgate, Aldershot, pp139–153Rennie, F (1998) Land, Culture and the Future ofRural Communities. The Rural Lecture,Lews Castle College, StornowaySaid, E W (1993) Culture and Imperialism. Vintage, LondonScottish Executive (1999) Land Reform: proposals for legislation. Scottish Executive,EdinburghScottish Executive (2001) The Nature ofScotland: a policy statement. Scottish Executive,EdinburghScottish Natural Heritage (1994) Red Deer and the Natural Heritage. SNH, EdinburghScottish Office (1997) Towards a Development Strategy for Rural Scotland: a discussion paper.The Stationery Office, Edinburgh170Decolonizing Nature
Scottish Office (1998) Nature and People: a new approach to SSSI designations in Scotland. TheStationery Office, EdinburghSmith, A D (1999) Myths and Memories ofthe Nation. Oxford University Press, OxfordToogood, M D (1995) ‘Representing ecology and Highland tradition’,Area, vol 27,pp102–109Toogood, M D (1996) ‘Nature and Nation’,Scotlands, vol 3, pp42–55Usher, M B (ed) (1999) Landscape Character: perspectives on management and change. SNHNatural Heritage ofScotland, Book 8, The Stationery Office, EdinburghWigan, M (1993) Stag at Bay: the Scottish red deer crisis. Swan Hill Press, ShrewsburyWigan, M (1998) The Scottish Highland Estate. Swan Hill Press, Shrewsbury (revisededition)Wigan, M (2000) ‘Should the state control wild deer?’The Field, August, pp64–67Wightman, A (1996) Who Owns Scotland. Canongate, EdinburghWightman, A (1997) ‘Do we want Scotland’s finest landscape controlled by a benigndictatorship?’Scotland on Sunday, 23 February, p14Williams, P and Chrisman, L (eds) (1993) Colonial Discourse and Post-Colonial Theory.Harvester, LondonWomack, P (1989) Improvement and Romance: constructing the myth ofthe Highlands.Macmillan, LondonDecolonizing Highland conservation171
Chapter 8Responding to place in a post-colonial era: An Australian perspectiveJohn CameronINTRODUCTIONMy thinking about conservation strategies has been heavily influenced by anexperience offour years’ full-time consulting with a leading Australianenvironmental conservation organization. As a result ofproducing severalreports on a conservation-oriented forest policy (eg Cameron and Penna, 1988)and ecologically sustainable land management (Cameron and Elix, 1991), Ibecame involved in vigorous environmental debates at conferences, in themedia, in Parliament House and at local forest protests. I grew concerned aboutthe depth ofpolarization between the protagonists, and the vested interest ofthe media and lobby groups themselves in highlighting conflict, apparently forits own sake.There is no denying the necessity for the conservation movement to bringthe worsening state ofthe environment to national attention through conflictwith the forces ofthe status quo. The national government, led by PrimeMinister Bob Hawke, that was in office during the time I was involved in thiswork, did struggle to find an appropriate response, with attempts ranging fromnegotiated settlement using an industrial dispute model to the establishment ofnew institutions, such as the Resource Assessment Commission and theEcologically Sustainable Development Working Groups. However, so muchtime and energy were spent on conflict and its management that other ways ofunderstanding what was happening in the forests, other voices ofcare forcountry, did not receive the attention that I felt they deserved.At one ofthe many meetings in the dispute over logging in theTantawangalo and Coolangubra forests ofNew South Wales, a local man with a
farming and forestry background spoke ofhis deep affiliation with the forestsand farms as working landscapes. While he deplored clear-felling for woodchipand sawlogs, he related primarily to the forest as producing valued timber forconstruction and furniture. He was eloquent about his feelings for the trees thathe felled and the hardwood they yielded; and while he understood those whowanted the forests left untouched, he didn’t share their views.My conservationist colleagues nodded their approval ofhis opposition towoodchipping and frowned at his opposition to logging bans, while the timberindustry supporters had the reverse reactions. A motion was proposed, debatedand carried. No one responded to that man in the same relational terms that hewas using. Subsequently, the disputed forests were either declared national parks,where no logging could take place, or gazetted as production forests formodified clear-felling. There was no room for either the way he wanted timberto be harvested or for his expressions ofhis ‘sense’ ofthe forest.There were, ofcourse, many conservationists who expressed great affiliationwith places in nature as a primary motivation for their stance, and many oftheseexpressions were used in local campaigns. However, I became interested in howplace relationships tended to disappear from the discourse as the debate movedfrom the local to the state, and then the national level. I encountered other peopleinvolved in conflicts over urban development and agriculture whose voices ofplace attachment were marginalized because they didn’t fully accord with thepositions ofthe main protagonists – small-scale farmers, suburban women,indigenous people. Disheartened by what I saw as ritualized public combat overthe fate ofthe forests, I left my position with the conservation movement toexplore these matters more deeply in a university setting.Within the field of social ecology, I have designed and taught threeexperientially oriented courses in aspects ofsense ofplace, and I have alsoconvened the Sense ofPlace Colloquium – a group ofAustralian scholars andwriters who research, converse and gather periodically to write about and discussthe relevance of place attachment to contemporary Australian social andpolitical life. I use the term ‘sense ofplace’ by building on Relph’s definition:‘The word “place” is best applied to those fragments ofhuman environmentswhere meanings, activities and a specific landscape are all implicated andenfolded by each other’ (Relph, 1992, p37). To put ‘sense of’ in front ofa wordis to bring attention to the individual experience, so that a sense ofplace refersto the ways in which people experience the intertwining ofmeanings, activitiesand a particular landscape, as well as to the felt sense ofbelonging to a placethat emerges from those experiences. The word ‘sense’ does not refer simply tothe physical senses, but to the felt sense of a place and the intuitive andimaginative sensing that is active when one is attuned to, and receptive towards,one’s surroundings.I am still as motivated by concern for the extinction ofnative species, theloss offorest cover and topsoil, and the salination ofrivers as I was when I wasactively working as a conservationist. Now, however, I have a different set ofquestions. For example, how possible is it to move people to change the way inResponding to place in a post-colonial era173
which they dwell on Earth in ecologically desirable ways through the vehicle oftheir own daily experience, their love of place, rather than fear of eco-catastrophe, appeals to the moral rights ofother species or to a vision ofecotopia? Are these options alternatives or complements? What is the role offormal education in such a process? What challenges does this present for theconservation movement? What are the opportunities and barriers to promotingplace attachment in contemporary Australian society?THE CONTEXT: AUSTRALIA IN THE CENTENARYOF FEDERATIONThese questions, and my university teaching experience, need to be put in thebroader context ofwhat is happening in current Australian place relations. Theyear 2001, 100 years after the federation offormerly separate colonies to createthe nation, was an obvious occasion for Australians to look back upon theircolonial heritage and how they have managed to create an independent identityand role in the world after they ceased to belong to a collection ofBritishcolonies. Renowned Australian author David Maloufhas written in fictionaland non-fictional terms ofthe Australian post-colonial experience. In his 1998Boyer lectures, he described the ‘complex fate’ ofAustralians ofEuropeanorigin as:…the paradoxical condition ofhaving our lives simultaneously in two places,two hemispheres [that] may be just the thing which is most original and mostinteresting in us. I mean our uniqueness might lie just here, in the tensionbetween environment and culture rather than in what we can salvage byinsisting either on the one or the other (Malouf, 1998, p33).The tension between a European cultural and intellectual heritage and thephysical realities ofthe continent in which we live lies at the heart ofourconstant reinventing ourselves as a continent and as a people. It manifests itselfparticularly acutely in the debate on the possibility ofAustralia becoming arepublic, symbolically as much as practically severing ties with Europe andcharting a different course in this new century. It is one ofthe underlying factorsin the debate over Aboriginal land rights, which grows out of an equallyprofound tension between European and Aboriginal heritages. In anothermanifestation, it complicates the process ofcloser economic and political tieswith Asia as the physical closeness ofthe continents belies the cultural distancesbetween them.Five contextual factorsIn an introduction to a recent book on the subject, I identified five historicalfactors that have a major bearing on how Australians individually and collectivelyview their sense ofplace (Cameron, 2001).174Decolonizing Nature
The first is the growing importance ofan Aboriginal sense ofplace inmodern Australia. There has been an explosion ofAboriginal creative activityduring the past few decades that is ofinternational significance. Since theintroduction ofWestern painting materials to some Central Desert peopleduring the early 1970s, Aboriginal art ofgreat quality and distinctiveness hasmoved into galleries, museums and the art market. The work ofEmilyKngwarrey and Rover Thomas, in particular, has achieved a degree ofinternational attention and acclaim that is matched by few, if any, whiteAustralian contemporary painters. Aboriginal rock music bands such as YothuYindi have international audiences. This explosion is all the more remarkablefor the general conditions ofpoverty, institutional neglect and, often, racismthat have prevailed for most ofthese people in their daily lives.Because ofthe inseparable link between person and country that manyAboriginal people speak of, much ofthis creative expression is an expression ofAboriginal sense ofplace, although I suspect this phrase has little currencyamongst Aboriginal people. Many ofKngwarrey’s paintings are simply entitled‘My Country’. Books about the deep connection between Aboriginal people andtheir country appear more frequently; two outstanding examples are Yorro Yorroby David Mowaljarlai and Jutta Malnic (1993) and Dingo Makes Us HumanbyDeborah Bird Rose (2000).In some quarters ofthe Australian community at least, this expression ofperson/place/culture has been enthusiastically received. In fact, the strength ofthe reception has created its own problems. ‘White man got no dreaming’ wasan early phrase uttered by Muta, a Murinbata man, and used as the title ofStanner’s influential book (1979), which has come back to haunt both sides ofthe discussion. On the one hand, Aboriginal people have complained oftheultimate exploitation ofspiritually barren ‘whitefellers’ appropriating Aboriginalspirituality as their own. On the other hand, it has led to calls for Australians ofEuropean extraction to examine the depths oftheir own cultural traditions inorder to rediscover their own indigeneity (Tacey, 1995). Whatever the merits ofthe various cases, it is now true that any discussion ofsense ofplace in Australiamust take Aboriginal sense ofplace as a vital factor, something that was notrecognized 30 years ago. This discussion will be taken further in subsequentsections ofthis chapter.A second dimension has been less spectacular and arguably less recognized– the awareness that the Australian continent, like all distinct land masses,imposes a way ofthinking and acting upon its human inhabitants by virtue ofits particular combination ofclimate, landscape and ecology. It is perhaps bestillustrated by Tim Flannery’s book The Future Eaters(1994), which popularizedthe views ofa growing number ofecologists that the nation could no longerafford to ignore the ecological limits to human activity on this fragile and drycontinent.The distinctiveness of Australia’s landscape, flora and fauna has beenevident, often painfully evident, right from the start ofthe British colonies.What has been less evident is the cost ofusing European agricultural methodsResponding to place in a post-colonial era175
and mindsets to ‘develop’ the interior. Massive irrigation schemes have divertedwater onto sediments that contain high levels ofsalt, turning our largest river,the Murray, into a saline drain. Cattle and sheep have been grazed in largenumbers on semi-arid soils which, unlike those in England, have a very thin andeasily eroded topsoil, much ofwhich has been washed and blown away to leavea bare, infertile remnant.The contribution ofthe ecological perspective to an understanding ofmodern Australian sense ofplace is the sharp edge ofthe recognition that placeis not the mere passive recipient ofwhatever humans decide they wish to doupon the face ofit. The land is an active participant in a very physical sense. Forexample, inedible native bushes are turning vast tracts ofinland Australia intoso-called ‘green deserts’ in response to the ill treatment of a century ofovergrazing, curtailment offire and destruction ofnative grasslands. Sense ofplace is not simply the affective response to a particular place that people mighthave; it includes a growing sense ofwhat the place demands ofus in ourattitudes and actions.This viewpoint has echoes at a deeper level. Carl Jung, who was profoundlyinterested in the interplay between psyche and matter, was struck by theAustralian Aboriginal perspective on spirits within the land:Certain Australian Aborigines assert that one cannot conquer foreign soil,because in it there dwell strange ancestor-spirits who reincarnate themselves inthe new-born. There is a great psychological truth in this. The foreign landassimilates its conqueror(Jung, 1927, p49).Psychic material inherent in the land and its indigenous inhabitants can rise upinto the unconscious, the dreams and symbols and myths ofthe conqueringpeople and, ultimately, take them over and make them in the shape ofthe newpsychic patterns. Perhaps this process is starting to take place in Australia today.Paralleling the physical assertion of the land against the assaults of theEuropean invaders, do we have a growing psychic assertion? Ifso, one place tolook would be the work ofthose poets and novelists who are closely attuned tothe national psyche.Our leading commentators on Australian literature have devotedconsiderable attention to the contemporary literary response to the land. DavidTacey is explicit about the emergence ofa deeper response:When I came back to Australia in 1984, I began searching our literature forexamples ofimaginal vision, for expressions ofa dynamic relatedness to theland that could provide a new basis for creative and transformative living. Iwas heartened to discover that there was, indeed, a great deal ofliteraryevidence to suggest that a new spiritual pact or bond with landscape wasdeveloping here (Tacey, 1995, pp160–161).176Decolonizing Nature
Tacey describes how post-war poets such as Judith Wright and Les Murray haveovercome the supposed separation between the poet as subject and thelandscape as object.David Maloufwrites about overcoming the separation in a different way.He describes the work ofthe writer as taking the sensate world into his or herconsciousness and giving the world a ‘second life’, a world that we inhabitimaginatively, as well as in fact. He points to Kenneth Slessor’s poem ‘SouthCountry’ as a breakthrough in which the landscape finally gets inside the psyche,so that it is both an internal and external landscape:The poem, in fact, makes no distinction between the two and part ofits beautyand pleasure is that it allows us to enter this state, too, in which all tensionbetween inner and outer, environment and being, is miraculously resolved(Malouf, 1998, p42).The three factors I have mentioned so far – Aboriginal, ecological and literary –have all been quite directly concerned with an aspect ofAustralian sense ofplace. There are also some more general features ofmodern Australia that havemajor contextual significance. Although the percentage ofthe population inrural areas has declined steadily this century, it has accelerated in post-war yearsand seems to have crossed some kind ofthreshold in national attention. Beyondthe physical decline in the number offarmers and the number ofrural banks,there is the general perception that Australia no longer ‘rides on the sheep’sback’, a widespread view during the 1950s (reflecting the economic importanceofthe sheep industry and the focus on the people working in it). Increasingurbanization has had a number ofeffects on modern sense ofplace. As morepeople have settled into our cities, there has been increased attention given tourban planning, suburban growth and the quality oflife in urban places.Many Australians who are now city dwellers did not come from ruralAustralia,but from overseas.Australia’s massive post-war immigrationprogramme has had profound effects in all areas ofAustralian life, includingour sense ofplace. Four Australians in every ten were either born overseas, ortheir parents were. As Martin Krygier comments:We now have over 100 ethnic groups and 80 languages here. The peaceful wayin which all these ‘aliens’ have become citizens should be at the forefront ofany account ofimmigration in Australia. This was a real social experimentwhich could have gone awfully wrong (Krygier, 1997, p68).In discussing this phenomenon, Krygier steers a middle course between zealousproponents ofpost-World War II immigration and anti-ethnics who extol thevirtues ofthe ‘old Australian’ Anglo traditions at the expense ofthe NewAustralians. He also strikes a balance between pride at the success ofthe ‘socialexperiment’ ofimmigration and shame over the disgraceful treatment oftheAboriginal people over the past two centuries.Responding to place in a post-colonial era177
Meanwhile, the country, as a whole, has been propelled into a new era ofglobalization. Australia’s place in the world is far more in the everydayconsciousness ofindividual citizens than in previous generations. To many placewriters, it is one ofthe forces that is threatening to destroy the distinctivecharacter oflocal places. For them, globalization – through the agency oftheWorld Trade Organization and the proposal for a Multilateral Agreement onInvestment – represents the triumph ofmultinational corporate power over thesovereignty of national governments. Governments have less capacity toinfluence the terms offoreign trade and investment in their country or to sethigh environmental standards for particular projects. Neither Australiandevelopers nor their foreign counterparts have shown great sensitivity to senseofplace in suburban or tourist developments, or mining or industrial projects,in the past. On the other hand, aspects ofglobalization, such as the Internet,have provided a new connection to the world, allowing people who are notphysically or financially able to travel to communicate with people in any countryof the world at a number of different electronic levels. Through satellitetelevision, world music and similar developments, the world and its cultures arenow a real presence in the daily lives ofmany Australian people, arguably givingthem a much-expanded sense ofplace in the world.These contextual factors have combined to create great public interest inthe subject ofAustralian sense ofplace. There have been three internationalconferences held in this country during the past two years with the subtitle‘sense ofplace’. Interestingly, George Seddon, who has been known for decadesas Australia’s ‘sense ofplace man’, has recently become cautious about theincreasing popularity and uncritical use ofthe term: ‘Sense ofplace has becomea popular concept, heard at every turn, unanalysed, and this is, for me, aproblem’ (Seddon, 1997, p105). A key question for Seddon becomes: ‘Whosesense ofplace are we talking about?’THE DEBATE OVER PLACE AND BELONGINGWith Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal Australians living uneasily together on thiscontinent, whose sense ofplace are we talking about? A debate has recentlyemerged that brings together a number ofthe Australian contextual factors, andprovides a reference point for discussion ofmy experience in teaching the‘Sense ofPlace’ subject at the University ofWestern Sydney. Tom Griffithsintroduced the topic in a review in The Australian’s Review ofBooksby observingthat ‘it has been rare in Australian studies to extend to non-Aboriginal groupsthe analysis ofemotional and spiritual attachments to places ofwork andhabitation, but this work is beginning’ (1998, p13). However, extending deepplace affiliation to non-Aboriginal people immediately raises the question ofhow non-Aboriginal place affiliation relates to prior and, in many cases, ongoingAboriginal connection with country. This discussion has been taken up by PeterRead in his book Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownershipand by Val178Decolonizing Nature
Plumwood in her critique ofRead’s book entitled Belonging, Naming andDecolonization, both published in 2000.Read explores the experiences of non-Aboriginal Australians as theyarticulate their sense ofbelonging to the land. He challenges the prevailing viewof the spiritual barrenness of European Australians in comparison withAboriginal people: ‘I want to feel I belong here while respecting Aboriginality,neither appropriating it nor being absorbed by it’ (Read, 2000, p15). He isseeking to contest the view that ‘white man got no dreaming’, while investigatinghow white Australians are grappling with the fact that the land they are soattached to is the same homeland that Aboriginal people loved and so oftenlost. He acknowledges that we have to understand the ‘rivers ofblood and tears’that have been shed before we can talk ofbelonging here, and wonders whatthe knowledge ofAboriginal history brings to a modern white Australian senseof belonging.Read journeys into the poetry and songs ofboth cultures to see how theydeal with issues ofreconciliation and belonging to country. He interviews fourhistorians, seeking out historical roots and possibilities for a shared future andsense of collective belonging. Their answers are equivocal, some of thempointing to what is held in common, but others articulating the depths ofcultural difference. He presents the individual stories ofa number ofnon-Aboriginal people who have developed a strong sense ofplace, expressedthrough rituals, art and writing. For some ofthem this has come about as aresult ofcontact with Aboriginal people; for others, it has not. There is a widerange ofattitudes and experiences about the difference between first settlers,second settlers and migrants, and an open question about the modern relevanceofa spiritual concept ofplace.In view ofthe complexities and differences in these stories, it is surprisingthat Read develops the notion ofseparate but respectful development ofplaceattachments so strongly towards the end ofthe book:Leave the spirits to the people who made them or were made by them. Let therest ofus find the confidence in our own physical and spiritual belonging inthis land, respectful ofAboriginality but not necessarily close to it. Let’s intuitour own attachments to country independently ofAboriginals. We can belongin the landscape on the landscape or irrelevantly to the landscape. We don’t allhave to belong to each other. To understand that is a step to belonging (Read,2000, p204).There are two very strong statements in this paragraph. To urge the independentintuiting ofplace attachments is to maintain that it is not only possible, butdesirable, to do so without relationship with Aboriginal people or theirunderstandings. Secondly, to say that we can belong irrelevantly to the landscapemight be read as a simple statement ofthe current condition ofmany urban-dwelling Australians; but to follow it with the statement that we don’t all have tobelong is to suggest that it is a perfectly acceptable state ofaffairs.Responding to place in a post-colonial era179
It is important to recognize that these words are being written by a manwho has a deep and extensive understanding ofAboriginal history and has beena passionate advocate ofAboriginal land rights. The last chapter describes hisjourney ofrediscovery ofland dear to him in northern Sydney with DennisFoley, a descendant ofthe local Gai-mariagal people. His stance ofseparationappears in odd juxtaposition with the depth ofhis relationship with Foley: ‘NowDennis and I, the one indigenous, the other native-born, each respecting thepast and present cultures ofthe other, are together travelling the northernbeaches ofGai-mariagal lands in search ofthe proper country’ (Read 2000,p210). He advocates the placement ofcommemorative plaques in urban areas,reminding the residents and visitors ofever-present Aboriginality and the jointexploration ofcountry in common, the way he and Foley did it. He ends on anevocative note: ‘I need the Gai-mariagal [local Aboriginal] stories, I need tobelieve that the voices in the river will never be silent, that the land bears ourmark now as well as theirs’ (Read 2000, p223). This is scarcely a call forindependent association with land.Val Plumwood, an eco-feminist philosopher, takes issue with some ofPeterRead’s arguments in a way that not only sheds light on the nature ofthe debateover place and identity in Australia, but offers a way ofthinking about the sortofteaching I am doing, and its role in moving towards a society more orientedtowards conservation and care for country. Plumwood is interested in theprospects for Australia developing what she terms a ‘place-sensitive society’, inwhich a deep connection with place is an integral element of the culture,enabling us to live sustainably within the environment. I prefer the term ‘place-responsive culture’ because the word ‘responsive’ carries with it the impetus toact, to respond, not merely ‘to be sensitive to’. The word ‘sensitive’ has manyconnotations in contemporary Australia, often negative, as in the epithet‘sensitive New Age male’.The difficulty, as Plumwood sees it, is to explain ‘why people from a settlerculture, who make such claims to love their land, have been engaged indestroying so much ofit. What is it that has given non-indigenous Australiasome ofthe worst vegetation clearance, land degradation and biodiversityextinction rates in the world’ (Plumwood, 2000, p90). Armed with this question,she takes issue with Read’s focus on the stories ofindividual place relationships,which suggest that because many ofthe non-Aboriginal people in his chaptersare able to forge deep connections with their piece ofland, society, as a whole,is closer to that goal than it actually is. This approach fails to challenge thestructural obstacles to a genuinely place-responsive culture – for example, aneconomic system that requires regular movement ofemployees regardless ofplace attachment, and which treats place in terms ofprivate property and apotential for development linked ever more closely to the demands ofglobalcorporate capitalism.In part, it is unfair to accuse Read of failing to address the structuralelements ofmodern alienation from place; that is Plumwood’s agenda, not his.His purpose was to understand, through example, how individuals are180Decolonizing Nature
responding to the challenge offered by prior Aboriginal place relationships, andhow this is reflected in cultural expressions such as song and poetry. It is alsounfair to claim that Read ignores the structural factors in environmental decline.For example, in his interview with the historian Tom Griffiths, he describeshow the pastoral properties that Tom visited in outback New South Wales‘displayed the social and historical forces still driving the pastoralists to minerather than work the land’ (Read, 2000, p180). At the same time, Plumwooddoes argue cogently that relationships with place are strongly affected by gender,race, class and colonial status; and that there is no escaping the interrelationshipsbetween individual experience and the structure ofsociety.Plumwood also takes issue with Read’s notion ofnon-Aboriginal peopletaking an independent pathway to a spiritual relationship with the land.Independence, she claims:…ignore[s] all the more interesting options ofinteraction, including dialogue,learning, convergence and hybridization, dynamically evolving and adaptiveforms that are quite distinct from static cultural imitation (Plumwood,2000, p93).As we have already noted, Read himselfhas such ambivalence about his call forindependence that his relationship with Dennis Foley comes across as anillustration ofthe sort ofdialogical and communicative relationship betweenthe cultures that Plumwood is advocating. For my purposes, the point is less todecide who has the more correct position than to look at what sort ofindividualand structural initiatives are most likely to promote cross-cultural dialogue andaction regarding place.As an example of action at the structural level that could stimulate ademocratic cross-cultural engagement with place, Plumwood suggests therenaming ofAustralian places,many ofwhich reflect the unthinkingcontinuation ofa colonial past (see Chapter 3 in this book). While detailedconsideration ofthe merits ofher specific proposal is beyond the purview ofthis chapter, it provides an illustration ofthe sort ofstructural initiative involvedin moving towards a place-responsive society.The view from Europe: A critique of place essentialismStructures in society are not only important for those writers, such asPlumwood, who are advocating a future in which place relations will be verydifferent. They are also significant for understanding the politics ofcurrentplace relationships and the way in which society can privilege particular ways ofconstructing a sense ofplace. Doreen Massey, in her book Space, Place and Gender(1994), provides a perspective on place that emphasizes social relations.Although she is writing as part ofa different debate, regarding the scope oflocality studies in Europe, she writes in accessible and general terms about globaland local senses ofplace. For Australians, this view from afar is important forResponding to place in a post-colonial era181
the topic ofpost-colonial conservation strategies regarding place, especiallywhen it comes from the old colonial centre.Massey begins by questioning whether the loss ofsense ofplace (which ispart ofthe phenomenon of‘time–space compression’ involving the speedingup oflife and the shrinking ofthe globe) is a universal aspect ofmodern life. Ina telling example, she considers the case ofthe jumbo jets that regularly fly overthe Pacific Ocean, shrinking the globe dramatically for Australian tourists andJapanese businessmen, amongst others, and speeding up their lives (Massey,1994, p148). The same jets have caused a major decline in ocean shipping andmade it harder for the islanders, over whom the planes fly, to move around thePacific. The same forces that have compressed space–time for a Singaporeancomputer consultant have expanded time and space for a Pitcairn islander – itall depends upon who is being considered. Whose sense ofplace are we talkingabout?Massey goes beyond arguing against universalizing the experience ofloss ofplace attachment to look at the power dynamics ofthe new mobility. Businessmenand tourists use space–time compression to their advantage, and can, to someextent, control the degree to which they engage in it. Third World refugees anddisplaced migrants are not in control oftheir largely unwanted increased mobility;they are victims ofthe compressive forces. Even within Western countries, it isnot a general experience; the poor and elderly might be aware ofthe shrinkingglobe in terms offoreign food, music and merchandise available, but are not ableto afford it, and they are less mobile because ofthe steady decline ofpublictransport services. So, there’s not just a widening gap between the new globalcitizen and those on the margins in terms oftheir experience, but also in terms oftheir capacity to do anything about it.It starts to become clear why sense ofplace is regarded as a reactionaryconcept by many ‘progressives’, who see place advocates as attempting to escapefrom the real task ofchanging the modern world for the better. A reactionarynotion ofplace, according to Massey, is based upon the idea that places havesingle and essential identities, and are marked with clear boundaries that definea community on the inside that derives its sense ofbelonging from associationwith the place, and in counterposition with ‘Others’ on the outside oftheborders. Massey maintains that places have never had fixed identities orcharacteristics; these were always in a state offlux as groups moved in or out, asland use changed. The ‘identity’ ofthe place was always very different forwomen than men (a point also made by Plumwood), and different for fieldworkers than town dwellers. Stable place identity means fixing it in a particulartime and giving primacy to one set ofpower relations. Finally, somecommunities are not place-based at all, but linked by other factors such asreligion. Even when a physical boundary can be drawn, it usually does notenclose a coherent social group who has a common sense ofplace.Massey suggests an alternative, progressive or global sense ofplace ‘formedout ofthe particular set ofsocial relations which interact at a particular location’(Massey, 1994, p12), which is more open and provisional than the reactionary182Decolonizing Nature
view she outlined. By linking it so closely with social relations, Massey achievesa more open sense ofplace because a proportion ofthese relationships willextend beyond any area. The identity ofa place cannot be fixed because itsconstituent social relations are constantly changing, and are changing the sort ofplace it is, as a result. Rather than defining places from an introverted sense ofenclosure and history, she describes an extroverted sense ofplace in which theidentity ofa place derives from the particular nature ofits relations with ‘theoutside’ (Massey, 1994, p13).Massey’s work puts the Australian debate over place and belonging withinthe global context and introduces the important notion ofplace essentialism.There is much in common with Plumwood’s work in Massey’s emphasis on thesocial construction ofplace and the importance ofstructural change, and withRead in not wanting any one cultural construction ofplace to gain ascendancyas the ‘true’ nature ofthe place. At the same time, there is a distinctly Europeanquality to her writing on social relations that is a challenge to Australians’ interestin relationships with the land itself. These three writers together provide a usefulframework within which to examine my students’ experiences ofplace.TEACHING SENSE OF PLACE IN A UNIVERSITY SETTINGFor many years, I have been teaching ‘Sense ofPlace’ as a postgraduate subjectbased upon experiential learning principles in the social ecology programme atthe University ofWestern Sydney. Students combine weekly immersion in aplace oftheir choosing with subsequent reflection on their experiences,engagement with literature and different modes ofexpression oftheir emergingplace relationships. In workshops and a two-day field trip in a remote bushsetting, I introduce the students to the process ofdeepening the person–placerelationship.Emphasizing the need to engage with place on many levels, I explore thedifferent ways in which place can be sensed, and how each ofthe senses can beused in an identifying, discriminating way, or in a way that experiencesphenomena without naming them. Together we construct the various storiesthat are contained in the place – the geological evolution ofthe rock strata; theformation ofthe topography and the soils; the type offlora and fauna that haveevolved in this landscape; what is known about the history of Aboriginaloccupation ofthe area and the ‘Dreaming stories’ ofthe place; the history ofEuropean invasion and settlement; and, finally, the different personal stories ofhow each ofthe students came to be sitting there that day. Moving beyond placeliteralism, I discuss various indirect ways in which a place can ‘speak’ to a personthrough natural features, animals, poetry, symbols and dream images. Studentsconsider their associations with the place and the role ofimagination in buildinga sense ofplace. In later workshops, both in the bush and in urban settings, Iexplore the use ofthe elements and archetypes in understanding theperson–place relationship, how to express place through different creativeResponding to place in a post-colonial era183
media, as well as how to bring out the commonalities and differences betweenurban and wild place experiences.Over the years, the several hundred students who have taken this coursehave chosen a wide variety ofplaces to visit for many different reasons. Somehave been interested in the interaction between designed and natural featuresand have visited urban parks. One visited an art gallery to experience thecreation ofa contemplative urban environment in which other places were oftendepicted on its walls. Others have researched the connection between thehealing ofdegraded land and personal healing by visiting and working onpolluted or degraded sites. Many spend each week in a national park, seekingout the stories ofthe place, developing their ecological literacy and discoveringhow little remains ofthe Aboriginal stories in most places. Several studentshave immersed themselves in the process ofbeing attentive to neglected orunloved areas ofland, such as the land on either side ofmajor power lines orwaste dumps. A number have been interested in marginal or border lands,exploring the sense ofplace in a paddock and adjacent forest, or a beach and anestuary, or a garden and the surrounding bushland. Others have been motivatedby the spiritual or eco-psychological dimensions ofplace and have tended tochoose the most wild and remote locations they could find.Many students have been surprised and touched by the depth andtransformative effect ofspending one afternoon a week visiting the same placeover four months while reading and reflecting on the person–place relationship.The surprise comes, in part, because oftheir initial resistance to the apparentartificiality ofselecting a place and spending regular time in it, and concernabout the outcome. As one student expressed it: ‘Relationship with a place? Arethese people for real? How can I have a relationship with a place when I canbarely hold down relationships with other human beings… At first nothingseemed to happen. I would spend many restless hours trying to form arelationship with this ungrateful place.’This student’s breakthrough came when he realized that while he waswatching nature, he was being watched – in particular, by hundreds ofgoldenorb weaver spiders. As he read about the biology ofspiders, he pondered theirrole in mythology and observed the fearful response ofothers to spiders. Hisscientific and symbolic understanding led him into a ‘spider’s eye view’ ofhisplace and, also, into a deeper appreciation ofthe need to release unfoundedfears and prejudices on the way to sustainability.Another student was initially ‘afraid ofbecoming bored, ofnot havingenough to do. I was afraid ofgoing to a place to which I did not already feelsome connection and which was just a patch ofbush.’ Her journey into placewas, in part, an exploration ofMerleau-Ponty’s (1962) ideas ofbody-as-subjectand ofher own physical responses to nature, and she wrote:The world has become more animate. I look up at the pale, green, smoothbranches ofthe eucalypt spreading out and I feel a kind ofmimicking actionin my body. I have started from not so much a place ofindifference but a place184Decolonizing Nature
ofwishing I could feel more... I censored the knowing that my body wasbringing to me. In the course ofthis project I have felt this censorship liftingand I feel I am learning to speak a new language. I am learning to take mypart in what Abram (1996, p53) called ‘the improvized duet between myanimal body and the fluid breathing landscape it inhabits’.In the workshops during the semester and in email conversations, the studentshave canvassed a wide range ofissues as a result ofcoming to terms with theirspecific sense ofplace project. Most ofthem, at some point, become concernedabout the apparent lack ofmutuality in their emerging place relationships. Whilevaluing their place visits as occasions ofrespite and nurturance, they have raisedquestions around the campfire, such as ‘I feel like I am taking so much from theplace, but what am I giving back?’ and ‘Does the land respond to the love andcare I feel for it?’ These questions have sparked discussions ofthe significanceofphysical action, complemented by an attitude ofcare, and the different levelsofcaring for country.The importance ofchildhood places in the students’ perceptions ofplaceand their sense ofselfhas been striking. Although most students did not starttheir projects with this in mind, many discover the significance ofthe placesthey grew up in as they begin reflecting about their response to their chosenplace. For some, merely spending this amount oftime quietly outside takesthem back to childhood (and to their deeper selves). For others, specific anddetailed memories ofsignificant places from their early life come back withsuch power that they see their life’s journey in a different light. Often it is amatter ofmaking unconscious patterns more conscious. One student noticedthat she was unable to relate deeply to her chosen place in a quiet reflectivemode, and could only ‘allow it in’ when she was doing physical maintenancework. She made more sense ofthis observation, and her life patterns moregenerally, when she thought about her early life on a farm.Many ofthe students show a growing interest in the possibilities ofa healingrelationship with the land. In part, this was a matter ofacknowledging thewounds – the visible scars in the land and the invisible polluting ofthe waters –as well as the psychological wounding that each person carries. Healing, forsome, means the physical work ofremoving weeds or planting trees, and this ispersonally sustaining; for others, it is attitudinal, and involves renewed care andrespect.PLACE, INDIGENEITY AND ENVIRONMENTALISMThe experiences of the students confirm Read’s general contention thatpowerful place attachments are made by non-indigenous people in Australia,often without direct experience ofindigenous knowledge.Given theopportunity to spend halfa day per week in the same place – in fact, beingrequired to do so within a formal university setting – some students haveResponding to place in a post-colonial era185
reported experiences as deep as those expressed by Read’s interviewees. Thesecomments have sometimes come years later, and not only during the field trip,when it could be argued that students are merely saying what the lecturer wantsto hear (despite my repeated injunction to be true to what they actuallyexperience rather than what they consider they are supposed to think and feel).I regularly receive emails and letters from past students letting me know howtaking the subject changed the course oftheir lives, or their university careers,or helped them to recover from illness, or led them to become moreenvironmentally active.However, these student reports are not saying quite the same thing as Read.He has contacted a diverse group ofpeople who have expressed, through theirwriting, or songs, or way ofliving, that they already have a strong bond withtheir country. Some ofmy students have already been deeply immersed in place;but many ofthem indicate at the outset that what drew them towards thiselective subject was the fact that they did not feel a strong sense ofplace. Indeed,they felt displaced or felt that they didn’t really belong in Australia. The resultthat most ofthese students have ended up expressing a strong connection withplace suggests not only that non-indigenous people can form deep placeattachments, but that they can learn to do so, given the opportunity and somestarting ideas.Only a minority of my students have come to the project with directexperience ofindigenous knowledge. The course readings contain accounts ofindigenous relationships with country and include a chapter from Read’s book.Indigeneity is a central topic in the seminars and workshops. However, whenasked at the outset why they chose the subject, few students mentionAboriginality. Motivated, in part, by the readings and discussions, most ofthemattempt to find out the Aboriginal history oftheir chosen place, the myths andstories that might belong to it, and to contact the relevant Aboriginal landcouncils or descendants oflocal Aboriginal people. This attempt is illuminatingin itself, even ifit only leads to the recognition ofhow much knowledge hasbeen lost. Some students write directly ofthe sense ofloss ofcountless millenniaofcontinuous care for country, and how that loss affects their understanding oftheir place. Some imaginatively fill in what has been lost historically. Othersfollow the way ofthinking that Peter Read ascribes to Bill Insch:Aboriginality? That cannot help him; the past is almost unknown, the peopleare gone from the valley, and the only attempt to re-people it was a fiasco...But modern Man, deprived ofAboriginalities, must make the best way hecan (Read, 2000, p102).Making ‘the best way they can’ includes students engaging in creative activities,such as constructing installations, engaging in rituals, and producing paintings,poetry and photographs.Not many students have been as blessed as Peter Read was by his friendshipwith Dennis Foley, although a handful have had similar experiences. There are186Decolonizing Nature
