Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-18T14:21:21.861Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Pastoral Road to Extinction: Competition Between Wildlife and Traditional Pastoralism in East Africa

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 August 2009

Herbert H.T. Prins
Herbert H.T. Prins
Affiliation:
Professor of Tropical Nature Conservation, Wageningen Agricultural University, POB 8080, 6700 DD Wageningen, The Netherlands; Formerly Research Fellow of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Sciences, Senior Scientist at the Zoologisch Laboratorium, Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, Haren (Gr.), The Netherlands.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Extract

In some developing countries there is a call to open-up protected areas and even National Parks for low-intensity use by the local population to alleviate the pressure of the rapidly increasing human population, or because conservationists have been able to ‘take’ too much land according to others. This conflict in land-use has been noted by conservation authorities, and proposals have been formulated to give way to such pressure. Moreover, it has been suggested that there can be a harmonious coexistence between wildlife and livestock, so that opening-up of protected areas would not necessarily be to the detriment of wildlife, and also that the indigenous populations were able to manage wildlife and their habitats in the past (so why not again in the future). The last point in the concerted attack on the status of the protected areas is that ‘conservation is an alien concept in Third World countries’.

In this paper is reviewed the question as to whether there ever has been such a harmonious coexistence between wildlife and pastoral Man in East Africa, and aerial census data from a number of districts in Tanzania and Kenya have been used to demonstrate that livestock outcompetes wildlife. At present ‘prestige overstocking’ is not the case any more, due to the fact that the human population outgrows the livestock population. Apparently, a very high rate of population growth is at the root of the call for more land, and even if, for example, the whole of the Serengeti were to be handed over to the local Masai, this enormous, relatively undisturbed ecocomplex could absorb the growth of the Masai population for only some forty years.

Finding the key to increased development should not be sought in an opening-up of protected areas but in payment of in absentia benefits by the rich western countries. This money should be used for developing programmes aimed at population limitation, increased income for the rural poor, and increased sustainable human densities in areas outside the protected areas.

Type
Main Papers
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 19 , Issue 2 , Summer 1992 , pp. 117 - 123
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 1992

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Brown, L.H. (1971). The biology of pastoral man as a factor in conservation. Biological Conservation, 3(2), pp. 93–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burhenne, W.E. (1970). The African Convention for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources. Biological Conservation, 2(2), pp. 105–14.Google Scholar
Cloudsley-Thompson, J.L. (1988). Desertification and sustainable yields from arid environments. Environmental Conservation, 15(3), pp. 197–204, illustr.Google Scholar
Drent, R.H. & Prins, H.H.T. (1987). The herbivore as prisoner of its food supply. Pp. 131–47 in van Andel, J., Barker, J.P. & Snaydon, R.W. (Eds), Disturbance in Grasslands: Species and Population Responses. Dr W. Junk Publishing Company, Dordrecht, The Netherlands: xii + 316 pp., illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ecosystems Ltd (1980). Livestock, Wildlife and Landuse Survey in the Arusha Region, Tanzania. Final Report (3 volumes). Ecosystems Ltd, Nairobi, Kenya: 82 + 103 + 187 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Field, C.R., Lamprey, H.F., Masheti, S.M. & Norton-Griffiths, M. (1983). Household, livestock and wildlife numbers and distribution in Marsabit District. Pp. 101–25 in Proceedings of the IPAL Scientific Seminar, Nairobi (Ed. Lusigi, W.J.). UNESCO/FRG/MAB Integrated Project in Arid Lands Technical Report A-5. UNESCO, Nairobi, Kenya: i + 355 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Flint, I.E. (Ed.) (1976). From c. 1790 to c. 1870. Vol. 5 in Fage, J.D. & Oliver, R. (General Eds) The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xv + 617 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Fosbrooke, H.A. (1989). Case study: Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti National Park. Pp. 246–55, illustr., in W.D. Verwey, q.v.Google Scholar
Gray, R. (Ed.) (1975). From c. 1600 to c. 1790. Vol. 4 in Face, J.D. & Oliver, R. (General Eds) The Cambridge History of Africa. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, England, UK: xiv + 738 pp., illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hay, M.J. (1975). Economic change in late nineteenth century Kowe, western Kenya. Hadith, 5, pp. 90–107.Google Scholar
Hough, J.L. (1988). Obstacles to effective management of conflicts between National Parks and surrounding human communities in developing countries. Environmental Conservation, 15(2), pp. 129–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Huntingford, G.W.B. (1953 a). The Northern Nilo-Hamites: Ethnographic Survey of Africa; East Central Africa, Part VI. International African Institute, London, England, UK: 108 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Huntingford, G.W.B. (1953 b). The Southern Nilo-Hamites: Ethnographic Survey of Africa; East Central Africa, Part VIII. International African Institute, London, England, UK: 152 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Johnston, A. (1983). Population and Development in Monduli District. Regional Commissioner's Office, Arusha Region, Arusha, Tanzania: 83 pp. (mimeographed), illustr.Google Scholar
Klima, G.J. (1970). The Barabaig: East African Cattle Herders. Holt, Rinehart & Winston, New York, NY, USA: xii + 112 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Lamprey, H.F. (1983). Pastoralism yesterday and today: the overgrazing problem. Pp. 643–66 in Tropical Savannas (Ed. Bourliere, F.). Elsevier, Amsterdam, The Netherlands: xii + 730 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Lehmkuhl, J.F., Upreti, R.K. & Sharma, U.R. (1988). National parks and local development: grasses and people in Royal Chitwan National Park, Nepal. Environmental Conservation, 15(2), pp. 143–48, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McNeely, J.A. (1989). Management of protected areas for sustaining society. Pp. 235–45 in W.D. Verwey, q.v.Google Scholar
Moen, A.N. (1973). Wildlife Ecology: An Analytical Approach. W.H. Freeman & Co, San Francisco, California, USA: xvii + 458 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Myers, N. (1972). National parks in savannah Africa. Science, 172, pp. 1255–61, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Myers, N. (1973). Tsavo National Park and its elephants: an interim appraisal. Biological Conservation, 5, pp. 123–32, illustr.Google Scholar
Newby, J.E. & Grettenberger, J.F. (1986). The human dimension in natural resource conservation: a Sahelian example from Niger. Environmental Conservation, 13(3), pp. 249–56, 15 figs.Google Scholar
Osemeobo, G.J. (1988). Animal wildlife conservation under multiple land-use systems in Nigeria. Environmental Conservation, 15(3), pp. 239–49, 6 figs and 7 tables.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parkipuny, M.S. (1989). So that the Serengeti shall never die. Pp. 256–64 in W.D. Verwey, q.v.Google Scholar
Pearsall, S.H. III, (1984). In absentia benefits of Nature preserves: a review. Environmental Conservation, 11(1), pp. 3–10.Google Scholar
Prins, H.H.T. & Loth, P.E. (1988). Rainfall patterns as background to plant phenology in northern Tanzania. Journal of Biogeography, 15, pp. 451–63, illustr.Google Scholar
Semple, A.T. (1971). Grassland improvement in Africa. Biological Conservation, 3, pp. 173–80, 5 figs.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stone, M.L. (1972). Organized poaching in Kitui District: a failure in district authority, 1900–1960. International Journal for African Historical Studies, 5, pp. 436–52.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Verwey, W.D. (Ed.) (1989). Nature Management and Sustainable development. IOS, Amsterdam/Springfield VA/Tokyo: xx + 531 pp., illustr.Google Scholar
Waller, R. (1976). The Maasai and the British 1895–1905: the origins of an alliance. Journal of African History, 27, pp. 529–53, illustr.CrossRefGoogle Scholar