I first saw the term CONservation in a tweet by Al-Amin Kimathi. I think it is a brilliant concept. Whoever who came up with this term should be congratulated. Kenyans and Africans at large are interrogating the practice of conservation, and that is VERY, VERY good and important. We have decided to define what these two terms mean to us, before somebody swoops in and “discovers” them!
Many times bitten, plenty of times shy!
To achieve this, I reached out to my fellow Africans and others via facebook so that we could think through these two concepts. It is our attempt to control the narrative of what is happening in our landscapes and intellectual spaces. I am happy to share some of their views below.
What is your understanding of conservation?
Conservation is safeguarding resources for posterity. It is saying NO to any kind of destruction. Conservation is planting trees…and not just any trees, but trees that are friendly to water sources. –Anthony Odera-
2. Conservation is about whether you live or die. That is my basic understanding of conservation. It is about whether you have water or not. Whether you have food or not. Conservation is about understanding that you have to balance what you take from the bounty of the land with the needs of others in the present and in the future. In other words, it is about kindness, selflessness, love, compassion, etc. Conservation is about celebrating cultures in dynamic landscapes – cultures inform conservation practices e.g., sacred sites protect key water sheds in some communities. Conservation is about deep understanding of ecosystems – understanding that humans exist in a complex web of life, and that everything is interdependent. It is about justice for all inhabitants of earth – if you pollute the air, you harm both plants, animals, and humans. If you pollute rivers, you do the same, and that is injustice.
-Kendi Borona-
3. Conservation is anchored on restoring what has been destroyed. Our native agenda of protecting our environment and wildlife is based on both the utility and spiritual purposes which ensures that we live in harmony with nature.
-Miheso Israel-
What is your understanding of CONservation?
1. A systematic and forceful displacement of Kenyans from their ancestral land, erasing their wildlife heritage before claiming ownership. CONservation (of the wildlife with the primary goal of serving the white race).
-Salma Wakanda Ghaddafi-
2. I came across conservation a long time ago while reading a book called ‘The IceMan Inheritance’ by Micheal Bradley. In it he explained that Melanated Beings had relationships with what the white man regards as animals. To us and our ancestors, wild life were our cousins and we would talk to them. The reason the San People talk in clicks is because they communicated with Whales and Dolphins. The reason we were banned from Beating drums by the white man is because drumming was a form of tongue click which would be understood by Elephants. Drums Spoke and thus the term Talking Drums. We never regarded our cousins as animals, but Whites always did… Note the paradigm shift. When they came to Africa the Caucasians were so incensed at finding advanced civilizations and men that lived and spoke with “beasts” that they burnt down all our cities, took our leaders as slaves to torture for information and left behind the traumatized and weak (100 Cities Of Africa). They then renamed Africans as Animals and Beasts (check old English) and tried to prove we were related physically via DNA to monkeys in a Theory thought of by Darwin. We were treated as animals during the entire slave trade…unable to think and soul-less…
In the late 1930’s they realised that there was a drop in the population of Wild Life (which they then re-named game) due to their own vicious killing of these gentle beings, and introduced CON in servation. Service. Servants of? Rubbish. The real reason they introduced “conservation” was to kill our wild life behind Parks and Zoos, to have unlimited access to all forms of life, to kill it, experiment and use it. Eg, ivory is used to make dentures for the uber rich and who knows what they will do with #SUDAN‘s Semen? When Africans realise the depth of #thebigwhitelie, @errantnatives they shall begin to speak to their Cousins and find ways of restoring our land.
Eating Game?
That’s the biggest CON.
-Najar Nyakio Munyinyi –
3. Today, South African Boers are working with the American trophy hunting lobby to pimp Africa’s wildlife to rich psycho Americans. They have infiltrated CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) and IUCN so that these two institutions can say that trophy hunting is good for conservation. The Kenyan white ranchers are desperately trying to bring in the Boers To Help them commoditize our wildlife. Game ranching is the new money minter because of the demand for wildlife body parts (bones, skins, tusks, feathers, blood etc) in Asia. Also, these ranches are running at a loss because the whites can’t compete with the low production costs of pastoralists and Botswana continues to dominate the export market for beef into the EU.