too few to offer many general statements; suffice to say, these were reallysignificant encounters during which the students concerned learned a great deal,not simply about history and stories, but about how to be in the bush; how toobserve birds, animals and insects; how to find edible food where none appearsto exist; and how to remain still in body and mind for long periods oftime.These fortunate few learned what Read learned from Foley – that even close tourban areas, there are descendants ofthe local Aboriginal people who care forcountry, carry the history and know some ofthe hidden stories. They, and theplaces ofwhich they are custodians, are usually not known to the general publicand they prefer to keep it that way.Do these relationships show any of ‘the more interesting options ofinteraction’ to which Plumwood refers? Clearly, the first two ofthe optionsPlumwood mentions – dialogue and learning – are operating with the students,as they were with Peter Read and Dennis Foley. Ifone form ofrelationshipinvolves settlers and migrants learning history and stories from the first peoplesthen many ofmy students have experienced that relationship. Peter Read wasprimarily in this position with Dennis Foley, as were the participants oftheSense ofPlace Colloquium in Central Australia (Cameron and San Roque, 2002,in press). The first two days ofthat colloquium consisted ofthe visitors listeningto the Aboriginal custodian ofthe local area telling us the outer layer ofthestories ofthe local Dreaming, and being slowly introduced to country. It wasn’tuntil the third day that we were ready to converse with others about our ownplace experiences. Perhaps Plumwood’s options ofinteraction are sequential –basic learning about place needs to occur before meaningful dialogue is possible,and this precedes convergence and hybridity,which are higher-orderrelationships. To countenance the more complex forms without basic learningis to invite misunderstanding. Most non-indigenous Australians have much tolearn from Aboriginal people, and spending time together in place is a betterway to learn and engage in satisfying dialogue than a generalized conversationabout reconciliation or Aboriginality. Only through more specific interactions, itseems to me, can convergent spiritualities or hybrid cultural expressions besoundly based.At the same time, most ofthe students found deep place relationshipsindependently ofAboriginal people, which might seem to confirm Read’s callfor independent intuiting ofour attachments to country. However, the matterofchoice is critical here. By and large, my students attempted to find localAboriginal people who could tell them about their places, but most wereunsuccessful. The few who succeeded found their connection with the landgreatly enriched as a result. The contentious part ofRead’s call for independenceis the suggestion that even when faced with a choice, white Australians shouldchoose a separate pathway. Some ofmy students and the Central AustralianColloquium participants would have been the poorer for that choice.Discussion about the place relationships between Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people needs to be grounded in the recognition ofgreat diversity oneach side. Generalizations about Aboriginality can obscure the fact that there areResponding to place in a post-colonial era187
many Aboriginalities. The Yolgnu ofArnhem Land in the Northern Territory,for example, had many centuries oftrade with the Macassans, from what is nowIndonesia, and differ greatly in intercultural history and language from thePitjatjantjara ofthe Central Desert and from middle-class suburban people ofEora descent in Sydney. Generalizations about non-Aboriginality can conceal thegreat differences between first- and sixth-generation Australians, and betweenimmigrants from England, southern Europe and South-East Asia.The whole project ofgrounding students in their own experience ofplaceis subject to Plumwood’s critique ofindividualizing a structural problem. Tosome extent, I address this concern by providing readings from Plumwood andMassey and others who discuss structural issues. My subject is also offered in auniversity department in which there are other subjects – such as Social andPolitical Change Movements and Eco-feminism, offered by Ariel Salleh – thatcover the structural dimensions of environmental problems. The value ofPlumwood’s critique is not so much that it champions the structural level overthe individual, which can lead to a false dichotomy, but that it stimulatesconsideration ofstructural questions in order to complement individualawareness and action. I have observed a tendency amongst some students totake refuge in their chosen places, to derive personal comfort and significancefrom these visits, to revel in their newfound place attachment, and not to relateto the larger questions of sustainability, or cultural change, or control ofeconomic power. It is a risk for educators that experiential learning can leadstudents so deeply into their internal experience that they are reluctant to emergefrom it. Most ofmy students, however, cannot avoid the larger picture ofeconomic, political and social structures because the imprint on the chosenplace is clearly visible. Coastal development is rapidly encroaching upon thebeach visited by one student, motivating him to investigate the environmentaland local political history ofthe area. Another student tried to trace the sourceofthe brown scum floating in the creek at her place, and ended up with acomplex mix ofeffluent from sewage treatment and heavy manufacturing.Another looked at the social pressures and gender relations that led her and herfriends to feel unsafe on their own in the bush.Just as it is possible to ignore the structural issues by focusing exclusivelyupon individualized accounts, it is also possible to lose the individualengagement in exclusive engagement with structural issues. During my yearswith the conservation movement, I observed that some ofthe activists withwhom I worked were preoccupied with environmental and corporate policyissues, and were impatient with my concern for local place. It’s another aspect ofthe muting ofthe voice ofplace affiliation that I described in the fist section ofthis chapter.A rather more nuanced view of the interplay between structural andindividualized forces emerges from my experiences. People act out oftheir ownexperience; therefore, attention to the individual’s place relationships, andproviding opportunities for deepening place affiliation, are important. Ifpeoplehave a poorly developed sense ofplace, there will be a process ofimmersion188Decolonizing Nature
into place that could lead to a lack ofconsidering larger structural questions forsome time. There is a risk that place immersion could remain an individualizedphenomenon; but ifmy students are any indication, most people engage moreenergetically with institutionalized forces once they are aware ofthe effect suchforces have on their local places.Plumwood quite rightly argues for collective effort to overcome thestructural barriers to a place-responsive society that, at present, only a privilegedfew can overcome by their own efforts (many people are caught in economic,employment and social situations that give them little choice). She proposes aproject ofrenaming places as an example ofcollective effort; others that occurto me are community-mapping projects that include local Aboriginal people askey participants, and national park and reserve signage projects that bringtogether scientific, cultural and historical aspects ofprotected local places.Broadening formal education to include learning from place responsiveness asan explicit goal could be another such undertaking. At the moment, thesubjective response to place is taken for granted: a background for poetic orartistic endeavours or a minor part ofenvironmentally oriented field trips.Conscious and regular attention to local place relationships has proven to be aneffective vehicle for personal and environmental learning at the postgraduateuniversity level in the subjects I have taught. Whether that is the case, moregenerally, in schools, other universities and informal community educationsettings await further investigation.Massey’s work provides an interesting view from the outside for students ofthe Australian debate about place and identity. Although her critique ofplaceessentialism has much in common with Plumwood’s, particularly regarding theconstruction ofplace attachment by gender, race and class, she focuses uponurban place relationships, whereas Plumwood clearly has a deep affinity for wildnature. Massey takes the reader on a walk down Kilburn High Road in London,describing how there are depictions of, and references to, many other parts ofthe world – IRA slogans, life-size models ofIndian women, reminders ofthePersian GulfWar, the Middle East and Pakistan (Massey, 1994, pp152–153). Bycontrast, Plumwood writes ofbushwalking in the Kakadu National Park in theNorthern Territory, describing evocative figures weathered into the sandstoneplateau, and the ‘extraordinary qualities ofbeauty, power and prescience’ in theland (Plumwood, 2000, p102).Recently, my students have picked up on these differences in the coursereadings. One student who was investigating a city park in central Sydneycommented with reference to Massey’s work that ‘a dynamic concept ofplacewith its recognition ofmultiple meanings, changing identities, fluid boundariesand complex interconnections is a more useful and relevant way to understandplace in the city’ than many ofthe place readings based in wild nature. Anotherstudent, while visiting a park in Adelaide city, found that Massey raisedimportant points to consider, whereas in ‘the timeless landscape ofthe deserthills’ ofthe Flinders Ranges several hundred kilometres north ofAdelaide, thecritique ‘all seemed so irrelevant’.Responding to place in a post-colonial era189
However, discussions among the students during the semester have revealedcomplexities within the apparent divide between urban and bush experiences.For example, around the campfire in 2001, a student visiting a creek-side park incentral Melbourne spoke ofthe startling power ofthe nocturnal appearance ofan owl and a fox within several minutes ofeach other in terms normally used bystudents encountering wildlife in more remote locations. Another described thesingle swooping glide ofa currawong into one side ofa multilevel car park andout the other side with the language ofa numinous event.The student responses to Massey’s writing, and the apparent differencesbetween European and Australian place writing, raise difficult questions aboutplace relationships in Australia. Massey critiques working-class communities inthe Docklands ofLondon resisting the encroachment of‘yuppies’ into theirarea for putting forward an invalid ‘claim for timeless authority’ (1994, p122).She considers their claim to be invalid because a generation ago it was claimedto be, in essence, a white area (to resist the encroachment ofAsian immigrants),and a couple ofcenturies ago it had been field and farmland – that is, anessentialist definition ofplace collapses in the face ofhistorical understanding.Is this critique ofplace essentialism in urban England simply ‘irrelevant’ whentransposed to outback Australia, as one student felt? This would imply that thecritique itselfis place and culture bound, relevant only for urban, possiblyEuropean, places and Western culture. If, as other students consider, it is morewidely relevant (and Massey does use very general language about space, placeand gender), then are not Aboriginal songlines, identified with very specificplaces and associated stories and rituals, ‘a claim for timeless authenticity’?In the Central Australian Colloquium, participants were introduced to thenotion, held by local Aboriginal people and some local non-Aboriginals, ofaninterconnection between human consciousness and consciousness within theland (Cameron and San Roque, 2002, in press). Plumwood writes of the‘prescience’ ofKakadu country, and the Australian poets I referred to abovebestow the land with subjectivity. The question thus arises: is it physically true,as well as imaginatively and mythologically true, that the land containsconsciousness and energies ofits own? This is similar to Peter Read’s question:‘Do people respond to forces in the country already, or is it humankind whichsacralizes the country?’ (2000, p203). Read receives several different answers tothis question from his interviewees, and my students who have considered thisfathomless question also come up with differing responses.It is, indeed, a deep mystery – one that underlies the discussion ofsense ofplace in Australia, but which is seldom articulated. It is not specific to Australia,as the existence ofgeomancy and feng-shui attests. However, the status inAustralia ofvast areas ofcountry still under Aboriginal law and maintained byritual and ceremony gives it a present reality that is muted, to say the least, inmost Western countries. The only way I can understand it is that humanity,country and consciousness have co-evolved in Australia for at least 60,000 years,so that Peter Read’s question is moot – all three are inseparable and have beenthroughout human history. As a non-Aboriginal Australian, I have had an190Decolonizing Nature
occasional glimpse ofpower and presence in the land that has been vast beyondcomprehension. My regular engagement with my local garden and bushland hasbeen co-evolutionary in a more modest sense. As I have worked in the gardenand regenerated the surrounding bushland, I have modified the place while ithas changed me, physically and mentally (Cameron, 2001).And what ofconservation strategies? As mentioned, some students whotake my subject are moved to take immediate action to protect ‘their’ places. Afew who had expressed antipathy towards Green activists as being narrow or‘anti-humanity’ have ended up joining, or in one case creating, environmentalcampaigns in order to save a piece ofbush or coastline. Many more haveexpressed a changed attitude towards environmental issues – greater empathywith the passion ofenvironmentalists, more understanding ofthe link betweendaily actions and environmental issues, more willingness to take a stand in localaffairs. One wrote a magazine article entitled ‘Spiders for Sustainability’, basedupon his experiences ofthe semester.Environmental activists who have taken the subject have reported mixedreactions. For some, it provided much-needed regeneration after being burnedout from years ofcampaigning. It was a time ofdeepening commitment or,perhaps, reorientation within an activist framework. Others, however, havefound it a challenging and complex experience. Several have complained,somewhat tongue-in-cheek, that life used to be simple as a Greenie before theyrealized that farmers and loggers have a sense ofplace, too. A greater numberhave found the subject to be a means ofentering into a more reflective phase oftheir life – a time in which they are looking more deeply at their motivations forthe positions they have taken, and, in some cases, questioning their involvementin activism or even the whole activist ‘project’. From a narrow Greenperspective, this could be problematic because it removes eco-warriors from thefrontline, at least temporarily. But there can be longer-term gains.Thus, whether it is ofenvironmental benefit for activists to pay closerattention to their sense oflocal place is partially dependent upon one’s point ofview. Becoming a more reflective environmentalist, ifmy students are anyindication, may lead a person to a more sustainable form ofenvironmentalactivism; but it may lead them to question some ofthe strategies and actions ofthe movement. The loss ofsome eco-warriors from the frontline might beoffset by the addition ofsome more grounded campaigners, able to enter intodeeper dialogue with those ofopposing viewpoints and able to maintain thecampaign over the long haul. Indeed, there are already some seasoned Greencampaigners and Green politicians with these qualities who have been able tosustain their deep connection with their local places.There is some indication ofmore sympathy for the diverse voices ofplaceattachment within the conservation movement and beyond than there was 13years ago when the polarized forestry meeting that I described in the first sectionofthis chapter occurred. For example, there has been the recent publication ofthe book The People’s Forestby Greg Borschmann (1999), an oral historian, writerand journalist associated with the conservation movement. This book is basedResponding to place in a post-colonial era191
upon a series ofsympathetic interviews with, and photographs of, a wide rangeofpeople who have a deep affinity with forests – farmers, rural women, saw-millers, logging contractors, field botanists and seed collectors, as well as peoplewho overtly identify themselves as forest conservationists. In the introductionto the collection, Borschmann pays tribute to the voices ofplace affiliation whohave sometimes been marginalized in the environmental debate:These stories, then, are but the beginning, a scratching ofthe surface. Theycontain the kernel ofa Bush Dreaming, both old and new. Have we thepatience and humility to listen to each others’ stories? There is wisdom,memory and insight here that we are in danger oflosing, as surely as we mayyet lose even more ofthe forests, bushlands, grasslands and their greatwaterway arteries. How soon will we come to know that they are inseparable– the stories, the people and the forests? (Borschmann, 1999, pviii).The broader question for conservation strategies is whether it is possible toengender love ofplace as a means ofachieving conservation objectives. Ifso, itcould sit alongside the use offear ofthe consequences ofunsustainable economicactivity, or exhortations to do the right thing with regard to other species, oroffering a vision ofenvironmental utopia,and alongside governmentdepartments’ and schools’ use ofeducation about the environment. Love ofplaceis generally considered a matter for the individual, not the domain ofany group insociety, except perhaps poets, place writers, painters and film-makers, as I havediscussed above. But what if educators and conservationists saw it as theirmandate to foster deeper place attachment among students and the general public?The several hundred students who have taken the ‘Sense ofPlace’ courseover the past eight years are a self-selected and unrepresentative sample oftheAustralian population; but they at least suggest that it is possible to facilitategreater place affiliation in a way that is personally fulfilling for those involved.Its success as a conservation strategy is harder to gauge. Some previouslyuninterested students have become environmentally active, others less so. Manyare more able to connect large environmental issues with the fate oftheir localplaces. Some retreated into local places as a refuge, or for healing in an insularfashion. Perhaps this could be interpreted as part ofthe process ofplaceengagement for those without a previously strong sense ofplace.Plumwood cautions more generally that place attachment cannot always beconsidered to be ofconservation benefit:One has to consider the case, increasingly common in commodified and colonialland contexts, where one’s land ofattachment thrives at the expense ofotherland which is treated as sacrificial. In this case, land attachment does notnecessarily lead to positive environmental outcomes (Plumwood, 2000,p105).192Decolonizing Nature
I encourage in my students an inclusive sense ofplace, in which experiencing adeeper relationship with one place opens one up to a deeper affiliation with allplaces, rather than an exclusive sense of place of the type referred to byPlumwood. The latter is analogous to the essentialist approach to place,critiqued by Massey, that does not allow for others to have a different sense ofthat place, particularly others ofdifferent gender, race or class background.Allowing multiple stories ofplace to be voiced not only fosters an inclusivesense ofplace among a group ofpeople, it can also help to deal with entrenchedenvironmental conflict. This, in turn, can lead to the adoption ofconservationstrategies that have wider support than regulatory or legal measures that alienateat least one ofthe parties concerned. I encountered an example ofthe power ofthe storied approach to place when I was approached by a member of acatchment management committee in Tasmania after I had given a talk inHobart on sense ofplace. She described how the committee had been sharplydivided between pro-development and conservationist members, and had notbeen able to agree on any course ofaction. Then the members went on a two-day tour ofthe catchment. As they arrived at particular places, each memberwas asked to mention to the rest ofthe group any experiences they had had inthat place, or any knowledge they had ofit. Informally, especially in the evening,people starting swapping stories ofgrowing up in the area or moving into it. Bythe end ofthe trip, there was much more understanding ofeach member as aperson, not simply a representative of an organization or ideology. Theexperience transformed the functioning ofthe committee – committeemembers now had the capacity to work together for the benefit of thecatchment community as a whole. The potential for working with place storiesis further discussed by Martin Mulligan in Chapter 12.CONCLUSIONS: LEARNING RESPONSIVENESS TO PLACEDeveloping a place-responsive culture is, as Plumwood (2000, p96) has noted, arevolutionary process. It involves changing institutions and practices that arebarriers to enriching place relationships, such as treating place as an inanimateproperty to be traded, or a resource for exploitation, or living lives ofincreasingmobility and displacement. My own view is that this sort ofradical change isbest approached through the notion oflearning our way towards the place-responsive society. It is analogous to the view propounded by Lester Milbrath(1989) regarding sustainability. As he says in his preface:My first intention for this book was to present a vision ofa sustainable society;that is still its major topic. As the book evolved, however, I returned againand again to the recognition that we must improve and hasten social learningas the major avenue to social change. So the central theme ofthe book became:learning our way to a sustainable society[emphasis in original](Milbrath, 1989, pxi).Responding to place in a post-colonial era193
Promoting some sort ofdesirable end state called a sustainable society anddescribing its characteristics sets up the barrier of‘We are nowhere near thatstate now, so how do we get there from here?’ It can even cause paralysis becausethe perceived difference is so large. A better question to ask is ‘What are theconditions that enable a society to learn its way towards sustainability’ (Milbrath,1989, p366)?What I have been doing at the university is promoting the conditions thatenable the students, and myselfin the process, to learn our way towards aresponsiveness to place.It is a different approach from mainstreamenvironmental education, for example, which primarily aims to provide studentswith information about the environment. It is learner-centred, focused uponthe learners themselves and their experiences (Kolb, 1982; Brookfield, 1986). Inthe ‘sense ofplace’ subject, the learning is through the experience ofthe weeklyplace visits informed by workshops and course readings. It is learning abouthow to develop ecological literacy, awareness ofthe more-than-human aspectsofplace, openness to other stories ofplace than one’s own, and the capacity tobring one’s previous place experiences into consciousness.From the learning perspective, the question at the structural level is how toredesign institutions and structures so that they enable organizations to learnplace responsiveness, rather than continue to encourage a denial ofrelatednessto place. For educational institutions, one ofthe ways to do this is to re-examinethe specializations into arts and sciences that occur in schooling. Understandinghow the natural elements ofplace interact is currently the domain ofthesciences – botany, geology, ecology. The feeling response to place is the domainofthe humanities – literature and the arts. The two have become cordoned offso that the real power ofdawning ecological knowledge, working in concertwith a poetic appreciation ofplace, is lost. As many ofmy students discover, afelt response to place without ecological understanding is as one-sided asscientific and historical knowledge ofa place without any emotionalengagement with it.Both Massey and Plumwood urge that learning about responsiveness toplace should include learning about the way our responses are conditioned byour class, race, gender and colonial status. We carry social conditioning with usso that we recapitulate our early place and social relationships unless we bringawareness ofthat conditioning and the desire to challenge it. This is whereengagement with Aboriginal people within the landscape and with their storiesofplace can be so valuable. The students who were fortunate enough to findAboriginal guides, and those ofus involved with the Central AustralianColloquium, were required to not only listen and learn about the profundity ofa world view in which trees, rock forms and creatures are kin, infused withconsciousness and purpose, but also to learn ofthe limitations ofour ownculture, by contrast. It is a privilege to glimpse the power of60,000-year-oldEarth-based tradition, and a sorrow to experience in the flesh, on the land, thedevastating economic, social and environmental impacts that Europeancolonization has had.194Decolonizing Nature
With Read, we can say that it is possible to learn responsiveness to placewithout direct interaction with Aboriginal people. To say otherwise would be todeny opportunities for many Australians for whom such an experience is notlikely. After all, the evidence ofAboriginal connections with country iseverywhere in contemporary Australian society – in art, music, dance, theatre,newspaper articles, poetry and novels. With Plumwood, we can say that learningresponsiveness to place is greatly enhanced by such interaction, and everycollective effort should be made to increase the likelihood ofit occurring.When this sort of learning is taking place, in reconciliation circles, inLandcare groups,catchment-management committees,classrooms andconservation groups, then we can begin to ask the harder questions about aplace-responsive culture. What forms ofagriculture and pastoralism provide forcollective learning about sustainability and greater place affiliation? Howdifferent would the experience ofbuying and selling land be ifboth partieswere primarily concerned about the passing on ofwhat had been learned aboutthe place? Culture does not remain static, and there are many different culturesin Australia. With such diversity, how can we grapple meaningfully with thecomplexity of multicultural dialogue around sustainable futures and placerelations, while contending with the rapidity of the changes wrought bymodernization and globalization?These questions become too large, too generalized and decontextualizedwithout ongoing appreciation ofour local places, and without ongoingconversation with other cultures in urban and wild places. Learning to pay closerattention to place relationships helps to sustain the individual, as well as thesociety and its environment. It becomes an imperative when a highly biodiversecontinent and the oldest land-based culture on the globe are both facing multiplethreats.REFERENCESAbram, D (1996) The Spell ofthe Sensuous. Vintage Books, New YorkBorschmann, G (1999) The People’s Forest: A Living History ofthe Australian Bush. ThePeople’s Forest Press, BlackheathBrookfield, S (1986) Understanding and Facilitating Adult Learning. Jossey-Bass, SanFranciscoCameron, J (2001) Changing Places: Reimagining Sense ofPlace in Australia. University ofWestern Sydney, RichmondCameron, J and Elix, J (1991) Recovering Ground: A Case Study Approach to EcologicallySustainable Land Management. Australian Conservation Foundation, MelbourneCameron, J and Penna, I (1988) The Wood and the Trees: A Preliminary Economic Analysis ofa Conservation-Oriented Forest Industry Strategy. Australian Conservation Foundation,MelbourneCameron, J and San Roque, C (2002, in press) ‘Coming into country: the catalysingprocess ofsocial ecology’,Philosophy, Activism, Nature, vol 2, Monash University,MelbourneResponding to place in a post-colonial era195
Flannery, T (1994) The Future Eaters: An Ecological History ofAustralasia and its Peoples.Reed Books, Port MelbourneGriffiths, T (1998) ‘Legend and lament’,The Australian Review ofBooks, November,pp11–13Jung, C (1927) ‘Mind and Earth’ in Collected Works, Volume 10. Routledge and KeganPaul, LondonKolb, D (1982) Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source ofLearning and Development.Prentice-Hall, Englewood CliffsKrygier, M (1997) Between Fear and Hope: Hybrid Thoughts on Public Values. ABC Books,SydneyMalouf, D (1998) A Spirit ofPlay: The Making ofAustralian Consciousness. ABC Books,SydneyMassey, D (1994) Space, Place and Gender. Polity, CambridgeMerleau-Ponty, M (1962) Phenomenology ofPerception. Routledge and Kegan Paul,LondonMilbrath, L (1989)Envisioning a Sustainable Society: Learning our Way Out. SUNY Press,AlbanyMowaljarlai, D and Malnic, J (1993) Yorro Yorro. Inner Traditions Books, RochesterPlumwood, V (2000) ‘Belonging, naming and decolonization’,Ecopolitics: Thought andAction, vol 1, no 1, pp90–106Read, P (2000) Belonging: Australians, Place and Aboriginal Ownership. CambridgeUniversity Press, CambridgeRelph, E (1992) ‘Modernity and the Reclamation ofPlace’ in D Seamon (ed) Dwelling,Seeing and Designing: Toward a Phenomenological Ecology. State University ofNew YorkPress, New YorkRose, D B (2000) Dingo Makes Us Human: Land and Life in an Australian AboriginalCulture, second edition. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeSeddon, G (1997) Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape. Cambridge UniversityPress, CambridgeStanner, W (1979) White Man Got No Dreaming: Essays 1938–1973. Australian NationalUniversity Press, CanberraTacey, D (1995) Edge ofthe Sacred: Transformation in Australia. HarperCollins, Melbourne196Decolonizing Nature
Chapter 9The changing face of natureconservation: Reflections on theAustralian experiencePenelope FiggisINTRODUCTIONFor most ofthe 20th century, environmentalists thought that they knew thebest way to safeguard landscapes, seascapes and wildlife. Certainly in Australia,it became the case that when the environment movement cried ‘save’ the GreatBarrier Reef, South-West Tasmania, the Alps, Fraser Island, Myall Lakes or theTarkine, both environmentalists and the general community knew it meant‘declare this area a national park’. The ‘safest’ we could make nature was to haveit formally declared under legislation and managed by a government natureconservation authority.After such declarations, the task became one ofdefending these sanctuariesfrom any compromise that would undermine their natural values. This approachwas largely driven by a philosophy shaped by what John Dryzek (1997) has calledthe ‘survivalist discourse’. This refers to the perspective articulated by the ClubofRome and environmental futurists such as Paul Erlich, Garrett Harden andBarry Commoner that the ecological limits ofthe Earth are fast approaching,and that human beings and their rapacious appetites for resources are thefundamental problem. Under this world view, national parks were refuges ofadeclining natural world and people were the enemy ofnature. Consequently, allpeople – apart from those who loved and did not damage nature – should bekept out, especially those behind the economic interests that were blamed forgenerating the environmental ‘crisis’. Essentially, the majority ofthe Australianenvironment movement holds firmly to variations ofthis analysis, maintainingthat publicly owned parks, under a strict protection regime, are the best meansofensuring nature conservation (Prineas, 1998).
Given the ecological crisis facing our Earth and our country, the argumentthat nature needs such ‘safe havens’ is compelling. A 1996 State ofthe EnvironmentReportconfirmed that Australia’s rich and distinct biodiversity is under multiplethreats and still in decline (Commonwealth ofAustralia, 1996). The last officialfigures had only 7.8 per cent ofthe Australian landmass in any kind offormalprotected area (Thackway, 1996a). Fortunately, during the last few years,Australia’s protected areas have been expanding. The National Reserve Systemprogramme (NRS), which has been operating since 1997, aims to produce acomprehensive, adequate and representative (CAR) reserve system. It hasbilateral political support at the national level and the support ofall states andterritories. Priorities for reserve selection are being determined within a majorframework called the Interim Biogeographic Regionalization for Australia(IBRA), and the programme receives a substantial allocation ofthe nationalNatural Heritage Trust funds. In the marine area, the Interim Marine and CoastalRegionalization for Australia (IMCRA) is being used to identify and establishthe National Representative System ofMarine Protected Areas (NRSMPA).Significantly, additional areas are added to the conservation estate through theIndigenous Protected Areas (IPA) programme, which promotes the voluntarydeclaration ofAboriginal land as protected areas. A separate NRS programmefor private protected areas provides 2:1 funding for private land purchased forconservation. In addition, the Regional Forest Agreement (RFA) process, for allits significant flaws, also contains a key component that has enhanced forestprotected areas, albeit inadequately (Figgis, 1999).All the processes mentioned above – IBRA, IMCRA and the RFA – havealso added dramatically to our knowledge and understanding ofterrestrial andmarine conservation in Australia. In particular, there is now a much better ideaofwhich ecosystems are well represented in reserves and which are poorlyrepresented.These programmes are undoubtedly leading to millions of additionalhectares ofland and sea being declared protected areas. Environment Australiaestimates that it has brought into protection an additional 3.1 million hectaresthrough the Indigenous Protected Areas programme (Forsyth, pers com, 2001).However, many trends are converging to suggest that the familiar model ofthepublicly owned sanctuary, which the environment movement has bothpromoted and defended, may be substantially different, or at least augmentedby substantially different models, in the 21st century. There is also increasingrecognition that nature conservation in Australia is not just a discussion ofprotected areas. New ideas and models are emerging to add tools to the vasttoolbox that will be necessary in addressing the challenge ofconservation in thenew century. This chapter discusses new ideas and challenges under the headingsof‘New drivers’, ‘New models’ and ‘New mechanisms’. While welcoming theexpansion ofthe debate about appropriate conservation strategies, the chapterends with a note ofcaution about what could be lost in the rush towards thenew era.198Decolonizing Nature
NEW DRIVERSThe national parks and protected areas ofthe favoured conservation models inAustralia emerged a bare century ago. In shaping such reserves, Australiafollowed the Western model ofdefined boundaries, legislative status, publicownership and exclusion of human commerce and extraction. Australiannational parks were influenced by a political culture that felt little pressure frompopulation size and growth, and showed little understanding ofindigenousrights or interests. Increasingly, however, in the same way as economicparadigms in Australia have been strongly affected by international trends,protected area policies have been exposed to global thinking. The majorinternational trends that are creating a climate for change in protected areapolicy are the trend for governments to reduce their areas ofoperation – the‘retreat ofgovernment’ – and consequent efforts to build communityinvolvement – ‘constituency-building’. To these drivers can be added growinginternational interest in the notion ofbioregionalism, and the growingrecognition ofindigenous rights. I have discussed these trends in detailelsewhere (Figgis, 1999), but will summarize this discussion below.The retreat of governmentThe ‘retreat ofgovernment’ refers to the trend for modern governments toshed or share responsibilities that it believes others in the community canmanage. It stems from the ideological victory ofcapitalism over socialismduring the late 20th century. This victory has promoted a form of neo-capitalism that supports market-based allocation ofresources, deregulation,competitiveness, smaller government and a powerful private sector. As a resultofthe ascendancy ofthis paradigm, what is perceived as the legitimate provinceofgovernment is shrinking. In addition, within many public policy areas it hasled to a preference for incentives and market-based mechanisms over legislativeand regulatory ‘command-and-control’ systems. The breadth ofthis shift hasmeant that no sphere ofgovernment – even when it is focused upon an evidentpublic interest such as conservation – is seen as immune. In general, the retreatofgovernment has resulted in reduced funding, reduced staffing, a pressure forparks authorities to generate separate income, and the exploration ofincreasingroles for the community and private sector.In Australia, the overall picture is patchy and accurate figures are elusive.Some agencies have, in fact, had increased budgets; but when set against largeincreases in areas for which they are responsible, they are still effectivelysuffering cuts. As a result, even when budgetary allocations have increased – ashas been the case in New South Wales (NSW) and at national level – the dollarsare often allocated, in part, to help government find partnerships in the privateor community sector in order to achieve conservation goals.The search for other players and partnerships (involving indigenous people,local government, private land-owners and resource-sector industries) to furtherThe changing face ofnature conservation199
conservation is generally depicted as ‘constituency-building’. The general needto build constituencies for protected areas has been high on the agenda sincethe Fourth World Congress on National Parks and Protected Areas in Caracas,Venezuela, in 1992.Organized by the World Conservation Union (IUCN) every ten years, thesecongresses have become vital international forums where new ideas arediscussed and taken back to the participant countries by key decision-makers.Between congresses, the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) –formerly known as the Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas(CNPPA) – is an informal network ofprotected area professionals and is amajor player in debates through its publications, committees and meetingsworldwide.In the Caracas Action Plan (CAP) (IUCN, 1993), the principal strategydocument to come out ofthe fourth congress, some ofthe key directions forcurrent international debates were established. The principal objectives oftheCaracas Action Plan were:•Integrate protected areas into larger planning frameworks.•Expand support for protected areas.•Strengthen the capacity to manage protected areas.•Expand international cooperation in the finance,development andmanagement ofprotected areas.The first two goals have particular relevance in Australia.BioregionalismThe first CAP objective (the integration ofprotected areas into the broaderplanning frameworks) has been reiterated many times and is now a consensusview internationally. It emerges from a strong scientific consensus that ‘island’national parks and protected areas alonewill not achieve the task ofbiodiversityconservation. The impacts ofclimate change also give a major impetus forgreater connectivity and flexibility in conservation. We are therefore likely to seemosaic corridors of diverse ownership and tenure over broad landscapesmanaged for biodiversity conservation. Parks would be linked, and/or buffered,by a whole suite ofconservation entities, such as biosphere reserves, IndigenousProtected Areas, private sanctuaries and land stewardship agreements on‘working lands’.This ‘islands to networks’ (Shepphard, 1997) – or bioregional – approachbuilds upon the 1970s concept ofMan and the Biosphere (MAB) reserves. TheMAB model envisaged a strictly protected core area surrounded by buffer andthen transition zones. The concept has now evolved into a broader vision ofmany such areas linked together into total networks, even creating corridors ona global scale. Internationally, ‘Yosemite to Yukon’ in North America and the200Decolonizing Nature
Atlantic rainforests ofBrazil are two examples. A pioneer project ofthis modelin Australia is Bookmark Biosphere Reserve in South Australia, which isdiscussed later.The concept ofturning protected area ‘islands into networks’ has broadagreement (WCPA, 1997). It undoubtedly has much merit and allows for creativetools to be developed in order to deal with the imposition ofmyriad humanjurisdictions over natural systems. However, in policy terms it constitutes asubstantial shift from the current national park model and could bring problemsalong with the gains. The winding out ofthe bioregional approach will meanthe inclusion ofmultiple-use zones in designated protected areas. This, in turn,could fundamentally change the Australian public attitude that protected areasare commerce-free sanctuaries to one far more accepting ofhuman commercialactivities. The concept also envisages the use ofnon-legislative mechanismsthat may provide for greater flexibility, but will not deliver security. It couldmean that the management ofsuch areas is subject to the prevailing political,economic and social pressures ofthe day.The crux problem arises from the fact that, theoretically, these new modelsshould build upon, and add to, the viability ofstrictly protected cores; but thereare many forces that seem to be championing such models as a replacement forstrict protection models. The reduction ofemphasis on strict protection suitsthe many interests that promote the ‘multiple-use’ model. Conservativegovernments in Australia are attracted by the notion ofparks that allow forother ‘extractive’ uses, especially tourism and mining. The current federalgovernment has warmly embraced the concept, especially in the marineenvironment. This shift not only suits extractive industries that have long railedagainst ‘locked-up’ models, but also suits the emerging, virulent, outdoorrecreation lobby.New constituenciesThe second key objective ofthe Caracas Action Plan (CAP) was to ‘expandsupport for protected areas’. It is now a received wisdom that parks will notsurvive in either seas ofruined ecology or seas ofhuman hostility, ifnew formsof support are not generated for them. Therefore, a key task is to buildwidespread support for parks by building different constituencies, with eachhaving an interest in the success ofone or more protected areas. IUCN calls theconcept ‘social sustainability’, and has recently brought out a two-volumepublication on achieving conservation outcomes in concert with people, ratherthan imposed upon them, called Beyond Fences: Seeking Social Sustainability inConservation(IUCN, 1997).Internationally, this debate has led to a considerable shift towards the ideaofintegrating development needs, especially those ofindigenous people andlocal communities, within overall protected area management. Inevitably,seeking support from the broader community leads to an emphasis onquantifiable human benefits flowing from a multiple-use approach. Such anThe changing face ofnature conservation201
approach is at strong variance with the ‘sanctuary’ national parks model to whichmost Australian environmentalists are committed. They fear that makingconcessions to rural communities, access lobbies, tourism interests and otherinterests will inevitably undermine hard-won gains for nature.However, the idea ofintroducing new players will not necessarily threatenthe central concepts ofnature conservation; indeed, there are potential gainsfor biodiversity. For example, there are farmers who may want to be certified as‘wildlife friendly’ in order to get a market edge; tourism operators who see themarket for unspoilt nature experiences growing; land-owners who see newpossibilities for earning money from their native vegetation either throughincentives or new markets; local governments who are beginning to seebiodiversity as part oftheir public responsibilities under Agenda 21.It is early days for this trend in Australia; but so far there is no evidence thatthe involvement ofnew players has fundamentally undermined the existingmodels. However, there is no doubt that the proliferation ofconservationmodels gives policy-makers more choice, and the most uncompromising choice– strict protection – may become a less-chosen path because it can be difficultto sustain politically.Recognition of indigenous rightsAnother international driver ofchange is the growing recognition ofthe rightsofindigenous people. The late 1980s saw a worldwide explosion in recognizingindigenous people as vital players in conservation programmes and sustainabledevelopment (Stevens, 1997). Smyth and Sutherland (1996) trace the evolutionofthis recognition in international treaties, law and policy. Common themes ofthese processes are the imperatives to recognize the morality ofprior ownership;the value ofthe intimate ecological knowledge ofindigenous people; the rightsand the importance ofindigenous people continuing to practice their culture;and the need for indigenous people to share the benefits ofany use oftheirtraditional resources.Australia has reflected this fundamental shift in thinking about indigenouspeople, and increasingly indigenous rights are factored into land-managementissues, including management ofprotected areas. Apart from the moralimperative for change, there are pragmatic realities that drive a need to recognizeindigenous rights in nature conservation. Currently, title to an estimated 14 percent ofAustralia – an area ofmore than 1 million square kilometres – has beenrestored to Aboriginal people. Significantly, this is over twice the area currently inprotected areas (Boden and Breckwoldt, 1995). Furthermore, much ofthis landis located in areas less modified by European settlement, and it therefore retainshigh conservation value. It is widely recognized that any truly comprehensivereserve system would need to include components ofthese lands.Over two decades, the search for conservation models that acknowledgeindigenous rights has produced both Aboriginal-owned parks, such as Uluruand Kakadu, which are leased back to parks agencies, as well as joint202Decolonizing Nature
