CHAPTER 3:

The Roots of Sustainable Conservation:

The Precolonial Period

My time in Kenya and Tanzania profoundly impressed upon me the beauty and diversity of the geography of East Africa. Some of my most awe-inspiring experiences took place in the presence of the Maasai, a pastoralist people who have lived throughout Kenya and Tanzania for hundreds of years, and who have lived as pastoralists for thousands of years. It never ceased to amaze me how extensive was the knowledge of the Maasai people in regards to the land, its ecological processes, and the pastoralists' dependence upon it for subsistence and survival. An encounter I had with several Maasai elders in the Melepo Hills east of Kenya's capital city, Nairobi, illustrates the Maasai's broad-based knowledge of the environment and their sense of connection with the land. Melepo is a semi-arid region located in the Kajiado District of Kenya, at an elevation of about 6000 feet above sea level, dominated by acacia woodlands and scrub. A number of Maasai families live in the hills in individual settlements, and for several weeks I explored Melepo with Maasai elders from the area. I was constantly amazed by their intimate familiarity with different plant and animal species, the medicinal and culturally-significant uses of each, the location of precious water sources in the semi-arid land, and the pastoralists' frequent expressions of respect and love for the world around them. The time that I spent with the Maasai revealed to me important characteristics of their traditional knowledge and ideological understandings of their place within the ecological dynamics of East African geography. The Maasai held a deep reverence for the animals and plants around them, and felt a deep connection with the semi-arid landscape of East Africa. This connection with the land was absolutely necessary in allowing the Maasai to survive as a cultural group and physically as a people; based on the semi-arid and drought-prone conditions of the Melepo Hills, the Maasai had developed low-impact strategies (such as nomadic movement of families and livestock which allowed for the long-term fertility of the land), relied on minimal forms of technological exploitation, and shaped their sociocultural values in close connection with the world around them, to allow the Maasai to survive within the harsh, fragile conditions of the acacia woodlands. Their entire way of relating to the world and to each other demanded a deep understanding of ecological processes, and land management strategies that were the least destructive and the most sustainable for maintaining lasting human and environmental stability. The Maasai impressed upon me the importance of traditional knowledge - especially in the fragile, semi-arid environments that account for the majority of the surface area in the East Africa Region - in preserving the balance between human and environmental survival for the past several thousand years in Kenya and Tanzania.

Precolonial Sustainability in East Africa

It is a common misconception of "Northern" environmentalists and officials alike that "conservation" - the protection of the environment to ensure ecological sustainability - began with projects (such as terracing and reforestation) and park/reserve systems imposed by the British with the arrival of the colonial period in East Africa. But indigenous forms of land management - of which the Maasai provide only one example - allowed for the sustainability of African resources, ecosystems, and human communities, for thousands of years before European exploration and colonization were forced upon the East African geography. Throughout the diverse ecosystems and cultural regions of East Africa, precolonial Kenya and Tanzania were characterized by an amazing amount of wildlife and plant species, and human groups that sustained themselves and their environment for millennia. Human groups did not always exist in peaceful harmony with nature, as the dehumanizing and condescending romantizations of British colonists maintained. The colonial notion of the "noble savage," of the "native and game alike... wandering happily and freely" (Lindsay, 1987: 152) in the African "wilderness," disregarded the tensions between human groups and the difficulties of survival characterized by the precolonial experience in East Africa. Although different cultural groups did tend to coexist in a state of "symbiosis" in which "they agreed to exchange goods to their mutual advantage, considerable conflict" (Rodney, 1981: 45) nonetheless arose between different cultural groups - particularly between pastoralists and agriculturalists in East Africa - over resource rights and means of subsistence, especially when these threatened the survival of social and ecological systems in certain areas (e.g. pastoralist raids and cattle grazing could prove disastrous for agriculturalist efforts at cultivation, irrigation, and crop production). The African environment was also not a "wilderness" that indigenous peoples "happily" coexisted with; regardless of the ecological region, cultural groups were forced to deal with seasonal fluctuations manifested in the form of drought, flooding, and disease outbreaks that consistently presented East African peoples with the possibility of famine, starvation, crop failure, and increased mortality rates. The East African people and environment did not coexist easily; precolonial peoples actively and purposively made use of certain land management strategies, forms of traditional knowledge, and mutually beneficial relationships with various cultural groups to maintain ecological and sociocultural sustainability in the East Africa Region. Human societies throughout Kenya and Tanzania - from the pastoralist Samburu to the agriculturalist Akamba and Kikuyu - were able to maintain social and ecological stability and sustainability during the precolonial era, based on a number of important factors in human organization, human-environmental relationships, and aspects of the East African geography.

