The (Neo) colonial heart of Wildlife conservation in Southern Africa

Résumé

The issue of wildlife conservation on the African continent has long been debated amongst local wildlife hunters, conservationists, and the international community. Relevant issues in the discourse include who deserves the right to hunt and where, whether conservationists have the right or duty to ‘manage’ nature and communities, and how best to manage wildlife conservation moving forward. This paper situates itself within the conservation debate, with a particular focus on the effects of Western-imposed conservation in southern Africa. While I agree that conservation has the power to generate income for local communities and actively manage wildlife away from eco-disaster, the neocolonial expression of conservation management in southern African countries moderates its ability to generate positive outcomes for local wildlife and communities. Specifically, this paper will argue that Western-led wildlife conservation in southern Africa, rooted in colonial conquest and propelled by the neocolonial conservation NGO, reproduces colonial inequalities. It does so by taking Indigenous land, excluding Indigenous peoples, and exploiting their resources for profit, with local wildlife poaching merely a mechanism of survival and resistance against these inequalities. [...]