13 Policy Matters.qxp

sation to their colonies, an idea that was set

out in the Pax Britannica. This “evangelical

imperialism” enabled the British to establish

not “a world empire in the bad Napoleonic

sense, but a Moral Empire of loftier intent.”^6

Africans were imagined as child-like, in con-

tradistinction to the attributes that defined a

‘proper’ Victorian British (male) adult – hav-

ing “self-control, virtuous character, and

rational mind,” while Africans, like children

were “ignorant, impulsive, irresponsible, and

without powers of reason.”^7 Seeing Africans

as childlike helped justify the paternalistic

attitude adopted by many later colonial

authorities and settlers who denied that

Africans had the ability to make decisions on

their own behalves. However, it is only when

considering these attitudes in relation to

others, like the assumed African connection

to nature, that we can clearly see how

Africans were (and continue to be) effec-

tively excluded from natural resources.

Early in the colonial period African hunters

were often, although by no means always,

idealised, as, not only wonderful hunters,

but as essentially primitive enough to be

part of nature. As early as the sixteenth

century the idea was developed that the

African was the ‘natural man’, living wild in

his ‘untamed nature;’^8 by the nineteenth

century the ‘savage’ African was a well

established topos in European culture.^9 The

view that Africans, unlike Europeans (at

least of a certain class), were unable to sep-

arate themselves from

nature, helped create

the idealised view of

African hunting held by

many early settlers and

hunters. Owen Letcher,

an early European set-

tler and hunter, who

had arrived in South

Africa in 1904 and ulti-

mately worked his way

north to the Luangwa

Valley (eastern Zambia)

wrote with consummate

praise of the “exceptionally clever hunters”

he found there.^10 However, the respect

Letcher holds for Bemba hunting skills is not

born out of an admiration for African hard

work in becoming skillful hunters, but rather

an assumption that all Africans are innately

good hunters.

“It is not to be wondered at that the aver-

age Central African native is a hunter of

consummate skill and ability. There is a

hereditary instinctbred in him to hunt, a

legacy of many centuries of forefathers.”^11

Thus just as a lion must come to the world

“pre-packaged” with outstanding hunting

skills, so too (it was believed) did Africans –

so inherently part of nature that they, unlike

the colonial powers, could not distinguish

between themselves and the natural world.

Because Africans were regarded as so intrin-

sically part of nature, British colonialists jus-

tified their exclusion from a romanticised

and sanitised nature because as “savages”

they could never intellectualise and appreci-

ate the beauty of this nature.^12 Thus, seeing

Africans as inherently a part of nature, com-

bined with the paternalistic attitudes of the

colonial enterprise, helped to justify the

removal of Africans from what would ulti-

mately become protected areas. If Africans,

because of their close connections to

nature, could not make rational decisions

about resource management and use, the

colonial authorities would have to make

these decisions on their behalf.

Despite colonial contentions to the contrary,

the geographic area that is today known as

Zambia has long provided not only an

important wildlife habitat, but also opportu-

nities for people to manage the wildlife

resources. Although the primacy of wildlife

to these inhabitants seems to vary across

both time and space, wildlife, fish, and wild

plants have always been important nutri-

tional and economic supplements to local

agricultural diets and incomes,^13 with trade

in wildlife resources being traced to the 5th

Conservation aas ccultural aand ppolitical ppractice

Both CCBNRM aas pprac-
ticed iin iindependent
Zambia ttoday aand tthe
participatory rrhetoric oof
the ppast aare bbased uupon
a ggrammar oof ddiffer-
ence tthat iinfantilises
the ‘‘native’ [[...] aand
find iin tthis aa jjustifica-
tion tto rremove ddecision
making aauthority ffrom
them