management ofexisting parks, such as Mootwingee in New South Wales (Figgis,1999). More recently, there has been an effort to find models that fit with highdegrees of Aboriginal autonomy, such as the Indigenous Protected Areasprogramme, discussed below.Inevitably, there are areas where the imperatives ofnature conservation andindigenous rights may not fit comfortably together. In particular, issues arise inreconciling the multiple present and future needs ofindigenous people with theuncompromising nature ofstrict protection. Some Aboriginal leaders have beenclear that their priorities are culture and economic development. In a statementprepared at an Australian Nature Conservation Agency workshop in AliceSprings in 1994, launching the concept ofindigenous protected areas, thedelegates asserted their right to ‘develop economic benefit from all Aboriginaland Torres Strait Islander lands’. Indigenous delegates also made a strongstatement oftheir perspective:Any conservation partnership must be based on the premise that indigenouscultural objectives ofa conservation programme have priority overenvironmental issues (Australian Nature Conservation Agency, 1995).This approach produces unease among those groups and individuals mostcommitted to nature conservation through sanctuary parks and the concept ofwilderness. However, there is a spectrum ofopinion within the environmentmovement, and many organizations and individuals have been giving a highpriority to reconciling their respect for the rights ofindigenous people and therights ofnature (Hill and Figgis, 1999).Taken together, the trends outlined above constitute a shift to a muchgreater degree ofcomplexity, both in the forms that conservation is likely totake and the people who are likely to be involved. In summary, the trend ofmodern nature conservation thinking is towards creating larger conservationentities or networks, integrating them more closely with human needs andinvolving more elements ofthe community in securing areas and managingthem for biodiversity benefits.NEW MODELSThe trends mentioned above have produced a very different conservationlandscape from that ofthe 1960s and 1970s. New entities, which were quiteunknown – such as bioregional models, Indigenous Protected Areas, largeprivate reserves and fenced wildlife sanctuaries – have emerged. It is thereforeimportant to identify the most significant new models.The bioregional modelWhile the concept ofbioregional, or ‘whole oflandscape’, networks is broadlyendorsed as an important direction for conservation, few examples exist to date.The changing face ofnature conservation203
The best-known Australian example is Bookmark Biosphere Reserve in SouthAustralia’s Riverland Region (Brunckhorst, 1999). It brings together 27 parcels ofland covering some 6000 square kilometres, including formal protected areas,private lands and land owned by private conservation organizations. However,the reserve is not only composed ofde factonature reserves, but also game andforestry lands, as well as working properties and pastoral leases. It includessubstantial areas ofthe floodplains ofthe Murray River that are listed wetlandsunder the Wetlands of International Importance (Ramsar Convention) formigratory species and waterfowl. It also helps to protect the largest area ofmalleescrub in eastern Australia. The reserve is managed by the Bookmark BiosphereTrust, which has government, land-owner and community interests representedon it. The properties include a former pastoral lease called ‘Calperum’, DangalliNational Park, and a 50,000ha property called ‘Gluepot’, which was purchased tobecome a major sanctuary ofendangered birds such as the black-eared minor byBirds Australia, Australia’s major ornithological organization.The concept ofa biosphere reserve is one ofreconciling communities andnature conservation through involvement in conservation across the landscape,both on and offreserves. Proponents ofthe concept see it as a prototype ofgenuine ecologically sustainable development, or a ‘restorative economic model’.The Bookmark Biosphere Trust is pioneering work on new sustainable industries,such as horticulture based upon native species, oil production from mallees,aquaculture, tourism based around a new Aus$1.1 million environment centre atRenmark, and the development ofcommunity-based Bookmark guides. Theseare all at pilot or research stage ofdevelopment. A diversified meat industrybased upon feral goat and kangaroo culling has also been discussed.While the bioregional model is attractive, it is significant that over a decadeofdiscussion ofits desirability has brought forward very few examples ‘on theground’. There are other modest proposals in the pipeline in Australia, such as aproject called FATE, which stands for the Future ofAustralia’s ThreatenedEcosystems. Led by the Australian Museum, the project hopes to illustrate thatsustainable industry, wildlife harvesting and biodiversity conservation arecompatible in the New England region ofNew South Wales. However, theprimary impediment remains the complexity ofputting together different landtenures and gaining the cooperation ofthe many government departments andagencies, as well as coordinating the private and community input (Archer, 2002).Multiple-use modelThe retreat ofgovernment, the search for new conservation partners and theshift from regulatory systems have given impetus to the multiple-use model. Asalready mentioned, ‘multiple use’ has long been the catch cry ofthose opposedto the strictly protected sanctuary model for protecting nature. The argument is,essentially, a ‘have your cake and eat it too’ approach, which suggests thateffective conservation can occur alongside other more extractive uses, such asforestry, mining or grazing.204Decolonizing Nature
Multiple use has been defined as:…the premise that many or all possible uses may occur within the definedarea provided that the collective impact ofthose uses does not exceed theecologically sustainable capacity ofthe environment and natural resources(Kenchington, 1996).Kenchington was speaking about marine-protected areas, where the multiple-use paradigm has been paramount; but the principles are equally applicable tothe terrestrial environment. Kenchington (1996) also identifies the crunch issuefor the concept: ‘The hard question begged by the concept ofsustainability isthat of identifying the boundary state in which a use passes from beingsustainable to unsustainable.’In Australia’s federal political system there are around 60 categories ofprotected areas (Pittock, 1996). While some ofthese categories do allow forextractive uses, the majority ofAustralia’s national parks preclude mining,grazing and other extractive uses. The major exception is in South Australia,where approximately halfofthe 20,957,928ha contained within national parkscan be accessed for mining and grazing ‘under controlled conditions’ (Cresswelland Thomas, 1997). Despite the exceptions, there is a strong public expectationin Australia that a national park will be essentially a commerce- and industry-free zone. However, that expectation is being strongly challenged.The Australian mining lobby has been a major advocate for multiple use. Ithas expressed particular concern that national parks ‘sterilize’ their resources andit has argued hard for a regime that allows for exploration and mining. Theconcept is also supported by land-owners who wish to use parks for seasonal ordrought grazing, and in the marine environment by the petroleum and commercialfishing industries. The advocates ofmultiple use readily find favour with politicalparties and governments who put economic growth above any other imperative.Furthermore, as mentioned above, the conservative national government led byJohn Howard sought to implement this model in the marine environment, wherethe national government has a greater role vis-à-vis the states.The Australian national government has been working jointly with state andterritory governmental agencies to develop the National Representative SystemofMarine Protected Areas (NRSMPA). The aim ofthe NRSMPA is to conservesample representative ecosystems in each biogeographic region. However, few,ifany, ofthe new marine parks will actually be the marine equivalents ofnational parks ifcurrent trends persist. The NRSMPA process has endorsed theconcept ofprotected areas being managed in a bioregional context, with themajority of the areas managed for multiple sustainable use – that is, thebiosphere reserve approach. Thackway (1996b) states:A comparatively recent development is the establishment oflarge multiple-objective marine-protected areas (MOMPAs), which are highly protected orcore areas within an integrated system ofmanagement.The changing face ofnature conservation205
In fact, most new marine-protected areas have few, ifany, strict protectionzones. The Howard government’s approach to the marine environment wassummed up in a speech made by Minister for the Environment Senator RobertHill (1998) to the Australian Petroleum Production and ExplorationAssociation’s National Conference in March 1998, when he said:You can expect an emphasis on multiple-use and sequential-use managementin order that the national return on marine resources is maximized, withoutcompromising the sustainability ofthe important environmental values andmarine diversity.Supporters argue that the emphasis upon accommodating marine industries issimply realistic. In pointing out that the high degree ofconnectivity in the seasrequires very large areas to be reserved to ensure that ecological systems andbiodiversity will survive, they go on to argue that trying to completely excludeindustries from large areas is not politically, socially or economically palatable,and that the only way ahead for marine conservation is working with the marineresources industries. Hence, it is argued, a large multiple-use conservation unitwith some highly protected areas as sub-units is the appropriate model(Kenchington, 1996). Insistence on strict protection as the predominantapproach is dismissed as unrealistic and likely to lead to isolated, small andpossibly non-viable reserves. Government sources have suggested that ‘no take’,or strict protection, may still be part ofmultiple-objective marine-protectedareas, but not in every case.In a direct parallel with debates regarding the terrestrial environment, thereis also an emphasis on cooperative partnerships and non-legislative options forthe marine environment. Opponents ofthese trends, however, see them as aroad to incremental compromise and decline. Some marine environmentalistsclaim that we have already had a long trial ofmultiple use with the Great BarrierReef, and the model is not convincing. In 1998 the Australian ConservationFoundation (ACF) published a supplement to Habitatmagazine entitled‘Sustainable Use or Multiple Abuse?’ (Prideaux et al, 1998). This article assessedthe Great Barrier Reefreserve as not delivering on either broad-scalesustainability or adequate strict protection. Fifteen years after declaration ofaconservation strategy for the Great Barrier Reef, a mere 4.6 per cent ofthe areais protected in national park or strict no takezones. In the face of suchexperience, the article questioned the prevailing interpretation ofmultiple-usemarine-protected areas:Traditionally protected areas have ensured conservation through minimizingor completely excluding potentially destructive human activities. The ‘no take’philosophy best expresses this philosophy. The problem for the environment isthe type ofuses contemplated under a multiple-use management approach.Often many destructive, habitat-altering activities such as exploration, miningand commercial fishing will be allowed. Are these activities consistent with the206Decolonizing Nature
public’s expectations ofthe role ofprotected areas? We need to consider withsome urgency whether the current interpretation ofmultiple use can providereal conservation outcomes (Prideaux et al, 1998).The following examples highlight the conservation compromises that areintrinsic to the ‘multiple-use’ concept.•In April 1998 the Commonwealth established the 1,713,429ha GreatAustralian Bight Marine Park (GABMP); but crayfish pots are to bepermitted in the protected zone and pelagic fishing has not been restrictedor curtailed in any way. Extensive negotiation took place with the fishinginterests in the area to arrive at this position. However, the AustralianConservation Foundation has criticized the arrangement as not constitutinga ‘park’, calling it, instead, ‘thinly disguised resource use as conservation’(ACF press release, 21 April 1998).•The Sea Mounts ofTasmania constitute an extraordinary area ofsome 60marine pinnacles that rise up to 2000m from the sea floor and providehabitat for a rich and unique flora and fauna. The Commonwealthgovernment proclaimed the area a marine protected area in 1999. Howeverthe Plan ofManagement, gazetted in June 2002, has introduced a verticalzoning with only the seabed to 500m fully protected. The water columnfrom 500m to the surface is IUCN protected area category six, which is thelowest protection zone and allow for ‘sustainable use’ ofresources. As suchit will allow commercial fishing to continue. The tuna industry fought hardagainst accepting any restrictions being placed on their access to the area,even though their target species, southern bluefin tuna, is criticallyendangered. Conservationists fear the precedent that is set when such aninternationally significant environment has to be compromised to ademonstrably unsustainable industry.•The Monte Bello Islands in Western Australia are a state marine-protectedarea surrounding the Monte Bello Islands, north-west ofExmouth andNingaloo. The Commonwealth government is proposing an extension tothis park based upon an agreement reached with an oil and gas industryinterest in which the latter would be given responsibility for ‘sustainablymanaging’ most ofthe area in exchange for the establishment ofspecificstrictly protected areas. Conservationists are concerned that the price forthe cooperation ofindustry in protecting a community resource isguaranteed access and a rightto the area. This, in turn, could lead to theonus ofproofresting with conservationists to demonstrate the need forgreater protection levels, rather than with the users to demonstrate that theywill not cause harm (Prideaux, 1998, pers comm).Indigenous Protected AreasThe Indigenous Protected Areas (IPA) programme is a national governmentThe changing face ofnature conservation207
initiative funded through the Natural Heritage Trust by Environment Australia.The programme is basically a mechanism to increase the representativeness ofthe National Reserve System (NRS) through the voluntary inclusion ofindigenous estates. It supports the development ofcooperative managementarrangements. By mid 2001, 13 Indigenous Protected Areas had been declaredon Aboriginal-owned land, covering more than 3.1 million hectares and addingsignificantly to the NRS. The IPA programme funds management plans andpractical work to protect natural and cultural features and to contribute toconserving biological diversity. These Indigenous Protected Areas will operatein accordance with the internationally recognized IUCN ‘Protected AreasGuidelines’ and will be managed through stewardship agreements based uponnegotiated environmental management plans for each property.Some examples ofthis concept include the following:•Nantawarrina, an Aboriginal-owned property in the northern FlindersRanges ofSouth Australia, was declared Australia’s first IndigenousProtected Area at a formal launch ceremony in August 1998. Nantawarrinais a property of58,000ha that was previously used for pastoral and miningactivities. The area had a history ofovergrazing and was further degradedby the impact offeral goats, rabbits and donkeys. Nantawarrina is locatedimmediately adjacent to the Gammon Ranges National Park.TheNepabunna community,with the support ofthe South AustralianAboriginal Lands Trust and national park staff, is investing considerabletime and resources into addressing the significant environmental problemsaffecting the natural and cultural values ofthe area. The community iscommitted to managing the area for biodiversity conservation and culturalvalues. Because ofits location, this will considerably enhance the size andeffectiveness ofthe existing protected areas in the region.•The Yalata Indigenous Protected Area was declared in October 1999. The456,300ha property at the head ofthe Great Australian Bight in SouthAustralia is managed by Yalata Community Inc. Yalata’s cliffs are best knownas outstanding vantage points for watching whales migrate to mate and calvein the waters ofthe Great Australian Bight. The semi-arid ecological zoneon the edge ofthe Nullabor Plain is rich in native birds, mammals andreptiles. The region is also ofgreat cultural importance, with ‘dreamingtracks’ that cross continental Australia converging in this region.1Yalata isadjacent to other large reserves, which together form one ofthe world’slargest contiguous areas ofland and sea managed for biodiversityconservation.•The Watarru and Walalkara Indigenous Protected Areas were declared inJune 2000. Both areas lie in the Great Victorian Desert, the traditional landsofthe Pitjantjatjara, Ngaanyatjarra and Yankunytjatjara Aboriginal peoples(locally known as Anangu), who have maintained a connection with the landfor many thousands ofyears. Watarru IPA covers 1.28 million hectares,including part ofthe magnificent Birksgate Ranges, while Walalkara IPA208Decolonizing Nature
covers 700,000ha. Both Watarru and Walalkara are biologically significantareas. They contain one ofthe highest diversities ofreptile species foundanywhere in the world and support populations ofrare and endangeredspecies, including mallee fowl and the great desert skink.The large-scale areas that can be involved with IPAs indicate their potentialimportance.However,their long-term effectiveness will depend uponcontinuing government commitment and, in particular, funding to enableindigenous people to develop the skills that they need for dealing with otherorganizations and interest groups.Private sanctuary modelThe impetus to involve more players and share the task ofconservation has ledto innovations involving the private sector. This is critically important as some 70per cent ofthe Australian landmass is currently in private hands. In fact, many ofthe lands that are most crucial for achieving a comprehensive, adequate andrepresentative reserve system are privately held. Australia has not had a traditionofprivately owned parks in the South African game park model. Nor, until veryrecently, has it had private philanthropic trusts set up specifically to purchase andmanage conservation lands. However, this is changing, with several groups nowinvolved and likely to be given a major stimulus by government funding underthe NRS. There is growing interest, in Canberra, in private conservation as acost-effective way to meet biodiversity conservation targets.The NRS programme has a community component called private protectedareas. The Australian Commonwealth defines the concept as:A private protected area is a protected area other than a formally gazettedstatus protected area, managed for nature conservation and protected by legalor other effective means (Environment Australia, June 1998).Under the programme, incorporated private community groups and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), such as the Australian Bush HeritageFund, are able to put in bids for 2:1 funding for land acquisition and short-termmanagement costs to alleviate immediate threats. Ongoing management costsmust be borne by the land-holder, although funding is available in a separategovernment programme called Bushcare. The Commonwealth undertakes tosecure the future conservation management ofthese lands through covenantsand other legal means. The programme envisages that the private protectedareas will be managed principally as IUCN categories I–IV. A proponent mustenter into a Private Protected Area Establishment Agreement.An example ofa private protected area that was purchased under thisprogramme is Carnarvon Station in central Queensland. The Commonwealthassisted the Australian Bush Heritage Fund to purchase the 59,000ha property,which has a vast and beautiful landscape representing 17 regional ecosystems ofThe changing face ofnature conservation209
which 7 are endangered. It adjoins Carnavon National Park and thus creates avery large and important conservation complex.The Australian Bush Heritage Fund is Australia’s most prominent exampleofthe independent trust model. It buys land to hold and manage as part oftheconservation estate. Established by well-known conservationist and Green Partysenator Bob Brown in 1990, it is an independent NGO that seeks donationsfrom supporters. The fund has been very successful and, as ofJuly 2001, owned13 properties around Australia.There are other models ofprivate biodiversity conservation. An example isEarth Sanctuaries, which was set up by John Wamsley, a colourful characterfrom South Australia. In 1969, Wamsley pioneered the concept ofa privatelyowned substantial sanctuary: Warrawong in the Adelaide Hills. He believes feralanimals are the cause ofspecies extinction and decline and is disdainful ofgovernment-run protected areas for having failed to protect endangeredAustralian species. Wamsley believes that the only hope for conservation is theprivate sector. What distinguishes his operations is that he heavily fences hisproperties against cats, foxes and rabbits, eradicates all feral animals andreintroduces mammal species from elsewhere. In 2000, Wamsley surprised thebusiness world by floating his company on the stock exchange. EarthSanctuaries Ltd became a private company that owned land, funding acquisitionand management with shareholder capital and tourism revenues. EarthSanctuaries developed several much larger sanctuaries, and by 2001 it wasmanaging ten properties, covering 92,000ha. However, in late 2001 the companyannounced that it was selling most ofits assets. The modest tourism revenuescould not sustain the high cost ofpurchase and fencing.It is indicative ofthe strength ofthe concept ofprivate land conservationthat the Earth Sanctuaries properties have had strong interest. Six ofthe tenproperties on offer had sold within six months and others were undernegotiation. Four properties – Scotia, Yookamurra, Buckaringa and Dalantha –were sold to an emerging strong new group, the Australian Wildlife Conservancy(AWC). AWC is an independent non-profit organization with a Perth base, setup by businessman Martin Copley.Individual land-owners are also establishing sanctuaries. Calga Springs,north ofSydney, which opened in early 2001, is a wildlife sanctuary owned byno less than the former national minister for the environment, Barry Cohen.The trend for private lands and private interests in conservation is clearlygrowing. At this stage, the policy implications ofthis for protected areas are notclear. The key concern ifprivate land holdings became a major component ofafuture reserve system is the fact that while mining cannot occur on most publiclyowned reserves, private lands would not be protected. Lack of long-termsecurity is also an issue. The removal ofprotected status ofa legislated nationalpark is a complex process; the long-term security ofthe envisaged covenantingprocesses is less certain.There is also a possibility that the development ofprivate models maystrengthen the push for the privatization ofpublic parks. Wamsley has been a210Decolonizing Nature
vitriolic critic ofthe public sector, the environment movement and nationalparks. He clearly intended to demonstrate that the private sector could manageland and achieve more for biodiversity, especially species conservation, than thepublic sector (Wamsley, 1996). However, in the main, conservation agencies andorganizations welcome the addition of this sector as providing welcomeadditional funds and capacity in an era ofoverstretched governments. There isa fundamental recognition that governments alone simply cannot cover the vasttask ofconservation and that many such tools will become necessary.Certainly, McNeeley (1996), in a sweeping assessment ofthe future ofconservation, predicts that:Protected areas will be managed increasingly by a wide range ofdifferent kindofinstitutions, including private landowners, non-governmental organizations,and even private-sector institutions such as tourist agencies.NEW MECHANISMSWhile the examples above generally produce an entity resembling a traditionalnational park, the future is also likely to see a proliferation ofother natureconservation tools generally applied on smaller parcels ofland. The last decadehas seen all states and territories produce a range of initiatives aimed atencouraging biodiversity conservation on private land. The suite oftools usuallyincludes voluntary programmes, management agreements, covenants andcompensation, and other incentives to encourage land-holders to conserveparticular areas ofnative vegetation on their lands. A great deal ofthis activitywas stimulated by a major publication on economic instruments and incentivesfor achieving biodiversity conservation,Reimbursing the Future: An evaluation ofmotivational, voluntary, price-based, property-right, and regulatory incentives for theconservation ofbiodiversity(Young et al, 1996).Voluntary conservation agreementsAround Australia a wide range ofvoluntary, non-binding programmes are beingdeveloped to encourage land-holders to conserve particular areas ofnativevegetation on their lands (Young et al, 1996). While such agreements have a lowdegree ofsecurity, as most only bind the existing owner for a period oftime,they are seen as an ‘entry level’ into private conservation where land-owners cantry a scheme and perhaps move on to a more binding covenant arrangement.One example is the Victorian Land for Wildlife scheme, which encouragesland-owners to conserve their land and foster wildlife protection. The scheme isentirely voluntary and government simply provides a statewide coordinator andextension officers in order to offer advice. The scheme has been very successful,and by March 1997 4043 properties were involved, bringing at least 110,655haofland under wildlife management. New South Wales (NSW) also has a Landfor Wildlife scheme, where the agreement is with the owner. The agreement isThe changing face ofnature conservation211
generally for a specified time period; it needs to be renewed when the agreementexpires or the land changes hands, and it relies on goodwill ofthe land-ownerand personal contact. NSW also has a long-running scheme, the National Parksand Wildlife Service’s Wildlife Refuges, where the property itselfis gazetted as arefuge. Since 1948, 600 wildlife refuges have been established covering over 2million hectares.Most states have some equivalent programme. The Western Australiangovernment, for example, is encouraging land-holders to enter into agreementswith the Department ofLand and Water Conservation to protect areas oftheirland identified as being ofhigh conservation value. In one example, a pastoralfamily in Murchison in 2001 signed the first such agreement in relation to7000ha oftheir 347,000ha property, Boolardy Station. The land will be fencedoff, yet will remain part ofthe Boolardy pastoral lease and be managed inconjunction with the owners for the long-term conservation ofnative species.In NSW, voluntary conservation agreements can be entered over privateland or leasehold land. An agreement can apply to all or part ofa property. Theagreement is voluntary for both parties, but once entered into is registered onthe title ofthe land, is legally enforceable and binds all future owners oftheland. The terms ofeach agreement are negotiated between the land-holder andthe National Parks and Wildlife Service, NSW, acting on behalfofthe relevantgovernment minister, and may vary according to specific conservationrequirements ofthe land and the wishes ofthe land-holder. They may berestrictive, require the owner not to carry out certain activities or can includepositive actions. A plan ofmanagement can be negotiated for an agreementthat sets out an appropriate and more detailed management regime for theconservation area.There is also a range ofvoluntary education schemes that encourage land-holder involvement in conservation, such as the Landcare movement andFarming for the Future programme in NSW. Most ofthese tend to be driven bythe land-holders themselves and encourage mutual learning from each other.They are based upon spreading the message ofsustainable land managementand encouraging biodiversity conservation in agriculture. Most ofthese systems,however, are highly dependent upon some form of grants for fencing orreplanting or feral animal control. It is doubtful iflong-term conservation willoccur unless there remains this critical support.Revolving funds and covenants’Revolving funds’ work on a model ofraising funds, investing the funds in aproperty with conservation value, placing a legally binding conservationcovenant or easement on the property title and then reselling into the market togenerate funds for the next purchase.This model provides a conservation tool that is becoming more popular.The original model in Australia was The Trust for Nature (Victoria), a statutoryauthority established by the Victorian government. This organization has212Decolonizing Nature
achieved 368 covenants and protected over 15,569ha. The trust fosters astewardship programme ofregular contact, advice and support for land-ownerswho accept covenants. The trust also purchases and holds some lands in its ownright. According to 2001 figures, 50 properties covering 4500ha are owned andmanaged as conservation areas by local community groups, individuals andcouncils (Trust for Nature [Victoria], website).The Trust for Nature (Victoria) was established under the VictorianConservation Trust Act, 1972, and receives a grant from the state government,as well as donations and bequests (over Aus$250,000 in bequests in 1996). Thetrust’s main strength is that it is perceived as being independent fromgovernment, and for this reason the public is more likely to donate funds ornegotiate with the trust on land purchase. It has financial flexibility comparedwith government departments in that it can conduct fund-raising appeals, offertax deductibility for donations, receive bequests, donations and gifts, hold andinvest funds, have access to philanthropic sources and broker land purchases(Whelan, 2001, pers com). The trust also maintains a register ofproperties thatit holds and interested purchasers can register their names with the trust.This model is gaining in popularity and is being encouraged by both stateand national governments. In 2001, NSW introduced its scheme by legislatingfor a New Conservation Trust. This new organization started operation in 2002and will follow the ‘revolving fund’ model.Conservation Management NetworksConservation Management Networks (CMN) is a new model being introducedin Australia in an effort to address one ofAustralia’s critical conservationproblems: the conservation offragmented ecological communities (Higginson,Prober and Thiele, 2001).In the national work to produce a comprehensive,adequate andrepresentative reserve system (CAR), the Interim Biogeographic Regionalizationfor Australia (IBRA) analysis highlighted what many people already knew: thatour existing reserve system was strongly biased towards the less productivelands. National parks tended to be declared in lands that were more scenicallyspectacular, closer to the city or not needed for other purposes. The ecosystemsor natural areas that were on productive soils tended to be less spectacular andmore remote, and they have consequently been poorly represented in ourreserve system. While considerable effort is being undertaken to identify andrectify this problem, it will be very difficult to redress this legacy. Agencies havelimited acquisition budgets and lands in more productive areas have highereconomic value. In many cases, even ifdollars could be found, it is simply thecase that very little ofa particular ecosystem remains and what remains is highlyfragmented.Dangerous fragmentation is certainly the case for the productive grassyecosystems ofsouth-eastern Australia. From the millions ofhectares that onceexisted, there are no substantial areas left that are suitable for reservation as aThe changing face ofnature conservation213
traditional national park. Researchers working specifically on the once-extensiveGrassy Box Woodlands ofNew South Wales have developed the ConservationManagement Networks model for conserving fragmented ecosystems. Theconcept involves incorporating scattered ecosystems remnants into a network.A CMN is defined as ‘a network of remnants, their managers and otherinterested parties’. While remnants may be widely dispersed and under differentland tenures, those involved in their management as a network can shareinformation, share extension efforts, apply for grants as a network, label specificremnants as something ofbroader importance, and undertake a wide variety ofother actions that can be done more effectively as a network than as isolatedentities. The networks have both a biological aim ofenhancing biodiversityconservation and a social objective ofenhancing community ownership andinvolvement in conservation (Higginson, Prober and Thiele, 2001).Membership ofa CMN is voluntary and open to any site that is managedprimarily or partly for conservation, and has been given some formal long-termprotection by its manager. Ideally, a remnant that belongs to a CMN will have alegally binding covenant and a plan ofmanagement that covers day-to-dayoperations. Without implementing a plan ofmanagement, the most detailedcovenant may not allow a remnant to flourish in the longer term. ConservationManagement Networks offer a new way of tackling the difficult issue ofconserving fragmented ecosystems in Australia, whether naturally fragmentedor fragmented by human intervention.Market mechanismsWhile there are increasing incentives for biodiversity conservation in the formoffencing subsidies, tax and rate relief, there are still few actual paymentsavailable for maintaining an ecosystem. Victoria has just launched a three-yeartrial ofstewardship payments called BushTender, where farmers will be paid tohelp protect the 1 million ha ofnative vegetation on private land in Victoria(Garbutt, 2001). The trial will commence shortly in the north-central region ofthe state. BushTender offers land-holders the opportunity to receive paymentfor entering into an agreement to provide management services that improvethe quality or extent ofnative vegetation on their land. The price would formthe basis for a bid, which would be compared with the bids from all other land-holders participating in the trial. Successful bids would offer the best value formoney to the community. All bids would be assessed objectively upon the basisofthe current conservation value ofthe site, the amount ofservice offered andthe cost involved. Only actions by the land-holder that are over and above thoserequired by current responsibilities under existing arrangements and legislationwill be eligible for payment.The ‘brave new world’ ofcreating markets, property rights, trading creditsand stewardship payments is still ahead ofus. New South Wales is trialing bothcarbon credits, by creating new forests, and biodiversity credits by restoring anendangered woodland – in both cases to offset carbon production by energy214Decolonizing Nature
companies (Salvin, 2000). Carl Binning, a leading researcher from theCommonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, sees a majorfuture for biodiversity credits where beneficiaries pay the manager or owner ofa natural area for the ecosystem services provided by protected nature (Binning,2000). According to Binning, ‘Ifwe want to conserve nature, someone has topay. National parks and reserves are not able to achieve all ofour conservationobjectives’ (Binning, 2000).Many agree that such market mechanisms will be a major feature offutureconservation. David Farrier (1996), an academic from Wollongong University,has strongly supported the need for national parks to be augmented bybiodiversity conservation on private lands. He sees a major role for stewardshippayments, as well as some degree ofregulation:Instead oftelling landholders that they are being compensated to keep theirdestructive hands offthe land, the message is that they have a vital role toplay, a role which the community regards as being sufficiently important that itis prepared to pay for it(Farrier, 1996).ABRAND NEW DAY?Nature conservation is certainly going through a major transformation inAustralia and internationally. The models are diversifying and the range ofpeople who will be involved in conservation is also dramatically widening.Overall, this is a rational response to the complexity ofthreats facing our naturalworld. The toolbox needed augmenting with many, and perhaps more subtle,tools than the simple protected area model. Most mainstream environmentalists,including the author, support this diversification. The concept oflargelandscape-scale initiatives is exciting and almost certainly essential ifwe areeven to stabilize our biodiversity losses, let alone begin the process ofbuildingback viable communities ofendangered species. Indigenous Protected Areas(IPAs) are another critical tool given the very large tracts ofAustralia underindigenous title and care and the consequent need to find processes that arecompatible with indigenous cultural priorities. The full range ofprivateinitiatives are also welcomed as useful methods to support more traditionalconservation, while economic incentives may well save many ofthe criticalconservation lands that are currently vulnerable remnants on private lands.However, the key issue, which I have raised in many forums, is whether thisproliferation ofapproaches will provide healthy additional landsto the core landsof national parks or, rather, become a fundamental challenge to that coreconcept. There is a real possibility that these new forms may create a Trojanhorse for the many forces in society who are opposed to the idea of, as they seeit, ‘locking up’ the land. The multiple-use component ofbioregional models and,at least some IPAs, could strengthen the push for what national Minister for theEnvironment Senator Robert Hill (1998) endorsed as ‘multiple and sequentialThe changing face ofnature conservation215
use oflands’. Similarly, the increasing entry ofprivate interests into conservationmay make it easier to gradually introduce privatization into the management ofnational parks. Such a development is still opposed by environmentalists, basedupon their beliefthat privatization would inevitably mean the domination ofcommercial imperatives over those ofconservation.One ofthe best recent articulations ofwhy the sanctuary model ofnationalparks remains a vital and legitimate component ofany future conservationstrategy was made by New South Wales Premier Bob Carr. In launching a fund-raising campaign for the Dunphy Wilderness Fund (Colong Foundation, 2001),Carr said:So this is what is special about wilderness. It reminds us ofthe ancient life ofthis continent, there is an echo there ofthe life ofthe old people, the ancientpeople who inhabited this continent, there is a reminder ofwhat is special ofthe plant and animal life and the land forms and geology ofthis old continent,and there is an urgent plea emerging form the valleys and the great forests tosave, to protect part ofthis land in its wild condition.This is a timely reminder that wild places are an irreplaceable and essential partofnature conservation.NOTES1 The term ‘dreaming tracks’ refers to the creation stories ofAboriginal cosmology,in which powerful living creatures crossed the land, creating the land forms that arenow evident.REFERENCESArcher, M (2002) ‘Confronting crises in conservation: a talk on the wild side’ in DLunney and C Dickman (eds) A Zoological Revolution, a report ofa forum for theRoyal Zoological Society ofNSW and the Australian Museum, Saturday 20 May2000, published by the Royal Zoological Society ofNSW and the AustralianMuseum, Sydney, NSW, pp12–52Australian Conservation Foundation (1998) ‘When is a park not a park?’, press release,21 April 1998Australian Nature Conservation Agency (1995) Minutes from the Working Group MeetingInvestigating Conservation Partnerships: Voluntary Inclusion ofAboriginal and Torres StraitIslander Estates into a Nationally Representative System ofProtected Areas, Alice Springs13–16 June 1995, ANCA, CanberraAustralian and New Zealand Environment and Conservation Council (1997) BestPractice Initiatives for Nature Conservation on Private Land. Report ofthe ANZECCWorking Group on Nature Conservation on Private Land, ANZECC, CanberraBinning, C (2000) ‘Selling and Saving our Biodiversity’, CSIRO Press Release, 20September 2000216Decolonizing Nature
Boden, R and Breckwoldt, R (1995) National Reserves System Cooperative ProgramEvaluation. Australian Nature Conservation Agency, CanberraBrunckhorst, D (1999) ‘Models to Integrate Sustainable Conservation and ResourceUse – Bioregional Reserves beyond Bookmark’. Paper presented to New Solutionsfor Sustainability Conference, 4–5 March 1999, Nature Conservation Council ofNSW, Sydney, pp130–140Colong Foundation (2001) ‘The launch ofthe Dunphy Wilderness FundraisingCampaign’,Colong Bulletin, vol 187, July 2001 pp8–10. Colong Foundation forWilderness, SydneyCommonwealth ofAustralia, State ofthe Environment Advisory Council (1996)Australia: State ofthe Environment. CSIRO, AustraliaCommonwealth ofAustralia (2001)Midterm Review ofthe Natural Heritage Trust.Commonwealth Department ofthe Environment, Sport and Territories, Canberra,www.ea.gov.au/nht/review, p24Cresswell, I D and Thomas, G M (eds) (1997) Terrestrial and Marine Protected Areas inAustralia, 1997. Environment Australia Biodiversity Group, CanberraDryzek, J S (1997) The Politics ofthe Earth: Environmental Discourses. Oxford UniversityPress, New YorkEnvironment Australia (1998) www.environment.gov.au, June 1998Farrier, D (1996) ‘Implementing the In-Situ Conservation Provisions ofthe UnitedNations Convention on Biological Diversity in Australia: Questioning the Role ofNational Parks’,The Australasian Journal ofNatural Resources Law and Policy, vol 3,no1, pp1–24Figgis, P (1999) Australia’s National Parks and Protected Areas. Australian Committee forIUCN Occasional Paper No 8, ACIUCN, SydneyForsyth, D (2001) Pers comm. Head National Reserve System Programme,Environment Australia, July 2001Garbutt, S (2001) ‘Dollars For Farm Bush Protection Trial – Minister’, press release, 22June 2001, MelbourneHigginson, E, Prober, S and Thiele, K (2001) ‘Conservation Management Networksfor the Conservation ofFragmented Ecological Communities’. Paper presented toConservation Management Networks Workshop, Canberra, 5–6 March 2001Hill, R (1998) Speech made by the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment,Senator Robert Hill, to the Australian Petroleum Production and ExplorationAssociation’s National Conference, Canberra Convention Centre, March 1998Hill, R and Figgis, P (1999) ‘A conservation initiative: ACF Wilderness and IndigenousLandscapes Policy’,Habitat Australia, vol 27, no 1, February, AustralianConservation Foundation, Melbourne, pp8–9IUCN (1993) Parks for Life: Report ofthe Fourth World Congress on National Parks andProtected Areas – Caracas Venezuela. IUCN–The World Conservation Union, Gland,SwitzerlandIUCN (1994) Guidelines for Protected Area Management Categories. Commission on NationalParks and Protected Areas with the assistance ofthe World ConservationMonitoring Centre, IUCN–The World Conservation Union, Gland, Switzerland,and Cambridge, UKIUCN (1997) Beyond Fences: Seeking Social Sustainability in Conservation, vols I and II.IUCN–The World Conservation Union, Gland, SwitzerlandKenchington, R (1996) ‘Outline ofBackground and Key Issues for Multiple Use inMarine Environments’ in Proceedings ofthe Workshop on Multiple Use in MarineThe changing face ofnature conservation217
Environments. Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association,CanberraMcNeeley, J (1996) ‘Conservation and the Future: Trends and Options Toward theYear 2025’. Draft discussion paper, 25 February 1996, in National Parks andWildlife Service (1998) National Parks: Visions for the New Millenium: Trends Paper,Conference held 16–19 July 1998, University ofSydney, National Parks and WildlifeService, Sydney, pp1–66Muir, K (1997) ‘Aboriginal Reconciliation and Wilderness’,Colong Bulletin, no162, May,Colong Foundation for Wilderness, Sydney, p8Nutting, M (1994) ‘Competing Interest or Common Ground: Aboriginal Participationin the Management ofProtected Areas’,Habitat Australia, vol 22, no 1, February,Australian Conservation Foundation, Melbourne, pp28–37Pittock, J (1996) ‘The State ofthe Australian Protected Areas System’. Paper presentedat the IUCN Commission on National Parks and Protected Areas Regional Meeting,Sydney, 8–10 June 1996Prideaux, M (1998) Pers comm. Marine Biodiversity Campaigner, AustralianConservation Foundation, July 1998Prideaux, M, Emmett, J and Horstman, M (1998) ‘Sustainable Use or Multiple Abuse?’Habitat Australia, vol 26, no 2, April, Australian Conservation Foundation,Melbourne, pp13–20Prineas, P (ed) (1998) National Parks: new visions for a new century’. Proceedings oftheNational Parks: New Visions for a New Century Conference, 18–19 July 1997, theNature Conservation Council ofNew South Wales and the National ParksAssociation, Nature Conservation Council, SydneySalvin, S (2000) ‘Developing a Market in Biodiversity Credits’. New South Wales StateForests paper, SydneySheppard, D (1997) ‘The Road from Caracas’. Paper presented at the WorldCommission on Protected Areas Symposium, Albany, Western Australia, November1997Smyth, D and Sutherland, J (1996) Indigenous Protected Areas. Environment Australia,Canberra Stevens, S (1997) Conservation through Cultural Survival: Indigenous People and Protected Areas.Island Press, Washington, DCSzabo, S G (1996) ’ indigenous Protected Areas: Managing Natural and Cultural Values– A Two-Way Street’. Paper presented at the IUCN Commission for National Parksand Protected Areas Regional Meeting, Sydney, 8–10 June 1996Thackway, R (1996a) ‘The National Reserve System: Towards a Representative SystemofEcologically Based Reserves’. Paper presented at the IUCN Commission forNational Parks and Protected Areas Regional Meeting, Sydney, 8–10 June 1996Thackway, R (ed) (1996b) Developing Australia’s Representative System ofMarine ProtectedAreas. Proceedings ofa technical meeting, South Australian Aquatic SciencesCentre, West Beach, Adelaide, 22–23 April 1996, Department ofthe Environment,CanberraTrust for Nature (Victoria) www.tsn.org.au, accessed 4 June 2001Wamsley, J (1996) ‘Wildlife Management: The Work ofEarth Sanctuaries Limited’ in TCharters, M Gabriel and S Prasser (eds) National Parks: Private Sector’s Role. UniversityofSouthern Queensland Press, ToowoombaWamsley, J (1998) ‘Report to Shareholders’,Earth Sanctuaries News, no 28, February1999, p1218Decolonizing Nature
