PARKS: THEIR ORIGINS AND INFLUENCES
4.1. INTRODUCTION
model. Such a model is informed by positivist conservation science and a wilderness3 preservationist ideology, and is subscribed to by professionals whose thinking, values, methods and behaviour in their profession are conventional (Pimbert and Pretty, 1997). This preservationist ideology is discussed in Section 4.2. More importantly, the blueprint approach is best understood as “a set of definite choices of world views and power relations where the choices are between different kinds of use and between different forms of political control”
(Pimbert and Pretty, 1997:304). Thus the blueprint approach is not just a practical model for preserving wilderness, it is also an approach which asserts particular worldviews or paradigms and power relations that shape the kind of conservation practices that are played out in local spaces.
In this chapter the origins and influences of the colonial paradigm of wildlife management are examined in Section 4.3. Attention is drawn to four key influences that have shaped people- park relationships in the natural landscapes of the British colonies. Firstly, the status of natural resources in the colonies is discussed. Secondly, the influence of the national park model, and the appeal of such a model to Britain for conserving4 nature or wildlife in their African colonies is discussed. Thirdly, the role that events in Britain, namely the processes of industrialisation and urbanisation, played in shaping its colonies (namely the Cape and Natal in South Africa), is explored. The fourth influence that is discussed in Section 4.3 is the influence of Hardin’s (1968) Tragedy of the Commons theory on the colonial conceptualisation of the people-park relationship.
The idea of community based conservation or co-management is a contemporary conservation paradigm that has been dominant since the 1990’s. Prior to the acceptance of this approach to managing common property resources, natural resources in colonial Africa were conserved and managed in a manner that alienated local communities from land and natural resources and that established the white settler state as the owners of these resources (Powell, 1998). The emergence of ‘new’ nature conservation approaches such as co-management and community
3 The United States Wilderness Act of 1964 defines ‘wilderness’ as a landscape that appears to have been affected mainly by the forces of nature and where evidence of human interference or impact is significantly barely discernable (Johnston, 1981).
4 Conservation is a management term, which means “to manage renewable resources sustainably and to avoid waste from non-renewable resources” (Okidi, 1994:20). This form of resource management is regarded as a more purposive approach than the preservation approach. Preservation means “to set aside and protect selected natural resources such as unique biological or geological formations, endangered or threatened species, representative biomes or other natural or cultural sites of importance” (Okidi, 1994:20).
based natural resource schemes in Africa is as much a consequence of revised understandings of the nature of common property resource systems (Gibson and Marks, 1995; Neumann, 1997; Powell, 1998; Ramutsindela, 2004) as it is a consequence of post-colonial5 attempts to dismantle imperialist ideologies about nature and society (Neumann, 1995a, 1995b, 1996, 1997; Ramutsindela, 2004). This chapter therefore draws on two different theories about common property resource systems as a basis for natural resource management, notably Hardin’s (1968) Tragedy of the Commons and Runge’s (1981, cited in Powell, 1998) Assurance Problem.
At a conceptual level, the change in resource management approaches from a blueprint approach to collaborative approaches in the 1990’s can be interpreted as a reconceptualisation of environmental spaces (for example game reserves, forestry reserves or national parks). The shift in thinking about the people and park relationship is discussed in Section 4.4 It is suggested here that these environmental spaces could be conceptualised as ‘spaces of exclusion’ under the colonial and apartheid state, because both systems of government entrenched the relative exclusion of society from nature (Ramutsindela, 2004). This was primarily achieved through the creation of protected areas such as national parks and reserves, with strict regulation of access and the nature of activities conducted within these areas.
Protection and management was the responsibility of state scientists and managers, with other stakeholders having no access to decision-making about resource management. These restrictions discriminated against black people, according them less or no access or opportunities to utilise natural resources contained within protected areas. They effectively removed the opportunity for what could be termed ‘everyday interactions’ of people with nature.
More recently, since the 1990’s, environmental spaces, formerly referred to as parks and reserves, are increasingly conceptualised as ‘spaces of collaboration’. The ‘new’ nature conservation approaches acknowledge that relationships between society and nature are more integrated and interconnected, and that approaches to management need to accommodate the complexities of this relationship and foster collaboration between stakeholders in order to enhance the conservation of natural resources (Vira, 1999; Ramutsindela, 2004). A key
5 Post-colonialism refers to “those societies that were once dominated and/or oppressed by western powers”
(Ramutsindela, 2004:1). However, such periodisation does not eliminate the continuing effect that the former coloniser has on the post-colonial society.
research question of this study is whether co-management is more democratic than these hierarchical forms of environmental decision-making.
Much of the literature concerning early conservation paradigms in colonial Africa is focussed on wildlife management approaches in eastern, western and southern Africa in general and on the national park model in particular (Neumann, 1995a, 1995b, 1996, 1997; Powell, 1998;
Ramutsindela, 2004; Alexander and McGregor, 2000). This literature is relevant to the southern Cape state forest case study in three respects. Firstly, because literature concerning the management of the southern Cape forests demonstrates that the associated ideologies of the national park ideal are applicable to the southern Cape case study area where the forests are construed as parks6.
Secondly, it is significant to note that the southern Cape was subjected to colonial rule. The southern Cape area was colonised first by the Dutch in the 1730’s and then by the British, with British settlers arriving in the southern Cape as early as 1804 (van der Merwe, 2002). Many of the landed gentry, however, only settled in Knysna from the 1830’s onwards (van der Merwe, 2002). The Dutch East India Company first regulated the southern Cape forests in 1776.
Although first a Dutch colony, it was annexed by Britain in 1795. The Dutch resumed leadership in 1803, ruling the colony until Britain’s second annexation of the Cape in 1806. It was only after 1806 when they became designated Crown forests (forest belonging to the state), that the southern Cape forests were more comprehensively regulated (van der Merwe, 2002). These forests were therefore subject to the influence of colonial, especially the British, imperial ideologies, values and perceptions concerning wildlife and protected areas and thus early colonial approaches are relevant to the case study area.
Thirdly, the national park ideal and its associated colonial ideologies discussed in Section 4.3 was, according to Ramutsindela (2004), hegemonic during the colonial era as the dominant way of managing natural wilderness areas, and is still hegemonic in the post-colonial dispensation. Literature concerning the management of the southern Cape forests (for example, van der Merwe, 2002; Durrheim, 2003; McCracken, 2004; Seydack and Vermeulen, 2004;
6 This interpretation was endorsed in April 2005 when the management of the southern Cape indigenous forests were transferred to the South African National Parks Board (SANParks).
Wills, 2004) and qualitative data obtained during fieldwork research indicate that the national park ideal and its associated ideologies are applicable to the southern Cape case study area.
Section 4.2 discusses the preservationist ideology, which is an influential colonial ideology. It highlights the relationship between the preservationist ideology and science and therefore the influence that this ideology has had on natural resource management practice.
4.2. THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE PRESERVATIONIST IDEOLOGY