13 Policy Matters.qxp

scale”.^35

Most commentators controlled romantic

sentiment and advocated strict control of

native hunting. Sir Alfred Sharpe, acting

commissioner of the Central African

Protectorate after a number of adventur-

ous shooting expeditions, wrote to the

SPWFE in 1905 that “there seems to have

been a general tendency, while rigidly

restricting Europeans from shooting big

game, to leave the native free to slaughter

all he wishes without let or hindrance”.

Sharpe trumpeted the success of policies

in the protectorate of British Central Africa.

These had effectively ended native hunt-

ing, by enforcing a native gun tax (such

that whereas 12 years before “every native

carried a gun2, now not one in a thousand

owned one), making natives subject to

same licenses as Europeans (so that few

took out licenses or shot game), and per-

suading District Magistrates to punish

natives found guilty of shooting game

without a license.^36 A correspondent from

South Africa commented “of course it is

difficult to watch all the natives, but the

constabulary have instructions to do all

they can”.^37 The SPFE Deputation to the

Colonial Office in

March 1930 urged “a

close watch” on native

hunting “to prevent

indiscriminate slaugh-

ter of game by

natives”.^38

The dominant sporting

code from which so

much conservation

stemmed in the first

three decades of the

twentieth century had

little time for indige-

nous hunting, whether

in the British Empire or

indeed in North America. In his 15 point

“sportsman’s platform2, which he dissemi-

nated widely in 1909, William Hornaday

wrote “An Indian or other native has no

more right to kill game, or to subsist upon

it all year round, than any white man in

the same locality. The native has no God-

given ownership of the game of any land,

any more than its mineral resources; and

he should be governed by the same laws

as white men”.^39 In the slightly uneasy

post-war and pre-independence years,

Mervyn Cowie, Director of the Royal

National Parks of Kenya, wrote 2the

Judiciary must be convinced that the disas-

trous destruction of God’s great beasts by

ruthless poachers is a crime against the

rights of posterity, deserving really effec-

tive punishment”.^40

Changing narratives in conserva-

tion

After the Second World War, the problem

of illegal hunting came to the very centre

stage in conservation debates. Poaching

became more extensively commercialised,

and the use of cheap but arbitrary killing

techniques such as wire snares became

more widespread. The impact of poaching

on the populations of species such as the

rhinoceroses and elephant became a head-

line issue for global conservation.^41 The

methods used by poachers were now seen

universally by conservationists as not only

highly effective, but not ‘traditional’: there

might be romance and a sense of fair play

for some in the idea of an elephant hunter

armed with a bow and arrows, but there

was arguably none in a wire snare.

Moreover, any paternalistic benevolence in

accounts of poaching was buried beneath

a welter of humanitarian compassion for

maimed animals. Still photographs and film

provided powerfully tools for conservation-

ists to express the cruelty, futility and

destructiveness of the poachers’ trade.^42

Any possibility of tolerance of local subsis-

tence hunting was lost, as conservation

discourse focused on the need for more

protected areas, tighter enforcement of

History, cculture aand cconservation

“An IIndian oor oother
native hhas nno mmore
right tto kkill ggame, oor tto
subsist uupon iit aall yyear
round, tthan aany wwhite
man iin tthe ssame llocali-
ty. TThe nnative hhas nno
God-ggiven oownership oof
the ggame oof aany lland,
any mmore tthan iits
mineral rresources; aand
he sshould bbe ggoverned
by tthe ssame llaws aas
white mmen”