Whelan, B (2001) Personal communication. Former CEO, Trust for Nature (Victoria),current director, Australian Bush Heritage Fund, September 2001Woenne-Green, S, Johnston, R, Sultan, R and Wallis, A (1994) Competing Interests:Aboriginal Participation in National Parks and Conservation Reserves in Australia.Australian Conservation Foundation, MelbourneWorld Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) (1997) Protected Areas in the 21stCentury: From Islands to Networks. Report from the WCPA Albany Symposium, 24–29November 1997, IUCN, GlandYoung M D, Gunningham, N, Elix, J, Lambert, J, Howard, B, Grabosky, P andMcGrone, E (1996) Reimbursing the Future: An Evaluation ofMotivational, Voluntary,Price-Based, Property-Right, and Regulatory Incentives for the Conservation ofBiodiversity, 2vols. Biodiversity Series, Paper no 9, Biodiversity Unit, Department oftheEnvironment, Sport and Territories, CanberraThe changing face ofnature conservation219
Chapter 10When nature won’t stay still:Conservation, equilibrium andcontrolWilliam M AdamsFIELD WORKTwo memories suggest themselves to me. In the first, I am standing on theslope ofa rounded limestone hill in southern England, looking south across ahuge vista ofwoods and fields, the rolling lowlands ofthe Kentish Weald.Near at hand there is thin grass with the little bumps ofant hills, and on thehilltop the remains ofa Bronze Age earthwork approximately 3500 years’ old.One or two ofmy fellow students are on their hands and knees, peeringexcitedly through hand lenses at grasses and flowers, and uttering the shrillsqueaks ofthe conservationist at play. To our right lies what looks like abattlefield, a sea ofhawthorn stumps and the ash mounds that marked thesites ofsmall, hot fires. We are on a National Nature Reserve (NNR), a Site ofSpecial Scientific Interest (SSSI), and this was the result ofcareful scientificconservation management.1The reserve was famous for its chalk grassland plants and insects; but this‘natural’ diversity was, in fact, artificial. Chalk grassland, I was being told, washuman-made, an ‘anthropogenic ecosystem’, ‘semi-natural’ vegetation. In theintense agricultural and urbanized landscape ofsouth-east England, nothingremained ofthe mix ofvegetation communities that must once have existed onthe unoccupied chalk and clays left at the end ofthe last glacial maximum 10,000years ago. As the climate shifted, and plants and animals and eventually peoplearrived, the landscape changed, and ‘natural’ vegetation was forced to changewith it. Under tens ofcenturies ofhuman management, plants and insects thatcould thrive on the nutrient-poor limestone ofthe chalk hills, and cope with theinexorable nibbling ofcountless generations ofsheep, accumulated in
wonderfully diverse assemblages in what ecologists during the 20th centurycame to call chalk grassland.I was told that human action had destroyed the ‘natural’ post-glacialvegetation. However, in its place anthropogenic activity had created a diverse,new vegetation assemblage in which a multitude ofplants and insects found afoothold. In time, this, too, began to disappear. People had long ago cleared andploughed almost all the rest of the chalk downland in southern England(especially during the period since World War II), and the chalk grasslandspecies, presumably once common, were now rare. As a result, the whole ofamuch wider heritage of natural diversity was invested in this fragment ofhuman-created sward. That is why it was a nature reserve.However, even in a nature reserve it seemed that nature could not be left toitself. In this environment, chalk grassland was not a stable equilibrium vegetationcommunity. Left alone, this grassy paradise would slowly turn into a dull, species-poor scrubland and, eventually, woodland. The only way to keep the diversity ofgrassland species was to stop vegetation succession. Conservation managementwas needed in order to hold back the tendency ofnature to restore the naturalbalance. Since World War II, chalkland sheep-grazing had become uneconomic,the grassland had become rougher, and the scrub moved in – hence, the need tocut and remove the scrub in order to reset the clock ofecological succession atthe stage with maximum species richness.A second memory occurs a couple ofyears later and far away. I am peeringthrough the windscreen ofa Land Rover in northern Nigeria at a patch ofbaresoil, surrounded by scrubby trees. The screech ofacacia thorns against the bodywork has mercifully stopped, and we are in an area oftotally bare land in aclearing in the grazing reserve through which we have been driving. It is longafter the rains and blindingly hot. We get out to inspect vegetation and soil. Atsome time in the past, people have cleared and cultivated this land. The lines ofthe cultivation ridges are still visible, but the soil has sealed over and the surfaceis mirror hard. Nothing grows now, not even weeds. The acacia trees have failedto recolonize. The land seems irrevocably spoiled. My companion is kicking thetoe ofhis shoe against the hard surface, muttering and shaking his head.A few kilometres on, we stop again in a new clearing in the thin forest. Thistime we find a small stockade ofcut thorn branches with a large white bullinside. It is part ofa Fulani pastoralist camp; but there is nobody about. Thebull is tall and rangy, but surprisingly sleek. A pile ofgreen branches has beencut for fodder, for on the dry, grey earth there is only a faint suggestion ofwispygrass stems. On the edge ofthe clearing, small, scrubby acacia trees have beenhalf-cut through quite recently and their green leaves eaten; others have beencut to make the small stockade. This seems like the scene that must logicallyprecede the one before, where the healthy forest is being cut by unwary people,eventually to be farmed and spoiled, and abandoned. We talk about theprocesses that seem to be going on, the probability that the grazing reserve isslowly being destroyed by overgrazing. We eventually drive away, the Land Roverstill protesting at the thorns.When nature won’t stay still221
At the time, these experiences seemed to offer classic morality tales. On thechalk hills of England, careful conservation management was needed tomaintain the diversity ofnature against its own powers ofdeterioration. InNigeria, on the edge ofthe Sahel, management was required to stop peoplefrom destroying the environment. There were too many people in the wrongplace, trying to grow crops on degraded soil and exhausting the soil, or cuttingtrees to feed livestock because the grassland was overgrazed. At that time, in theaftermath ofthe ‘Sahel drought’ ofthe early 1970s, the problem ofdesertification was a hot topic ofdebate in seminar rooms and learned journals.To me,conditioned by the literature on drought and human-induceddesertification in the Sahel, it was easy to build in my mind a scenario for thefuture ofthese places. It was one ofenvironmental degradation, with the naturalvegetation progressively transformed by people and their livestock, the naturalproductivity ofthe land destroyed by unsustainable land use, the balance ofnature upset by human action. It did not occur to me that this interpretationmight be wrong. It did not (at least, not then) occur to me to wait until the bull’sowner returned to see what he thought was happening in that hot place.2THE BALANCE OF NATUREThe balance ofnature is a powerful symbol. It was the single ‘Big Idea’ thatunderpinned the environmental revolution that began during the 1960s inEurope and North America, and which progressed in various ways and atvarious speeds until the 1990s, when it was mainstreamed by the 1992 EarthSummit in Rio. There was a ‘balance ofnature’ that humans had disrupted. Thiscertainly seemed self-evident to me through my childhood (trekking toAlexandra Palace in London to see the National Nature Week exhibition in1963, or watching television pictures ofthe oil tanker Torrey Canyon, agroundand burning on Seven Stones Reefbetween Land’s End and the Scilly Isles inMarch 1967, and being bombed by the navy and the air force, while leakingKuwaiti oil onto the Cornish coast).3To a child, the evidence was plain: naturewas precious and under threat, it had found its own balance and this was beingupset. People, in their greed and technological arrogance, were disrupting thebalance ofnature. As a basic environmentalist route-map to the ills ofthe late20th century, the idea ofnature in balance served me well enough for a longwhile, providing the oxygen for more late evening conversations and argumentswith friends than I care to remember.These ideas are as deep as the history ofenvironmentalism (Grove, 1992;1995). One need look no further than George Perkins Marsh’s Man and Nature(1864):Nature, left undisturbed, so fashions her territory as to give it almostunchanging permanence ofform, outline, and proportion.222Decolonizing Nature
…whenever the Indian, in consequence ofwar or the exhaustion ofthe beastsofthe chase, abandoned the narrow fields he had planted and the woods hehad burned over, they speedily returned, by a succession ofherbaceous,arborescent and arboreal growths, to their original state. Even a singlegeneration sufficed to restore them almost to their primitive luxuriance offorest vegetation (Marsh 1864, pp 29, 30).Marsh’s theme was clear: nature established an equilibrium and humansdisrupted it. This simple idea was still providing the take-home message ofRachel Carson’s Silent Spring, the prooftext ofWestern environmentalism andthe sound bite ofcountless television documentaries and Walt Disney animalmovies 100 years after Marsh’s writing.4It reflects, too, ideas that ran throughthe science ofecology. When this was in its infancy, during the late 19th century,shortly after Marsh was writing, it took on board a powerful, organic metaphorofnature, a view ofnature balanced and integrated and threatened by changefrom ‘outside’, from human action (Botkin, 1990; Livingstone, 1995).The idea ofa balance ofnature continues to be seductive and to have apowerful appeal for environmentalists, in general, and conservationists, inparticular. However, during the last decade of the 1990s, it began to bechallenged by other ideas that suggest a more complex approach tounderstanding ecosystem change. These ideas allow nature much moredynamism and variability. No longer can the gendered image ofrapacioushuman and passive equilibrial nature be accepted comfortably.5Using two casestudies, this chapter describes the implications ofthis change for conservationin understanding nature. The first is the semi-arid lands ofAfrica, both theclassic terrain of‘big nature’ (the ‘big five’ and savanna national parks) and thehome ground ofAfrican pastoral people. The second is the more domesticscale ofsmall nature reserves in the densely packed and intensively managedrural landscape ofthe UK. Although, at one level, very different, commonideological currents run through conservationist thinking. In both cases, achallenge to the dominant mode ofunderstanding nature as balanced andthreatened offers radical and challenging opportunities for conservation action.First, however, let me explain what I mean by the ‘ecology ofequilibrium’.THE ECOLOGY OF EQUILIBRIUMDuring the first decades ofthis century, nature was portrayed by the emergingscience ofecology as, essentially, rather static, an array ofhabitat fragments asnatural objects. In this thinking, ecology drew (like conservation) on the strengthofamateur natural history and the Victorian mania for collecting (Allen, 1976,Griffiths, 1996). The links between ecology and conservation in industrializedcountries were very close. In Research Methods in Ecology, the American ecologistF E Clements provided a scientific basis for identifying vegetation ‘types’(Clements, 1905; McIntosh, 1985). In the UK, Arthur Tansley drew on the workWhen nature won’t stay still223
ofamateur botanists to write the classic Types ofBritish Vegetation(Tansley, 1911),and provided both a classification ofvegetation and a framework for the firstlists ofproposed nature reserves in the UK (Sheail, 1976; Adams, 1996). WhenClements developed ideas about plant succession, he suggested a process ofcontinuous change towards a ‘climatic climax’. He likened the ‘vegetationformation’ to a complex organism ‘developing’ through time. This way ofunderstanding ecological change drew deliberate analogies with the growth ofindividual organisms (Clements, 1916).These ideas ofvegetation as organism were subsequently challenged byHarold Gleason and by Tansley; but ecology’s dependence upon the organicmetaphor survived. In 1920, Tansley argued against the idea that all aggregationsofplants had the properties oforganisms, and in 1935 he published a sharpcritique ofClementsian thinking about the climatic climax (McIntosh, 1985).He suggested that succession involved complex patterns,with soils,physiography and human action all driving change in different (but specific)directions under different conditions. To capture this complexity he framed thenew concept ofthe ecosystem (Tansley, 1935; 1939; Sheail, 1987). In time this,too, came to be understood as a balanced system whose components meshedand integrated to create equilibrium through negative feedback.The development ofincreasingly sophisticated theoretical and experimentalapproaches to ecology eventually led to a more mechanistic framework ofanalysis. This was based upon Tansley’s concept ofthe ecosystem, to which theanalysis ofecological energetics and, subsequently, systems analysis were applied(Tansley, 1935; Lindemann, 1942; McIntosh, 1985; Botkin, 1990). However,although the science ofecology developed in scope and sophistication,historians ofecology argue that the fundamental notion that ecosystems tendedtowards equilibrium endured (McIntosh, 1985; Worster, 1994). The classic‘equilibrium paradigm’ in ecology dominated ecology until the 1970s (Stewardet al, 1992). Ecological systems were closed, and ecosystems were self-regulatingso that, ifdisturbed, they would tend to return towards an equilibrium state.This paradigm, in turn, fed ideas in the wider environmental movement,underpinning the notion that there was a balance ofnature easily upset byinappropriate human action.During the second halfofthe 20th century, when both ecosystemmanagement, development planning and conservation were all becomingestablished in government planning, ecologists mostly portrayed nature as akind ofhomeostatic machine (Pahl-Wostl, 1995). Nature was seen as a systemwhose state was maintained by processes ofinternal feedback; but it was alsosusceptible to external control. In fact, ecosystems were analysed as ifthey were‘19th-century machines, full ofgears and wheels, for which our managerial goal,like that ofany traditional engineer, is steady-state operation’ (Botkin, 1990,p12). Human action could upset the delicate working ofthe machine; but,fortunately, the ecologist could diagnose the problem and (potentially, at least)work out how to put the balance right. Ecological science could therefore beused to generate technocratic recipes for managing nature. Ecologists coined224Decolonizing Nature
words and concepts drawn from thermodynamics and engineering (such assystem, energetics, equilibrium, feedback, balance and control) to describenature. Conservationists, schooled in ecology, saw themselves in some senses as‘engineers ofnature’ (Livingstone, 1995, p368).Ecological science also offered a series of‘natural’ subdivisions ofnature.This is the fruit ofa desperate desire to classify, dating back to the origins oftaxonomy (see Chapter 2 in this book). The arbitrary distinction between speciesand subspecies are universally accepted, although modern genetic techniquesmay prove to have some surprises for those conservationists whose programmesare dependent upon these categories. Attempts to provide a taxonomy at largerscales (habitat, ecosystem or vegetation community) are graced by convention,but are less satisfactory. These ‘natural’ units are quite clearly social constructs,whether or not they carry the imprimaturofTwo-Way Indicator Species Analysis(TWINSPAN) (Hill, 1979) and the reliable algebra ofthe National VegetationClassification (Rodwell, 1991).6The attempt to classify the turbulent diversity ofnature is based upon assumptions ofequilibrium. Only ifnature stays still canscience get a long enough look at it to provide a usable classification. In thatnature is notstill, science has to work as ifit is. Nature is therefore treated asdynamic, but tending to equilibrium – diverse, but open to simple classificationthat is robust enough to be useful.CONSERVATION AND EQUILIBRIUMIdeas ofecosystem equilibrium have been highly influential for conservation inthe temperate environment ofthe UK. For British conservationists, it was foralmost all ofthe 20th-century axiomatic that nature not only had to be reserved,but also managed within those reserves. Ecological ideas about ecosystemsuccession demonstrated nature’s own capacity to change in undesirable ways.Awareness grew ofthe capacity ofnature itselfto cause change that could bringabout the loss ofvalued features ofa reserve (for example, a rare species),particularly through ecosystem succession. As nature conservation became anaccepted form ofland use in the UK, after the end ofWorld War II,conservationists had to establish rules for reserve management, and for this itdrew upon ecological science.Conservation needed science, and science needed conservation. It wasbelieved that effective reserve management demanded ‘deep scientificknowledge’ ofecosystems: ‘paradoxically, we can ensure the survival ofwildplaces ofBritain only by finding out what happens when we interfere with them’(Nicholson, 1957, pp26, 19). In 1964, Pearsall argued that ecological researchrequired large nature reserves for experiments ‘large enough to allow [for]repeatable assessments ofthe systems or processes under investigation’(Pearsall, 1964, p8). Some ecologists were reluctant to accept that wildlifecommunities might need to be managed (Duffey and Watt, 1970); butconservation demanded an interventionist approach in order to control nature.When nature won’t stay still225
Conservation adopted ecology’s language (system, equilibrium, balance,succession, competition, climax), and drew upon it to explain vegetationsuccession and to prescribe management treatments.In due course,‘management by interference’ (Nicholson, 1957, p19) became the standardmodel and also, arguably, the distinguishing feature ofBritish conservation(Henderson, 1992).Woodwalton Fen in Cambridgeshire provides one example ofthe emergingneed for intervention management. Until the mid 19th century, WoodwaltonFen was undrained, lying adjacent to the open water ofWhittlesey Mere. In1851, this last fenland mere was drained and reclaimed, Woodwalton Fen peatwas dug and parts were cultivated. In 1910, it was purchased by a wealthyvisionary, the banker Charles Rothschild, as a nature reserve. This purchase, ofcourse, did nothing to stop the rapid plant succession taking place (Nicholson,1970). By 1959, when the reserve was leased to the Nature Conservancy, about90 per cent ofit was covered with birch or sallow scrub. Many ofthe speciesfor which it was originally famous had died out, or were close to doing so. Thewetland had become a wood, standing like turfon a beach – a tuft ofwetwoodland, stranded by the drainage ofthe surrounding farmland that stretchedas flat as a pancake away to the level line ofthe horizon, far away to the north-east.Conservation of the fen’s fauna and flora seemed to demand decisiveintervention. Ecological knowledge directed conservation action to controlecosystem succession, and a programme ofclearance, followed by cattle grazing,was begun. It was argued that ‘detailed ecological knowledge’ would be requiredto maintain the vegetation in the forms that gave the fen its conservation interest(Duffey, 1970, p595).Although the basic principles ofmanaging wildlife habitat are, today, widelyknown and taught (see, for example, Green, 1981; Sutherland and Hill, 1995),when conservation was established institutionally during the 1940s, littleresearch had been done. Knowledge ofeither the need for ecosystemmanagement, or ofhow and when to intervene in order to maintain the desiredcharacteristics of‘seral, plagio or sub-climax ecosystems’ (Green, 1981, p178),was rudimentary, at best (Sheail, 1995). New knowledge and skills were requiredto manage National Nature Reserves. Neither contemporary agriculture (alreadyobsessed with technical and economic ‘efficiency’ through intensification) norforestry (focused since the end ofWorld War I upon developing skills in tree-farming with exotic conifers, often in exposed upland sites) provided adequatemodels for very many ofthe new tasks ofconservation.New methods were required to manage less modified ecosystems forconservation, rather than production. These methods were progressivelydeveloped. Some involved the recovery offormer rural management practices,such as cutting reed on wetlands, coppicing woodland or laying hedgerows.Some adapted farming systems, such as livestock grazing, but substituted aconcern for altering grass swards (by resowing and fertilizing) to maximizeproduction with a concern for maximizing plant or insect species diversity226Decolonizing Nature
(through minimizing fertility and adjusting stock type and stocking density).After 200 years ofanimal breeding for production,conservationistsrediscovered less improved breeds and ‘rare breeds’ oflivestock; and evenlowland fields and fens began to be grazed by Highland cattle, Hebridean sheepand Konik horses. Other techniques were more novel, including the use ofmechanized cutters, manipulation of water levels or the selective use ofherbicides (Green, 1981; Sutherland and Hill, 1995; Wallis DeVries et al, 2001).These skills were adapted and institutionalized into new and standardizedregimes ofmanagement. They were shared within groups ofoften urban-basedvolunteers (for example, the British Trust for Conservation Volunteers) andbecame elements in formal college-taught courses.ECOLOGY, CONSERVATION AND DISEQUILIBRIUMNew ideas of‘non-equilibrium’ ecology call into question the tradition ofintensive conservation management in places such as the UK that assumes thatnature is (and should be) in equilibrium, and seeks to control ‘natural’ processes.The abundance and distribution oforganisms, as well as the appearance ofthelandscape, are controlled by natural physical processes. One of the mostimportant sources ofdisturbance in ecosystems is the working ofphysicalprocesses in the landscape, particularly processes oferosion and deposition(Werrity et al, 1994). Some landscapes, such as sand dunes, beaches or riverfloodplains, are highly dynamic. Physical processes also drive environmentalchange elsewhere – for example, in woodlands affected by storms that causetrees to fall, or on mountain tops affected by freeze-thaw processes.Standard approaches to sand dune management are based upon the controlofecological change and dune stabilization. This kind ofintensive managementis ineffective since it also leads to loss ofearly successional stages in duneecosystems. You cannot ‘preserve’ such ecosystems by ‘managing’ them anymore than you can by putting a fence around them and declaring them‘protected’. Their biodiversity depends directly upon natural patterns ofdisturbance, driven by climate change. Indeed, their very existence dependsupon such natural change, and in such environments disturbance must be seenas part ofthe ‘nature’ with which conservation is concerned. What you can do,ofcourse, is to protect them, both from direct human exploitation (for example,quarrying ofsand or shingle in the case ofsand dunes) and from indirecthuman-induced change (for example, offshore dredging, or starvation ofsediment by inappropriate coastal defence works). However, conservation thenbecomes not a matter oftrying to dictate through management the exact formthat nature takes, but ofprotecting processesofnatural change from incompatiblechanges in economy and technology (Worster, 1994).Ecologists have increasingly acknowledged the scientific challenge to oldequilibrial ideas and have begun to consider the instabilities in landscapes,particularly the problem ofdisturbance, and different scales in space and time.When nature won’t stay still227
As the historian Donald Worster put it, ‘nature, we are told now, should beregarded as a landscape ofpatches ofall sizes, textures, and colours, changingcontinually through time and space, responding to an unceasing barrage ofperturbations’ (Worster, 1994). A ‘non-equilibrium paradigm’ in ecologyemphasizes the openness ofnatural systems, and the need to understand themin the context oftheir surroundings, as well as the past events and disturbancesthat have affected them. Non-equilibrium ecology recognizes that the factorsthat are important in explaining how things change will depend upon the lengthof time and the area over which change is analysed (Steward et al, 1992).Ecology has undergone a profound shift from the notion that nature is a well-behaved, deterministic system towards a view in which equilibrium states arerelatively unusual (Zoest, 1992).Ideas about the fractal geometry ofnature, and the idea that we shouldthink ofecosystems as exhibiting the maths ofchaos rather than the morecomfortable dynamics ofequilibrium, allow ecologists to begin to explore theways in which different processes determine landscape pattern at differentscales. Disturbances come in many shapes and sizes, from annual river floods orseasonal droughts to disease outbreaks. Ecologists suggest that in any givenlandscape, disturbances tend to occur at a characteristic scale, frequency andintensity that is determined by climate, weather, topography, geology and thespecies present. In river channels and floodplains, characteristic species andcommunities are maintained within different parts ofthe channel and thefloodplain by processes oferosion and deposition, and by patterns ofoverbankflooding and groundwater recharge. Ifthose processes are altered, ecologicalchanges are likely to follow (Hughes, 1999; 2001).Increasingly, during the last two centuries, there has been a humandimension to many ‘natural’ disturbances, and humans themselves have beenmajor originators ofdisturbance (from local engineering activity to the releaseofcarbon dioxide or ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere).Ecologists can no longer work on the assumption that terrestrial ecosystemssimply respond to climate changes and internal processes ofcompetition. Thescale and intensity ofhuman activity is such that ecosystem change, driven byhuman action, can itselfpotentially drive climatic change. Ecology has to beable to shift scales in pursuit ofexplanation, reaching down to the molecularlevel and up to the global scale (May, 1989).Conservationists should no longer conceive ofnature in equilibrium, andtherefore portray human-induced changes in those ecosystems as somehow‘unnatural’. Nature is dynamic and highly variable. Its patterns at one particularplace and time are contingent upon preceding events; its trajectory through timeis open ended and does not tend towards an equilibrial point. Human actionsare part ofthe web ofinfluences on ecological change, not external equilibrium-disturbing impacts. The implication ofthis is that science cannot tellconservationists what nature ‘ought’ to be like, and it may not always even beable to describe what it used to be like, and how and why it has changed.Conservationists will very often need ecology, but their science gives them no228Decolonizing Nature
privileged insight into the way nature should be. They will have to work that outthe same way everyone else does, by thinking and talking about it.EQUILIBRIUM IN THE DRYLANDSThe idea that ecosystems have a ‘natural’ equilibrium state has also hadsignificant impacts upon people, ecosystems and conservation in Africa. As inthe case ofconservation, pastoral policy has both needed and, in its turn, aidedthe growth ofecological science during the second halfofthe 20th century. InAfrica, and in the US, from where the science mostly came, rangeland sciencedrew upon wider advances in ecology, and provided clear evidence ofecology’susefulness (see Chapter 2 in this book). Throughout the 20th century, mostanalyses ofecological change in the drylands ofAfrica were based upon thisview ofthe ways in which ecosystems respond to human action – and uponrather sweeping assumptions about the ways in which people use land. Frommost perspectives (certainly those ofpastoralists, although, by and large, nobodyasked them), the impacts ofequilibrium thinking have been negative.The conventional scientific view of rangeland management and mis-management has been built around ideas ofrange condition class and carryingcapacity. Scientific research has established that there is a general relationshipbetween rainfall and biomass ofherbivores, whether these are wild ordomesticated (Coe et al, 1976). The conventional logic is that the environmentis capable ofsupporting a certain fixed number oflivestock (or biomass ofherbivores) that for any given ecosystem can be calculated primarily as a functionofrainfall. It can then be argued that at stocking levels lower than this carryingcapacity, pasture resources are being underused, and that at higher stockinglevels resources are being overused. In an unmanaged grazing system, suchovergrazing would be likely to lead to ecological change that would reduce itsproductivity (for example, by causing the extinction ofpalatable species and theeventually loss ofvegetation cover), leading to loss ofcondition in grazinganimals and, eventually, to a reduction in their numbers.Pastoralist overgrazing was widely seen by scientists and policy-makers in the1970s as a principal cause ofdesertification. The Sahel drought of1972–1974,and the longer period ofreduced rainfall that began in 1968, led some observersto believe that climate was undergoing permanent change. A range ofhypothesessuggested that rainfall reduction could result from overgrazing – for example,through the loss ofgreen vegetation cover from the savanna and increasedsurface albedo, or increased levels ofdust at high altitude, both ofthem leadingto stable air masses and dry conditions (Adams, 2001). Rising human andlivestock population densities were blamed for reductions in vegetation coverand enhanced soil erosion, and these, in turn, were blamed for producing ‘a newstate ofself-perpetuating drought’ (Sinclair and Fryxell, 1985, p992).Rangeland scientists have applied exactly the same logic to human-managedgrazing systems. Studies ofpastoral people in Africa (and elsewhere) suggestedWhen nature won’t stay still229
that they lacked an understanding ofthe ecological impacts ofhigh stockdensities, and lacked institutions for controlling livestock numbers, orcontrolling who had access to grazing land. Ecological studies ofpasturechange seemed to confirm this. Superficial accounts ofdecision-making bystock-keepers (often made by Northern researchers arguing from ‘firstprinciples’, rather than by anthropologists who might actually have discussedthe question with local people, or by or indigenous people themselves)suggested that a ‘tragedy ofthe commons’ (the phrase coined by Hardin, 1968)was inevitable.The concepts ofovergrazing and carrying capacity condemned nomadicpastoralists because oftheir apparently feckless management ofseeminglyfragile rangelands (Swift, 1982; Horowitz and Little, 1987). In addition to theapparent scientific rationale for such strategies, governments also tended todistrust people who are mobile and difficult to locate, tax, educate and providewith services. Typical government pastoral policies had several components.They were aimed, for example, at adjusting grazing intensity to available grazingresources and, thus, at improving stock health and weight. This was done byreducing stock numbers through compulsory de-stocking, controlling stockdistribution though fencing, and providing evenly distributed watering pointsand improvement ofrange condition through bush clearance, pasture reseedingand controlled burning. Projects also typically sought to persuade stock-keepersto sell their cattle commercially, and to promote breed improvement (byimporting European or North American stock and breeding them) and diseasecontrol, all with the hope ofinstilling a proper regard for the weight and healthofeach animal. None ofthese strategies fitted with nomadic or semi-nomadicsubsistence livestock production; therefore, government pastoral policy alsoemphasized fixed settlements, formal land tenure (freehold or leasehold) andcapitalist production.In conservation terms, this approach to pastoralism essentially achieved twothings, neither ofthem helpful. Firstly, it failed to recognize, or allow for, thehistorical tolerance ofpastoralists for wildlife (Homewood and Rodgers, 1991;Homewood and Brockington, 1999). In doing so, it forced a conceptual andpractical separation ofareas managed for wildlife – protected areas (PAs) – andthose managed for people and ‘development’. It defined conservation assomething done in spite of, against the interests of, and in the face oftheopposition ofpastoral people. Wherever pastoral management became moreintensive (for example, where ranching systems were adopted), wildlife becameincreasingly unwelcome, a reservoir ofdisease (rinderpest, foot and mouth,bovine pleuropneumonia and sleeping sickness). Until the rise ofgame farmingfor safari hunting in southern Africa from the 1980s, and the growth ofgame-watching safari tourism, livestock grazing and wildlife were seen as mutuallyinimical activities.The second result ofthis view ofpastoralists as degrading the environmentwas the rigorous exclusion ofpastoral people from protected areas: ifnature230Decolonizing Nature
ought to be in equilibrium, and humans and their livestock disrupted thatequilibrium, then ‘natural’ areas had to be rid ofpeople and their animals. Andthey were: most ofthe famous savanna national parks and reserves in easternAfrica were established on former pastoralist land (admittedly, sometimes onland whose users had been decimated by warfare and famine following theintroduction ofrinderpest and various other disasters; see Waller, 1988;Anderson and Johnson, 1988). In many parks (for example, at AmboseliNational Park and Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya; in the SerengetiNational Park and Ngorogoro Conservation Area, Arusha National Park andthe Mkomazi Game Reserve in Tanzania), people were evicted, or restricted intheir use ofland and resources. Access has been, in some instances, the subjectoflong-running and bitter dispute (Lindsay, 1987; Homewood and Rodgers,1991; Brockington and Homewood, 1996; Neumann, 1998; Brockington 2002).This notion that people can and should be excluded from protected areasbecause they are places for ‘wild’ nature reflects the broader Western enthusiasmfor wilderness (see Chapter 2). The portrayal ofAfrican savannas as ‘wilderness’,untouched, until recently, by human hand, is, ofcourse, fundamentally flawed,as it is elsewhere – for example, Australia (see Chapters 3 and 4)Researchers have increasingly expressed reservations about the universalapplicability ofthe concept ofovergrazing and with the unreflective links drawnbetween it and desertification (Sandford, 1983; Horowitz and Little, 1987; Mace,1991). It has been argued that overstocking or overgrazing are rarely defined,and that judgements about carrying capacity are subjective, although thatsubjectivity is rarely admitted (Hogg, 1983; Homewood and Rodgers, 1984;1987). They have become both entrenched and self-reinforcingIt is now recognized that there are wide gaps between pastoral policyprescriptions and the ways in which pastoral people actually manage their herdsand rangelands. Pastoral development planning tends to focus upon commercialcattle production for slaughter for the production ofmeat and hides, whereasindigenous production systems tend to emphasize the production ofproductsfrom live animals (milk or blood). Commercial production systems also typicallyfocus upon a single species (usually cattle ofan improved variety), whereasindigenous production systems tend to mix different kinds oflivestock in theirherds (cattle and camels and goats, for example, among the Turkana in northernKenya; Coughenour et al, 1985). Moreover, poorer pastoral households willhold different a range ofstock from wealthy ones. Mixed flocks and herds allowflexible use ofland, water and vegetation resources in space and time. Unlikecommercial ranching systems, indigenous pastoral ecosystems seem welladapted to exploit the spatial and temporal variability in biological production.Such systems offer a relatively low output compared to modern capitalistsystems, such as ranching. However, they are remarkably robust in terms ofproviding a predictable, iflimited, livelihood. Standardized assumptions aboutherd management, and formulaic prescriptions ofcarrying capacity are a poorguide to what happens on the ground.When nature won’t stay still231
DISEQUILIBRIUM AND DRYLAND ENVIRONMENTSDespite massive research and a multitude ofpublications on the subject ofdesertification, which began with the Sahel drought ofthe 1970s and has beenmaintained in the face ofpersistent low rainfall in Africa ever since, it has slowlycome to be recognized that the data necessary to assess ‘long-term degradation’ofvegetation or desertification, in most cases, simply does not exist (Warren,1996; Swift, 1996; Adams, 2001). While it is clear that dryland rainfall in Africavaries from year to year (and in the timing and consistency ofrainfall withinyears), this is not now blamed on farmers and pastoralists. Today, explanationsemphasize the larger-scale links to global ocean–atmosphere circulation,particularly sea surface temperatures in the southern Atlantic and Indian oceans(Hulme, 1996; 2001).Conventional thinking about carrying capacity and overgrazing began to bechallenged during the 1980s and 1990s by so-called ‘new range ecology’ (Behnkeand Scoones, 1991). New ideas hold that pastoral strategies are designed to trackenvironmental variation (taking advantage ofwet years, and coping with dry ones),rather than being conservative (seeking a steady-state equilibrial output). Thisawareness ofthe non-equilibrial nature ofsavanna ecosystem dynamics reflects awider understanding ofthe importance ofnon-linear processes in ecology, as awhole (see, for example, Botkin, 1990; Pahl-Wostl, 1995). Much ofwhat appearedto be perversity or conservatism on the part ofpastoralists is revealed to be highlyadaptive (Behnke and Scoones, 1991; Behnke et al, 1993).The productivity ofsemi-arid rangelands varies a great deal both seasonallyand between years. The primary cause ofthis variation is rainfall, which is nowacknowledged to be highly variable in space and time in sub-Saharan Africa,particularly in drier rangelands. Here, ecosystems exhibit non-equilibrialbehaviour, and ecosystem state and productivity are largely driven externally.The varied influences offire, soil fertility and groundwater add to thecomplexity ofrangeland productivity and its capacity to support grazing atparticular places and times. There is no automatic ecological succession undergrazing pressure towards an overgrazed state; instead, there are complexpatterns ofecological change in response to exogenous conditions (especiallyrainfall) and stock numbers and management. Such ecological changes can takemany forms, not all ofthem serious, and they can proceed by diverse routes,some ofwhich can be reversed more easily than others, and some ofwhich aremore sensitive to particular management than others. Arguably, there are no‘naturally’ stable points in semi-arid ecosystems that can usefully be taken todefine an ‘equilibrial’ state.Studies ofthe responses ofvegetation to different stocking levels, or oflivestock numbers, tend to take no account ofseasonal or annual variations infodder availability, and tend to be built upon estimates ofregional stockingrates. Such estimates are notoriously unreliable because livestock are difficultand expensive to count, particularly iftheir owners do not want you to do so.Studies identifying overgrazing also tend to concentrate on absolute numbers of232Decolonizing Nature
livestock and not on densities, rarely consider spatial mobility, and fail to takeaccount of spatial and temporal variations. Conventional ideas about theoverstocking ofrangelands also typically fail to take account ofthe ways inwhich indigenous pastoralists understand the environment and adapt to it –particularly the skill with which they move stock around in response to seasonalenvironmental change in drier and wetter years, and the importance ofinstitutions for the exchange and recovery ofstock through kinship networks.Indigenous pastoralists can manage herds, and grazing land, in detailed, complexand often effective ways.The attempt to define a single carrying capacity for an ecosystem with greatannual variation in primary productivity is problematic (Homewood andRodgers, 1987). The attempt to do so implies that the ecosystem has an optimalequilibrium state. Ifthat equilibrium is illusory (because ofthe variability andresilience ofthe ecosystem), the concept ofcarrying capacity can only berelevant as a social or economic, rather than an ecological, concept – ajudgement about the density ofanimals and plants that allows managers to getwhat they want out ofthe ecosystem (Homewood and Rodgers, 1987). Thegoals ofa subsistence pastoralist, a rancher and a conservationist are likely to bevery different. The pastoralist might wish to maintain herd size as capital andexchange value, as well as yields ofmilk and blood. The rancher needs to ensureprofitable returns ofcapital through disease-free meat off-take.Theconservationist seeks to maintain the ‘naturalness’ ofthe ecosystem and, likethe rancher, probably wishes to fix the changing ecosystem in what is assumedto be its ‘natural’ state.It may therefore be perfectly rational for the pastoralist to run a largerbiomass oflivestock than the rancher would, or than the conservationist wouldwish to do. Many African systems do, indeed, have a subsistence stocking ratethat is higher than commercial ranchers would adopt, giving low rates ofproduction per animal but high output per unit area (Homewood and Rodgers,1987). This is not a mistake; it reflects people managing their assets in responseto a different set ofneeds and different kinds ofsocial arrangements and marketsignals.It is now widely accepted that pastoral ecosystems should not be thought ofas having a specific carrying capacity, equating to the density oflivestock that canbe supported at equilibrium, particularly ifthat density has been calculated for acommercial meat extraction system. Actual stocking levels can exceed such astandardized carrying capacity in a number ofyears successively (Behnke andScoones, 1991). The critical point is that there is a constantly changing balance ofgrazing pressure and range resources. In wetter years, stock numbers rise (andanimal condition and disease status improves). In dry years, stock lose conditionand health. Severe drought years first reduce the condition ofstock and then(through disease, death and destitution-forced sales) reduce stock numbers. Whengood rains follow, they allow pastures to recover, resulting in a lagged recovery ofherd numbers as pastoralists track environmental conditions. Livestock numbers,like the ecosystem more generally, boom and bust with the rainfall.When nature won’t stay still233
To survive withoutdegrading the environment, herd managers not only needtheir extensive knowledge ofenvironmental conditions and opportunities indifferent areas open to them, but require access to those areas. Prevention ofaccess because ofgovernment schemes for irrigation oflarge-scale agriculture(Hogg, 1983; Lane, 1992), or because ofthe establishment ofprotected areas(Brockington and Homewood, 1996; Homewood and Brockington, 1999;Brockington, 2002), can be a disaster.Nature in the dry grasslands ofAfrica is not in equilibrium at all. Strategiesto support environmental and social sustainability need to foster indigenouscapacity in order to track rainfall and maintain social and economic networks,rather than demand a shift to a static, equilibrial capitalist form ofproduction.Conservation need not automatically sign up to a policy ofexcluding peopleand their livestock. There is evidence that livestock and wildlife can run togetherwithout disaster at a wide range ofdensities; where they are incompatible, it isoften livestock that suffer because oftheir susceptibility to disease (Homewoodand Rodgers, 1991). Even in protected areas where pastoralist evictions arerecent (for example, the Mkomazi Game Reserve in northern Tanzania, clearedin 1988), evidence ofenvironmental degradation due to human occupation canbe inconclusive or inadequate (Homewood and Brockington,1999;Brockington, 2002)Conservation planning in pastoral areas needs to ask more careful questionsabout people’s role in the ways in which the environment is changing. Firstly, thelong historical role ofpeople in savanna ecosystems needs to be acknowledged,and any discussion ofnaturalness must be based upon clear historical andpalaeo-environmental research. Secondly, arguments about the incompatibilityofhuman occupation and biodiversity need to be based upon clear and specificresearch, and not upon general assumptions founded on unproved hypothesesabout the equilibrial state ofecosystems and the risk of‘overgrazing’. Thirdly,conservation visions need to take specific account of the ideas that localresidents have about nature – what is the area like, how is it changing, and whichaspects ofthat change are acceptable and which not? Fourthly, in drylands, aseverywhere else, conservation needs to learn to move forward in collaborationwith local land users, instead oftrying to bulldoze them aside.NATURALNESS AND THE CONTROL OF NATUREThe idea that nature can be thought ofas a set ofecosystems that tend to existin equilibrium has led to an intrusive, and sometimes destructive, approach toconservation and to thinking about human use and degradation ofnaturalresources. This seems to be so in contexts as widely divergent as the petitenature reserves ofthe UK and the expanses ofAfrican savannas. Ofcourse, inmany ways, these environments are not far apart at all; they are linked by thedeveloping discipline ofecology and the colonial networks ofscience andideology (see Chapters 2 and 7 in this book). Both ofthese reflect the scientific234Decolonizing Nature
