Wildlife Conservation Areas in East Africa: An Application of Field Theory in Political Geography

Abstract

WILDLIFE CONSERVATION AREAS IN EAST AFRICA: AN APPLICATION OF FIELD THEORY IN POLITICAL GEOGRAPHY Harm J. de Blij and Donald L. Capone* Like many other countries in Africa and the remainder of the developing world, the young states of East Africa are presently reorganizing their political structures and, in so far as possible, reorienting their economies to reflect new goals and aspirations. In the political arena, the familiar trend toward the one-party state prevails: the conditions under which indepen­ dence was achieved have already been greatly modified. Tanzania has attained one-party status; in Kenya the organized opposition to the govern­ ment (K.A.N.U.) party is losing on all fronts under heavy pressure; and in Uganda the power and influence of the traditionalist Buganda Kingdom, which extracted federal guarantees at independence, were submerged in a nationalist revolution that came after sovereignty had been acquired. (1) In the economic sphere, the three republics also have chosen individual directions. The central concern, of course, is land and the policies relating to its ownership. The British left Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya with laws and attitudes which reflected alien as well as African objectives. Tan­ zania has undertaken a communalization program for which freehold tenure was replaced by leasehold tenure; land in effect became the property of the state, and fanners were organized into multi-tribal cooperative villages under the control of party and government. (2) Heterogeneous Uganda has decided on a policy of tribal autonomy so far as land ownership is con­ cerned, which in principle means that different sorts of individual land tenure prevail. And Kenya, whose land issue helped provoke the Mau Mau revolt of the 1950’s, has seen the end of racial restrictions in the fertile and productive Highlands, where vacated European estates became available for African use. Even before independence, a successful program of land consolidation was in progress, and now the country’s hopes are pinned— in contrast to Tanzania—upon a large and productive base of African smallholders. (3) Whether owned by the state, by national groups, or by individuals, land is the chief concern for the overwhelming majority of East Africans. All East African states depend for their external trade as well as local sub­ sistence upon the products of the soil; mineral resources have but minor *Dr. de Blij is professor and chairman of geography, and Mr. Capone is assistant professor of geography, at University of Miam i, Coral Gables, Florida. The paper was accepted for publication in July 1969. Vol. IX, No. 2 95 importance in the economic picture. Land drew the European settlers to the region, and land became the central political issue during the colonial period. East Africa certainly had its share of ill-considered inter-terri­ torial boundary delimitation as well as ill-advised intra-territorial boundary shifting, especially in the case of Kenya’s ‘native reserves’. Not surprisingly, land was a major theme of African politicians when the colonial period drew to a close, and hopes were sometimes falsely raised that the end of British rule would constitute a solution to existing land problems. Un­ sympathetic outsiders saw indications that the commercially productive Kenya Highlands would revert to non-remunerative subsistence, and that East Africa’s great wildlife heritage would fall to the encroachment of tribal peoples and their livestock. Wildlife conservation, after all, had been a totally foreign innovation in black Africa; African peoples had within living memory been deprived of their land for this purpose. PURPOSE. Although the pressures on the wildlife conservation areas of East Africa, since independence, have been severe and in some instances damaging, the fact is that the Africans have strengthened prevailing con­ servation policies. Moreover, they have come to grips with issues which the colonial government, by virtue of its imposed, non-consent administration, could conveniently submerge. In recent years, tourism, almost all of it attracted by the region’s wildlife, has grown rapidly: Kenya’s foreign exchange earnings from this industry, estimated at $20 million in 1964, had more than doubled by 1967. (4) Far from abandoning their wildlife heritage, the governments of East Africa have recognized both its value and the responsibilities involved in its protection. Large...