Conservation in Africa Peoples, Policies and Practice [Paperback]

Sixteen interdisciplinary essays on topics ranging from wildlife management to soil conservation, the Cape in the 19th century to Ethiopia in the 1980s, reveal the integral role of conservation policies in Africa's future.Sixteen interdisciplinary essays on topics ranging from wildlife management to soil conservation, the Cape in the 19th century to Ethiopia in the 1980s, reveal the integral role of conservation policies in Africa's future.A new, interdisciplinary look at the practices and policies of conservation in Africa is presented in this volume. For the first time social scientists, anthropologists, and historians have been brought together with biologists, in order to illuminate previously neglected yet critically important social aspects of conservation thinking. The book is introduced by an overview of African conservation in the past, present, and future. There are sixteen papers on a wide range of topics from wildlife management to soil conservation, and from the Cape in the nineteenth century to Ethiopia in the 1980s. These collectively show that conservation must form an integral part of future policies for human development. To date, conservation has been largely the domain of the biologist, but the current ecological crisis in Africa and the failure of orthodox conservation policies demand a radical new appraisal of conventional practices. This, therefore, is essential reading for all those concerned about people and conservation in Africa.Preface; List of contributors; Introduction: the scramble for Eden: past, present and future in African conservation David Anderson and Richard Grove; Part I. Conservation Ideologies in Africa: Introduction William Beinart; 1. Early themes in African conservation: the Cape in the nineteenth century Richard Grove; 2. Chivalry, social Darwinism and ritualised killing: the hunting ethos in Central Africa up to 1914 John M. MacKenzie; 3. Colonialism, capitalism and ecological crisis in Malawi: a reassessment Jl#!