-Violet Matiru-
Image source: eLimu
4. CONservation is characterized by the following: 1. Narrow conceptualizations of ecosystems and their functions – like saying wildlife is only important for tourism
2. Gross injustice – dislocating communities for their landscapes in order to create pristine wildernesses 3. Dislocating communities from their landscapes by telling them they do not know what conservation is. 4. Neoliberal policies and capture of nature by capitalists and philanthrocapitalists 5. Militarization of conservation and turning conservation spaces into war-like zones – guns, fences, military uniform, dogs, mean spiritedness, etc! 6. Stinking stenchy racism – associating whiteness with conservation, and erasing Africans from conservation areas 7. Economic sabotage and economic hitmanship – growing fabulously wealthy from natural resources at the expense of the inhabitants of the land 8. Shooting animals for fun – trophy hunting 9. Criminalization of livelihoods for communities – e.g., An African cannot hunt an animal for food, but a white hunter can shoot a buffalo and then throw the carcass to Africans. 10. CONservation is about hate, hate of African peoples. It is about contempt for African peoples. It is about locking Africans in a permanent quest for social justice. CONservation is about plunder of Africa and about plunder of African peoples.
-Kendi Borona-
5. CONservation is simple to explain, because it is based on 3 simple premises with no intellectual depth; 1. All African wildlife is in grave danger. 2. The source of this danger is black people. 3. The only importance of these animals is the money white people will pay to see or kill them. 4. Because of premises 1,2,3, and 4, white people MUST save the wildlife.
6. Any kind of CONservation that extinguishes a culture, it’s language and most devastating, community and communal values, is no conservation at all rather an invasive practice destroying the true natural resources that have the talent and knowledge to preserve and protect the most precious components necessary for all survival.
-Alycya Rambin Wilsey-
Image source: Rhinos without borders
7. CONservation is about green grabbing – the capture of huge swaths of landscapes, waterscapes, associated biodiversity and other resources by way of annexation, questionable purchase deals, expulsion of communities from their landscapes, and so much more. This is being done by ultra wealthy people, NGO’s, and private agencies. Read more here and here.
Foreign conservationists have a dreadful record in developing countries. First colonialists took control of countries and communities in order to expropriate their resources, then the conservationists came and did exactly the same thing – this time, in the name of saving the environment. Tens of thousands of people have been evicted in order to establish wildlife parks and other protected areas throughout the developing world. Many people have been forbidden to hunt, cut trees, quarry stone, introduce new plants or in any way threaten the animals or the ecosystem. The land they have lived on for centuries is suddenly recast as an idyllic wildlife sanctuary, with no regard for the realities of the lives of those who live there.
John Vidal, in an article in the Guardian (Link provided above).
These two articles (links above) were kindly shared by Violet Matiru.
I first heard about this book via an interview that Jeff Koinange conducted with the author Laura Huttenbach on, KTN, I believe. I am generally interested in Kenya Land Freedom Army (Mau Mau) struggle for self-determination, and would like to understand it from from different perspectives. Most of the books I had read at that point were centred around Gikuyu Mau Mau guerillas. This was, therefore, a welcome addition because it was telling the story of General Nkungi, Japhlet Thambu, a Meru guerilla. General Nkungi narrates his story from his childhood through to old age, but lays emphasis on the advent of colonialism and the Mau Mau struggle for independence.
We got mixed up!
One of the striking threads of his story (as is the case with many biographies that juxtapose the pre-colonial and colonial period), is the discussion around dismantling of African cultural infrastructure and ways of being. The General recalls that:
My mother was the one to tell the local women when to plant. She got permission from God, and then she planted. She knew when it will be the time of rain. Women would never plant before she planted. When the missionaries came, they said this was an evil thing. All our good things were called evil. Oh- they cut down our lovely trees, our sacred churches. The Christian people spoiled our wonderful environment. They said, “There is no God there. Do not believe in that tree or whatever is is. We will clear each and everywhere”. Our sacred place was changed by the new religion,. Instead of studying and knowing what we were doing, missionaries imposed completely everything. They did not want to know. They said we had to turn away and leave everything. We had to follow them. Everything of ours was dirty and evil. We lost our connectivity – the traditions – that gathered and joined us together. We got mixed up.
I like the way he puts it. We got mixed up. Yaani, tulichanganyikiwa! This is a very good metaphor of the impact of colonialism on African peoples. Their cultures were uprooted and dumped into the rubbish heap, and the people were left asking – who are we? To be Christian, it appears, is to completely let go of all your heritage that defines your humanity and that helps locate you in your landscape. In this case, the culture was tied to food production systems, ecological cycles, communication with the divine, and harmony between the environment and people. Missionaries dismantle and dismember all of this, and as Wangari Maathai writes in ‘The Challenge for Africa’:
When communities were told that their culture was demonic and primitive, they lost their sense of collective power and responsibility and succumbed, not to the god of love and compassion they knew, but the gods of commercialism, materialism, and individualism. The result was an expanding impoverishment, with the peoples’ granaries and stomachs as empty as their souls.