rationalization ofnature that is characteristic of20th-century colonial ideas (seeChapter 3). Nature conservation can be seen as a social practice that regulates(or seeks to regulate) relations between humans and non-human nature. Itoperates both within certain terrains or spaces (such as protected areas) andthrough a generalized moral discourse. That discourse often revolves around,and is developed through, specific conserved (or ‘threatened’) spaces.The history ofconservation practice reveals two contrasting dimensions(see Table 10.1). The first is what I would call ‘the conservation ofwildness’.This arises from a concern for wild nature, naturalness and unaltered ‘non-human’ nature. Robert Elliot (1997) points out in Faking Naturethe importanceof the view that ‘wild nature’ has intrinsic value. This wildness of naturecomprises the basis for the cultural values ofnature that have come to dominateconservation in the industrialized world. It explains one fundamental reasonwhy people in countries such as the UK value nature (Adams, 1996).7Thehistorical dimensions ofthis enthusiasm for notions of‘the wild’ are discussedin Chapter 2 ofthis bookThe second dimension ofconservation is very different, and I have called it‘conservation as control’ (see Table 10.1). This is conservation as the technicalpracticeofthe control ofnature. It has become the characteristic approach toconservation in the UK and in places that have adopted British conservation ideas.The science ofecology, the techniques ofhabitat management and thebureaucratic/planning procedures ofnature reserve management all representedan attempt to define and control the forms that non-human nature took (Adams,1997). Reserves and other defined terrain were designated because of the‘wildness’ or ‘naturalness’ ofnature; but once established, they were mostly closelymanaged in order to keep nature within fixed bounds. Indeed, ecological researchtold conservation planners what nature ought to look like. Nature reserves wereplaces where non-human nature could be maintained as it ought to be – itsnaturalness preserved and sometimes recreated (for example, this occurred whenmyxamatosis wiped out rabbits and chalk grasslands became hawthorn scrub, orwhen shallow water bodies became wet woodland habitats).The tight management regimes ofBritish nature reserves are one obviouscontext for this tradition ofconservation as control, but the principle is morewidely applicable. In the language ofBirch (1990), any attempt to bound andprotect ‘nature’ effectively put wildness in prison. He suggests that wildernessWhen nature won’t stay still235Table 10.1 Contrasting dimensions within conservationConservation as controlConservation of wildnessIntellectual basisRationalistAestheticPriority values Use values of natureCultural values of nature; intrinsic valuesResponseManage natureCelebrate wildness of natureMethodControl natureContinued ‘wildness’ of natureObjectivePredictability of natural systemsUnpredictability of nature
preservation (the US’s defining contribution to global conservation; Henderson,1992), is ‘another stanza in the same old imperialist song ofWestern civilization’(Henderson, 1992, p4). His argument is an interesting one. He suggests that bythe very act ofdesignating ‘wilderness’ reserves for wild nature, the ‘otherness’ofwild land is itselflocked up. Such reservation limits what humans can do tospecified pieces ofnature, and keeps people who might destroy wildness out;but it also allows humanity to contain and control the wild completely. Such‘wilderness’exists at the whim oflegislators and government policy.Furthermore, such wilderness reservations can be (and are) managed in variousways, even ifthat management is disguised to hide it from human visitors’ eyes.Thus, the wildness ofnature is subjugated to a specified regime ofhumanplanning, bringing the outcomes ofnatural processes within a range acceptableto society. Birch comments: ‘the imperium [the supreme or imperial power ofWestern civilization] has the power to manage, invade, declassify, abolish, de-sanctify the legal wildland entities it has created, and the creation ofsuch entitieson its terms does little to diminish this power’ (Birch, 1990, p22).The tension between the values attached to ‘wild’ nature and the need tocontrol that wildness is much more broadly relevant than simply wildlifeconservation. Perhaps the clearest example lies in the way river floods areunderstood and managed. For centuries, river management has tended to followthe ‘rational use’ element within conservation, informed by the need to controlfloods and bring the benefits ofwater (irrigation, water meadows, water supplyand, latterly, hydroelectric power) to society.This has demanded control of rivers and their waters: the dominantmetaphors ofriver engineering are damming, harnessing, taming the mightyriver, or bringing the desert to bloom. These ideologies were central to theAmerican West as Donald Worster’s Rivers ofEmpire(1985) and Mark Reisner’sCadillac Desert(1986) make clear, just as they were to imperial dreams in theSahara (see Chapter 2) and colonial and post-colonial engineers who dammedAfrica’s major rivers (the Nile, Zambezi, Volta and Niger; Adams, 1992). Damspersonified the ‘can-do’ ofengineering, the capacity to out-think and controlnature, to tame the wild. They create a macho world ofconcrete, steel andhuman endeavour.Ofcourse, in the UK things have been less butch; but the familyresemblance to colonial ideologies ofcontrolling nature is clear. One mightconsider the urge for developing the Scottish hydropower schemes ofthe 1930s(Sheail, 1981), the creation ofLake Efyrnwy and the flooding ofthe Elan Valleyduring the late 19th century to supply Birmingham with water, or thedevelopment ofhydropower in north Wales (Gruffudd, 1990). The spirit ofcontrol is beautifully captured by the character of‘Mr Galvanic’, fictionalemployee ofthe British Electricity Authority in the Clough Williams-Ellises’book Headlong Down the Years: ‘IfI had my way, this disgusting water would soonknow its place! The place for water is behind dams and in pipes – all undercontrol’ (Gruffudd, 1990, p165, quoting Amabel and Clough Williams-Ellis,1951)236Decolonizing Nature
Conservationists have frequently been opposed to dam construction, alongwith the wider environmental movement. One could think ofthe classic disputeover a dam in the Hetch Hetchy Valley in the US Yosemite National Parkbetween the romantic preservationist John Muir and the gritty utilitarianconservationist Gifford Pinchot; Edward Abbey’s book The Monkey Wrench Gang(1975), whose heroes are obsessed with the destruction ofthe Glen CanyonDam on the Colorado River; or the work ofDan Brouwer and the Sierra Club(Brouwer was quoted as saying: ‘I hate all dams, large and small’; Finkhouse andCrawford, 1991). Outside the US, the protests oflocal people and Indianenvironmentalists against the Sardar Sarovar Dam on the Narmada Rivercomprise one example of the strength and diversity of environmentalistopposition to large dams (Adams, 2001).RESTORING NATUREThe attraction ofdams to their builders, and the issue behind the specific fearsoftheir opponents, is the question ofcontrol over ‘wild’ nature. In the UK,flood control and the ‘reclamation’ ofland liable to flood for urbandevelopment and agriculture have a long history. There is a dominant paradigmof ‘flood control’ that involves the defence of society and its capital andinfrastructure against the incursions ofwild nature. Institutionally, it has beeninspired by the power ofparticular events, such as the great East Anglian floodsofthe 1950s, although the engineering is much older and the urge is ancient.Flood control (under Internal Drainage Boards and the Water Authorities, nowthe Environment Agency) has almost exclusively involved ‘hard-engineering’solutions to the problems offlooding: changing the course, cross-section andregime ofrivers with concrete banks, flood channels and culverts, as well asdams and barrages. The impact on riparian and aquatic ecosystems, wildlife andlandscape has been vast and negative. During the 20th century, British rivershave become steadily less natural and less diverse.Recently, there have been shifts in the control paradigm that has dominatedriver management (RSPB,1994).Successive pieces oflegislation havestrengthened the requirements on river managers to have regard for conservation.This is all part ofa wider shift towards ‘soft engineering’, rooted, for example, inthe landscape design ideas ofIan McHarg’s Design with Nature(1969).One major fruit ofthe new river management paradigm is the growinginterest in river restoration (Boon et al, 1992; Brookes and Shields, 1996). Agreat deal ofenergy in conservation and environmental planning inindustrialized countries is now going into ecological restoration (Jordan et al,1987a; Perrow and Davy, 2002). It is a new science, but has its own learnedsociety and academic journal (Restoration Ecology).8The idea of ecologicalrestoration nicely captures the tension between conservation’s concern for thenaturalness ofnature and its confidence in its ability to predict, control andcreate nature.When nature won’t stay still237
River restoration typically involves replacing relatively small physical andbiological elements offloodplains and channels. Most work is in low-energyfloodplains, where created or recreated physical features tend to stay where theyare put. The prime example ofsuch work in the UK is probably the work oftheRiver Restoration Project. Oftheir restoration work on the small lowland RiverCole, one journalist remarked that ‘engineers spent 900 years taming the RiverCole in Oxfordshire by straightening it and deepening its bed to provide powerfor mills and to avoid floods – and then decided it was a mistake. During thepast two years they have spent UK£150,000 reversing the process and recreatingthe river as it must have looked in the 16th century by putting the kinks back in’(Brown, 1997, p11).Is restoration a science? Not exactly. Turner (1987) argues that it is neithera science nor a technology, for its goal is not product but process: ‘one couldsay that the biological machine the restorer produces has no function but itsown ordered reproduction’ (Turner, 1987, p48). Turner argues that restorationis, in fact, an art: ‘The attempt to reproduce accurately the functions ofnatureforces the artist not only to increasingly close observation, but beyond, toincreasingly stringent experimental tests ofideas. This labour, so understood,is not merely analytical, but creative, and its natural reward is beauty’ (Turner,1987, p50).Science is, however, central to the practice ofrestoration, and restoration iscentral to the science ofecology: ‘the business ofrestoration and management[is] not just the acid test ofits ideas, but [is] the very source ofmany ofthem aswell’ (Jordan and Packard, 1989, p26). The key to restoration is understandingthe assembly rules by which species accumulate into assemblages (Keddy, 1999).With an inanimate object such as a clock, an ability to assemble it from piecesand adjust it properly suggests that ‘perhaps we can claim to understand it’(Jordan et al, 1987b, p16). The restored ecosystem is a copy, ofcourse. Ananalogy might be the work ofa vintage car repairer. Nature is a machine, and ifthe vintage parts are reassembled, or modern facsimiles made, it will run muchas before, although adjustments may have been made so that it can use modernpetrol or meet safety standards. To all but the most hardened purist, a fewmodern components are hardly worth objecting to in the context ofthe widerachievements ofthe project.The capacity ofecologists to predict and control nature is central to therestoration project: ‘The essential idea is control – the ability to restore quicklybut to restore at will, controlling speed, decelerating change, as well asaccelerating it, reversing it, altering its course,steeringit, even preventing itentirely (which, ofcourse, is actually a frequent objective ofthe ecologicalmanager)’ (Jordan et al, 1987b, p17). Restoration is, therefore, at one level,restoration ofnaturalness. At another, however, it is the reverse, since the wholescience ofrestoration is based upon the ability to predict outcomes and comparethem to some template. Keddy stresses the importance ofecological indicatorsin restoration projects, emphasizing ‘the ability to evaluate whether manipulationhas produced the desired change’ (Keddy, 1999, p718).238Decolonizing Nature
However, in ecological restoration, a distinction can be drawn betweenrestoring form and restoring form-creating processes – for example, betweenreplanting a wood and simply allowing woodland to develop by leaving a patchofgrassland alone. Living systems self-repair, and restoration may involve‘bringing in certain key “ingredients”, then letting nature take its course inshaping the result’ (Jordan et al, 1987b, p16). In floodplains, this involves morethan putting pieces ofhabitat ‘back’; it entails linking them hydrologically, andin terms ofsediment flux and geochemistry, with each other and the riverchannel and allowing ecosystems to evolve (Hughes, 2001). Johan van Zoest(1992) urges the ‘management ofprocesses rather than patterns’ in sand dunes.He advocates the relaxation ofcontrol over the processes active in dunes, aprocess he calls ‘gambling with nature’. He suggests that conservationists shouldthink ofmanaging nature as a game, not as tending a machine. Rather thantrying to control nature, management is best done by thinking like a player in agame. Conservation should not manipulate populations and communities inorder to achieve defined outcomes, but should expect complex and unexpectedeffects ofhuman actions. Managers therefore should willingly play a game withnature, even ifthey have (or think they have) deep scientific understanding ofthe ecological rules ofplay and the role ofchance processes.RESTORATION AND THE CONTROL OF NATUREMost ecological restoration, however, is less open spirited than this. Particularlyin ecosystems with the capacity to cause damage to human interests (for example,rivers that flood), those proposing restoration must feel confident ofbeing ableto predict the outcome ofthe restoration process, or at least ofspecifying therange ofconditions within which it will lie. Either way, restoration, in practice,demands prediction and the control ofoutcomes, and restoration projects inenvironments such as rivers will, in practice, usually be small in scale and limitedin imagination. Restoration is almost always, therefore, creating naturalnesswithin fixed bounds. How are these bounds fixed? Remarkably, there is increasingcapacity to do without physical boundaries for nature.Restoration work within river channels has made use ofthe last 20 years offluvial geomorphology and the understanding it offers ofhow rivers behave.However, studies ofriver geomorphology are shifting. The dominant approachsince the 1950s has been largely empirical, involving the statistical analysis ofthephysical shape ofriver channels, such as channel width and depth and meanderwavelength, and the measurement ofsurrogates for the variables that controlthem (particularly river discharge). This approach implied that river channelswere equilibrial at the scale ofthe reach. However, numerical generalizations nolonger satisfy river scientists. Research is increasingly moving to a smaller scale,and to the intensive measurement ofthe ways in which channels respond tochanges in discharge, sediment supply and other factors in small reaches ofriversover short time periods (Lane and Richards, 1997). Studies ofreal rivers are nowWhen nature won’t stay still239
being combined with studies ofvirtual rivers through laboratory experimentationand computer modelling. It turns out that (as with ecosystems) short-term, small-scale events have significance at a larger scale: rivers may behave as non-linearsystems. The key to understanding them is to see them as dynamic systems;research must integrate work within and outside ofnature, ’ in the field, theflume and the computer’ (Lane and Richards, 1997, p258).New technologies ofsurveillance using micro-chip technology yield vastvolumes ofdata about river behaviour. Computer models allow such data to berun through models of river behaviour. Nature can be described with anintensity and level ofdetail never previously known, and nature’s agency – itscapacity to act – is predicted with a precision never previously known. Asuncertainty falls, management confidence rises. This is essentially why rivermanagers have been willing to consider ecological restoration. The sciencebehind them allows them to move safely away from their traditional (and highlyexpensive) approach ofconfining rivers within artificial channels and behindbarrages in order to ‘control’ floods. In ‘restoring’ the river, river managers cancut nature more slack because they think that they know what will happen whenthey take the concrete and the dams away.Greater knowledge ofrivers,therefore,creates more confidentmanagement. Managers no longer fear the power ofthe ‘natural’ river – they donot need to control it because they understand it. The conservation turn ofriver management represents a greater openness to the ‘natural’ attributes ofrivers. Restoration meets the new conservation objectives. However, control isnot lost: it is simply that physical restraint is exchanged for knowledge-basedability in order to predict how nature will work.In this sense, restoration (‘the ultimate test for ecology’) is a logicaldevelopment ofthe rationalizing project ofcontrol. As conservation tries tomove away from a concern for particular ‘equilibrial’ forms ofecosystems, byconcentrating on the regimes ofprocesses that give rise to those forms, we are,perhaps, not escaping the ideology ofcontrol as completely as we might like tobelieve. Our scientific and technical skills allow us to intensify our attempts tocontrol nature under the guise ofconservation. The abandonment ofoldequilibrial thinking may, therefore, not usher in a new era of egalitarianengagement between people and non-human nature, but a new regime ofcontrol. We may no longer need to intervene in the detailed way in which we didin conservation management; in a sense, science and technology, and newtheories ofecosystem behaviour, allow us to achieve more control than everbefore. We have control not by controlling nature’s every move, but, more costeffectively, by thinking nature’s thoughts.CONCLUSIONSThis chapter has tried to argue that our beliefs in the innate equilibrial behaviourofnature have a number ofsignificant implications for the way in which we240Decolonizing Nature
approach the management or conservation ofnature. A number ofthese mightwell make us uncomfortable. Formal policies for land management in thepastoral drylands ofAfrica have not only been unsuccessful but also, in manyinstances, unhelpful or even harmful for pastoralists. Conservationists haveshared the standardized ecological understanding ofsavanna dynamics andhave, perhaps, been slower than livestock planners to admit that the scienceneeds a very thorough second look, and that they need to rethink their ideasabout what is ‘natural’ and what is ‘sustainable’.In the UK, these same ecological themes have resulted in a wonderfullyintricate practice ofconservation management. Using these skills, conservationhas maintained astonishing proportions ofBritain’s rather impoverished faunaand flora on a tiny proportion ofthe land surface – small isolated islands ofsemi-natural habitat marooned in a sea ofchemical agriculture, roads andhouses. This is a wonderful achievement; but this approach to conservationleaves nature trussed up, delivered with something like the same factory-likeprecision as the agricultural crops and industrial products that have so widelysupplanted it. Even in conservation, the obsession has been to control nature,to ensure that its biodiversity is sustained, to provide it with special places – but,at the same time, to keep its wildness under control.Ideas about ecological restoration challenge established ideas aboutconservation, and ideas about the restoration ofnatural processes, rather thansimply natural features, challenge them further. These initiatives are exciting(and are discussed further in Chapter 11); but even in this enthusiasm forrestoration, the human need for control rears its head. I have suggested thatwhere (as in the case ofrivers) we have been willing to take the concrete outand allow natural features back in, we seem to need to retain control, even ifitis only exercised through our computer models.There are, therefore, two challenges that lend themselves to a form ofconservation based upon the idea that nature is non-equilibrial. The first startsfrom the premise ofbusiness as usual, where conservation does, and should,involve a large measure ofhuman agency and control. The question is simple:who should decide about the form that nature takes? This is relevant in the UK(where river planners, conservation planners and local residents might havevery different views about the desirability ofletting a river flood). It is evenmore relevant in places such as Africa,where conservationists (anddevelopment planners) still tend to come into rural communities, from capitalcities and foreign consultancies, donor organizations and non-governmentalorganizations (NGOs), with their agendas pre-formed. As Chapters 4, 5 and 6all show, conservation is still not a very inclusive discourse. Conservation canmake some heavy demands on people who live in biodiverse places, demandsthat they sometimes find inexplicable and unfair. Who should get to forgeconservation policy? How should local needs and wider conservation interestsbe balanced? How can locally diverse ideas of nature be reconciled withnational and global priorities for conservation? These are widely recognizedissues.When nature won’t stay still241
The second challenge for conservation that arises from recognizing non-equilibrial ecology relates to a point made in several places in this book. Itconcerns the idea that nature is, by definition, wild: that which is unknown,uncontrolled. Can we imagine a conservation that recognizes and allows natureto be wild? Or is conservation, in Thomas Birch’s words (1990, p8) ‘just anothermove in the imperial resource allocation game?9NOTES1National Nature Reserves (NNRs) and Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interest (SSSIs)are statutory government conservation designations by English Nature. Theyoriginated under the Nature Conservancy, established in 1949 (Adams, 1996).2 I still use the photographs I took ofthese places in lectures, although the stories Itell about them have changed over time.3 See www.davidaxford.free-online.co.uk/torreycn.htm, 30 July 2001.4 Rachel Carson (1963) Silent Spring.5 Marsh expresses this gendered discourse clearly: ‘The ravages committed by mansubvert the relations and destroy the balance which nature had established betweenher organized and her inorganic creations’ (Marsh, 1864, p42).6 I am grateful to John Rodwell for this observation.7 Note that this is the case regardless ofthe fact that UK nature is substantiallyhuman made (‘semi-natural’, to use Arthur Tansley’s phrase). Most targets ofconservation action are hybrids ofhuman agency and non-human agency (forexample, heathlands, chalk grasslands, ancient woodlands). Only a few ‘naturalformations’ do not bear in their formation the obvious imprint ofdeliberate humanagency (exceptions include some Scottish peat bogs and alpine plant communities,a few cliffforest understorey fragments or other communities on remote cliffs, andthe vegetation ofephemeral environments, such as river banks and islands, or saltmarshes or sand dunes).8 See www.blackwell-science.com.9 I would like to thank Martin Mulligan, Dan Brockington and Francine Hughes fortheir comments on this chapter.REFERENCESAbbey, E (1975) The Monkey Wrench Gang. J B Lippincott, New YorkAdams, W M (1992) Wasting the Rain: rivers, people and planning in Africa. MinnesotaUniversity Press, Minneapolis, MinnesotaAdams, W M (1996) Future Nature: a vision for conservation. Earthscan, LondonAdams, W M (1997) ‘Rationalization and conservation: ecology and the managementofnature in the United Kingdom’,Transactions ofthe Institute ofBritish GeographersNS, vol 22, pp277–291Adams, W M (2001) Green Development: Environment and Sustainability in the Third World,second edition. Routledge, LondonAllen, D E (1976) The Naturalist in Britain. Penguin, Harmondsworth, UK242Decolonizing Nature
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Canadian Journal ofZoology, vol 63, pp987–994Steward T A, Pickett, V, Parker, T and Feidler, P L (1992) ‘The new paradigm inecology: implications for conservation biology above the species level’ in P LFeidler and S K Jain (eds) Conservation Biology: the theory and practice ofnatureconservation, preservation and management. Chapman and Hall, London, pp65–88Sutherland, W J and Hill, D A (1995) Managing Habitats for Conservation, CambridgeUniversity Press, CambridgeSwift, J (1982) ‘The future ofAfrican hunter-gatherer and pastoral people in Africa’,Development and Change, vol 13, pp159-181Swift, J (1996) ‘Desertification narratives; winners and losers’ in M Leach and RMearns (eds) The Lie ofthe Land: challenging received wisdom on the African environment.James Currey Heinemann, London, pp73–90Tansley A G (1911) Types ofBritish Vegetation. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeTansley A G (1935) ‘The use and abuse ofvegetational terms’,Ecology, vol 14(3),pp284–307Tansley A G (1939) ‘British ecology in the past quarter century: the plant communityand the ecosystem’,Journal ofEcology, vol 27, pp513–530Turner, F (1987) ‘The self-effacing art: restoration as imitation ofnature’ in W RJordan III, M E Gilpin and J D Aber (eds) Restoration Ecology: a synthetic approach toecological research. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp47–50Waller, R D (1988) ‘Emutai: crisis and response in Maasailand (1884–1904)’, in DJohnson and D M Anderson (eds) The Ecology ofSurvival. Lester Crook, London,pp73–112Wallis DeVries, M F, Bakker, J P and Van Wieren, S E (eds) (2001) Grazing andConservation Management. Kluwer Academic Publishers, DordrechtWarren, A (1996) ‘Desertification’ in W M Adams, A S Goudie and A Orme (eds) ThePhysical Geography ofAfrica. Oxford University Press, Oxford, pp342–355Werrity, A, McManus J,Brazier, V and Gordon, J (1994) ‘Conserving our dynamic andstatic geomorphological heritage’,Earth Heritage, vol 1, pp16–17Williams-Ellis, A and Williams-Ellis, C (1951) Headlong Down the Years: a tale oftoday.Liverpool University Press, LiverpoolWorster, D (1985) Rivers ofEmpire. Norton and Co, New YorkWorster, D (1994) ‘Nature and the disorder ofhistory’,Environmental History Review, vol18(2), pp1–16 (reprinted in M Soulé and G Lease (eds) (1995) Reinventing Nature:responses to postmodern deconstruction. Island Press, Washington, DC)Zoest, J van (1992) ‘Gambling with nature? A new paradigm ofnature and itsconsequences for nature management strategy’ in R W G Carter, T G F Curtis andM J Sheehy-Skeffington (eds) Coastal Dunes. Balkema, Rotterdam, pp503–514246Decolonizing Nature
Chapter 11Beyond preservation: the challenge of ecological restorationAdrian ColstonINTRODUCTIONHabitat loss has been acute in lowland England during the 20th century. It hasbeen the chieffocus ofconservation action from the 19th century, when thetwo largest British voluntary conservation organizations were founded: theNational Trust for Places ofHistoric Interest and Natural Beauty (the NationalTrust), and what became the Royal Society for the Protection ofBirds (RSPB)(both during the 1890s; Sheail, 1976; Evans, 1992).1Habitat loss was particularlyrapid during the second halfofthe 20th century. Agriculture caused massivechanges in the British countryside, both during World War II (the fruit ofthecounty agricultural committees and the wider spirit ofthe ‘Dig for Britain’campaign) and from the 1950s onwards (as agricultural intensification took hold,with fewer, larger and better capitalized farms). The impacts ofthese changes inbiodiversity were considerable, although, clearly, scientific records before thelate 19th century are fragmentary. Some 3500 species are listed in national RedLists; the number would be over 5000 ifsuch studies were available for alltaxonomic groups. Many species are declining in numbers or range. A numberofspecies are confined to a very few sites where ecological conditions aresuitable. They are hugely vulnerable to ecological change.2Derek Ratcliffe notes that the effect ofa human population ofmore than50 million on a set ofislands measuring less than 230,000 km2was to leave verylittle truly natural vegetation (Ratcliffe, 1984). Of the 1423 native Britishvascular plant species, one in ten suffered a decline ofat least 20 per centbetween 1930 and 1960. Ofthe 317 higher plant species listed as nationally rarein 1983, 37 per cent had suffered decline in distribution ofat least one thirdsince 1930.3Table 11.1 summarizes the loss ofbird species in Bedfordshire,Cambridgeshire and Northamptonshire over the past 250 years.
Table 11.1 Loss ofbird species in Bedfordshire, Cambridgeshire and NorthamptonshireSpecies of breeding bird now extinct BedfordshireCambridgeshireNorthamptonshireRed kite; corncrake; Bittern; red kite; hen harrier; Honey buzzard; spotted stone curlew; wryneck; Montagu’s harrier; corncrake; crake; corncrake; nightjar; wheatear; red-backed black tern; nightjar; wryneck; wryneck; woodlark; wheatear; shrike; cirl buntingtree pipit; wheatear; wood red-backed shrike; raven; warbler; red-backed shrike; cirl buntingraven; cirl buntingSource: adapted from Holloway, S (1996) Historical Atlas of Breeding Birds 1875–1900, PoyserIn lowland Britain, agricultural intensification during the second halfof the20th century, fuelled by UK and European government policy, produced afarmed landscape where areas ofsemi-natural habitat became highly fragmentedand small in extent (Shoard, 1980; Rackham, 1986; Peterken and Hughes, 1990;Adams, 1996; Harvey, 1997). Fast-growing weeds such as nettle, hog-weed orcocksfoot have spread at the expense ofa much wider variety ofslower-growingspecies. Patches ofdifferent kinds ofsemi-natural habitat have becomeseparated from each other, so that different habitats rarely occur alongside eachother. Blocks ofsemi-natural vegetation have become smaller and increasinglyisolated from one another, raising the threat that local extinctions will not bebalanced by natural reintroductions. Corridors in the landscape, such as hedgesor streams, have progressively been lost or degraded, further increasing habitatfragmentation. Areas ofnew habitats have been created, several with a specificeye to conservation (for example, farm woodlands), some as a side-product ofindustry (such as gravel pits). However, Peterken and Hughes (1990) argue thatthe diversity ofthese habitats will be limited by the impoverished nature ofthelandscape around them. Loss ofhabitats such as grasslands has been particularlyserious (Fuller, 1987). By the late 1980s, only 4 per cent ofBritish grasslandremained unimproved. Much ofthe habitat that remains in lowland Britain hasbeen degraded through the withdrawal oftraditional management,eutrophication and other forms ofpollution.The rapid rate ofrural change has meant that conservation in the lowlandparts ofthe UK (where the vast majority ofpeople live) focused upon thepreservation ofa series oftiny and often isolated areas ofhabitat. These havebeen identified and mapped by careful county-level surveys, and many ofthemhave been designated as Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interest (SSSIs), CountyWildlife Sites and nature reserves ofvarious kinds (Adams et al, 1992).4Manyofthese are theoretically protected in law, and highly intensive managementregimes are required to try and keep the assemblages ofplant and animal speciesintact (Sutherland and Hill, 1995). This interventionist approach to conservationmanagement has been the most characteristic feature ofBritish conservation(Henderson, 1992; Adams, 1997; see also Chapter 10 ofthis book). So littlenatural habitat has survived in part oflowland England that it has been termedthe ‘Black Hole’ for conservation (Colston, 1997). Figure 11.1 shows this248Decolonizing Nature
graphically, mapping all ofthe counties in England with less than halfof thenational average area ofSSSIs. The counties ofthe ‘Black Hole’ have largelybeen bypassed by government countryside and conservation policies. The ‘BlackHole’ contains no National Parks or Areas ofOutstanding Natural Beauty(AONBs) – both landscape conservation designations, originally introduced in1949 – and no Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESAs) – designated areas wheregrants are available to encourage environmentally friendly farming. There are noHeritage Coasts.5This chapter discusses the challenge to nature conservation in the lowlandsofthe UK, using the Fens ofEast Anglia as an example. Fens are wetlands thatBeyond preservation249Figure 11.1 The ‘Black Hole’Tyne &WearNottsStaffsShropsLeicsOxonCambsNorthantsBucksHertsBedsW. MidsWarwicks01000100kmmilesN
receive nutrients and water from a catchment, as well as rainfall (Burgess et al,1995). Wetlands globally have suffered extensive drainage, especially foragriculture (Dugan, 1990; 1993; Mitsch and Gosselink, 1993). British fens havebeen particularly susceptible to drainage for agriculture, and only tiny fragmentsremain of once extensive ecosystems (Williams, 1970; 1990; Peterken andHughes, 1990). The chapter sets out a new approach to reversing these fortunesthat is being pioneered by a British non-governmental conservation organization,the National Trust, at Wicken Fen in Cambridgeshire.6NEW THINKING ABOUT CONSERVATIONThe standard site-based approach to conservation has been remarkably successful,as the small number ofspecies extinction in the UK in the 20th century attests(since 1900 the UK has lost 1 mammal, 6 birds, 2 fish, 144 invertebrates and 62plants; Brown, 1994). However, there are a number ofserious limitations to aconservation strategy that is so closely based upon small, isolated fragments ofhabitat. Firstly, it is expensive. Nature reserves have to be purchased or leased, aconsiderable burden on voluntary conservation organizations and an unpopularstrategy to a government keen to off-load economically unproductive assets (asthe British government was during the 1980s under Thatcherism, and as it hasremained). Ifhabitat is left in private hands (as it is in UK SSSIs), its conservationstatus is open to the whim ofowners and the pressures ofthe market. By the1980s, it had become clear that appropriate management ofSSSIs needed to bepaid for by compensating owners for the profits they could make throughintensive agriculture. Policies have evolved; but SSSIs are still, primarily, protectedby offering incentives to manage them appropriately. The costs of such aconservation strategy have been massive (Adams, 1993).Secondly, it has become clear from the theory ofisland biogeography thatsmall nature reserves will suffer from the local extinction ofspecies, howeverwell managed they are. MacArthur and Wilson (1967) showed that the numberofbreeding species on islands tends to stabilize at a level related to rates ofimmigration and extinction. These are controlled by isolation and island size:large islands close to a continental source tend to have more species than small,isolated islands. Subsequently, conservation biologists extended this idea toterrestrial habitats and isolated habitat fragments, and then to strategic questionsabout the selection ofnature reserves. It was argued that reserves should be aslarge as possible; ifsmall, they should be close together and connected bycorridors ofsimilar habitat (see, for example, Diamond, 1975; SimberlofandAbele, 1976; Margules et al, 1982). There is also growing interest in theconnectivity oflandscapes and in the extent to which landscape elements arelinked to each other in a way that allows populations to interact and recolonizefollowing local extinction (see, for example, Hobbs, 1990).In the UK context, debate about reserve size has seemed somewhatacademic. Reserve purchase has tended to be driven by threat ofdestruction250Decolonizing Nature
and availability of funds, and the isolation of reserves is something thatconservationists have become used to. However, the theory ofislandbiogeography, along with the law ofdiminishing returns, has sadly now exposedthis approach to nature conservation as unsustainable. Wildlife sites and naturereserves are too often viewed in isolation and not as part ofa wider landscapeor ecosystem. This is surprising, since systems thinking has been important toecologists from Tansley’s proposition ofthe ecosystem (Tansley, 1935), the riseofecological energetics during the 1930s, and the development ofsystemsecology in the 1970s (McIntosh, 1985). The significance ofsystems thinking toconservation has been discussed in Chapter 10. Systems thinking, widely used inbusiness management (see, for example, Senge, 1992), is holistic, treating allelements ofthe system as connected so that impact on one part ofthe systemaffects all the other parts, too. It is disappointing that so often natureconservationists in the UK, the vast majority ofwhom were trained asecologists, seem to have abandoned systems thinking as an underpinningprinciple. This is especially true ofthose who operate in the lowlands, wherethere is so little habitat ofconservation interest left.The 1990s, however, saw substantial rethinking oftraditional approaches inconservation (Bullock and Harvey, 1995; Adams, 1996). Many conservationistsin the UK had become deeply frustrated with ‘gardening’ tiny sites in order tomaintain species. The debate over the future offarming and rural livelihoodshad intensified, with many people questioning the role of the CommonAgricultural Policy (CAP) (and the huge cost oftaxpayers’ support for intensiveagriculture), or fearing the impacts ofthe GATT on the profitability offarming(and its threat to agricultural protectionism).7The gearing back ofagriculturalsupport, the degradation ofsoils and competition for water have meant thathigh-investment, high-return agriculture (typical ofthe Fens, among otherplaces) is no longer as widely profitable as it was. The stark clash betweenagricultural profits and wildlife was a major feature ofpublic debate in the UKduring the 1980s (Shoard, 1980). The public became less willing to accept theenvironmental costs ofintensive farming. There has been a growing feeling thatsomething needs to be done for the countryside and for conservation, and thatthe status quo cannot be maintained.In particular, during the 1990s, British conservationists began to conceiveofthe idea offocusing conservation strategies on the restoration ofhabitat,and not simply on its protection. They turned from preventing habitat loss tothinking about habitat restoration and recreation (Harvey, 1995). There weremany precedents for this seismic shift ofthinking, and it reflected much broaderdevelopments in restoration ecology, and, in practice, in places such as the US(Jordan et al, 1987; Hobbs and Harris, 2001; Perrow and Davy, 2002; see alsoChapter 10 in this book). It was recognized that conservation managementdecisions needed to be creative, subtle and sensitive to both the human-influenced past and the dynamics ofnatural change.Conservationistsentertained ideas ofabandoning land to ecological change, effectively ‘creatingwilderness’ (Henderson, 1992; Potter et al, 1991; Green, 1995), and becameBeyond preservation251
involved in the restoration ofenvironments such as rivers (Brookes, 1996) andthe ‘managed retreat’ ofsoft coasts (Pye and French, 1983).8In 1994, the UKgovernment produced an ‘action plan’ for biodiversity, from which differentagencies developed specific action plans for threatened habitats and species.The 2001 Rural White Paper announced that the biodiversity strategy forEngland would set targets for the recreation and enhancement ofsuch habitats(DETR, 2001).Issues such as climate change offer new challenges to conventionalconservation strategies. Sea-level rise and land lowering are facts oflife in south-east England. The process ofisostatic recovery from the weight ofice in thenorth-west ofthe UK at the last glacial maximum (10,000 years ago) is causingthe land in the south east ofthe UK to sink by 1–3mm per annum. In additionto this, global warming may cause sea levels to rise by 20cm by 2030. The figureused by the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA)and the Environment Agency (EA) to accommodate sea-level rise and landlowering in flood-defence plans is currently 6mm per annum.9Sea-level rise islikely to inundate important wildlife areas along the east coast ofEngland. Evenwith ‘managed retreat’ policies, nature reserves on the East Anglian coast, suchas Cley, Titchwell, Blakeney, Holme and parts ofMinsmere, will probably notmaintain their current mix ofhabitats in their current state for more than 50 to100 years.10Such threats suggest the desirability ofhabitat creation tocompensate for their loss and to meet the targets in the UK Biodiversity ActionPlan(HMSO, 1994) or the requirements ofthe European Habitats Directive.Climate change also highlights a further limitation ofa static and defensiveapproach to conservation, based upon the identification and protection ofkeysites. The scale ofclimate change across the UK is such that many reserves willprobably cease to provide suitable habitat for the species that they currentlysupport. Much more mobile and dynamic thinking is needed to allowecosystems to change in response to changing climate. Nature reserves mayneed to be much larger, and less tightly managed, than they have been in thepast.This new thinking about the problems ofconservation was also novel in itsscale and ambition. During the late 1990s, the British public saw spectacular andexpensive projects carried out in the arts (for example, the refurbishment oftheNational Opera House) and sport (such as the building ofthe MillenniumStadium in Wales), and began to feel that environmental projects should be ofasimilar scope. The White Paper noted growing recognition that ‘our policiesmust be applied on a larger scale ifthey are to tackle the wider issues ofhabitatand species loss’ (DETR, 2001, para10.3.8). During the 1990s, there were fewexamples oflarge-scale restoration projects in the UK. However, there waspositive experience elsewhere – for example, in the Netherlands, where largetracts ofintensively cultivated arable land have been turned into fen landscapes.Restoration projects such as Oostvadersplassen and Lauwersmeer (bothexceeding 5000ha) on the Dutch coast demonstrate that fen communities canbe recreated on a large scale within a few years and can be maintained as a rich252Decolonizing Nature
patchwork ofvegetation types through extensive grazing by large herbivoressuch as deer, wild horses and wild cattle.The creation ofthe Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) in the UK during the1990s provided a possible means to turn these ideas into reality. It enabledconservationists to come up with large projects that are beginning to make areal difference (such as the Wildlife Trusts’ UK£25-million project to restore alloftheir nationally important nature reserves). As a result, extensive discussionshave been held with the HLF to determine their views on these large-scalevisionary projects. The grant awarded to the National Trust for the Wickenproject (discussed below) is a testament to their support.THEFENS OFEASTANGLIAThe Fens is a large coastal plain ofaround 4000 square kilometres, crossed byfour main rivers, the Great Ouse, Nene, Welland and the Witham (see Figure11.2). They lie in the counties ofCambridgeshire, Lincolnshire, west Norfolkand Suffolk. The Fens are recognized as a distinct natural area on the‘Countryside Character’ map ofthe Countryside Agency, English Nature andEnglish Heritage. The Fens were formed around 3500 years ago when sea levelsrose, backing up the meandering rivers ofthe region. Extensive areas offorestwere replaced by inland water bodies (meres) and huge tracts ofshallow wetlandhabitats (reed beds, sedge beds, fens and carr woodland). Over the next 3000years, the Fens were wild areas lightly inhabited by people, but teeming withwildlife. They provided a wide range ofproducts, including wildfowl, grazing,peat and sedge for thatch. Around 2000 years ago, the Romans attempted todrain areas; but although some fenland was cultivated in Romano–British times,these projects were largely unsuccessful (Darby, 1940).It was not until the 16th century that the Dutchman Cornelius Vermuyden,employed by the fourth Earl ofBedford, began successfully to drain the Fensby re-routing the River Ouse into a specially designed drainage channel (nowpart ofthe vast winter flood reservoir known as the Ouse Washes; Darby,1940). This massive engineering scheme enabled the Fens to be drained and itsvaluable silt and peat soils used for arable agriculture. Peat shrinkage and winderosion forced a progressive intensification ofdrainage, first by wind, then bysteam and diesel and electric pumps (Darby, 1983). The area is, on average, 1mbelow sea level as far as 48km inland. The economic cost ofmaintaining thisartificial environment is considerable. This was justified, in the past, by theexceptional quality offenland silt and peat soils, although as these erode, landquality is falling, and the economic logic ofdrainage is becoming lesscompelling.As the pace ofdrainage accelerated, the area ofsemi-natural fenland habitatshrank (NCC, 1984). Today, only three areas of‘wild’ fen survive in the entireEast Anglian Fen Basin – representing less than 0.1 per cent ofthe originalresource. Intensive agriculture has transformed the landscape, leaving the fewBeyond preservation253
remaining fragments ofsemi-natural habitats as island nature reserves within asea ofarable cultivation. In Cambridgeshire, English Nature (the governmentnature conservation agency) identified less than 2.7 per cent ofthe county area(9239ha) to have sufficient wildlife interest in order to be declared an SSSI. Bycomparison, Cumbria (in upland England) has 159,902ha ofSSSI, representing23 per cent ofthe county. The average proportion ofeach county ofSSSIquality in England is 6.8 per cent (see Figure 11.3). The average size ofa SSSI inCambridgeshire is 89.5ha, and the average size ofa Wildlife Trust reserve in thecounty is only 16.4ha. Figure 11.4 graphically illustrates that the vast majority of254Decolonizing NatureFigure 11.2 The East Anglian FensTheWashCambridgeKing’sLynnPeterboroughHuntingdonRiverW ithamNenewashesOusewashesHolmeFenWoodwaltonFenChippenhamFenRiverWellandRiverWisseyL .OuseRiverRiverLarkRiverNeneElyGreatOuseRiverRiverCamNFenlandFenland reserveUpland200kmWickenFen
