Antecedents to the community wildlife conservation programme in Kenya, 1946-1964

Environment and History

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 2005, Pages 239-267

  Matheka, Reuben ^a  

^a EGERTON UNIVERSITY   (Kenya)

Author keywords

Controlled areas; Game reserves; Kenya; National reserves; Park adjuncts

Indexed keywords

COMMUNITY ECOLOGY; CONSERVATION; NATIONAL PARK; WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT;

AFRICA; EAST AFRICA; EASTERN HEMISPHERE; KENYA; SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA; WORLD;

EID: 25444488571     PISSN: 09673407     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.3197/096734005774434539     Document Type: Article

References (80)

1. Lord Cranworth, A Colony in the Making (London: Macmillan, 1912), 310.
2. During the colonial period, the Masai Reserve consisted of Kajiado and Narok districts, each of which was under a District Commissioner (DC). The two DCs were answerable to the Officer-in-Charge of the Masai Reserve, a position similar to that of a Provincial Commissioner (PC) in the rest of the colony. The Samburu, however, had Samburu District, which was part of the Rift Valley Province.
3. The two communities have close ethnic affinities, though geographically apart. In the pre-colonial period, members of the two communities rarely hunted animals except the killing of lions as a rite of passage for warriors (moran). Maasai and Samburu moran raided other communities for livestock and land while defending their communities' wealth from human and animal marauders.
4. KNA/KW 27/4, Folio 40a, Keith Caldwell to Edward Buxton, 19 Dec. 1922. The file contains correspondence among the various parties involved in the debate. KNA denotes Kenya National Archives, while KW is the chief classification of files on wildlife conservation.
5. KNA/DC/NRK 1/1/1, Narok District Annual Report, 1926: 46.
6. In colonial Kenya, unlicensed hunting was prohibited even for hunter-gatherer communities like the Dorobo. The DC's permission therefore had more to do with the need to reduce the herbivores than to meet Dorobo food needs.
7. KNA/DC/NRK 1/1/1, Narok District Annual Report, 1926: 42.
8. Helge Kjekshus, Ecology and Economic Development in East Africa: The Case of Tanganyika, 1850-1950 (London: James Currey, 1996) discusses some of the methods used by pre-colonial East African societies to reduce incidences of disease among livestock.
9. KNA/KW 23/72, Game Department Annual Report, 1925: 18. Moranism was actively discouraged by the colonial administration as it was viewed as a threat to state security.
10. The terms 'game' and 'vermin' varied over time. In the early twentieth century, for example, carnivores like lion and leopard were regarded as vermin, but later they became game.
11. Nora Kelly, 'In Wildest Africa: The Preservation of Game in Kenya, 1895-1933' (Ph.D. thesis, Simon Fraser University, 1978), 160.
12. LNCs were set up in African reserves in Kenya from 1924 and were made up of a few elected councillors and government-appointed chiefs. The DC of the particular district was the president of the LNC while the PC/ Officer-in-Charge was free to attend sessions of the council. Where a community - like the Maasai and the Akamba - inhabited more than one administrative district, the community's LNCs sometimes met to discuss matters of importance to the whole community. Such joint LNC meetings were often chaired by the PC/Officer-in-Charge of the particular area. From the 1950s LNCs were renamed African District Councils (ADCs). The government required the local authorities in the various African reserves to provide money for the poison for killing vermin such as baboon, hyena, and bush pig. LNCs were also required to pay for the ammunition used in culling animals like zebra, wildebeest, and buffalo.
13. KNA/DC/SAM 1/1, Samburu District Annual Report, 1928: 20.
14. KNA/DC/SAM 1/2, Isiolo District (NFD) Annual Report, 1933: 5.
15. His Majesty's Stationary Office (HMSO), Report of the Kenya Land Commission (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1933), 203.
16. See also KNA/KW/27/1, 'Parliamentary Debates, House of Lords, Thursday, 21st November 1929, Vol. 75, No. 21'.
17. Perhaps one of the strongest defences against accusations that pastoralists had an irrational attachment to cattle ('cattle complex'), and that they contributed little to the development of the Kenyan economy, came from the Narok DC in 1928. See KNA/NRK/1/1/2, Narok District Annual Report, 1928: 13 & 14.
