TThe origins of modern conservation

thought are deep and complex, but the

colonial roots of much twentieth century

thinking are widely recognised.^1 There

were, for example, important colonial con-

cerns about deforestation, climate change

and drought from the eigh-

teenth century onwards,

and game and forest

reserves were created in a

number of places.^2 Above

all, however, it was the

Victorian enthusiasm for

hunting, and the heritage of

British traditions of elite

landowning and ‘game man-

agement’, that gave conser-

vation its familiar shape.

From such ideas the essen-

tially preservationist

approach of the protected area became the

dominant conservation concept of the twen-

tieth century.^3

As formal wildlife conservation was estab-

lished towards the end of the nineteenth

century in African territories, it drew closely

on the European tradition of aristocratic

hunting, with beasts reserved for the King

and his lords, in descending order of priori-

ty. In Victorian Britain, the shooting of

pheasants, grouse and red deer, and the

chasing of foxes with packs of dogs,

became vital rituals of the landowning class,

a mark of social achievement and the mark-

ers of a shared culture.^4 In Scotland, the

Highland Clearances from the 19th century

onwards had driven smallholders to news

lands in North America, creating the very

real human emptiness celebrated by today’s

‘wilderness’ enthusiasts. Victorian landown-

ers hunted red deer in the barren hills they

left behind^5. Hunting in British colonial terri-

tories, especially in Africa and India, was

tied-in by connections of class and wealth

to this British Victorian world. In India, for

example, the British took over and adapted

elite Mughal hunting practices, especially

tiger shooting from elephant back and the

use of beaters. They added to them sports

such as pig sticking, and they exported their

enthusiasm for fox hunting as a sporting

activity to India, Australia and parts of

Africa.

An enthusiasm for hunting was by no

means confined to the elite of the British

Empire. It was shared by those newly

wealthy from industrialisation in the USA.

From the 1860s, wealthy young men from

rich eastern industrial families had begun to

frequent the Adirondacks to engage in the

masculine pastimes of shooting and fishing.

Their approach was an odd combination of

British upper-class tradition and an attempt

History, cculture aand cconservation

Colonialism, hhunting aand tthe iinvention oof ““poaching”

in tthe 119 th and 220 th^ Centuries

William MM. AAdams

Summary.The development of ideas about conservation in the twentieth century was greatly influ-
enced by colonial ideas about hunting. This paper discusses the significance of hunting to conservation
ideas in colonial Africa, and the sometimes rather mixed ideas about poaching and hunting by Africans. It
draws out the similarities between such debates and the contemporary discussion of community-oriented
versus strict conservation strategies. It argues that arguments about narrative change in conservation
need to take account of the diversity of ideas about people and nature, both in the past and today.

Above aall, iit wwas

the VVictorian

enthusiasm ffor

hunting, aand tthe

heritage oof BBritish

traditions oof eelite

landowning aand

‘game mmanage-

ment’, tthat ggave

conservation iits

familiar sshape.