nature reserves and protected areas in Cambridgeshire are very small – less than100ha in extent.By the end ofthe 1990s, the buoyant agriculture ofthe Fens was starting todecline. There were a series oflinked problems. Firstly, soil fertility was fallingdue to soil erosion and shrinkage, and with it economic returns on agriculturalinvestment. Secondly, the area shared the overall decline ofagriculture in theUK due to patterns ofagricultural support and more competitive internationaltrade. Thirdly, these causes ofeconomic decline made the costs ofland drainageless acceptable. Flood defence works are largely the responsibility of theEnvironment Agency (EA), funded by central government, while most landdrainage is carried out by the Internal Drainage Boards (IDB). The cost oftheseworks will become economically non-viable in the future as income from sometypes offarming falls. Fourthly, catchments on the edge ofthe Fens (whereWicken lies) are very dependent upon summer irrigation. However, while winterdrainage is a constant headache, summer water (from groundwater) is in shortsupply. Charges for irrigation water extraction in the past have been very low;but as charges rise to reflect the true economic value ofwater, irrigated farmingBeyond preservation255Figure 11.3 Area ofSites ofSpecial Scientific Interest in English counties160,00040,000080,000120,000CambridgeshireHectares51020302515354045Figure 11.4 Protected areas in Cambridgeshire by sizeNumber by area class6050403020100Size< 1 ha1-10 ha10-100 ha> 100 ha50141622427107SSSIs(average size = 89.5 ha)Wildlife Trust Reserves(average size = 16.4 ha)
becomes yet more unattractive. A fifth problem is future climate change. Climatechange models suggest drier summers and wetter winters in eastern England,exactly the opposite ofagriculture’s needs. They also suggest that sea-level risewill be important. It is likely to become increasingly expensive to maintain theFens in their drained state for intensive agriculture.WICKENFEN: CONSERVATION THROUGH RESTORATIONWicken Fen is one ofBritain’s oldest nature reserves and celebrated its 100thanniversary in 1999 (Friday, 1997; Rowell, 1997).11The first 0.8ha strip waspurchased on 1 May 1899 and donated to the National Trust. Fifty-fiveconveyances later, the reserve is over 320ha in size. Wicken Fen is the thirdlargest reserve in Cambridgeshire,after the Ouse and Nene Washes.Nonetheless, it represents only a tiny fragment (0.08 per cent) ofthe thousandsofsquare kilometres offenland that existed before the great drainage projectsofthe 17th century.Wicken Fen was established as a nature reserve because ofthe diversity ofits invertebrates, and has also long been associated with studies ofnaturalhistory and ecological research (Lock et al, 1997). Charles Darwin collectedbeetles on the Fen in the 1820s, and at the turn ofthe century the fathers ofmodern ecology and conservation, the Cambridge botanists Sir Harry Godwinand Arthur Tansley, carried out their pioneering work (Cameron, 1999). TheFen’s long partnership with Cambridge University continues to the present day.The Fen has been managed traditionally for centuries by sedge-cutting andpeat-digging (Lock et al, 1997). This management has produced a uniquefenland habitat rich in wildlife, particularly invertebrates. For example, there are1000 species ofmoth and butterfly, 1000 species ofbeetle, and almost 2000species offly and 25 species ofdragonfly. The Fen supports large numbers ofRed Listand ‘nationally scarce’ insect species (Corbett et al, 1997).12Over 7000species have so far been identified on the Fen in all taxa (Friday and Harley,2000), including more than 121 that are included in the Red Listof rareinvertebrates.The value ofthe Fen is recognized by a host ofdesignations, as a NationalNature Reserve (NNR), a Site ofSpecial Scientific Interest (SSSI) (both nationaldesignations), a Special Area ofConservation (SAC) (a European designation)and a Ramsar site (international wetland designation).13These designations havebeen principally made on account ofthe open fen habitats ofsedge beds, reedcommunities and fen meadows. Aquatic habitats such as the dykes and poolsare also very important. Drier grassland and woodland add diversity to the site;but in the case ofwoodland, its expansion has often been at the expense ofmore valuable open fen habitats.Wicken Fen is unique in landscape terms. A remnant ofthe once massiveCambridgeshire Fens, it preserves a true sense ofwetland wilderness. Standingin the middle ofthe reserve, nothing is visible other than wild habitats offen,256Decolonizing Nature
water and woodland. Outside the boundary is an expanse ofcarrot fields andintensive farmland; but within is an ancient landscape ofgreat diversity andaesthetic appeal. The Fen also has deep social connections. Local villagersworked the Fen for peat and sedge from as early 1414. The National Trust hasrestored a fenman’s cottage to highlight this social history ofbenign wetlanduse. The site also contains the last working wind pump in the Fen basin –originally used for draining peat trenches – and the remains ofold brick pitsand kilns also survive.However, the population size of most of Wicken’s resident species iscomparatively small, and for some organisms, particularly the larger ones withgreater demands for food and territory, numbers are dangerously near the limitfor long-term survival. Local populations tend to fluctuate in size because ofweather conditions, interactions with other species or catastrophes, such as firesor floods. The smaller the population, the more likely it is that the wholepopulation will be destroyed by a single event, and its persistence in the longterm may depend upon immigration from nearby populations. At Wicken, thereplenishment ofa diminishing or lost population now requires long journeysacross a dry arable landscape, and is no longer possible for anything other thanthe most mobile plants and animals. Because ofWicken Fen’s small area andisolation from other fens, it seems likely that, however well the reserve ismanaged, some ofthe species it currently sustains will die out.Some ofthe local extinctions ofspecies at Wicken Fen over the past 100years are listed in Table 11.2. This shows that even for a site the size ofWickenFen (over 300ha), extinction ofspecies is a big problem. There are many specificreasons why species have become extinct at Wicken Fen. These include loss ofopen fen habitats as a result ofscrub invasion; the loss ofacid habitats as aresult ofthe cessation ofpeat-cutting; and the lowering ofwater tables as aresult ofadjacent land drainage activities. However, the extent and scale ofthereserve, along with its isolation from other similar habitat types, has alsoundoubtedly led to many ofthe problems. Ifthe reserve was, today, the sizethat Burwell and Adventurers’ fens were during the 1860s (more than 1000ha inextent), then local extinctions resulting from any ofthe above factors wouldhave been made up for by immigration from other areas not directly affected bythese factors. The situation can be compared to the Norfolk Broads, wheresimilar communities ofanimals and plants occur. Reserves on the Broads areconsiderably more extensive – for example, the Norfolk Wildlife Trust’s reserveat Hickling Broad covers 600ha and is adjacent to other similar habitats, such asthe National Trust’s property at Horsey Mere.It was recognized during the 1990s that in order to secure the future ofEastAnglia’s fenland flora and fauna, and to make the re-establishment oflostspecies viable, it would be necessary to think beyond the bounds ofthe existingtiny fragments ofwetland (Colston, 1997). In 1996, the Wet Fens for the FutureProject was launched collaboratively between a series ofconservationorganizations (Wet Fens for the Future, 1996). The idea that large artificialwetlands ofgreat conservation value can be created is long established in theBeyond preservation257
fens. In Cambridgeshire, over 5060ha ofSSSI have been created by humanaction (habitats such as flood washes, gravel pits, railway cuttings and reservoirs).This represents 54 per cent of the total area of SSSIs in the county. InCambridgeshire, just two sites, the Ouse Washes and the Nene Washes (bothcreated for drainage) represent over 41 per cent ofthe total SSSI area. Both areofinternational importance. Habitat creation projects have already improvedthe county for wildlife.During the late 1990s, the National Trust identified the desirability andfeasibility ofextending the boundaries ofWicken Fen (see Figure 11.5). Thiswould make it possible to maintain populations offen flora and fauna over awider area (thereby reducing the risk ofindividual species’ extinctions andmaking possible migration between populations), allowing the area ofpeat,which is the fenland’s most precious resource, to begin to grow after threecenturies ofloss (Friday and Moorhouse, 1999). It was concluded that the3700ha offarmland to the south and east ofWicken Fen, formerly known asSwaffham and Burwell Fens,were topographically,geologically andhydrologically suitable for reclamation as fen. At present, water levels are held atabout 2.5m below sea level (97.5m OD), and land levels lie between 1.5m belowand 5m above sea level (98.5–105m OD). The National Trust proposed,therefore, to acquire up to 3700ha offarmland to the south ofWicken Fen overthe next 100 years. This area includes most ofthe catchment supplying water toWicken Fen.258Decolonizing NatureTable 11.2 Examples ofspecies believed extinct at Wicken FenMammals Water vole Birds – examples only Montagu’s harrier; marsh warblerButterfliesSwallowtail; large copper; large tortoiseshell; dark green fritillaryMoths – examples onlyReed tussock; marsh dagger; the many-lined moth; gypsy mothBeetles – examples only Dromius sigma; Pterostichus aterimus; Panagaeus crux-major; Lixus paraplecticusDragonfliesSmall red damselfly; common hawker; keeled skimmer; black darter; Norfolk hawkerCrustaceans White-clawed crayfishVascular plants Black bog-rush; bladder sedge; blue water speedwell; bog pimpernel; bottle sedge; bulbous rush; butterbur; common cotton-grass; fen orchid; field pepperwort; frog-bit; greater duckweed; greater water-parsnip; green-winged orchid; hairy rock-cress; heath grass; heath wood-rush; lesser bladderwort; lesser marshwort; marsh cinquefoil; marsh helleborine; marsh lousewort nodding bur-marigold; opposite-leaved pondweed; pale sedge; round-leaved sundew; trifid bur-marigold; various-leaved pondweed
The key to wetland restoration lies in the restoration ofa suitable hydrologicalregime (Thompson and Finlayson, 2001). In the case ofWicken, calcium-richgroundwater, suitable for fen restoration, was available from the chalk uplandsrunning along the southern boundary ofthe area. Rainwater, currently pumpedout ofthe system, is likely to be sufficient to achieve rewetting to between99.5m and 100.5m OD. The area lies over a sheet ofboulder clay and is edgedon the river margin by flood defence banks. Although the simplest solutionwould be to raise water levels over the entire area simultaneously, the area couldpossibly be rewetted in four sections (each section consisting ofthe land lyingbetween the major waterways – ‘lodes’) ifalternative means ofpumping outwater from the low-level drains into the high-level lodes and river could beprovided for each area.14The area which is shown in Figure 11.5 is divided intoa number ofhydrological units by the lodes and drainage ditches, and thereforepiecemeal restoration ofthe landscape to various types ofhabitat can occurwithout the need to own the entire area. The whole ofthe proposed enlargedreserve lies within the boundaries ofthe Swaffham Internal Drainage Board.The wetlands ofthe area would be restored by a combination ofnaturalregeneration and the raising ofwater levels via a reduction in drainage pumpingand the use ofsluices.Restoration ofa fen system, with a patchwork ofhabitats ranging fromopen water through to scrub, according to topography, might be achieved withinBeyond preservation259Figure 11.5 Wicken Fen, CambridgeshireSt NeotsCambridgeNewmarketElyA14A14M11A11N10kilometres0Wicken FenNature ReserveLand the National Trustwould like to acquireCorridor into Cambridge0100kmAngleseyAbbeyCambridgeLONDONWicken FenENGLANDSCOTLANDWALESRiver CamRiverCamGreatOuseRiverOusewashesNewRiver
a decade or so once rewetting is achieved. Ongoing management would be verylow input, using large grazing animals.The scheme depends upon an extensive land acquisition policy. The area is apatchwork ofholdings owned by around 120 individuals and acquisitions canonly proceed with their approval – the National Trust has no powers ofcompulsory purchase. Few farmers would be prepared to consider selling land atpresent. However, they may consider selling land in the future should economicand political forces make arable agriculture less viable, and the difficulty ofdraining a shrinking land surface in the context ofa rising sea level becomes evergreater. Any such acquisition policy would have to be on a time scale ofseveraldecades, for example, over the next 100 years or more. Land acquired piecemealcould be held on low-input agricultural tenancies in the short term in order toreduce the nutrient status ofthe soil and to generate income.Much ofthe project involves the acquisition ofland; but it is also possiblethat agreements with existing local land-owners, particularly around the fringesofthe area, can be set up that will still enable the aims and objectives oftheproject to be met. It is also envisaged that an access–recreation corridor can beestablished at the southern end ofthe reserve in order to join the reserve to thecentre ofCambridge, thus enabling the new area to become the ‘green lung’ forthe city.PUBLIC BENEFITS OF THE PROJECTThe project offers a broad range ofpotential public benefits. The economy ofthe county is widely acknowledged to be one ofthe fastest growing in the UK.There is a huge desire within the university, the city and the local councils topromote Cambridge as the high technological capital ofEurope. As a result,there is a large amount ofinward investment occurring, with many prestigiousmultinational firms locating to the area in order to utilize the highly skilledworkforce and research potential ofCambridge.Associated with this growth is the prediction that by 2025, 105,000 newhouses will need to be built. There is currently a vigorous debate surroundingthe publication of the regional planning guidance and the review of theCambridgeshire County Structure Plan as to where these new houses should belocated. There is much concern locally over the potential loss ofthe CambridgeGreen Belt. However, the Green Belt currently is a rather passive spatialplanning designation, dreamed up during the 1930s to stop suburban sprawl. Itis not a designation that encourages access and enjoyment ofthe countryside –although in Cambridgeshire the partnership Green Belt Project has made muchprogress in developing this.15The Wicken Fen Vision offers a potentialcounterbalance to the inevitable housing development by providing areas ofopen countryside that are accessible to the public. The extended reserve couldact as a ‘green lung’ for Cambridge and beyond, as well as dramaticallyimproving the quality oflife for local residents and users alike.260Decolonizing Nature
Access to the countryside around Cambridge is currently rather limited.There is an extensive public footpath network; but the area could not bedescribed as ‘good walking country’ on account ofthe arable nature ofthelandscape. In addition, Cambridgeshire has as little common land as any countyin England, and other than places such as Milton Country Park, the Devil’s Dyke,the Gog Magog Hills and urban green space in the city centre there are few otherareas ofpublic open space. The Wicken project offers major opportunities toenhance the current provision through the creation ofcycle paths, footpaths,horse trails and circular routes from the city centre to the countryside. It canprovide a positive link between city and countryside. This potential new accessneeds to be carefully planned and discussed with local communities so that allneeds are catered for in a sustainable fashion. In addition to quiet and informalrecreation, it is possible that more intensive areas, such as a new country park,could be developed within the area in order to provide a gateway to the newreserve. There is also potential for the creation ofnew campsites.It is essential that access to the new reserve does not rely upon car transport.The desired creation ofthe corridor at the southern end ofthe area into thecentre ofCambridge offers huge potential for cycle, horse and foot access tothe area. In addition, the railway station at Waterbeach and the possible newstation at Chesterton also increase the access potentials. There is also a goodbus service linking the Fen edge villages ofLode, Swaffham Bulbeck, SwaffhamPrior, Reach and Burwell with Cambridge, again encouraging access to the areavia public transport.While the urban areas ofCambridgeshire are flourishing, economicdevelopment in the rural areas is depressed as a result ofthe current state offarming, even in the Fens. The new reserve has the possibility ofprovidingadditional jobs in the locality as a result ofemployment on the reserve. There isalso the possibility ofadditional economic activity locally, resulting from visitorsto the reserve – for example, there may be a requirement for additionalaccommodation in bed-and-breakfast accommodation, as well as meals at localpubs and cafés.CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENTFor the new reserve to be successful and popular, it will need the full support ofthe local community and the business sector in Cambridge, along with a largenumber ofvoluntary and statutory organizations. The project has not beenmarketed as a plan that the National Trust is going to implement, but more as apossible vision over which we are seeking views and opinions, both within theorganization and outside of it. Communicating and consulting with theseinterests has been a key issue for the National Trust, and as the project developsthis will be integral to its progress. Media publicity, both regionally andnationally, has been given to the project, which has helped to encourage thedebate.16The concept ofcreating a new large wetland in Cambridgeshire wasBeyond preservation261
debated at a citizen’s jury in Ely in 1997 and was favourably received (Aldred,1998). Ifthis ambitious project is to proceed, the National Trust will have towork in partnership with many different and diverse organizations andindividuals. Development ofpartnerships forms the centre-piece oftheapproach to implementing these ideas.A community newsletter has been proposed, and a series offocus groupswill be set up that enable us to involve all sectors ofthe local community. It isalso hoped that in the near future, thanks to funding from the Heritage LotteryFund, an officer can be appointed to address many ofthese issues, includingdeveloping community links, assessing local needs, identifying potential users, aswell as addressing issues ofsocial exclusion and education.On the basis ofthe feasibility study (Friday and Moorhouse, 1999), theNational Trust began to discuss the project more widely and to encouragesupport for the initiative. Following a series ofmeetings during 2000, theNational Trust has approved the principle ofimplementing the ‘Wicken Vision’,and the project now forms part ofthe recently published National Strategic Plan(National Trust, 2001). The National Trust has sought views widely outside theorganization in order to determine the feasibility and desirability ofthe project.Over 200 presentations have been given by the Wicken Vision Team, and, todate, the reception has been overwhelmingly positive. The project has beenwidely discussed and much useful advice has been received internally, ensuringthat the Trust has adopted a holistic approach to the initiative, as opposed toviewing it simply as a nature conservation initiative.The National Trust has contacted all ofthe land-owners in the project area,informing them ofour ideas, and we have met over 70 in person. There hasbeen a considerable amount ofmedia coverage, both nationally and locally, inmagazines, newspapers, on the television and on the radio, and this has helpedconsiderably in generating interest in the project.As a result ofthe media coverage, the National Trust has been approachedby a number ofland-owners who are willing to sell their land to assist with theproject. The first area ofland, Guinea Hall Farm (47ha in extent), was acquiredin October 2000. This lies immediately adjacent to the east ofthe existingreserve. This was funded entirely from resources within the National Trust; butit is anticipated that all subsequent purchases will have to involve partnershipfunding. A second purchase of168ha ofBurwell Fen Farm was acquired inOctober 2001 for UK£1.7 million, including a grant ofUK£933,500 from theHeritage Lottery Fund.The challenges offunding have been discussed with a number ofpotentialpartners. The HLF, in particular, has been very positive about its potential futureinvolvement. The HLF has already funded a revenue project (UK£322,000) inorder to help enhance and develop the ancient fen at Wicken Fen. It describesWicken Fen as an ‘iconic’ site and wishes to partner the National Trust in makingthe Wicken Vision a ‘beacon’ project.Additional internal funding has allowed the employment ofa part-timeproject officer to assist the Wicken Fen property manager and National Trust262Decolonizing Nature
Cambridgeshire area manager develop the project. Reports are currently beingproduced on a variety ofdifferent aspects ofthe project. These range fromwork on the tourism and public-access benefits, engineering reports on thepotential impact ofraising water levels on houses and other structures, a reviewofthe historic and archaeological importance ofthe area, and production ofthe community newsletter for local circulation.CONCLUSIONSThe scale and scope ofthe Wicken project, and the enthusiasm with which ithas been received by both conservationists and the general public, suggest aconsiderable appetite for novel and creative solutions to long-establishedconservation problems in the UK. Past conservation policies achieved much inacquiring and attempting to protect the remaining fragments ofsemi-naturalhabitats. However, it is clear that these are not enough, especially in thoselowland areas where habitat loss has been so extensive.The Wicken project is an attempt to begin to put wildlife back into thecountryside on a landscape scale. The project recognizes that to deliver this kindofconservation vision requires integrating the requirements ofwildlife with theneeds oflocal people, the economy and tourism. It is this holistic approach thathas encouraged such widespread support. Perhaps Wicken will be an earlyexample ofa new era ofnature conservation in the British lowlands, wherehabitats for wildlife can be restored and maintained without being divorcedfrom the needs oflocal people.17NOTES1 For the National Trust,see www.nationaltrust.org/;for the RSPB,seewww.rspb.org.uk.2 G Wynne, M Avery, L Campbell, S Gubbay, S Hawkswell, T Juniper, M King, PNewbury, J Smart, C Steel, T Stones, A Stubbs, J Taylor, C Tydeman and R Wynde(1995) Biodiversity Challenge: an agenda for conservation in the UK, second edition.Butterfly Conservation, Friends ofthe Earth, Plantlife, the Wildlife TrustsPartnership, the Royal Society for the Protection ofBirds and the World Wide Fundfor Nature, Sandy3 ‘Nationally rare’ species are defined as occurring in 15 10km2grid squares or less: FH Perring and L Farrell (1983) British Red Data Book 1. Vascular Plants. RSNC,Lincoln4 SSSIs are nationally designated and protected wildlife sites in the UK. In England,they are designated by the government wildlife conservation body, English Nature.County Wildlife Sites are identified by local government (county councils) and byWildlife Trusts, local conservation non-governmental organizations (NGOs) thatexist throughout the UK, mostly operating at county level.5 These are all government national designations aimed at protecting the countrysideand its wildlife. Heritage Coasts, AONBs and National Parks are designated inBeyond preservation263
England by the Countryside Agency (see www.countryside.gov.uk; formerly theCountryside Commission for England); ESAs are designated by the Departmentfor the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA, formerly Ministry ofAgriculture, Fisheries and Food; see www.defra.gov.uk).6 The National Trust is Europe’s largest conservation charity. It manages over263,000ha ofcountryside and 200 country houses and gardens. It has 2.7 millionmembers. See www.nationaltrust.org.uk7 GATT is the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.8 Instead ofattempting to shore up artificial coastal defences at escalating cost andrisk in the face of sea-level rise, managed retreat allows for the reversion ofreclaimed land to provide natural coastal defences in the form ofmudflats and saltmarshes9 DEFRA was created in 2001 following restructuring ofresponsibilities for ruralaffairs, agriculture and food in the wake ofthe foot-and-mouth disease outbreak inthe UK.10 Minsmere is owned by the Royal Society for the Protection ofBirds(www.users.zetnet.co.uk/johnfirth/minsmere.html), while the rest are managed bythe Norfolk Wildlife Trust (www.wildlifetrust.org.uk/norfolk/).11 See www.wicken.org.uk.12 The IUCN Species Survival Commission publishes the IUCN Red List ofThreatenedSpecies; see www.redlist.org/13 NNRs and SSSIs are designated in England by the government conservationorganization English Nature (www.english-nature.org.uk). A SAC is designatedunder the European Union’s Habitats Directive, a Ramsar site under the RamsarConvention on wetlands.14 Ofcourse, the raising ofwater levels in one area can only occur ifit does not havea detrimental impact upon adjacent land or dwellings.15 See www.sustainablecity.net/Resourceconservation/Wildlife/greenbelt.htm.16 L F Friday and A Colston (1999) ‘Wicken Fen – the restoration ofa wetland naturereserve’,British Wildlife, October 1999; J Theobald (2000) ‘The Big Picture’,Guardian, 12 January 2000 and BBC TV programme ‘Matter ofFact: Wicken Fen:Nature in the Making’, September 1999.17 Thanks to Bill Adams and Francine Hughes for help in revising this chapter and toIan Agnew for drawing the maps.REFERENCESAdams, W M (1993) ‘Places for Nature: protected areas in British nature conservation’in A Warren and F B Goldsmith (eds) Conservation in Progress. J Wiley and Sons,Southampton, pp185–208Adams, W M (1996) Future Nature: a vision for conservation. Earthscan, LondonAdams, W M (1997) ‘Rationalization and conservation: ecology and the managementofnature in the United Kingdom’,Transactions ofthe Institute ofBritish GeographersNS, vol 22, pp277–291Adams, W M, Hodge, I D and Bourn, N A D (1992) ‘Conservation in the widercountryside: SSSIs and wildlife habitat in eastern England’,Land Use Policy, vol 9(4),pp235–248264Decolonizing Nature
Aldred, J (1998) ‘Land Use in the Fens: lessons from the Ely Citizen’s Jury’,Ecos: AReview ofConservation, vol 19(2), pp31–37Brookes, A (1996) ‘Floodplain restoration and rehabilitation’ in M G Anderson, D EWalling and P D Bates (eds) Floodplain Processes. Wiley, Chichester, pp553–576Brown, K (1994) ‘Biodiversity’ in D Pearce (ed) Blueprint 3. Earthscan, London,pp98–114Bullock, D J and Harvey, H J (eds) (1995) The National Trust and Nature Conservation:100 years on. The Linnean Society, LondonBurgess, N, Ward, D, Hobbs, R and Bellamy, D (1995) ‘Reedbeds’ in W J Sutherlandand D A Hill (eds) Managing Habitats for Conservation. Cambridge University Press,Cambridge, pp149–196Cameron, L (1999) ‘Histories ofdisturbance’,Radical History Review, vol 74, pp2–24Colston, A (1997) ‘Conserving wildlife in a black hole’,Ecos: A Review ofConservation,vol 18(1), pp61–67Corbet, S A, Dempster, J P, Bennett, T J, Revell, R J, Smith, C C, Yeo, P F, Perry, I,Drane, A B and Moore, N W (1997) ’ insects and their conservation’ in L F Friday(ed) Wicken Fen: the making ofa wetland nature reserve. Harley Books, Colchester, inassociation with Wicken Fen, pp123–143Darby, H C (1940) The Medieval Fenland. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeDarby, H C (1956) The Draining ofthe Fens. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeDarby, H C (1983) The Changing Fenland. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeDepartment ofthe Environment, Transport and the Regions (DETR) (2001) OurCountryside: the Future. DETR, LondonDiamond, J M (1975) ‘The island dilemma: lessons ofmodern biogeographic studiesfor the design ofnatural reserves’,Biological Conservation, vol 7, pp129–145Dugan, P J (1990) Wetland Conservation: a review ofcurrent issues and required action. IUCN,Gland, SwitzerlandDugan, P J (1993) (ed) Wetlands in Danger. Michell Beazley with the IUCN, LondonEvans, D (1992) A History ofNature Conservation in Britain. Routledge, LondonFriday, L F (1997) (ed) Wicken Fen: the making ofa wetland nature reserve. Harley Books,Colchester, in association with Wicken FenFriday, L F and Harley, B H (2000) Checklist ofthe Flora and Fauna ofWicken Fen. HarleyBooks, Colchester, in association with Wicken FenFriday, L F and Moorhouse, T (1999) The Wider Vision. University ofCambridge,CambridgeFuller, R M (1987) ‘The changing extent and conservation interest oflowlandgrasslands in England and Wales: a review ofgrassland surveys 1930–1984’,Biological Conservation, vol 40, pp281–300Green, B (1995) ‘Plenty and wilderness? Let us make a new countryside’,Ecos: AReview ofConservation, vol 16(2), pp3–9Harvey, G (1997) The Killing ofthe Countryside. Jonathan Cape, LondonHarvey, H J (1995) ‘The National Trust and nature conservation: prospects for thefuture’,Biological Journal ofthe Linnean Society, vol 56(Supplement), pp231–248Henderson, N (1992) ‘Wilderness and the nature conservation ideal: Britain, Canadaand the United States contrasted’,Ambio, vol 21, pp394–399Her Majesty’s Stationery Office (HMSO) (1994) Biodiversity: the UK Action Plan. HMSO,LondonHobbs, R J (1990) ‘Nature conservation: the role ofcorridors’,Ambio, vol 19(2),pp94–95Beyond preservation265
Hobbs, R J and Harris, J A (2001) ‘Restoration ecology: repairing the earth’secosystems in the New Millennium’,Restoration Ecology, vol 9, pp239–246Jordan, W R III, Gilpin, M E, Aber, J D (eds) (1987) Restoration Ecology: a syntheticapproach to ecological research. Cambridge University Press, CambridgeLock, J M, Friday, L F and Bennett, T J (1997) ‘The management ofthe Fen’ in L FFriday (ed) Wicken Fen: the making ofa wetland nature reserve.Harley Books,Colchester, in association with Wicken Fen, pp213–254MacArthur, R H and Wilson, E O (1967) The Theory ofIsland Biogeography. PrincetonUniversity Press, PrincetonMcIntosh, R P (1985) The Background ofEcology: concept and theory. Cambridge UniversityPress, CambridgeMargules, C, Higgs, A J and Rafe, R W (1982) ‘Modern biogeographic theory: are therelessons for nature reserve design?’Biological Conservation, vol 24, pp115–128Mitsch, W J and Gosselink, J G (1993) Wetlands, second edition. Van NostrandReinhold, New YorkNational Trust (2001) National Strategic Plan: Summary. March 2001–February 2004. TheNational Trust, LondonNCC (1984) Nature Conservation in Great Britain, Nature Conservancy Council,PeterboroughPerrow, M R and Davy, A J (eds) (2002) Handbook ofEcological Restoration, CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, vols 1–2Peterken, G F and Hughes, F M R (1990) ‘The changing lowlands’ in T P Bayliss-Smith and S Owens (eds) Britain’s Changing Environment from the Air. CambridgeUniversity Press, Cambridge, pp48–76Potter, C, Burnham, P, Edwards, A, Gasson, R and Green, B (1991) The Diversion ofLand: conservation in a period offarming contraction. Routledge, LondonPye, K and French, P W (1983) Targets for Coastal Habitat Re-creation. English NatureScience No 13, PeterboroughRackham, O (1986) The History ofthe Countryside. Dent, LondonRatcliffe, D A (1984) ‘Post-medieval and recent changes in British vegetation: theculmination ofhuman influence’,New Phytologist, vol 98, pp73–100Rowell, T A (1997) ‘The history ofWicken Fen’ in L F Friday (ed) Wicken Fen: themaking ofa wetland nature reserve. Harley Books, Colchester, in association withWicken Fen, pp187–212Senge P M (1992) The Fifth Discipline: the art and practise ofthe learning organization.Century Business/Doubleday, LondonSheail, J (1976) Nature in Trust: the history ofnature conservation in Great Britain. Blackie,GlasgowShoard M (1980) The Theft ofthe Countryside. Temple and Smith, LondonSimberlof, D S and Abele, L G (1976) ‘Island biogeographic theory and conservationpractice’,Science, vol 191, pp285–286Sutherland, W J and Hill, D A (1995) Managing Habitats for Conservation. CambridgeUniversity Press, CambridgeTansley, A G (1935) ‘The use and abuse ofvegetational terms’,Ecology, vol 14(3),pp284–307Thompson, J R and Finlayson, C M (2001) ‘Freshwater wetlands’ in A Warren and J RFrench (eds) Habitat Conservation: managing the physical environment. J Wiley and Sons,Chichester, pp147–178Wet Fens for the Future (1996) Wet Fens for the Future – the value ofwetlands for people and266Decolonizing Nature
wildlife in the Fens, Sandy, BedfordshireWilliams, M (1970) The Draining ofthe Somerset Levels. Cambridge University Press,CambridgeWilliams, M (1990) ‘Protection and introspection’ in M Williams (ed) Wetlands.Blackwell, Oxford, pp232–353Beyond preservation267
Chapter 12Feet to the ground in storiedlandscapes: Disrupting the coloniallegacy with a poetic politicsMartin MulliganWHITEFELLA FOLLYThe Gurindji people living in the Victoria River region of the NorthernTerritory are recognized as important pioneers ofthe ‘modern’ Aboriginal landrights movement in Australia. After walking offcattle stations where they wereemployed as stockmen and domestic workers over issues related to pay andworking conditions in 1966, they squatted ‘illegally’ at a place long known tothem as Daguragu, and known to white settlers as Wattie Creek. They sustainedthat occupation for nine years before winning some legal right to the land theyclaimed, and their action paved the way for new laws recognizing traditionalAboriginal rights to land in areas under the jurisdiction ofthe federalgovernment. Their campsite at Daguragu was adjacent to a gorge where thebones ofthe dead had been stowed in caves for countless generations – wherethose killed by white vigilantes, pursuing Walbiri refugees ofthe infamousConiston massacre of1928, were also laid to rest. Central leaders ofthe walk-offhad been born at Daguragu before it was annexed by a cattle station leased,in 1966, by the British food mogul Lord Vestey. Yet, when the land rights lawswere enacted in 1976, the Gurindji still had to come up with some ‘proof’ thatthey had a traditional association with the land they claimed. Two whiteanthropologists – Patrick McConvell and Rod Hagen – were dispatched by thegovernment-funded Northern (Aboriginal) Land Council to help the Gurindjiprepare their case.It was not a difficult assignment; evidence was plentiful. However, theGurindji wanted McConvell and Hagen to include a story which, to them,questioned the legitimacy ofthe cattle station that had been established on their
land in the first place, and McConvell and Hagen reported that when this storywas told to them it was accompanied by much laughter directed at the whitepeople who featured in it. The story is that when the first white settler –Nathaniel Buchanan – arrived in the area (in 1883), he claimed the land andbuilt a homestead on the banks ofthe Victoria River. Very close to this spot wasa hill with exposed strata ofrock that displayed a wave-like pattern, and soBuchanan called his homestead Wave Hill. One funny aspect ofthe story is thatBuchanan built his home adjacent to a river that floods on an annual basis – inthe northern ‘wet season’ – and so the house had to be abandoned on a regularbasis. Eventually, in 1924, it was washed away altogether. People who took overthe cattle station from Buchanan realized his folly in locating the house so closeto the river, so they built a new one on higher ground. However, they liked thename he had chosen and continued to use it. Twice more after that thehomestead was relocated, and each time the name was relocated as well. As faras the Gurindji are concerned, the real punch line ofthis story is that the‘whitefellas’ could even entertain the idea that a name could be taken from oneplace to another. For them, this was conclusive ‘proof ’ that these interlopershad no serious connection with the land that they claimed. How ironic that theGurindji were being asked to prove their ‘ownership’ oftheir ‘country’.I found this story in the report prepared by McConvell and Hagen that wasin the file on the Gurindji land claim in the library ofthe Northern Land Councilin Darwin. Since then I have used it widely in discussing the contrast betweenthe way that indigenous Australians and those of European descent haveperceived relationships between people and the land. And it’s a story thatstudents have often referred to when giving me feedback about what they havelearned in my classes. It’s a story that not only questions the legitimacy ofthesettlers’ annexation ofAboriginal land – achieved by adopting the doctrine ofterra nullius. It goes much further in making the claim ofterra nulliusseemridiculous by looking at it from the perspective ofthe colonized, and it casts ashadow over the cultural values ofpeople who move across the surface oftheland – rootless and unaware. As in other parts ofthe world, the Europeancolonizers in Australia tried to impose their visions ofArcadia upon landscapesthat they did not understand, and the results were disastrous for the naturalenvironments, as well as for attempts to create a new cultural identity. As ValPlumwood points out in Chapter 3 ofthis book, the naming practices adoptedby Australian settler society reflected the colonizing mentality that has served usvery poorly in our attempts to ground ourselves in this land.As the Gurindji would remind us, we have totally failed to appreciate theuniqueness ofevery single place,preferring instead to create ratherhomogenized landscapes that we are always passing through on the way to‘somewhere else’. As Paul Carter has put it in his stimulating book The Lie oftheLand:Our relationship to the ground is, culturally speaking, paradoxical: for weappreciate it only in so far as it bows down to our will.Feet to the ground in storied landscapes269
We do not walk with the surface; we do not align our lives with its inclines,folds and pockets. We glide over it; and to do this, to render what is rough,smooth, passive, passable, we linearize it, conceptualizing the ground, indeedthe civilized world, as an ideally flat space, whose billiard-table surface can beskated over in any direction, without hindrance (Carter, 1996, p2).The European colonization ofAustralia was built upon the desire to ‘tame’ thewild (see Lines, 1991) in order to make the landscapes both more ‘productive’and more ‘tidy’. And the practice continues. Rural townships compete fiercelyfor the prestigious Tidy Towns awards, and it was revealed in September 2001that State Forests in New South Wales (NSW) employ a squad ofworkers to gothrough the forests to poison ‘crooked, damaged and unhealthy native trees’ inorder to allow other trees to ‘grow properly’.1In the last section ofThe Lie ofthe Land, Carter borrowed the term ‘driftlanes’ from the writer Bill Harney (Carter, 1996, p356) to contrast the way inwhich the indigenous Australians moved across the land, compared to thecorridor-like movement ofthe white settlers. Drift lanes, he suggested, mightbe thought ofas anti-roads because they are more like a ‘dialogue between footand ground’ than a passage to a destination (Carter, 1996, p360). Drift lanes areembedded in the land as intertwining tracks weaving through and over oneanother, and travel on drift lanes is a circular movement ofdeepeningassociations where ‘home-coming’ cannot be assured because travelling andremaining at home become the same thing.FEET TO THE GROUNDAs Carter also points out (Carter, 1996, p2), we settlers rarely come into directcontact with the land because we impose many layers between our bodies andthe earth – shoe rubber, roads and paths, planted lawns. And the earth beneathall that has been moved about and ‘displaced’ anyway. We dwell above, and notin, the land. This reminds me ofthe way that Australia’s great pioneering artistRussell Drysdale painted Aboriginal people in the 1950s. The trappings ofwhitesociety were often evident in the way that they were dressed – in one case,dressed up to the hilt for a visit to the regional town ofCairns. But in all casesthey were without shoes – even in the centre ofCairns. As one commentatorput it, it gives the impression that the attempt to ‘civilize’ the indigenous peoplewas imposed from the head down; yet it failed to disturb their connection to theland (Haynes, 1998).A wonderful story attaches to one ofDrysdale’s paintings – called simply‘Man in a Landscape’ – which depicts a strong-faced Aboriginal man in a redlandscape, his arms draped over large boulders that he stands behind. Thispainting was given to Queen Elizabeth by the federal government on her visit toAustralia in 1963 because it was seen as representative ofthe work ofthecountry’s most popular artist. Some time after the presentation had been made,270Decolonizing Nature
the queen invited Drysdale to tea in Canberra and, at an ‘appropriate’ momentin the proceedings, she turned to the artist and asked loudly: ‘Tell me, MrDrysdale, what does your painting mean?’ Drysdale replied, ‘Ma’am, it is apainting ofa man trying to hold onto his land.’Of course, we can go too far in describing Western culture as beingungrounded, and in contrasting this to land-sensitive indigenous cultures aroundthe world. In the introduction to his impressive work Landscape and Memory(1995), Simon Schama takes issue with environmental historians who havesought to pinpoint historical causes ofthe ‘Western fall from grace’ inenvironmental awareness and responsibility. In particular, he takes issue withMax Oeschlaeger for suggesting that we need ‘new creation myths’ to ‘repair thedamage done by our recklessly mechanical abuse ofnature’ (Schama, 1995, p13).Schama says that the mood ofsuch historians is ‘understandably penitential’and that he does not mean to ‘deny the seriousness ofour ecologicalpredicament’ by suggesting that there are plenty ofold nature myths in Westerncultures that remain alive and well ‘ifonly we know where to look for them’(Schama, 1995, p13). For this particular book, Schama began his journey byphysically returning to a place from which his ancestors came in a forestedregion between Poland and Lithuania, and he moved from his own experienceto an exploration ofthe role this forest and its natural inhabitants played in theemergence ofPolish and Lithuania literature. Even more impressive was hisexploration ofthe strong role that forests played in the emergence ofGermanculture, as reflected in art and literature (for both children and adults). Schamahimselfmigrated for a period to the US and, in researching his book, he becamefascinated by the encounter between the settlers and the giant trees ofCalifornia. He seeks to demonstrate that people such as Henry David Thoreauand John Muir were products ofa culture forged in the interplay betweenlandscapes and people. National parks were eventually created as cultural shrinesofthe ‘New World’.Like many settlers in North America, it is also true in Australia that thosewho came to colonize the land were also fundamentally changed by what theyencountered (see Mulligan and Hill, 2001). However, Schama’s account oftherole oflandscapes in the development ofdiverse cultures around the world failsto acknowledge the damage that was done when attempts were made to imposethe cultural myths forged in one part ofthe world on another. Nor does heprovide an explanation for how the nature myths ofold Europe eventually cameto be marginalized in societies that became obsessed with the commercialexploitation ofnature – especially when that exploitation could take place inlands that were far removed from the places they called home. In Australia,people ofmy grandparents’ generation still often talked ofEngland as ‘home’.Perhaps this made it easier to turn a blind eye to the degradation being inflictedon the land they were living in.Feet to the ground in storied landscapes271
THE VIEW FROM THE EDGENo doubt, the experience ofcolonization is best understood by starting at thefrontier. I was recently reminded ofthis when I flew from Australia to London,via Zimbabwe. Flying west from Sydney, the heavily modified landscapes ofthecoastal fringe eventually give way to a sparsely populated zone where the frontierofsettlement is still very evident; this, in turn, gives way to a huge expanse ofhighly patterned desert – so impressive from the air – where the very notion ofhuman control seems laughable. During a stopover in metropolitan Perth, wewere herded into a hermetically sealed transit lounge that felt exactly like everyother transit lounge at every other ‘modern’ airport in the world. However, onarrival at Harare, we walked down the stairs and across the tarmac, where strong,‘earthy’ smells made me feel I had really landed.2Walking in dry bushland nearthe Hwange National Park felt quite a lot like walking in the Australian bush,except that my guide showed me the signs ofa wildlife that is so dramaticallydifferent – the wildlife of so many children’s books and so many natureprogrammes on television. Ofcourse, unexpected encounters with animals thatI had only previously seen in zoos could be dangerous; but the presence ofdanger made the ‘wildness’ feel more intense and, consequently, more exciting.Immediately after arriving in London from Harare, I went for a walk inKensington Gardens and Hyde Park and the culture shock was intense. Highlymanicured gardens, with segregated flowers and neatly trimmed lawns, weresuch a contrast to the wildness and excitement ofthe African bush. Manifestly,this was a celebration ofmastery over nature, and as I walked past the palacesand on to Westminster – past countless statues of admirals, generals andpoliticians ofthe ‘glorious’ colonial past – I became even more aware that thegardens were an integral part ofa grand imperial museum. Captured ‘exotic’plants from different parts ofthe world were sprinkled among domesticatedspecies that had long been ‘trained’ to do their masters’ bidding. It was all acelebration ofpower and control, a rejection ofwildness.No doubt, the culture shock was greater for the fact that I had so enjoyedmy briefstay in Zimbabwe. Yet, on two occasions when I have spent some timein England, I have found myselffeeling claustrophobic, hungering for a touchofthe wild among the highly ordered landscapes. On the last occasion, I wastaken to see an ancient forest near Cambridge that had recently been acquiredby conservation authorities. Yet, even here the old trees were mainly in rows,reflecting the fact that it had once been a managed forest. Conservationvolunteers showed me examples ofnative grasses that were apparently veryrare; but to an Australian conservationist, European grasses all look like ‘weeds’,just as eucalypt trees are seen as weeds by conservationists in countries werethey have been used for plantation timber. Again, I was reminded of theuniqueness ofall places – conservation aesthetics being bound up withexperience and a knowledge ofwhat constitutes ‘healthy’ ecosystems.Of course, Schama is right in saying that there is a neglected side ofEuropean culture that reflects a deep love ofnature. For me, this emerged most272Decolonizing Nature