18. See also R. M. van Zwanenberg with Anne King, An Economic History of Kenya and Uganda, 1800-1970 (London: Macmillan Press, 1975), chapter 5 for details on how the colonial state in Kenya sabotaged African pastoral economies in order to shield white ranchers from competition.
19. For elaboration of the 'cattle complex' concept, see Melville J. Herskovits, 'The Cattle Complex in East Africa', American Anthropologist 28 (1926): 230-72.
20. KNA/DC/SAM 1/2, Laikipia-Samburu District Annual Reports for 1938 and 1939.
21. Also see Paul Spencer, Nomads in Alliance: Symbiosis and Growth among the Rendille and Samburu of Kenya (London: Oxford University Press, 1973), 162.
22. Anti-destocking protests also occurred among the Machakos Akamba in 1938. See J. R. Newman, The Ukamba Members Association (Nairobi: Panafrica, 1974).
23. Forests in Samburuland were gazetted as state property following the recommendations of the Kenya Land Commission. This was despite their importance to the Samburu during environmental crises such as droughts and locust invasions when they became important refuges. The Samburu, like the Maasai, were transhumant pastoralists whose grazing pattern depended on both lowland and highland pastures. During a locust invasion in June 1930 the Narok DC observed that the local Maasai moved their herds up the Mau and Loita Hills because these areas were too cold for locusts.
24. KNA/DC/SAM 1/2, Laikipia-Samburu District Annual Report, 1939: 26. Laikipia, a white settlement area, was outside the Northern Game Reserve.
25. Thomas Paul Ofcansky, 'A History of Game Preservation in British East Africa, 1895-1963' (Ph.D. diss., Syracuse University, 1979), 224.
26. Licensed (safari) hunting in Kenya started early in the colonial period and had become a lucrative activity by the late 1940s. Tourism, however, is mainly a post-World War Two development.
27. One outcome of the recommendations of the Kenya Land Commission (1932-34) was the establishment of the Native Lands Trust Board which theoretically protected African land from alienation for any purpose, including the establishment of wildlife sanctuaries. In this arrangement, LNCs were considered the trustees of their communities' land.
28. KNA/KW 13/45, Kenya National Parks: Memorandum on Park Adjuncts, 24 May 1946.
29. I b i d.
30. KNA/KW 13/45, Folio 8, KNPs: Park Adjuncts: Report by Sub-committee for Consideration of Trustees, 19 June 1946: 2-4.
31. Ibid., 5.
32. East African Standard, 11 Aug. 1947.
33. The Masai Extra-Provincial District consisted of Narok and Kajiado districts, as well as Ngong.
34. East African Standard, 20 May 1948.
35. KNA/KW 13/45, Extracts from minutes of the Masai Council Meeting Held on Tuesday, 1st June 1948.
36. KNA/KW 1/77, Mervyn Cowie, 'National Parks of Kenya', 9.
37. KNA/DC/SAM 1/3, Samburu District Annual Report, 1949: 16.
38. KNA/KW 13/45, M. H. Cowie to Member for Agriculture and Natural Resources, 26 Aug. 1947.
39. Also see the Minutes of Executive Committee of the Trustees, Minute No. EC 112: Amboseli National Reserve, 10 Sept. 1947.
40. The abolition of the Southern Game Reserve was approved by the Secretary of State for Colonies in October 1948. This paved the way for the proclamation of national reserves in Maasailand.
41. KNA/KW 13/45, 'Amboseli', 21 March 1946.
42. David Lovatt Smith, Amboseli: Nothing Short of a Miracle (Nairobi: Kenway Publications, 1997), 23 & 26. Some of the dates in this source do not conform to those in the archival records.
43. KNA/KW 13/45, 'Amboseli', 21 March 1946.
44. KNA/KW 13/45, E. A. Sweatman (Officer-in-Charge, Masai Reserve) to DC Kajiado, 1 July 1947.
45. KNA/KW 13/45, M. H. Cowie to Colonel Gethin.
46. See KNA/KW 1/76, Folio 33, Colonel Cowie (Director KNPTs) to F. W. Cavandish-Bentinck (Member for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Kenya Colony and Protectorate), 29 March 1949.
47. For a discussion on the dust bowl phenomenon in colonial East Africa see David Anderson, 'Depression, Dust Bowl, Demography, and Drought: The Colonial State and Soil Conservation in East Africa during the 1930s', African Affairs, 83, 332 (1984): 321-43.
48. See KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, 'Note Ref: First Draft - KNPTs Ordinance: National Reserve Regulations, 1949', 28 June 1949.
49. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, R. A. Wilkson (Acting Officer-in-Charge, Masai) to Member for Agriculture and Natural Resources, 8 Sept. 1949. Sweatman was on leave at the time.
50. See KNA/KW 1/75, Folio 2 (30 March 1952) and Folio 12 (3 April 1952). At that time tourist enterprises were collecting Shs5 per vehicle, Shs7 per tourist for night accommodation, and Shs10 as landing charges per aeroplane. Also see correspondence between Cowie and the administration in KNA/PC/NGO 1/1/4.
51. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/5, DC Narok to Officer-in-Charge Masai District, 19 March 1946. Owing to population pressure in the Machakos Reserve, there were rumours that 'empty' Maasai land would be leased to the Akamba.
52. KNA/DC/NRK 1/1/3, Narok District Annual Report, 1948: 16.
53. See David J. Campbell, 'Land as Ours, Land as Mine: Economic, Political and Ecological Marginalization in Kajiado District', in Being Maasai: Ethnicity and Identity in East Africa, ed. Thomas Spear and Richard Waller (London: James Currey, 1993), 258-72.
54. Like Maasai pastoralists, the wild animals in the Mara region moved over large areas according to season, thereby avoiding the overuse of any particular area.
55. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/5, Mervyn Cowie (Director, KNPs) to Roger Wilkinson (Ag Officer-in-Charge, Masai), 23 July 1949.
56. KNA/KW 1/75, Folio 1, Game Warden (W. H. Hale) to Director, Royal National Parks of Kenya (Mervyn Cowie), 19 Nov. 1952. In 1952 the Kenya National Parks (KNPs) organisation was renamed Royal National Parks of Kenya (RNPK) after the British monarch became its patron.
57. KNA/KW 1/77, Folio 3, Cowie, 'Kenya National Parks': 12.
58. KNA/KW 1/75, RNPKs: National Reserves: Tour of the Ngong Reserve by the Director RNPKs, Member for Agriculture and Natural Resources, Chief Native Commissioner, Officer-in-Charge Masai, and Nairobi National Park Game Warden.
59. KNA/KW 1/75, RNPK: Minutes of the Executive Committee of the Trustees' Thirty-first Meeting, 7 April 1952, Minute No. EC 312.
60. KNA/KW 1/75, Keith Caldwell to Director RNPK, 29 April 1952.
61. KNA/KW 1/77, Folio 3, Cowie, 'Kenya National Parks': 10. The boundary between Kajiado and Machakos districts divides the Chyulu Range into eastern and western sections. Chyulu West is therefore in Maasailand while Chyulu East is in Ukambani.
62. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, R. A. Wilkinson (Acting Officer-in-Charge, Masai) to Member for Agriculture and Natural Resources, 8 Sept. 1949.
63. KNA/KW 1/74, Folio 105, W. H. Hale (Game Warden) to Member of Agriculture and Natural Resources, 10 Jan. 1951. Dutch settlers in colonial Kenya were considered some of the worst poachers of game.
64. Y. P. Ghai and J. P. W. McAuslaw, Public Law and Political Change in Kenya: A Study of the Framework of Government from Colonial Times to the Present (Nairobi: Oxford University Press, 1970), 102.
65. See also East African Royal Commission 1953-1955 Report (London: HMSO 1955), xi.
66. HMSO, East African Royal Commission, 299.
67. I b i d.
68. The scheme was planned to cost £25,000: of which £15,000 was a government grant, while £10,000 was a loan to the ADC. See Government of Kenya, African Land Development in Kenya, 1946-1962 (Nairobi: Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Husbandry and Water Resources, 1962), 75.
69. The 1953 memorandum is attached to another one on Ol Tukai addressed to the PC Southern Province by Il Kisongo Sectional Councillors on 4 January 1957. See KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4.
70. KNA/KW 87, Anon., 'Memorandum on the Position of Game and National Reserves vis-à-vis the Samburu Pastoral Tribe', n.d. Like the Maasai, the Samburu were investing a lot of money - mostly loans to the ADC - in the development of water resources under the controlled grazing schemes by the early 1950s. But animals like elephant and buffalo did a lot of damage to water resources while others like zebra denuded the grass.
71. See Kenya, African Land Development, 136-46.
72. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, E. A. Sweatman (PC, Southern Province) to Secretary African Affairs, 7 Sept. 1954.
73. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, Anon., 'Notes on Amboseli National Reserve', n.d.
74. Keller's article entitled 'A Review of Masai Resources' is reproduced in George A Petrides, Kenya's Wild-life Resource and National Parks (Nairobi: Government Printer, 1955), 25-31.
75. KNA/KW 1/74, D. Saphiro (Game Ranger, Kajiado District) to Game Warden, 7 Jan. 1955.
76. I b i d.
77. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, Extracts from the Seventh (Special) Meeting of the Council of Ministers of 5 Dec. 1956;
78. KNA/PC/NGO 1/16/4, Loshe (DC) to Ken (PC), 28 Dec. 1956.
79. ADC/county council game reserves are the subject of a forthcoming paper by this author.
80. West Chyulu and Kitengela became game conservation areas rather than game reserves.