A deconstruction of precolonial social and ecological sustainability is essential, not only because it indicates how and why East African, traditional societies were able to sustain themselves and the land, but also because it reveals ways in which certain human-environmental dynamics must function, in connection with aspects of East African geography, for ecological sustainability and conservation to work effectively within the modern Kenyan and Tanzanian contexts. A deconstruction of precolonial conservation of social and ecological systems also reveals the ways in which important dynamics - such as population density, levels of technology, and dominant ideological models - are significant determinants of the potential for the long-term success of certain precolonial land management strategies and forms of traditional knowledge, especially in regards to the changing dynamics of ecological and social sustainability in the modern era. Some of the most important factors contributing to precolonial systems of ecological sustainability and social stability include: techniques of sustainability; local control of resources; sustainability as the primary means of social survival; renewable exploitation of resources; a spiritual and aesthetic reverence for the environment; the preservation of animal/plant species through poaching taboos; the importance of community member connections to each other and to the land; low population densities; low levels of technology; and gender divisions. A deconstruction of these factors, and a consideration of their applicability to modern systems of conservation and development, are considered below.

Aspects of East African Sustainability

Although the precolonial East African geography was made up of a number of different cultural groups ranging from hunters-and-gatherers to agriculturalists, the traditional knowledge of precolonial East African peoples in general, included a number of important, defining characteristics which contributed to sustainability of ecosystems and social systems throughout the region. Wamalwa (1991), in her consideration of traditional natural resource management systems in East Africa, stresses that "precolonial society was geared towards the conservation objective" (36). Given the low levels of technology employed by traditional East African societies, the harsh environmental pressures of the East Africa Region, and the fragility of the environment - particularly in the arid and semi-arid areas (ASALs) - traditional societies were forced to develop ideological systems and resource management systems that respected and sustained the ecological factors of the environment, simply to allow for the survival of human communities and cultural groups. While East African natural resources provided communities with means of basic subsistence, they were also riddled with the uncertainties of drought, flooding, wind storms, and disease epidemics. In order to survive as human communities in the short and long term, precolonial peoples were forced to interact with the environment respectfully, intimately, and sustainably. The "conservation objective," then, represented for precolonial peoples the sustainable resource use of the natural environment and the continuing survival of human communities.

This "conservation objective" was reinforced in practice - through techniques of sustainable, natural resource management - and in ideology - through spiritual and aesthetic considerations of the environment - to allow for the reproduction of indigenous systems of social and ecological sustainability in Kenya and Tanzania. Resource management strategies varied depending on the ecosystem and the cultural group concerned, but generally relied upon low population densities and low technology levels predominant in precolonial Kenya and Tanzania, to effectively preserve ecological diversity and fertility. Pastoral groups made use of a "rotational system of rangeland use that combined a livestock-based economy with sound regimes for the environment" (Parkipuny et. al., 1993: 113). The rotational system allowed cattle to range in migratory patterns that did not focus on and overburden the fertility of limited areas. Pastoralists' focus on a milk diet through their cattle also allowed them to subsist without degrading wildlife numbers significantly (except when massive livestock deaths from disease epidemics or drought demanded it). "The nomadic grazing strategies of Africa's traditional pastoralists also ensured a healthy grass sward around permanent waters, further facilitating the harmonious coexistence of domestic livestock and wild herbivores" (Owen-Smith, 1993: 58). Agriculturalists made use of shifting cultivation techniques - by burning forests or allowing fields to remain fallow based on rotational cycles - that preserved the fertility of the soil and allowed for long-term sustainable resource use (again, while the population densities in East Africa remained low). Rodney (1981) is correct in recognizing that "shifting cultivation with burning and light hoe was not as childish as the first European colonialists supposed. That simple form of agriculture was based on a correct evaluation of the soil potential" (40) based on hundreds of years of precolonial experience with sustainable resource management. Precolonial agriculturalists also made use of multicropping and cultivation in particular areas (e.g. near perennial water sources where soils were most fertile and resilient) to preserve resources renewably. As Wamalwa (1991) suggests in speaking of the Akamba, an East African agricultural group, "complex management systems" were clearly based on intimate knowledge of ecological processes and "purposeful control of the environment" (45).

The ideological framework of traditional natural resource management systems was also extremely important in reproducing sociocultural values and belief systems that promoted long-term environmental sustainability in East Africa. Indigenous Kenyan and Tanzanian ideological systems in the precolonial era were grounded in a spiritual reverence for the land and the connection of human communities with other plant and animal species. "Such an attitude was particularly valuable towards developing a conservation approach towards natural resources" (Wamalwa, 1991: 38) because ecological processes, and the responsibility of human groups towards the preservation of these processes, was given central importance in the beliefs and values of different cultural groups. These values translated into a holistic view of the world that validated the techniques of sustainable natural resource use and the importance of human beings' connection with the living world around them. Unlike the "anthropocentric position" of the Judeo-Christian tradition imposed upon the East African peoples and ecosystems during the colonial period, traditional East African belief systems were grounded in an ecocentric position that framed the "conservation objective" driving indigenous, East African societies. This ecocentric position revealed itself in a number of sociocultural beliefs that further served to preserve the sustainability of ecological processes in the East African environment. Among hunters and gatherers, pastoralists, and agriculturalists, cultural taboos significantly restricted the killing of certain animals - such as elephants, rhinos, or lions - which reproduce slowly and are more threatened by poaching than smaller game animals that recover more quickly from population pressures. Furthermore, Owen-Smith (1993) observes that "most African societies had an informal code of conduct whereby the waste of natural resources, including wildlife, was regarded as antisocial behavior" (59) because it contradicted the ecocentric ideological framework of many traditional African belief systems. In connection with the "physical tools" of techniques of sustainable resource use, these "spiritual" and "intellectual tools" (Wamalwa: 1991) provided an important sociocultural framework for East African societies in the precolonial era based on concepts of ecological and social sustainability within the context of a harsh and demanding physical environment.