strongly when I visited Ambleside in the Lake District ofEngland and trod thepaths once trodden by one ofmy favourite poets, William Wordsworth. Ofcourse, Wordsworth was one who campaigned against the mentality ofindustrialization that accelerated the commercial exploitation ofnature and,along with many others, he kept alive a tradition ofsensitivity towards nature inEnglish culture. Like Thoreau in Massachusetts, he was able to find inspirationin surprising encounters with wild nature, wherever he might be, and it wasmoving to sit in places where he must have sat, gazing at very similar scenes.Like Schama, the place-sensitive Australian writer David Maloufhas alsowarned against an overly critical view ofthe history ofour settler society. Hehas pointed out that the Australian colonies were an unpredictable experimentin ‘using the rejects ofone society to create another’. Given opportunities theynever would have had in the Old World – especially to own land – these‘vagabonds’ proved to be extremely determined and creative, conjuring up allthe ‘amenities’ ofhome with very few resources. They drew not only fromEnglish traditions, but from Europe more broadly and they:…displayed an inventiveness beyond the mere making do…a determinationto create a world here that would be the old world in all its diversity, but in anew form – new because in these new conditions the old world would not fit(Malouf, 1998, p3).The ‘vagabonds’ and ‘misfits’ from Europe tried to create the Arcadianlandscapes oftheir dreams; but they were also determined to create a moreopen and egalitarian society than the ones that had rejected most ofthem. Theancient and resistant landscapes colluded with this aspect oftheir dream becausethe difficult conditions undoubtedly had an equalizing effect on the settlers,particularly in the frontier regions. As the indigenous people had learned longbefore, the land demanded collaboration rather than competition, and thefrontier experience created new cultural myths around stoicism and ‘mateship’(see Mulligan and Hill, 2001). However, the important point to note here is thatthe settler society had to feel profoundly ‘unsettled’ in order to begin a processofmeeting the land on its own terms. The Australian short story writer andpoet Henry Lawson is probably best known for humorous stories that celebratethe mateship myth. Yet, what may have given him more enduring relevance wasthat he was one ofthe few writers ofhis generation who was prepared toconfront the ‘dark side’ ofsettlement, reminding us ofour vulnerability andfallibility. Lawson’s stories are anything but a celebration ofhuman mastery.In a very interesting book called Seeking the Centre: the Australian Desert in Art,Literature and Film, Roslynn Haynes (1998) has pointed out that flat, arid landpresented a particularly profound challenge to aesthetic sensibility ofEuropeansettlers. Painters schooled in the ‘picturesque’ tradition ofEuropean landscapeart could find no way ofengaging with such ‘god-forsaken’ landscapes, and fora long time a large part ofinland Australia was commonly referred to as the‘dead centre’. Eventually, there were artists – such as Sidney Nolan and RussellFeet to the ground in storied landscapes273
Drysdale – and writers – such as Patrick White in the novel Voss– who wereable to bring alive such landscapes in their work. Subsequently, white Australiansbegan to see that they had much to learn from the Aborigines who had lived inthese landscapes for so long. How extraordinary, Haynes (1998) notes, that thered desert has become a vibrant icon ofAustralian identity, much celebrated inliterature, art and in the promotion oftourism. That which was deeply feared isnow cherished, even if it is mostly experienced from the comfort of air-conditioned buses and motel rooms.EMPATHETIC ENGAGEMENTThe Australian writer who has probably done more to unsettle Australian settlersociety than any other was poet Judith Wright – a great pioneer in the fields ofliterature, nature conservation work and reconciliation between white andindigenous Australians. Born into a family ofthe rural ‘squattocracy’, Wrightspent much ofher childhood outdoors exploring the landscapes ofthe NewEngland district in north-eastern NSW. She often wondered what became ofthe indigenous people who had once lived in the same area – now evident onlyin ‘fringe camps’ outside some ofthe towns – and when her father once toldher the dark secret ofa place where early settlers had driven a large number ofAboriginal people to their deaths over a cliff, she wrote up the story in a poemcontained in her first published volume.In her early poems, Wright wrote offondly ofwhite farm workers like ‘oldDan’, for whom:Seventy years ofstories he clutches round his bonesSeventy summers are hived in him like old honey(Wright, 1994, p20).Yet, at the same time, she wrote with anger about the way that her own peoplehad treated the land:These hills my father’s father stripped,And beggars to the windThey crouch like shoulders naked and whipped –Humble, abandoned, out ofmind(Wright, 1994, p81).During the 1960s, Wright formed a deep friendship with the Aboriginal poetKath Walker (subsequently known by her Aboriginal name OodgerooNoonuncal), who helped Wright put faces to the stories that she knew wereembedded in the land. In a very moving poem called ‘Two Dreamtimes’, Wrightacknowledged that her friendship with Noonuncal was overshadowed by thegriefover what the settlers had done to Noonuncal’s people; but she ended thepoem by saying:274Decolonizing Nature
The knife’s between us now, I turn it roundthe handle to your side,the weapon made from your country’s bones.I have no right to take it.But both ofus die as our dreamtime dies.I don’t know what to give youfor your gay stories, your sad eyes,but that, and a poem, sister(Wright, 1994, p318).Wright had an extraordinary empathy for those who were on the other side ofthe frontier of‘settlement’, and her greatness probably lay in the fact that thisempathy extended to both the indigenous people and the natural world that wasalso colonized. In an angry poem written in 1970 – the bicentennial ofCaptainCook’s arrival in the great south land – she began:Die, wild country, like the eaglehawkdangerous till the last breath’s gone,clawing and striking. Diecursing your captor through a raging eye.And ended:I praise the scoring drought, the flying dust,the drying creek, the furious animal,that they oppose us still;that we are ruined by the thing we kill(Wright, 1994, pp287–288).Wright, like the artist Russell Drysdale, was ahead ofher time in seeing thatwhite Australians could never be really settled in this land until they had lookedat the experience ofcolonization from the other side ofthe frontier. Thelaunching ofthe ‘modern’ Aboriginal land rights movement by the Gurindji andYolngu people ofthe Northern Territory during the 1960s began a chain ofevents that culminated in a ruling ofthe Australian High Court in 1992 thatfinally abandoned the fiction ofterra nullius.3The High Court’s recognition ofthe existence ofa ‘native title’ to land that existed prior to colonization stunnedmost non-indigenous Australians; yet, there also seemed to be a widespreadreliefthat the nonsense ofterra nulliushad been finally put to rest.Environmentalists welcomed the decision not only because it was just, but alsobecause the notion ofnative title challenged prevailing notions oflandownership. The pioneers ofthe Aboriginal land rights movement had made itvery clear that their concept ofland ownership was something ofa reversal ofFeet to the ground in storied landscapes275
the Western concept because they were convinced that people belonged to theland.Marcia Langton (1998) has made the point that Australianenvironmentalists inadvertently sustain the legacy ofterra nulliuswhen they useterms such as ‘wilderness’ in ways that deny Aboriginal occupation ofthe land.Furthermore, the necessary dialogue between white conservationists andAboriginal custodians ofthe land has not always been easy. However, it is adialogue that has great potential.Aboriginal perspectives on the relationship between people and the land donot actually constitute a reversalof monological Western concepts of thatrelationship, but rather their replacement with a dialogical concept built on thenotion ofinteractive responsibility. As the anthropologist Deborah Bird Rosehas explained, Aboriginal people have long preferred the English word ‘country’to a word such as ‘landscape’ precisely because it implies some kind oftwo-wayrelationship. Rose has written:Country in Aboriginal English is not only a common noun but also a propernoun. People talk about country in the same way they would talk about aperson: they speak to country, sing to country, visit country, worry aboutcountry, feel sorry for country, and long for country. People say that countryknows, hears, smells, takes notice, takes care, is sorry or happy. Country isnot a generalized or undifferentiated type ofplace, such as one might indicatewith terms like ‘spending a day in the country’ or ‘going up the country’.Rather, country is a living entity with a yesterday, today and tomorrow, witha consciousness, and a will toward life. Because ofthis richness, country ishome, and peace; nourishment for body, mind, and spirit; heart’s ease (Rose,1996, p7).Later in the same work, Rose explained the dialogical nature ofthe relationshipby saying:A ‘healthy’ or ‘good’ country is one in which all the elements do their work.They all nourish each other because there is no site, no position, from whichthe interest ofone can be disengaged from the interests ofothers in the longterm. Self-interest and the interest ofall the other living components ofcountry…cannot exist independently ofeach other in the long term.The interdependence ofall life within country constitutes a hard but essentiallesson – those who destroy their country ultimately destroy themselves (Rose,1996, p10).However, according to the ‘land ethic’ ofthe Aborigines, it is not enough tosimply avoid damaging country because people are active agents with aresponsibility to nurture the land that nurtures them. According to Rose,Aboriginal people think of‘wild country’ as country that has not been caredfor. She illustrated this point with a story ofvisiting some sites in the Victoria276Decolonizing Nature
River district in the Northern Territory that had been badly affected by soilerosion in the company ofa local man called Daly Pulkara (Rose, 1996, p18). InRose’s account: ‘I asked Daly what he called this country; he looked at it longand heavily before he said: “it’s the wild. Just wild”’ (Rose, 1996, p19). Bycontrast, Rose continued, Pulkara described as ‘quiet country’ ‘the country inwhich all the care ofgenerations ofpeople is evident to those who know howto see it’ (Rose, 1996, p19).ON DWELLING, TRAVELLING AND NAMINGAt the beginning ofthis chapter, I recounted a story that shows how Aboriginalpeople see every place as being unique. This uniqueness is captured in the factthat every place has a range ofstories associated with it – stories that arepreserved by the rightful custodians ofthe land in which that place exists. Whatwe sometimes forget is that Aboriginal people travelled across considerabledistances and communicated across even more vast distances. Their knowledgeofplaces was certainly not confined to the local. The mythical beingsresponsible for the creation oflandscapes – such as the Rainbow Serpent –were thought to have travelled across the lands ofmany people, and the storiesassociated with them were often captured in the form ofsongs that could beshared with neighbouring people (hence the notion of ‘songlines’ that issometimes used to refer to the creation trails ofthese mythical creatures). Such‘songlines’ could bring people ofdifferent language groups together for majorceremonies. At the same time, there were well-established trading ‘routes’ thatmoved tradable goods over large distances. I was told by Vai Stanton – a Larrakiawoman from near Darwin – that she was once at a conference near Cairns whenshe heard some ofthe local people ‘speaking language’ that included words sheknew. Particular words, it seems, had migrated between the ‘Top End’ and theeast coast ofthe vast continent.Although they sometimes travelled far, the indigenous Australians obviouslymoved more slowly than contemporary Australians and they were much moreaware ofthe places they were traversing. A rather amusing story told by USnature poet Gary Snyder illustrates this point well.4On a visit to CentralAustralia in the mid 1980s, Snyder found himselfon the back ofa table-toptruck with a Pintupi elder named Jimmy Tjungurrayi. As the truck approachedTjungurrayi’s country, he pointed to a mountain and began to tell the story ofa‘dreamtime’ encounter between some Wallaby men and Lizard Girls that tookplace there. He gave a quick and condensed version ofthe story, and as soon ashe finished it he began another, prompted by the sight ofanother landmark.Initially surprised by the rapid-fire delivery ofhis host, Snyder soon realizedthat he was being given a fast-forward version ofstories that were designed tobe told at walking pace. Stories that could be told as people walked past therelevant landmarks served as a kind oforientation map, always locating themwithin a broader regional framework. In part, they were a survival guide becauseFeet to the ground in storied landscapes277
they helped locate water, food and shelter. However, the stories also includedstrong messages about the responsibilities ofthe travellers to the places theywere traversing. They spoke also ofthe country’s needs.Aboriginal people had a very different relationship to space than Europeansettlers brought with them. Paul Carter has pointed out that it was not easy forwhite anthropologists to even translate Aboriginal conceptions ofspace intothe English language; but several ofthem have reported that the Aboriginalconception ofterritory could not be abstracted in the form ofa linear map,because the boundaries were more like a series ofcamp-sites that people wouldmove between (Carter, 1988, p345). Citing the work ofanthropologist R Moyle,who studied the Alyawarra people ofCentral Australia, Carter said that‘boundary sites’ would often be centred on a water source, which, in turn, wouldbe a local centre for other living things. Consequently, the Alyawarra sawboundary sites as the centre ofthings and not the periphery (a concept that isbest represented in the world-famous ‘dot paintings’ ofthe Aboriginal desertcommunities). Carter went on to say that for Aboriginal people, the countrycame alive as they travelled, citing another anthropologist who worked withCentral Australian communities who once recorded that ‘all the way out fromWillowra, the women sang the songs ofthe country as they travelled throughit…they sang, danced and felt the country’ (Carter, 1988, p346). Cartercommented that ‘Travelling and story-telling are inseparable from each other.The country is not the setting ofstories, but the stories and songs themselves’(Carter, 1988, p346).Clearly, we are not going to revert to walking as primary mode oftransport.However, a knowledge ofstories associated with places we pass through canhelp us to feel better oriented, more constantly ‘connected’. A sense ofbelonging extends from the local to the regional and beyond, and a sense ofbelonging canlead to a stronger sense ofresponsibility.We shouldn’t underestimate the effort required to gather some sort ofinsightinto the ways in which Aboriginal Australians have traditionally experienced‘country’. In 1975, I had the privilege ofspending eight months travelling inAboriginal Australia (from the settlements ofcentral Queensland and Cape Yorkacross to Arnhem Land, and down to ‘the centre’) in the company ofsome goodfriends, including the Brisbane-based Aboriginal educator and artist Lilla Watson.I knew that I had crossed a frontier when we sat in a fringe camp near the centralQueensland town where Lilla had grown up, listening to the stories ofthe ancient‘Queenie’ Dodd (born in the 1880s), while a radio somewhere played the thememusic introducing the ABC radio national news. I might have been sitting intraffic on the Sydney Harbour Bridge listening to that same news bulletin; buthere I was in a place where time seemed to stand still, listening to stories oflivesfrom another world in the same land. Travelling with Lilla, I leaned theimportance ofspending time building relationships with the people we met,waiting patiently for appropriate moments to share stories, jokes and tears. I wasagain reminded ofthe necessary protocols when I went to Yirrkala in north-eastArnhem Land in 1997 to interview the artist and community leader Banduk278Decolonizing Nature
Marika for a book that would include the story ofthe birth ofthe ‘modern’Aboriginal land rights movement.5It took several days for the appropriatemoment to talk to arrive, and a turning point came when my companion and Isat with Banduk and her ‘mob’ to watch a game of‘footy’. Our patience wasrichly rewarded. The experienced Aboriginal community worker Julie Foster-Smith has frequently reminded me that Aboriginal people are understandablysuspicious ofwhite people asking questions; but ifyou are accepted into arelationship oftrust, then that is a relationship that should last a lifetime even ifcontact becomes infrequent. Building new relationships with the land throughintercultural dialogue with indigenous Australians involves building lastingrelationships with people, as well.When I was growing up in Australia, Aboriginal ‘dreamtime stories’ wereseen as being ‘quaint’, appropriate only for books aimed at children. Perhapsthat is still largely the case; but, increasingly, they are being referred to in touristbrochures and material produced by conservation agencies such as the NationalParks and Wildlife Service. We are learning that stories that attribute lifelikequalities to the land itselftend to be evocative and memorable, and when I askstudents ifthey know ofany stories that have changed their feelings aboutparticular places, they often cite Aboriginal stories that they have heard or read.One group ofstudents doing a group presentation acted out a story from themythology ofthe Bundjalung people ofhow a goanna became a headland onthe north coast of NSW following a conflict with a snake that had beenharassing an emu (see Stewart, 1988, p80). To white Australians, that headland isknown as Evans Head, even though very few people would know how it gotthat name. The headland does, indeed, take the shape ofa lizard with a verylong tail, and the group concluded that renaming the landmark after the goannawould encourage people to think more deeply about the place and its past. Whatwould add poignancy to this act ofrenaming is that the headland is known tobe the site ofa massacre during the 1840s ofBundjalung people trying toreclaim their land from white settlers (Stewart, 1988).I had a similar feeling about the need to replace colonial place names withthe much more colourful pre-colonial names when I visited Victoria Falls onthe border between Zimbabwe and Zambia during the my visit to Africa. Whyshould such a place be named in honour ofa remote English queen when italready had a name that translated into English as ‘the valley that thunders’? Thelatter certainly captures something ofthe power ofthe mighty Zambezi Riveras it tumbles relentlessly into the deep chasm, throwing up a spray above thefalls that can drench a visitor a hundred metres back from the edge ofthechasm.As impressive as that ‘natural wonder of the world’ is something elseimpressed me on my visit. This was a story about the creation ofthehippopotamus taken from the mythology of the Shan people, which wasincorporated in a display in the rather humble visitors’ centre at Victoria Falls.Just prior to my visit there, I had been reading in a newspaper that moretravellers in Zimbabwe are killed by accidents involving hippos than from anyFeet to the ground in storied landscapes279
other cause, especially along the Zambezi River, downstream from the falls.Then I read from the interpretation ofthe Shan legend that when thehippopotamus was created, it had been so embarrassed about its appearancethat it asked the creator ifit could hide its body in the water by day and comeout to feed at night. The creator had been concerned that the hippo would starteating the fish in the water; but an agreement was reached that the giant animalcould have its wish provided it ate only grass and left its droppings on the landso that other animals could routinely inspect them to make sure that theycontained no fishbones. The story is an amusing one that is easy to remember.It teaches us something about relationships between hippos and theirenvironments. But what struck me that day was that humour and danger can belurking in the same animal and in the same set ofcircumstances. The naturalworld is full ofsuch contradictions that defy simple understanding. I had earlierbeen reminded that an appearance oftranquillity can be illusory when lookingacross an apparently calm stretch ofthe Zambezi, just metres before the watergathers speed for its thunderous plunge into the valley below.POETICS AND POLITICSHow can we express and communicate the rather contradictory feelings thatemerge from experiences with what David Abram (1996) has called the ‘more-than-human’ world? I’m very attracted by Paul Carter’s suggestion that poiesis– the Western art of representation – offers ways of engaging with theirregular and unpredictable in a language ofthe emotions as much as theintellect. In Carter’s view, colonialism was the creation ofEuropeans aftertheybecame ‘rootless rationalists’ because ‘a people without a dreaming, withoutan attachment to the land, were machines for free movement’ (1996, p364).From this perspective, we need to look beyond the rational to decolonize ourmindsets, and such a decolonizing movement might be led by people withexpertise in non-rational understandings oflived experience. In Australia, forexample, landscape painters, poets, novelists, creators ofchildren’s literature,photographers and film-makers have all been engaged in an exploration ofthe dialogical interaction between people and the land that might enable thesettler society to finally ground itselfin Australian environments (see Mulliganand Hill, 2001). This has been a very difficult project that is far from reachingany kind ofsatisfactory resolution; but the artists and writers have frequentlyplaced themselves at the forefront ofa broader public discourse about landand identity. Ofcourse, there is nothing inevitable about poiesis being part ofa decolonizing ofattitudes towards the natural world. As Carter points out,the arts ofrepresentation in a settler society can also serve a colonizing role increating the images that people are working towards in manipulatinglandscapes – the imposition of‘regularity’ on ‘wilderness’. What we need,Carter continues, is an environmentally attuned poetics that is anti-colonial inits aims. It does not mean ‘climbing to a commanding point in order to see280Decolonizing Nature
further’, but rather ‘renouncing this nostalgia for horizons, focusing insteadon the ground at our feet, beginning to pay attention to its folds and inclines’(1996, p14).Australian historian/journalist and one-time political adviser GreggBorschmann has suggested that oral history projects that aim to capture therichness oflived experience in the Australian landscape could create a kind of‘Bush Dreaming’ that might fill a void in our relationship with the land. In animpressive labour oflove, he put together a volume ofessays and a travellinginstallation featuring images and voices ofpeople talking about their experiencesofthe Australian bush in a project he called ‘The People’s Forest’. The collectionofessays – lovingly put together, artistically presented and self-published –included contributions from one ofAustralia’s leading poets, Mark O’Connor,the eco-feminist philosopher Val Plumwood, Aboriginal writer Mudrooroo, anda leading figure in forest economics and resource management, Neil Byron.Despite the diversity in their professional practice, the contributors shared avery deep love ofAustralian forests, and in his introduction to the essays,Borschmann was moved to suggest that his project might constitute a small steptowards the creation ofa ‘whitefella dreaming’. This phrase refers, ofcourse, tothe use of the English word ‘dreaming’ as it was used to ‘name’ the richcosmology ofAboriginal Australians and, as Borschmann conceded, ‘To callour chequered relationship with the Australian bush a “whitefella dreaming”may offend some people’ (Borschmann, 1999, pvii). However, he went on to saythat in taking back an English word that had been enriched by its associationwith Aboriginal cosmology, we might, in fact, acknowledge ‘the great traditionofstory-telling, lore, ceremony, dance, song, ritual and immutable truth that theAboriginal nations cultivated in this continent that we now also call home’(Borschmann, 1999, pvii). Our ‘dreaming’, such as it is, may not be ‘as rich, all-embracing and unifying as an Aboriginal dreaming. But we can work on that’(Borschmann, 1999, pvii).The call for building a ‘whitefella dreaming’ is timely because the Australianenvironmental movement has been going through a period ofcritical self-examination (see Mulligan, 2001). There has been a growing recognition that‘rational’ appeals for nature conservation based upon technical forms ofknowledge have a limited public appeal. Australian writer Roger McDonald putit well when he was cited as saying (Hawley, 2001):6I worry that in the environmental debate raging about trees, we only seem tohear about the botanical and conservation side, with arguments about forestregrowth, acceptable species, trade-offs – it’s all in political language.The poetry and mystery oftrees, rich personal experiences ofenjoymentand wonder, the private moments ofrevelation people can feel in forests, whensomething about trees touches their soul – this more imaginative and intimateside rarely gets a mention.Feet to the ground in storied landscapes281
Like Borschmann’s opus, McDonald’s non-fictional homage to people whom hehas known, who have lived and worked with trees – The Tree in Changing Light(2001) – is a lovely example ofthe sort ofstory-telling that might enhance our‘whitefella dreaming’. As manifestations oflandscapes that we move withinnative and introduced trees, McDonald suggests, ‘give language to our existence’(McDonald, 2001).Critics ofeco-philosophies that emphasize a ‘reconnection’ with the ‘more-than-human’ world have often said that this constitutes a form ofromanticruralism that maintains an ‘urban blind spot’ (see Light, 2001) when most peoplelive, and will continue to live, in cities. However, Paul Carter has provided aninteresting response to this in the form ofa story, which, he notes, was includedin a newspaper article ‘lamenting the loss ofa creek – “it was consigned yearsago to a barrel drain and tied up in a ribbon offreeway ashphalt”’ (Carter, 1996,p15). The author ofthe article recalled childhood memories ofthe pre-pavedcreek when it appeared to him and his friends as ‘our patch ofwilderness’; inparticular, he recalled a time when one ofhis friends, ‘Ronny’, had shot an arrowfrom a bow directly into the air above them. The author wrote: ‘For me, Ronny’sarrow will never land. It will always be spinning and shimmering in the sunlight,a kind ofairborne talisman connecting me to the time before expediency robbedus all ofsomething beyond value’ (Carter, 1996, p15). Suggesting that the lastingmemory was of‘a community between the lie ofthe land and the curvilinearlaws ofthe arrow’s flight’, Carter also proposed that it reconceived ‘ground’ as‘not a surface but as manifold surfaces, their different amplitudes composing anenvironment that was uniquely local, which could not be transposed’ (Carter,1996, p15) – and, further, that such a ‘plea for a “less paved time” embodiesboth a politics and a poetics’ (Carter, 1996, p15).It is interesting that Andrew Light concluded his article about the ‘urbanblind spot’ ofprevailing environmental ethics by focusing upon the potential ofnature restoration programmes in urban areas. In Australia, urban ‘bushregeneration’ projects have frequently focused upon ‘liberating’ creeks fromconcrete encasements and reviving bush-clad embankments on those waterways.Poetically, this might be seen as a revival ofconnecting threads that reachbeyond the urban frontiers, both spatially and in terms ofour understandingthat the natural systems we want to ‘regularize’ continue to exist below, andabove, the layers ofregulatory concrete. Urban bush regeneration is both apolitical statement and a re-engagement with the aesthetics ofthe wild (a poeticgesture). A creek restoration project involving the Merri Creek in Melbournewas so successful that the beautiful sacred kingfishers were spotted again in anarea that they had long ago abandoned. In celebration, the local humancommunity began an annual Return ofthe Kingfisher Festival that is creating anew, local, story.A volume ofessays that is very different in its style and gravitasto GreggBorschmann’s The People’s Forest isPlaces in the Heart(1997) in which award-winning travel writer Susan Kurosawa put together contributions from 30prominent Australians on ‘their special corners ofthe world’. While a majority282Decolonizing Nature
ofthe contributors chose to talk ofexotic places overseas, a surprising numberchose to write about Australian places that either held special childhoodmemories or ongoing associations. Several contributors wrote very lovinglyabout urban landscapes, with my favourite being actor Graeme Blundell’s ratherpoetic piece on Sydney’s King’s Cross, which carried the title ‘Where the starsare lit by neon’. Light reading, perhaps; yet, it is interesting to read what comesout when people are invited to speak ‘from the heart’, and there is someconfirmation in this volume ofBorschmann’s point about oral histories oflivedexperience contributing to the accumulation ofa ‘whitefella dreaming’. Thisnotion has the potential to cut across the normal boundaries between urban,rural and ‘wild’ landscapes.However, when we talk in Australia about the poetics ofreconnecting withthe ‘more-than-human’ world, we can’t go past the work ofJudith Wright, whoserich and influential life came to an end in July 2000. On her death, novelistThomas Keneally said that all Australian writers were in her debt because:At a time when it was every writer’s sacred duty to be alienated by Australia– to be a European soul descended into this terrible place – she was unaffected.Instead she made her myths out ofthis place. The spaciousness ofher spirithas always been so grand (Stephens, 2000).Wright’s capacity to feel and express an empathy for a world that will always bebeyond our cognitive powers was reflected in 11 volumes ofpoems publishedbetween 1946 and 1985. Perhaps this was never more evident than in a shortpoem called ‘Rainforest’ that appeared in the last ofthose volumes:The forest drips and glows with green.The tree-frog croaks his far-offsong.His voice is stillness, moss and raindrunk from the forest ages long.We cannot understand that callunless we move into his dream,where all is one and one is alland frog and python are the same.We with our quick dividing eyesmeasure, distinguish and are gone.The forest burns, the tree-frog dies,yet one is all and all are one(Wright, 1994, p412).As already mentioned, Wright was a daughter of the landed gentry whofrequently expressed deep remorse about what her forebears had done to boththe pre-settlement landscapes and to the indigenous people. A poet whoFeet to the ground in storied landscapes283
eventually inherited her mantle as the nation’s best – Les Murray – has taken amuch more charitable view ofthe activities ofpioneer settlers who were hisown forebears. Yet, he too has called for an act ofatonement for the theft ofthe land from the original inhabitants (Murray, 1999a). In an interesting essaycalled ’ in a Working Forest’, he shows how stories related to the interactionsbetween people and the forest – involving both Aborigines and white settlers –have created a powerful forest folklore that can give people who live nearbyboth a sense ofbelonging and ofnot belonging at the same time (Murray,1999b)STORY-MAKING AND STORY-TELLINGAs Simon Schama has stressed, the cultural ‘baggage’ that European settlers inthe ‘New World’ have carried with them has not always been a barrier to a deepappreciation ofthe landscapes that they have entered. Just as often, he argues,deep cultural memories – embodied in stories and legends that have been passeddown through the generations in the ‘Old World’ – have sensitized such settlersto the role that nature can play in creating new cultural stories. Even ifwe wantedto, we could not ignore the cultural heritage that was forged in Europeanlandscapes, and what emerges when Europeans settled in the colonies was oftenan intriguing combination ofthe old and the new. However, as David Abram(1996) argues, Europeans have also developed languages that disguise our ancientengagements with the ‘more-than-human’. Wherever we go, we recreate thefrontier between the settled and the wild, and when we travel we are cocoonedby our technologies. Even in our most dedicated efforts to ‘get back to nature’,we carry backpacks loaded with the ‘necessities’ for survival and we encase ourfeet in robust hiking boots. I am not suggesting that, at a physical level, we needto abandon safety considerations or even comfort zones; but we need to keep inmind the degree ofour separation ifwe want to become more attentive andempathetic with the non-human world – with a world that may be beyond allhuman experience (as alluded to in Judith Wright’s poem, cited above).Ifwe can enhance our skills in becoming attentive and empathetic, then wewill once again rediscover that every single place in the world is unique in bothhuman and non-human terms, and that every place has a ‘magic’ ofits own. Ifwe shift awareness from abstract spaces (a kind oftabula rasa) to unique places,we might be much less inclined to want to homogenize our environments (asreflected in the near-uniform design ofthings such as airports, shopping malls,hotels and, ofcourse, Macdonald’s restaurants all around the world). Considerwhat happens when people make a conscious decision to ‘sink roots’ in aparticular place. They try to learn what they can ofthe local stories and legends,maybe some ofthe local history. On top ofthis, they begin to lay down theirown personal stories, maybe extending these into family stories that deepen asense ofbelonging. Some people might go as far as consulting geographicalliterature about landforms and natural systems, or scientific information about284Decolonizing Nature
local ecosystems and geology. To invoke an archaeological metaphor, the effortmight involve some patient digging to uncover stories that are most deeplyembedded in the land; in the case ofAustralia, for example, considerable effortis needed to uncover the local Aboriginal stories that were never recorded in thehistory books ofthe colonizers.I can imagine a reader wondering ifthis sort ofeffort is really worthwhile.Maybe not for all; but I am reminded ofa story told by the Australian writerand polymath academic George Seddon (1997) about an experience he had ofreturning to Australia after a long period ofliving in England. Seddon had spenthis formative years in rural Victoria, enjoying opportunities to fish and swim inthe Murray River and to walk in the ‘high country’ ofthe Great Dividing Range.However, he returned to Australia to take up an academic post in Perth and wasshocked to discover that the coastal plains around Perth were so dissimilar towhat he had known in Victoria that he did not feel he had returned ‘home’ at all.However, instead ofremaining alienated by what he found, he set out to deepenhis knowledge ofthe area and its myriad stories, eventually feeling more at homein Perth than anywhere else. The point is that a ‘deepening into’ place, in themanner discussed by John Cameron in Chapter 8, takes effort, as well asattentiveness and empathy. It involves the building ofskills that subsequentlyenable the practitioner to deepen into more than one place.Furthermore, the skills we need to build a personal sense ofplace can alsobe used in the important work of environmental education. Experiencedenvironmental educators know that one way to get people talking about whatnature means to them is to ask them to share some childhood memories ofencounters with the non-human (see, for example, Thomashow, 1996). TheAustralian folk-singer Judy Small has a song about a place, called CharlesworthBay, that she liked to visit as a child, but which was subsequently ‘ruined’ by anill-considered housing development. She likes to introduce the song by sayingthat everyone has their own Charlesworth Bay. As much as a sense ofplace canhelp us feel more connected to, and, hopefully, responsible for, places, griefover the loss of‘special’ places can make us more determined to oppose furtherenvironmentally insensitive developments.Ifyou ask adults when and how they lost their childhood propensity to beenchanted by the non-human, they struggle for an answer. Yet, each ofus, inour personal journeys, probably mirrors the evolution ofWestern culture in itsjourney from a reliance on intuitive knowledge to the dominance ofthe rational.In order to ‘re-enchant’ nature conservation work, we might need to activelyencourage a regression ofthat particular growth pattern. Collectively, there isan important place for story circles when people can sit together in a relaxedatmosphere to share stories of‘magical’ experiences. The experience alwaysseems to be enhanced when there is a campfire at the centre ofthe gatheringbecause the warm focal point ofthe flickering flames seems to gather the circleinto a reflective and sharing mood. When people ofdifferent ages are present,some important intergenerational learning can take place. The wisdom oftheelders seems to gain gravitasin such circumstances.Feet to the ground in storied landscapes285
We all know from experience that some people are much better than othersat telling stories; but it is a skill we can all enhance. Perhaps it is not a skill thatis adequately valued in Western cultures because it is probably seen as a hobbyrather than a vocation. Not surprisingly, people who relied entirely upon spokenlanguage did value story-keepers and story-tellers highly, and again we mightlearn from the experience ofthe indigenous Australians. A story told by a whiteman who worked closely with the Gagadju people on building the case for thedeclaration ofthe world famous Kakadu National Park in Australia’s NorthernTerritory will illustrate the point.7Allan Fox was employed by the National Parks and Wildlife Service whenhe was involved in developing the case for the Kadadu National Park, and oneofhis duties was to work with Gagadju elder Bill Neidjie to document the storiesassociated with particular sites in the area. While he was working with Neidjieon this project, various parties ofpoliticians and bureaucrats visited the area inorder to assess the claims that were being made. Fox always arranged to havethem visit sites with Neidjie so that he could tell them some ofthe stories insitu. After this had happened a number oftimes, Fox began to notice that theold man had told different stories to different visiting parties and, concernedthat this lack ofconsistency would damage their claims, he confronted Neidjieabout the ‘problem’. However, Neidjie patiently explained that as a designatedstory-keeper, he knew many stories about each place that they might visit andhis responsibility and skill lay in selecting which story to share on any particularoccasion. Commonly, the stories he might choose to share were but fragmentsofmuch longer stories that might only be shared with people who are willingand able to become living custodians ofsuch places and their memories.As indicated earlier, Aboriginal people do not think ofplaces as pre-existingblank spaces, but rather as relationships that they enter each time that they arein their presence. For them, poiesis is integral to the act oftravelling becausethey ‘sing up’ the stories embedded in the land as they travel. In comparing theAboriginal conception ofspace to that ofthe European settlers, Paul Cartersuggested that for Aborigines the ‘re-enactment ofthe country does not occuron a stage: it is what brings the country into being and keeps it alive’ (Carter,1988, p346).DISRUPTING THE IMPOSITION OF REGULARITYAs Marcia Langton’s contribution to this book in Chapter 4 makes clear,indigenous people around the world are being subjected to ever-new forms ofexpropriation and marginalization. Magome and Murombedzi, in Chapter 5,demonstrate that in southern Africa the creation ofNational Parks has donelittle more than create a different set ofproblems for the indigenous people,and this tends to echo the experience ofjointly managed parks in Australia. Theongoing framework ofcolonization needs to be kept in mind when we talkabout learning from the cultural practices ofthese indigenous people. That said,286Decolonizing Nature
however, we should also keep in mind the potential for a kind of‘reversecolonization’ ofattitudes towards the land, and ofideas about natural resource‘management’. After more than 200 years ofracist neglect, there is a growingrecognition that we white Australians have much to learn from human culturesthat have existed in this land for more than 50,000 years! In order that gesturestowards an Aboriginal experience of ‘country’ are more than shallow andtokenistic, we have to work hard to set aside our own conceptions aboutrelationships between people and nature. We must also be prepared to buildmutually beneficial relationships with those who are able to guide us in suchmatters. We must be patient and open minded. However, the effort can be richlyrewarded with a new and deep sense ofbelonging, not just to local landscapes,but to the land as a whole.At the same time, we can draw deep insights from our own poetic traditionsthat enable us to contemplate the unpredictable, the irregular and the almostunimaginable. We can do this by creating and/or contemplating images and arich language that can be interpreted in different ways by different people. Theaim ofpoetics is to resonate and not convince. By seriously contemplating thewild and unpredictable, we might overcome our desire to impose regularity andpredictability upon the world around us. We can move outside a linear sense oftime and an abstract sense ofspace in order to experience the magic ofa uniquetime–place and, consequently, move closer to building the ‘place-responsive’society that John Cameron discussed in Chapter 8. We can consciously ‘regress’to the magical experiences ofchildhood, when sensuous experiences oftheworld were probably more important than rational explanation and when wewere more trusting ofour intuitions. Ifwe step outside the ‘busyness’ ofouradult lives, we can learn that insights will arrive to those who wait patiently withan open mind and heart. In the process, we can enter new and more ethicalrelationships with other people and the land that holds us all.We need to overcome the colonial legacy of‘mastery over’, not only becauseit has been profoundly repressive towards subjugated people, but also because ithas left us profoundly alienated from the natural world. Henry David Thoreauwas a powerful prophet ofthe poetic politics that I have in mind, and hisjournals and books from the 1840s and 1850s remain a major source ofinspiration. It is not difficult to conjure up a mental image ofhim struttingabout the stage during one ofhis public lectures at the Lyceum in Concord,Massachusetts, thundering out his famous and timeless dictum: ’ in wildness isthe preservation ofthe world.’NOTES1As revealed in an article by environment writer James Woodford in The SydneyMorning Herald, 27 September 2001, p5.2 Subsequently, Harare airport has also constructed a bland passenger terminal in arather desperate attempt to make tourists feel more ‘comfortable’.Feet to the ground in storied landscapes287
