century conservation.^18 In Europe, the tra-
ditional meanings of ‘wilderness’ date from
the time when people feared nature -
feared its animals, the lawlessness of wild
land. Beyond the tended fields and man-
aged woods, where lawless men roamed
and danger lay, anyone benighted or set
upon would not find help. Wilderness and
wildness were not seen as virtues, but as
symbols of barrenness, of lack of improve-
ment and lack of care for the environment.
In the USA, the story that the new settlers
told about themselves spoke in terms of
the frontier, and a country carved from the
wilderness. Indigenous Indian populations,
which shrank before the onslaught of
European disease and military power, were
airbrushed from history and removed to
reservations. The vast lands of the West
were annexed by the state, and held for
the public good for the resources they con-
tained.However, by the mid nineteenth century, in
both Europe and the USA, the nature that
remained was widely was being seen as
something to be treasured. The Romantic
movement re-interpreted the brutishness
of wild places as mystery, and the sav-
agery of nature became a source of won-der and moral instruction. The
English gentleman’s country park,
cleared of untidy peasant cottages,
was landscaped to fit an aesthetic
of pastoral beauty. By the end of
the nineteenth century, Americans
were worrying about the impacts
of the closing of the Western fron-
tier on the pioneer spirit that they
believed defined the American
national character. Early US conser-
vationists, who saw nature under
threat, expressed their concern in
terms of the very ‘wilderness’ that
had been so recently conquered.
They came to believe that wilder-
ness was precious, a source of
wonder, something that demanded
urgent conservation.Settlers have always struggled to
roll back the wilderness, creating
farmed and fruitful lands from the bush.^19
Settlers were therefore, from the first, the
enemies of ‘pristine’ nature, and the whole
economic development
process the destroyer of the
wild or natural in nature. In
the twentieth century, con-
servation developed in
Europe and North America
as a reaction against the
impacts of intensive agricul-
ture as well as industrial
pollution, tourism and other
features of economic
growth. It is for this reason
that protected areas are
almost always portrayed as
the sanctuaries of wild, un-transformed
nature. In North America, the clearance of
indigenous people from the land has made
possible a relatively efficient separation of
settled and ‘wilderness’ land, entrenched
by the passage of the US Wilderness Act in- Elsewhere the attempt to impose a
similar separation is far more problematic
To those committed to wildlife conservation
in the twentieth century, the presence ofHistory, cculture aand cconservation
Figure 1.The African elephant has been a critical species in
debates about conservation, hunting and poaching throughout
the twentieth century. (Courtesy Juan Moreias).
To tthose ccommitted
to wwildlife cconser-
vation iin tthe ttwen-
tieth ccentury, tthe
presence oof ppeople iin
such ssupposedly
‘wild’ pplaces hhas
seemed aan iincreas-
ingly ssignificant
conceptual aand
practical pproblem.