Precolonial Systems Within the Context of the Modern Era

Although traditional societies offered ecologically and socially sustainable models during the precolonial era for hundreds of years prior to British colonial contact (evidenced by the biological diversity that the first European explorers in East Africa described and by archaeological studies of the region), it is important to consider the potential for these models to provide sustainable results within the context of environmental degradation and human impoverishment in the modern, postcolonial era. The most important, physical aspect of East African geography that has changed significantly since the precolonial era in Kenya and Tanzania is the factor of population density. Many of the conservation strategies of traditional societies were based on small, local populations that could easily and renewably shift natural resource exploitation so as to allow for the continuing fertility of soil quality and biodiversity in a given area. However, as human populations have continued to increase exponentially in Kenya and Tanzania since the colonial period, and as natural resources and land have become increasingly privatized and subdivided based on British and U.S. models of resource use, techniques of shifting cultivation and the rotation of rangeland use for livestock have become less effective as conservation options and have become increasingly destructive forms of natural resource management in East Africa.

Precolonial success in sustaining ecological and human sociocultural systems was also based on traditional societies grounding in a localized and ecocentric view of the world. In part, this world view encouraged the members of a community to approach the environment with a sense of respect and spiritual reverence because the survival of the community depended upon this approach to survive physically and ideologically as a social system. A localized world view also emerged out of a community's capacity to control natural resources locally, because of the lack of population pressures during the precolonial era. Local control of resources further reinforced an ecocentric position and the "conservation objective" because the members of the community had a personal incentive to protect the natural resources around them in the long term. Neither a spirituality grounded in an ecocentric position, nor local control of natural resources, exist for the majority of rural and urban East African peoples within the context of the modern industrial era and the increasing globalization of capitalist dynamics and ethics today.

Another aspect of human organization that has changed significantly since the colonial period in East Africa, and which will be considered in more detail in subsequent sections, is the issue of gender divisions in Kenya and Tanzania. Traditional societies tended to reinforce holistic views of the world and to encourage effective techniques of sustainable resource management through the development of broad-based knowledge of human social systems and ecological processes, in connection with a minimal degree of specialization in regards to "occupations." However, occupational divisions did exist between men and women in most traditional societies, and these divisions usually relegated women to more laborious and repetitive tasks than men and less opportunities for public, community leadership than men. "Although women tended to do the more repetitive and boring chores in the agricultural cycle, the sexual division of labor ensured that men, too, participated in production" (Kanogo, 1991: 10). Colonial and postcolonial dynamics have drawn a significant proportion of men away from rural areas to the supposed promise of wage labor within the cities. The continuing urban migration of rural males, as well as the increasing exploitation that women have suffered under as a result of the imposition of sexist British ideologies, have increasingly placed the responsibilities of local, environmental management upon women. Increasing gender divisions and exploitation have served to alienate women from the process of effectively managing these resources (e.g. because women are not allowed to own natural resources or land, or make decisions concerning these resources without male consent), and have left women watching in frustrated helplessness as their communities become more impoverished and degraded.

The changing dynamics in sociocultural, economic, and political organization of people in Kenya and Tanzania since the colonial period do not invalidate traditional systems of ecological and social sustainability manifested predominantly in the precolonial era. On the contrary, it is the position of this thesis that these changing dynamics, and the globalization of capitalist principles and Northern oppression that these dynamics represent, are directly responsible for a model of "conservation" and "development" that has been - and continues to be - disastrous within the East African context. However, it is important to recognize ways in which precolonial practices, ideologies, and conservation strategies have been made ineffective - and even destructive - within the context of changing power dynamics and dominant ideological systems imposed during the colonial and postcolonial eras. Given the disastrous consequences of ecological degradation, human impoverishment, and environmental mismanagement during the colonial and postcolonial periods, these changing dynamics demonstrate ways in which sustainable, ecocentric, sociocultural systems have been profoundly disrupted by the destructive imposition of a capitalist and imperialist framework that continues to degrade East African resources and peoples. It will become clear in the next two chapters that these changing dynamics - away from localized, ecocentric communities and towards the anthropocentric exploitation of East African peoples and resources - are directly responsible for the degradation and impoverishment that are reaching crisis proportions in Kenya and Tanzania today.

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