3 This ruling regarded a claim to traditional rights to land by a group ofTorres StraitIslanders led by Eddie Koiki Mabo – hence, the case is often referred to as theMabo case.4 The story is recounted in the book by Abram (1996, p173).5 This research was for the book Ecological Pioneers: A social history ofAustralian ecologicalthought and actionby Martin Mulligan and Stuart Hill (2001), Cambridge UniversityPress, Melbourne.6 Author ofthe critically acclaimed novel Mr Darwin’s Shooter(Random House, Sydney,1998) and the more recent The Tree in Changing Light(Random House, Sydney, 2001).7 This story was told by Allan Fox to a conference of the New South WalesAssociation ofEnvironmental Education held at Port Stephens, NSW in 1997.REFERENCESAbram, D (1996) The Spell ofthe Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-than-HumanWorld. Vintage Books, New YorkBorschmann, G (1999) The People’s Forest: A Living History ofthe Australian Bush. ThePeople’s Forest Press, Blackheath, NSWCarter, P (1988) The Road to Botany Bay: An Exploration ofLandscapes and History, Knopf,New YorkCarter, P (1996) The Lie ofthe Land. Faber and Faber, LondonHawley, J (2001) ‘Confessions ofa tree-hugger’,The Good Weekend, 29 September,pp33–40Haynes, R (1998) Seeking the Centre: The Australian desert in art, literature and film.Cambridge University Press, MelbourneKurosawa, S (ed) (1997) Places in the Heart: Thirty prominent Australians reveal their specialcorners ofthe world. Sceptre, SydneyLangton, M (1998) Burning Questions: emerging environmental issues for indigenous people innorthern Australia. Centre for Indigenous Natural and Cultural ResourceManagement, Northern Territory University, DarwinLight, A (2001) ‘The urban blind spot in environmental ethics’,Environmental Politics,vol 10(1), pp7–35Lines, W (1991) Taming the Great South Land: A History ofthe Conquest ofNature inAustralia. Allen and Unwin, SydneyMalouf, D (1998) A Spirit ofPlay: The making ofAustralian consciousness. ABC Books,SydneyMcConvell, P and Hagen, R (1981) A Traditional Land Claim by the Gurindji to DauraguStation. Central Land Council, Alice SpringsMcDonald, R (2001) The Tree in Changing Light. Random House, SydneyMulligan, M (2001) ‘Re-enchanting nature conservation work: Reflections on theAustralian experience’,Environmental Values, vol 10, pp19–33Mulligan, M and Hill, S (2001) Ecological Pioneers: A Social History ofAustralian EcologicalThought and Action. Cambridge University Press, MelbourneMurray, L (1999a) ‘Some religious stuffI know about Australia’ in L Murray TheQuality ofSprawl: Thoughts about Australia, Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, pp19–49Murray, L (1999b) ’ in a Working Forest’ in The Quality ofSprawl: Thoughts aboutAustralia. Duffy and Snellgrove, Sydney, pp91–120288Decolonizing Nature
Rose, D B (1996) Nourishing Terrains: Australian Aboriginal Views ofLandscape andWilderness. Australian Heritage Commission, CanberrraSchama, S (1995) Landscape and Memory. Fontana Press, LondonSeddon, G (1997) ‘Sense ofplace’ in Landprints: Reflections on Place and Landscape.Cambridge University Press, Melbourne, pp109–112Stephens, T (2000) ‘Conscience ofthe country lives on’,Sydney Morning Herald, July 27,p13Stewart, D (ed) (1988) Burnum Burnum’s Aboriginal Australia: A Traveller’s Guide. Angusand Robertson, SydneyThomashow, M (1996) Ecological Identity: Becoming a Reflective Environmentalist. MIT Press,Cambridge, MassachusettsWright, J (1994) Judith Wright: Collected Poems. Angus and Robertson, SydneyFeet to the ground in storied landscapes289
Chapter 13ConclusionsWilliam M Adams and Martin MulliganSOME NEW STRATEGIESSome of the contributions to this volume have been aimed primarily atunderstanding the depth and complexity ofthe colonial legacy with regard toconservation practice, while others have begun to suggest some new strategiesand approaches for the future. Recommendations for rethinking and reorientingconservation practice range from an articulation ofthe need to create more‘space’ for the rehabilitation ofindigenous land management and ‘wildlife’management practices, to an enthusiastic endorsement ofthe work ofrestoration ecology (as in the example ofWicken Fen, see Chapter 11). PenelopeFiggis (Chapter 9) has provided a thorough review ofthe new challenges andconservation ‘models’ that Australian conservationists are grappling with. Asimilar range ofchoices and dilemmas is facing conservationists in many othercountries. Val Plumwood (Chapter 3) calls for a new movement to decolonizeplace names in the former colonies, and John Cameron (Chapter 8) argues thatefforts to nurture place responsiveness can challenge the prevailing dangerousalienation ofpeople from the places in which they dwell. Martin Mulligan(Chapter 12) argues that one way to re-enchantnature conservation work is toshow people how they can re-engage sensuously with landscapes that are full ofstories – perhaps to revive the ‘magical’ experiences ofchildhood engagementswith the non-human. This emphasizes the point that ethical engagement withthe land can be driven as much by inspirational experiences and memories as bya sense ofguilt about the colonial legacy oftaming the wild.In sharing experiences from three parts ofthe world, there have beenimportant opportunities for a cross-fertilization ofideas and experiences (as isevident in the common ground between Chapters 4–7, written by MarciaLangton, Hector Magome and James Murombedzi, and Mark Toogood). Severalcontributors have suggested some ways in which a more meaningful dialogue
might be nurtured between nature conservationists and indigenouscommunities, and emphasize the need for it (for example, Mark Toogood inChapter 7). Martin Mulligan suggests that this difficult dialogue holds thepromise ofre-enchanting conservation work for non-indigenous people. Asmentioned above, Mulligan also suggests some ways in which an engagementwith ‘storied landscapes’ can broaden the appeal ofconservation work. JohnCameron, in Chapter 8, suggests some ways in which many more people couldbe enticed into exploring their relationships with their immediate environments,while Bill Adams (Chapter 10) shows that new ideas about the dynamic natureofecosystem change are exciting and scary at the same time.However, the size ofthe challenge we set out to tackle with this volume – asarticulated in the introduction in Chapter 1 – makes it impossible to end with asimple summary ofideas and recommendations that have emerged. As severalcontributors have stressed, we have much work to do in engaging more deeplywith the legacies of the past before we can find better ways of pursuingconservation aims into the future.DIFFICULT LEGACIESBoth the terms colonialismand decolonizationmask a great deal ofcomplexity.Although it is convenient to talk in broad terms about European colonialism asa dominant force in global development from the 17th century onwards, themanifestations ofthis phenomenon changed over time in response to both thespecific goals ofthe particular European power concerned and the responsesofthe colonized peoples and lands. Similarly, as resistance to colonialism grewinto stronger decolonization movements during the 20th century, the formsand processes ofdecolonization have varied over time and according to diversegeopolitical conditions. Furthermore, as Marcia Langton’s contribution to thisbook makes clear (Chapter 4), new forms ofcolonization have come into playalongside messy decolonization processes in the latter stages ofthe 20thcentury. Indeed, it is something ofan illusion to suggest that we are in a ‘post-colonial era’.It is important to an understanding ofcontemporary engagements betweenhumans and non-human nature to be able to trace some ofthe broadcharacteristics ofEuropean colonialism and the Eurocentric values thatunderpinned, and emerged from, it – as Val Plumwood has done in Chapter 3.Indeed, it would be very difficult to make any sense at all ofglobal developmentsin understanding nature without some analysis ofhow and why Europeanpowers came to dominate the world, and what the enduring legacies ofthatdomination have been. In this book, we have focused our attention upon theparticular phenomenon ofBritish colonialism and its legacy,and theconservation movements that, among other things, have sought to halt its driveto create neo-Europes in the landscapes ofcolonized lands. We have beeninterested in the complex dynamics ofthe relationships between people and theConclusions291
land in Britain as well as the colonies, and the interplay between the centre andperiphery. This exploration ofBritish colonialism has broad significance. It hadbecome the dominant form ofEuropean colonial enterprise by the end ofthe19th century, and the dominant imperial power ofthe 20th century – the US –was itselfthe product ofan earlier phase ofBritish colonialism.Nature conservation movements that emerged in various parts ofthe worldduring the second halfofthe 19th century were partly a reaction against themercantilist exploitation ofnature being carried out by both the Europeanpowers and the settler societies they had initiated. At the same time, they alsoreflected some ofthe European ‘enlightenment values’ that constructed natureas a resource for human use and enjoyment. Furthermore, the globalconservationist agendas that emerged so strongly during the latter part ofthe20th century were both anti-imperial in their defence oflocal diversity and, atthe same time, imperial in their advocacy ofcertain Western ideas andassumptions. Hence, the nature conservation movement, in its variousmanifestations, has reflected the complexity ofthe overlapping agendas ofcolonialism and decolonization. The history and future ofnature conservationare both bound up with this complex legacy ofEuropean colonialism.SOME GROUNDS FOR HOPEWe can, ofcourse, be overwhelmed by the complexity and problematic coloniallegacies of nature conservation. While ‘enlightenment values’ continue tounderpin the dominant utilitarian attitudes towards non-human nature, we cantake some heart from a series offacts. Firstly, these anthropocentric ‘Western’values have been subjected to rigorous and sustained critique during the latterpart ofthe 20th century. Secondly, colonized, indigenous peoples have largelybeen able to reassert their rejection ofcolonizing ideologies, and have givenvoice to alternative, more ecocentric, world views. Thirdly, nature conservationmovements, which have had some success in preserving biodiversity, have begunto explore new ways ofthinking and working.As we enter the 21st century, we can say that the need for a deep dialoguebetween nature conservationists and indigenous peoples has never been greater.Clearly, the potential parties to this dialogue have strong overlapping aims inwanting to prevent the degradation ofnon-human nature. Furthermore, thelimited recognition ofindigenous rights achieved by decolonization movements(as in the belated recognition of‘native title’ to land in Australia) has givenindigenous communities a stronger basis from which to converse and negotiatewith conservationists and conservation agencies. The dialogue has not beeneasy, to date, because non-indigenous conservationists in many parts oftheworld have been forced to recognize that their desire to preserve people-freewilderness areas has, in part, reflected the colonizing imperative to rupture thelink between the indigenous peoples and their lands. Furthermore, as MarciaLangton’s contribution to this book also demonstrates, the tensions continue to292Decolonizing Nature
mount as indigenous people search for economic strategies within marketeconomies that can guarantee their survival as communities. Nevertheless, thewillingness on the part ofconservationists to enter meaningful dialogues withindigenous peoples is beginning to match the need. This is manifested in thedesire to better understand indigenous cosmologies and values. Indeed, the factthat a book with this title and content could find a publisher and a readershipindicates that the desire for dialogue is growing.Ofcourse, this book can only be a small step in reviewing some ofthedialogues that have already taken place, and in opening up spaces for suchdialogues to be extended. Those who enter into such spaces need to be willingto be both frank and courageous, and, at the same time, show respect for otherswho are willing to enter such spaces with good intent. Certainly, indigenouspeople have much to teach non-indigenous conservationists about what a ‘landethic’1might really mean in practice, and indigenous communities need supportof many kinds in order to negotiate survival strategies. Any successes in‘mainstreaming’ a land ethic will create greater security for both the endangeredindigenous communities and the endangered species ofplants and animals thathave been imprisoned in ‘marginal’ landscapes and ‘island reserves’.CRITICAL CHALLENGESIfthe legacy ofcolonialism is as extensive and pervasive as we have argued inthe introduction to this volume (see Chapter 1), how can we beginto decolonizeour attitudes towards nature? One obvious place to start is in critically examiningthe language that is often used in conservation discourses (see Chapter 3). Forexample, indigenous people in both Australia and southern Africa (and even inScotland; see Chapter 7) have questioned the use ofterms such as ‘wilderness’and ‘pristine nature’ because they fail to acknowledge the long history ofassociation between people and the landscapes that have been described in suchterms. An exploration ofprevailing language can provide an entry point into adeeper exploration ofunderlying environmental values, and the extent to whichthey might reflect the ‘enlightenment’ values ofthe colonial era. This, in turn,can lead to a realization that ifwe cannot separate ourselves from nature, thenwe need to learn how to organize our relationships with the non-human worldmore effectively and more ethically. For example, the growing realization inAustralia that the Aboriginal people made extensive use ofcontrolled fires tomanage their relationships with the landscapes that nurtured them has led to anawareness that the prevention offire in ‘wilderness areas’ is another form ofintervention. Fire prevention leads to such a build-up ofcombustible materialthat less frequent, but much more intense, ‘wild’ fires can have some devastatingconsequences (see Flannery, 1994; and Chapter 4 in this volume).In this book, the argument has been made that discussions focused uponthe necessary search for ‘sustainability’ must be broadened in order to embraceunderstandings ofthe colonial legacy, explorations ofthe contradictoryConclusions293
experiences ofdecolonization, and a critical review ofconservation languageand discourses. We passionately believe that the discussions currently takingplace in academic forums must be taken out ofthe academy and tested out inthe hard-edged world ofconservation policy and practice.Ofcourse, we acknowledge that the difficult search for sustainability ismade even more difficult by the acceleration ofhuman impacts resulting frompopulation growth, rampant consumerism and global tensions over access to‘natural resources’. Beset by growing anxieties, many conservationists willquestion the need for a wide-ranging discourse about the past. However, thepast is deeply embedded in present practices, ensuring that many ofthem arebecoming increasingly irrelevant and ineffective. Those ofus who care about‘nature’ (however we conceive ofit), and about conservation, must analyse thelegacy ofour past to equip ourselves much better for the future, no matter howurgent the immediate tasks might seem.While debates about the conservation ofnature are being held increasinglywithin a global context, experiences ofworking with the notion ofsustainabilityin different parts ofthe world suggest that effective strategies need to beemergent, localized and diverse in order to be locally relevant in natural termsand culturally sustainable in human terms (Adams, 2001). In the face oflargeand pressing challenges, conservationists cannot afford to be either timid orcomplacent. At the same time, we have the opportunity for dynamic renewal ata rather crucial moment in world history. Paradoxically, the building of aconservation ethic could become the fulcrum for a radical impulse towards theaffirmation oflife, diversity and coexistence.However, ifwe are to make the most ofnew opportunities, we must also bewilling to be very frank about boththe achievements and limitations ofconservation practice to date, and a number ofthe contributions to this volumemake, or repeat, some pretty tough criticisms of dominant conservationpractices. We suggest that six important criticisms have been made either directlyor implicitly:The first is that, in general, conservationists have an ongoing problem withtheir relations with indigenous people. While some have largely romanticizedthe world views ofindigenous people, and portrayed their impact on nature asqualitatively different from that ofother people, others have argued that theimpact ofall people on ‘nature’ is sufficiently harmful that all humans should beexcluded from protected areas. Nature needs to exist as ‘wilderness’. There hasbeen little exploration ofa middle ground, and little systematic understandingofthe form and extent ofhuman tenure ofland and engagement with natureeven in remote and biodiverse areas. Indigenous people, and indeed poor ruralpeople in general, are rarely able to exercise power or authority in discussionsabout conservation. Conservation is too often an alien idea descending fromsome remote expert, backed by state bureaucracy and, ifnecessary, coerciveforce.Secondly, while they claim to speak for all humanity, conservationists haverarely engaged in dialogue with those remote from corporate or metropolitan294Decolonizing Nature
power. In industrialized countries, conservationists have been distrustful ofthe‘ignorant’ general public, and this has highlighted the perception that natureconservation is an elite activity. In non-industrialized countries, conservationhas often been imposed by remote national and international organizations.Conservation is not, by and large, something people do, but something that isdone forthem (or, sometimes,tothem and their land).Thirdly, conservationists have largely failed to convince Third Worldsceptics that nature conservation demands (for example, to preserve therainforest or Africa’s more ‘awkward’ mega-fauna) are not hypocritical, in viewofthe First World’s exploitation ofthe Third World’s nature and wealth in orderto pay for First World industrialization. Conservationists in First and ThirdWorlds have not adequately demonstrated that the nature conservation theyadvocate is an essential requirement for just and sustainable societies. In theThird World, conservation still appears too often to impose controls oneconomic opportunities for the poor in order to protect a playground for therich.Fourthly, conservationists have become rigid and formulaic in their thinking,especially as they panic about the rate ofbiodiversity loss. As a result, they areunable to participate fully in action-oriented discussions about relations betweenpeople and nature on the ground. These require innovation, compromise andlateral thinking. Conservation practice has become locked within governmentprogrammes and procedures, and its boundaries are patrolled by special-interestnon-governmental organizations (NGOs). Despite the almost universal rhetoricof ‘community conservation’, conservationists tend to be staunch policyconservatives.Fifthly, conservationists have largely pursued national strategies in the faceofan increasingly globalized economy and its rapid and highly unequalconsumption of‘natural resources’. Conservationists frequently target localproblems and the impact upon nature ofthe resource demands ofthe ruralpoor; they are less good at addressing broader political and economic structuresand their impacts. Conservationists mostly deal with symptoms within nationalboundaries, and do not address root causes in the machinations ofthe worldeconomy,Sixthly, conservationists have been obsessed with ‘preservation’ andremoving human impacts upon nature. At is best, this determination has helpedhold back the worst excesses ofindustrialization and consumption. At its worst,it has denied the possibility ofpositive outcomes for interactions betweenhuman and non-human nature, and restricted conservation to a narrow set ofscientifically defined values. In particular, conservation theory is still based uponthe time-honoured concepts ofequilibrium ecology, although research is rapidlyrevealing the non-equilibrial characteristics ofecosystem change. These newscientific understandings challenge ideas about the ‘naturalness’ ofparticularstates ofecosystems; but conservationists have been reluctant to consider theimplications ofthis new thinking for their ideas about the interactions betweenpeople and nature. Driven by fear ofextinction rates, conservationists think onConclusions295
short time scales – decades and not centuries or millennia. Therefore, they oftenappear to be excessively conservative and afraid ofchange. This makes it hardfor them to be innovative, relaxed and exciting partners in thinking about newforms ofengagement between people and non-human nature.Some ofthese criticisms may be a little outdated as conservationists aroundthe world grapple with new ways ofmoving forward. Others may seem a littleharsh and prejudicial (aren’t other social movements faced with similarchallenges?). Yet, it is essential for the revitalization ofconservation practicethat we acknowledge that such criticisms have not only been stated, butsustained and explained (including within this volume). Ifwe are unable toaddress such criticisms in some detail, we will remain mired in our problematicpast.This challenge can be put in more positive terms. Conservation thinkingand practice needs to become more future oriented and more broadly appealing.Contributors to this book have suggested a number ofstrategies for doing justthat. For example, it has been suggested that we can:•Develop strategies that increase trans-national awareness and internationalcollaboration with regard to conservation initiatives.•Develop more flexible modes of thinking of what constitutes healthyecosystems and healthy relationships between people and nature.•Find ways ofinvolving a much broader range ofpeople in conservationwork.•Show people how they might turn their own sense ofalienation from natureinto proactive conservation work.•Broaden the appeal ofconservation work by demonstrating that it canengage the ‘heart’ as much as the mind.Some conservationists would suggest that this kind ofreformist agenda expectstoo much ofthem. Others might suggest that the challenges are much greaterthan this sort ofagenda implies. There is a lot to discuss here, and this book isjust one small contribution to this debate. Its framework has allowed us to bringtogether a diverse line-up ofboth scholars and practitioners who have set outsome of the ideas circulating in academia that we wanted to bring to theattention ofpractitioners, and to reflect some ofthe insights emanating fromthe lived experiences ofpractitioners. Some people manage to be scholars andpractitioners at the same time, and such double acts are not only impressive butprecious.It is only through reflexivity that conservationists can forge a new routeforwards, securing a truly sustainable social base and an acceptable relationshipwith humanity’s fellow travellers (that is, non-human life). Informed argument,to which we hope this book has contributed, is the first step in self-criticism andreflexive understanding.296Decolonizing Nature
ETHICAL ENGAGEMENTPerhaps the key conclusion ofthis book is that conservationists need to movefrom preservationist ideologies to new forms ofethical engagement with theland. The challenge to make this shift has come, in part, from indigenous people(see, for example, Chapter 4) and from the literature on post-colonialism (seeChapters 2 and 3). It has also come from environmental historians and scientistswho have reviewed the history ofdiverse relationships between people andnon-human environments (see, for example, Flannery, 1994; Cronon, 1995).And it has also come from the shifts taking place in the way that the Westernmind understands natural processes and the acceptance ofthe complexity andunpredictability ofnatural processes (see Chapter 10). From all ofthese sources,it has become increasingly apparent that non-engagement is simply not anoption;but the questions remain:what constitutes an ethicalform ofengagement; and how can we ‘negotiate’ outcomes that respect the sometimesdivergent needs ofhumans and non-humans?Ofcourse, there is no simple answer to these questions. And there is noanswer that doesn’t involve some forms ofcompromise or ‘loss’. Certainly,indigenous peoples have commonly had countless generations ofexperience inmanaging their relationships with the non-human in order to inflict minimaldamage and, sometimes, to ensure mutually beneficial outcomes. However, for awide range ofreasons, traditional ways ofliving have been, and will continue tobe, compromised. Pre-colonial practices are only partially relevant. Furthermore,strictly local approaches to healing relationships between human and non-human have limited appeal because they fail to challenge dominant practices ofconsumerist Westernized societies, and because the environmental ‘problems’have grown from the local to the global. As Hector Magome and JamesMurombedzi demonstrate in Chapter 5, nature conservation challenges quicklyspread from the local to the trans-national, bringing into play local, regional,national and international social and political institutions. For conservationists,the 1970s slogan ‘Think globally and act locally’ needs to be replaced by a morediscursive dictum such as ‘Think and act locally, nationally, trans-nationally andglobally all at the same time, and do so in an ethical way’.Not surprisingly, many well-meaning individuals feel overwhelmed by thecomplexity of this task and pin their hopes on national governments andinternational agencies to ‘solve’ the problems. The history ofthe 20th century,in particular, offers no reason to have confidence in this hope and, at any rate, itshould not be left to representative institutions to grapple with the complexitiesofethical behaviour. For a ‘land ethic’ to become a reality, it must grow fromthe daily practice ofthe people who see a need to mount an effective challengeto prevailing attitudes and practices. In his book How Are We To Live?(1995),the controversial Australian ethicist and pioneer of‘animal liberation’ PeterSinger offers hope to the overwhelmed by saying that an applied notion ofethicssuggests that the best any ofus can do is to minimizethe harm that we mightinflict on other humans and non-human life. To internalize such an ‘applied’Conclusions297
ethical code – so that ethical behaviour becomes almost intuitive – we needdeep awareness ofthe kinds ofimpacts our actions can have, sometimes a verylong way from where we live and work. We need deep understanding ofthe wayin which ecological systems work; but, at the same time, we should abandonattempts at ethical purity that are based upon rigid and dogmatic patterns ofthought.A willingness to act on the basis ofethical compromise can also helpconservationists in their complex dealings with people and organizations whomay share only part oftheir conservation goals. As Penelope Figgis points outin Chapter 9, active conservationists are being faced with more complex optionsfor furthering their conservation agendas, sometimes even ‘supping with thedevil’ in order to achieve better negotiated outcomes. Ofcourse, many writershave pointed out (see, for example, Beder, 2000) that compromises can easilyreach the point where they undermine conservation goals and even strengthenanti-conservation forces. Again, it is a question ofdeveloping applied ethicalcodes that grow out ofdeep ecological understanding and experience with thecomplex political processes that are part ofany negotiation across competingagendas.So, we reach the end ofa book that has probably raised more questionsthan answers. As editors, we started with some ambitious aims and we knewthat the book could only address them partially. We have been both delightedand challenged by the way our contributors have developed their arguments;their independent contributions deserve to stand in their own right. Readers willsurely detect differences ofopinion and differences ofemphasis betweencontributors. However, this is just as it should be, for the dialogue we are hopingto foster is difficult and complex. When we conceived this book we wanted toshow how much work there is to be done in decolonizing attitudes towards bothpeople and nature. Our contributors have demonstrated that this work is notonly urgent and necessary, but also highly stimulating. The challenge ofacolonial heritage is one that conservation movements must face. Ifwe do sowithout flinching, and in a spirit ofinnovation, there is much strengthconservationists can draw from the deep past in order to help in uncertain andchallenging futures.NOTES1 The term ‘land ethic’ was coined by US conservation pioneer Aldo Leopold; but itseems very appropriate to our purposes here.REFERENCESAdams, W M (2001) Green Development: environment and sustainability in the Third World.Routledge, London298Decolonizing Nature
Beder, S (2000) Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism, second edition.Scribe Publications, MelbourneCronon, W (1995) ‘The trouble with wilderness; or, getting back to the wrong nature’in W Cronon (ed) Uncommon Ground: toward reninventing nature. W W Norton and Co,New York, pp69–90Flannery, T (1994) The Future Eaters: An Ecological History ofthe Australasian Lands andPeople.Reed Books, MelbourneSinger, P (1995) How Are We To Live? Ethics In An Age ofSelf-Interest. Mandarin,MelbourneConclusions299
Aboriginesbackgrounding 57development 96–99empathetic engagement 274–277Eurocentrism 8–9, 60hunting 86–87land management 84–85, 93–96,96–99, 202place names 72, 74rights 99–100, 268–269, 275–276sense ofplace 175, 176–181, 186,194–195storied landscapes 72, 277–278, 286see alsoAustralia; indigenous peopleaccess to countryside 261acclimatization societies 71accumulation 147–148acquisition ofland 209–210, 258, 260activism 191, 197–219Africaconservationism 30–31development initiatives 27–28hunting 37–38impacts ofcolonialism 20–21national parks 41, 121–127non-equilibrium ecology 241protected areas 40wilderness 34see alsoBotswana; South Africa;southern Africa; Zimbabweagreements 208, 211–212, 214, 215agricultureEurocentrism 64–65forest management 32SANParks 118science and development 27, 28technology and soil erosion 31–32UK 248, 251, 255altruism 129anthropocentrism 53, 54–55, 292anthropogenic ecosystems 220–221apartheid 109–110, 117–119, 119see alsoracismacquisition ofland 209–210assimilation 57–58, 64–68, 71–72Australiabiodiversity and indigenous people82–86conservation practices 8–9, 30development 178environmental movement 197–219hunting 86–87place relationships 63–65, 67–69,71–75, 172–196, 181plant transfer 21rational management 28traditional resource rights 99–100wilderness 62see alsoAboriginesThe Australian Bush Heritage Fund 210awareness 298backgrounding 56–57, 60–61, 66balance ofnature 10, 17, 222–223Balmoralization 156, 166belonging 178–183binitjstories 72biodiversityAustralia 198CDIs 116–117credits 215hot-spots 109, 117indigenous people 82–86TFCAs 122–123UK 247–248wilderness 17, 62bioregionalism 200–201, 203–204,215–216Index
biospheric Others 60bird populations 65, 248The Black Hole 248–249Bookmark Biosphere Reserve 204Borschmann, Gregg 281, 282–283Botswana 122–123, 126boundary sites 278British Empire 1, 3–5, 10, 291–292bureaucratic control 165Bush Dreaming 281bush regeneration 282BushTender 214Cambridgeshire Fens 226, 254–263CAMPFIRE seeCommunal AreaManagement Programme forIndigenous ResourcesCanada 101–102CAP seeCaracas Action Plancapitalism 3, 29Caracas Action Plan (CAP) 200–202Carnarvon Station 209–210Carter, Paul 282Cartesian dualism 22CBD seeConvention on BiologicalDiversityCBNRM seecommunity–based naturalresources managementCDIs seeconservation and developmentinitiativescentric relationships 51–53, 59–63,64–65chalk grassland 220–221childhood places 185, 285CITES seeConvention on InternationalTrade in Endangered Species ofWild Fauna and Floracivilization 51classification 24–25, 26, 43, 164,223–224, 225Clearances 155, 166climate change 252CMN seeConservation ManagementNetworkscollaboration 85, 88–89colonizationcentric structures 51–53conservation 1land relationships 63–67, 271, 272perceptions 274–277Scotland 153–154coloured reserves 117Columbus 70–71commerceindigenous people 79–81, 88multiple-use zones 201, 202, 216scientific knowledge 26small-scale 97wildlife harvesting 82, 85–86Communal Area ManagementProgramme for IndigenousResources (CAMPFIRE) 141–149communal land 127–129, 138, 139,141–149communitiesbioregionalism 204fen restoration 261–263Highland conservation 153, 157–158,161–164national parks 126–127, 128, 130community-based natural resourcesmanagement (CBNRM) 116, 135,136–137, 140–141, 142compensationindigenous rights 99, 101, 104, 111,113, 115landowners 159, 162, 211traditional knowledge 81compromise 207, 298concessions 112–113, 119, 137, 202conflictsdevelopment and conservation127–129, 131forest conservation 172–173heritage 174, 175indigenous and conservationist groups80–81national parks 120, 128–129Scottish Highlands 158–164, 159–160,166sustainability 293–295connectivity 206consciousness 190–191conservation and development initiatives(CDIs) 116–117Conservation Management Networks(CMN) 213–214constituencies 199–200, 201–202Index301
contract national parks 118–120, 130contradictory feelings 280control ofnature 138–140, 220–246,234–237, 238, 239–240convenants 212–213Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD) 10, 81–82, 88Convention on International Trade inEndangered Species ofWild Faunaand Flora (CITES) 92, 103conventionalism 70cooperation 130, 208see alsomultiple-use modelscorridors 200–201, 248, 250country 276crocodile farms 97–98crofters 161–164, 166–167, 167Crosby, Alfred 19–20cultureassumption 90baggage 284blindness 86–87fen restoration 261–263hegemonic dualism 61, 62Highland 163–164, 164indigenous rights 203place relationships 68, 73, 180,193–195polarization 56traditional practices 162, 166wildness 272dams 23–24, 236, 237decision-making 90, 91, 95deep naming 72deep republicanism 73deepening into place 285democratization 108–109denial 56–57, 57dependency 57, 61desertification 221, 231, 232developmentAfrica 27–28Australia 178conservation conflicts 127–129, 131ecology 25–28indigenous responses 96–99protected areas 43–44strategies 4, 6terminology 12devolution 144–145dialogue 187, 292–293, 294–295disease 20–21disequilibrium 227–229, 232–234dispossession 59–60, 109–110, 114–115,118, 127disturbance 227, 228dominance 19–20Drayton, Richard 22dreamtime stories 279drift lanes 270drought, soil erosion 31drylands 229–231, 232–234Drysdale, Russell 270–271dual systems 119, 138, 141dualism 53, 54–59Dutch fens 252–253Earth Sanctuaries 210East Anglian Fen Basin 253–263ecological aspectsapartheid 119development 25–28equilibrium 223–229new range 232restoration 237–240, 241, 247–267,290economic aspectsconservation conflicts 295indigenous people 79–81, 203land restoration 260, 261education 121, 189, 194, 212, 285empathetic engagement 274–277, 284employment 117, 145–146engagement with nature 42–43enhanced culture shock 2enlightenment 3, 22, 292, 293environmental aspectsactivism 191, 197–219Australian movement 197–219degradation ofnature 29–33education 194, 285place and indigeneity 185–193racism 80–81, 88equilibrium ecology 220–246, 295equity 90, 104essentialism 181–183estate systems 155–161, 166302Decolonizing Nature
ethical engagement 297–298ethnobiological programmes 88–89ethnoscapes 157Eurocentrism 51–53, 64–65Europecolonialism 10Enlightenment 3, 22place relationships 181–183, 190eviction 230–231, 234exclusion 41–42, 66, 230–231, 234, 292,294–295exotic species 21–22experiential learning 183–185, 188, 193exploitation 84–85extinctionAboriginal belief95Australia 64, 65, 83–84concern 33, 295–296indigenous ownership 83, 84national parks 41UK 247–248, 250, 257, 258extractive uses 201, 204–207FATE seeFuture ofAustralia’sThreatened Ecosystemsfens 226, 249–250, 252–263feral animals 210feral names 72fire 98, 293firearms 86–87fishing 207flood control 236–237, 255forests 26–27, 32, 159–160, 172–174,192fractal geometry ofnature 228fragmentation 213–214, 248, 254funding 212–213, 262–263Future ofAustralia’s ThreatenedEcosystems (FATE) 204Future Nature2GABMP seeGreat Australian BightMarine Parkgamehunting 36–39, 121, 137, 140,145–146, 157–158reserves 40, 114–116gardens 2, 272Gaza-Kruger-Gonarezhou 123–124geomorphology 239–240globalization 178, 182GLTP seeGreat Limpopo Trans-FrontierParkgovernance 83governments 125–126, 127, 199–200,297grazing 221, 229–230Great Australian Bight Marine Park(GABMP) 207Great Barrier Reef206Great Limpopo Trans-Frontier Park(GLTP) 123–124, 126–127green belts 260Grove, Richard 18, 19Gurindji people 268–269harvesting ofwildlife 85–86, 97–99healing relationships 184, 185hegemony 51–52, 59–63Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) 253,262–263Highland conservation 152–171hippopotamus mythology 279–280HLF seeHeritage Lottery Fundhomogenization 55household accumulation 147, 148housing 260human-centredness 54, 67, 69humansaction 221, 222–223, 228development 52occupation ofwilderness 34–35huntinggame 36–39, 121, 137, 140, 145–146sporting estates 157–158, 166subsistence 86–87, 100–102hydrological regimes 258, 259hydropower schemes 236hyper-separation 54–55, 56see alsoradical exclusionIBP seeThe International BiologicalProgrammeiconography 156–157identity ofthe place 182, 183ideologies 5–7, 17, 18–19immigration 177imperialism seeBritish EmpireIndex303
imported management regimes 65, 83,175–176incentive mechanisms 211–215incorporation 57–58independencecolonial legacy 5–6extinctions 33independent land associations 179–180,181, 187independent trust models 210Indian rights 101indigenous peoplecapacity building 234conservationism 8–9, 294empathetic engagement 274–277, 297global colonization 79–107instrumentalism 59national parks 41–42pastoral management 230–231place relationships 71–72, 73, 74,185–193protected areas 207–209, 215rationality 52–53rights 87–88, 135–137, 202–203,292–293settler societies 6, 7wilderness 34–35, 62see alsoaboriginesIndigenous Protected Areas (IPAs)programme 207–209, 215individualization 188industrialization 295inferiority 54–55, 58, 65, 155insensitivity 59–60institutionalization 142–143, 295instrumentalism 59, 69–70intellectual integrity 93intensive farming techniques 251interactive responsibility 276international aspectsCITES 103land conflicts 128–129responsibility 297sustainability 28The International Biological Programme(IBP) 165–166interventionist approach 225–227, 248introduced species 21–22Inuit hunting rights 101–102IPAs seeIndigenous Protected Areasirrigation 23, 176island biogeography 250–251islands to networks approach 200–201joint management 116, 120–121, 202–203justice 90, 104Kadadu National Park 286Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park 122–123,126knowledgelocal 83, 84, 88–89, 146, 164, 166non-indigenous 185–186Kruger National Park 114–119, 120–121,123landacquisition 209–210, 258, 260dispossession 59–60, 109–110,114–115, 118, 127lowering 252management 84–85, 93–99, 128–129,202reform 110–111, 135–136, 140–141,153, 157–158relationships 63–67, 72, 93–96, 271,272tenure 139–140, 152, 275–276landscapesbelonging 179classification of24–25, 163, 164perceptions 273–274storied 72, 268–299learning 65, 187, 193–195legal systems 141The Lion King16–17livestock 120lowlands 247–267McDonald, Roger 281–282Makuleke people 115–119, 120–121, 123,124, 126, 128managementCMN 213–214equilibrium 221–222imported regimes 65, 83, 175–176indigenous people 84–85, 93–96intervention 225–227304Decolonizing Nature
national parks 113, 116, 118–121rangeland 229–231rational 26–27, 28resource 6, 141–149river 240traditional 256wildlife 135–151, 158–160marginalization 4, 66–67, 81marine environments 205–207market mechanisms 214–215Marsh, George Perkin 222–223Massey, Doreen 181–183, 189mechanisms 211–215media coverage 262mining 205mobility 182modernization 155, 166monitoring 98monological land relationships 64, 67, 72The Monte Bello Islands 207Mozambique 123–124, 126–127multiple place names 74multiple stories approach 193multiple-use models 201, 204–207,215–216Murray, Les 284Murray River 68, 176Nama people 112–113, 119–120, 123,126, 127, 128Namibia 124–125naming 24–25, 67–75, 181, 189, 269, 279Nantawarrina 208narratives 66, 72national parksAustralia 197–198, 199conflicts 120, 128–129establishment 39–41hunting 38Scottish Highlands 159South Africa 108–134wilderness 35–36see alsoprotected areas; reserves; SitesofSpecial Scientific InterestNational Representative System ofMarine Protected Areas (NRSMPA)205–206National Reserves System, Australia 198,208, 209national strategies 88–89, 295The National Trust 255–263native hunting 37–38, 41, 86–87,100–101naturalization 16–17naturalness 234–237, 295nature, definitions 33neo-Europes 4, 19–20, 35see alsosettler societiesnetworks 213–214new range ecology 232New Zealand 102NGOs seenon-governmentalorganizationsnon-Aboriginal Australians 178–181non-equilibrium ecology 10, 227–229,241, 295non-governmental organizations(NGOs) 125–126, 127, 160non-humanscentrism 52–60, 291human separation 39, 43indigenous beliefs 36, 90, 93, 95–96place relationships 66, 67, 72North America 8nostalgia 71–72NRSMPA seeNational RepresentativeSystem ofMarine Protected Areasoppression 52Orientalism 4–5Others 53, 54–59, 60, 65overgrazing 221, 229–230, 231, 232–233ownership 68, 152, 156, 157–158paradise 29, 125–126partnerships 262pastoral management 229–231, 241paternalism 17peat 258perceptions 42–43, 91, 273–277, 287person–place relationships 183–184placedeepening into 285names 24, 25, 67–75, 181, 189, 269,279relationships 162–163, 172–196,269–271responsive society 287Index305
planning 234plant transfer 21–22poaching 37, 38–39poetic politics 268–299polarization 56, 60, 61–62political aspectsbioregionalism 201democratization 108–109highland conservation 152–153independence 5–6national parks 41, 127–129place names 70–71poetic 268–299population 257positivism 70poverty 146–148power 125, 126, 138–139Pratt, Mary 24pre-colonial equilibrium 20prediction 240preservationalism 10, 32–33, 295, 297private sanctuary models 209–211, 216privatization 210–211, 216producer communities 144production 147, 231productivity 232progressive rationalized planning 166property 94–95, 135–137protected areasAustralia 198, 199development 43–44establishment 10, 39–41hunting 37IPAs 207–209Scottish Highlands 162South Africa 109succession 227see alsonational parks; reserves; Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interestpsychic assertion 176–177public parks 210–211qualitative accumulation 147, 148quantitative accumulation 147–148racism 80–81, 88, 146see alsoapartheidradical exclusion 54–55, 66see alsohyper-separationrangeland management 229–231rational management 26–27, 28rationality 22–24, 52–53, 63re-enchantment 285, 290, 291re-ordering ofnature 23–24Read, Peter 178–179, 180–181, 185–186reclaiming land seerestitutionrecontructionism 161red deer 159–160redistribution ofland 110reductionism 53reflective environmentalism 191–192reformconservation strategies 296Highlands 153, 157–158land 110–111, 135–136, 140–141, 153,157–158regeneration 159–160regularity 286–287regulation 30–31, 39–42, 43, 103renaming 67–71, 181, 189, 279see alsonaming; place namesrepresentation 280–281republicanism 73reserves 198–199, 220–221, 235–236,250, 256see alsonational parks; protected areas;Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interestresource management 6, 141–144responsibility 95, 199–200, 276, 297responsiveness 193–195, 287restitution ofland 110–116restorationecological 237–240, 241, 247–267, 290rights 202retreat ofgovernment 199–200revenues 144, 148revolving funds 212–213Richtersveld Ai-Ais TFCA 124–125, 127Richtersveld National Park 112–113,116–120, 123rightsAborigines 99–100, 268–269, 275–276indigenous 87–88, 89, 99–103,135–137, 202–203, 292–293306Decolonizing Nature
restitution 110–116tenure 110–111, 128, 130, 140–141wildlife management 143, 144see alsotraditional resource rightsRiver Cole 238rivers 122, 236–239, 240romanticism 154, 155Rose, Deborah Bird 276–277Roudaire, Élie 23safari industry 145–146see alsogame huntingSan people 122, 126sanctuary models 216scale 92, 97Schama, Simon 271scientific knowledgecolonial ideology 42, 43, 165commerce 26conservationism 30–31ecology 25–28, 163equilibrium 225, 226, 228–229prioritization 90, 164rangeland management 229–230river restoration 238Scotland 152–171Scott, James 25sea levels 252The Sea Mounts ofTasmania 207Seddon, George 285semi-natural vegetation 220–221sense ofplace 172–196sensitivity 66, 67, 69settler societies 4, 6, 7, 36, 178–180, 273see alsoneo-Europessingle, large or several small principle(SLOSS) 125, 126Sites ofSpecial Scientific Interest (SSSIs)compensation 159, 250local culture 162lowlands 248–249, 254–255, 258SLOSS seesingle, large or several smallprinciplesmall-scale commerce 97social aspectsnaturalization ofrelations 16organization impacts 20–21simplification 25space relationships 182–183structures 117–118sustainability 201–202Society for the Preservation ofthe WildFauna ofthe Empire (SPWFE)32–33, 38, 41soil erosion 31–32songlines 277South Africa 10, 108–134, 122–124Southern Africa 135–151space relationships 182–183, 278, 290spiritualism 176–177, 179, 181sporting estates 157–158, 166SPWFE seeSociety for the Preservationofthe Wild Fauna ofthe EmpireSSSIs seeSites ofSpecial ScientificIntereststandardization ofnature 43, 165state control 138–140statutory resource rights 99–100stereotyping 55stewardship agreements 208, 214, 215stocking rates 232–233storied landscapes 72, 268–299strategiesconservation 2–3, 7–8development 4, 6structural aspectsproblems 188–189sense ofplace 194subsistencehunting 86–87, 100–102stocking rates 233succession 221, 224, 227support 201–202suppression 80supremacism 53, 55, 56survivalist discourse 197sustainability 28, 86–89, 99–103,293–295sustainable development 17sustainable society 193–194systems thinking 251taxation 144–145taxonomy seeclassificationtenure 110–111, 128, 130, 139–141, 152,275–276Index307
terra nullius20, 57, 62, 99, 269, 275–276TFCAs seetrans-frontier conservationareasThird World views 295time–space compression 182totemic affiliations 95tourism 120–121, 124, 130, 140, 145–146traditional aspectsauthority 141, 143cultural practices 162, 166management 256resource rights 81–82, 92–93, 99–103,104training 121, 130, 146trans-frontier conservation areas(TFCAs) 21–107, 121–127travelling 277–279treaty rights 100–103tribal authorities 141The Trust for Nature (Victoria) 212–213UK seeUnited KingdomUK Biodiversity Action Plan252uniformity 4–5United Kingdom 8, 241, 247–267United States ofAmerica 34, 38, 39,100–101see alsoNorth Americaurban areas 73–74, 282urbanization 177us–them polarization 56, 60value 91–92, 153, 167, 236vegetation 220–221, 224, 232–233, 248vertical zoning 207Victorian Britain 3Victorian Land for Wildlife scheme211–212voluntary conservation agreements211–212The Walalkara Indigenous ProtectedArea 208–209walking 277–278Wamsley, John 210–211The Watarru Indigenous Protected Area208–209water 23–24, 100–101, 259wetlands 249–250whaling 102white man got no dreaming 175, 179whitefella dreaming 281–282, 283Wicken Fen 255–263wildernessconcepts of8, 33–36fires 293human exclusion 235–236, 292, 294polarization 61–62sanctuary models 216Scottish Highlands 163wildlifeharvesting 85–86, 97–99, 148indigenous people 86–89management 135–151, 158–160preservation 32–33wildness ofnature 235, 272women 54, 55, 56, 57–58Woodwalton Fen 226Wordsworth, William 273Wright, Judith 274–275, 283The Yalata Indigenous Protected Area208Zimbabwe 123–124, 141–149308Decolonizing Nature