2. The Nothing Culture!
Following the same train of thought that Wangari Maathai articulates above, the General argues that the long term effect of colonialism is that the people ended up with what he refers to as “the nothing culture”
But the missionaries told us that each and everything was sinful. They said it’s not civilized, its not a good thing – it’s evil, as it does not relate to western civilization. Our people who were Athome, the Christians, they left the custom of our people and cleared {away} all the tradition we were carrying. They think whatever was done was primitive. They have been bent in the Christianity way, where they had very little learning concerning our country’s [Meru] culture. They read from the book but not from our tradition. They refused to pray to our God on Kirinyaga. They have known another God whom we do not see, neither do we know where He lives. They said He lives in heaven. In our area people ran away from our nice culture with no system and no good leader. We took this white culture in a very wrong way. We did not even know their culture. We mixed our own culture and the other one, and something new came out. Nobody can tell which it is. It is not European culture, not Kimeru Culture – I do not know. We call it “nothing culture”.
A people without a cultural/heritage foundation can be bent into all different directions and blown away by the wind. Culture gives a people a sense of clarity or direction and unity of purporse. With the avdent of myriad Christian denominations, the Ameru people became methodists, catholics, presbyterians, etc. How many people know of the very democratic Ameru people’s governance systems and other systems of societal organization. Christianity reinforces the belief that there was nothing and no thought proccess before the coming of missionaries. That Africans were just a howling mass of people groping in the darkness. How many people recall the revolutionary resistance of the Ameru people to oppression from Mbwaa (Manda Island), where they were enslaved by the Nguu Ntune/Arabs?
3. British Colonial Corruption
There is a pervasive belief that the so-called white people are not or cannot be corrupt. I love history so much, because it helps dismantle those kinds of myths and arms us with the tools to treat those beliefs with the contempt that they deserve. There is also a misguided belief that Africans were better off under colonialism. Needless to say, this position is informed by a lack of proper engagement or understanding of the destructive legacy of colonialism. Listen to general as he describes the ins and outs of British filthy corruption:
In January I started work in Meru at the cereal board as assistant to the European marketing officer, Mr. Cross. We had cereal boards to control our produce – maize, beans, peas, chai, grains, millet. All produce was controlled. We had to sell it to the cereal board, and then the cereal board sold it to the brokers to distribute it. The market was for the Europeans because they pay you for the produce, but they never let you know they prices that they are selling. So the farmer brings the produce to the cereal board, and there are a lot of charges. You have to pay the inspection fees, whatever fees, then you get a very low price. Big trucks owned by Indians will come and collect the produce and drive it to Mombasa…You find a European in every situation, They are manning the produce in the stores. A farmer can never sell it direct to the buyer, no. You could never pass through a barrier even with a tin of that produce unless you have a letter from the boss at the cereal board, because they didn’t want anybody to interfere with the market they are selling those things. This was very direct corruption.
It is not very hard to see that this system of farmer exploitation has remained intact, especially in the production of cash crops like tea and coffee.
4. Land dispossession and political awkening and on being “Mbaya sana”
The main grievances put forward by Africans were the loss of land to white settlers and loss of freedom. To put it bluntly, Africans were enslaved on their own land, because they had to work on settler farms to raise money to pay the plethora of taxes that were imposed by the colonial government. When both World Wars Broke out, the British mobilized their colonial subject to go and fight in far off lands. The experiences of these Africans in the wars sparked their political awakening. They started asking questions like: Why am I fighting? Should I be caught up fighting European wars or fighting for my own liberation back home? Whites are not that superior, are they? After all, they are here murdering one another, right? The General illuminates the scenario.
In Meru we had a DC called Bwana Johnston, but we called him Bithumbi because he has floppy bangs [that] hung over his face. Bwana Johnston had been in the army. Before the war, and African could never ask a question in a meeting. But after, people started asking questions in Bwana Johnston’s meetings. When somebody wanted to ask ask question, the DC would say, “Have you been in the military”? If the person said yes then Bwana Johnston would say, “No. Sit down. Somebody else who was not in the army can ask a question, but not you. You are Mbaya sana. ” He had know those words in Swahili: Mbaya sana [very bad].
In addition:
Because of that mzungu, our while age group name was changed. The name which our fathers gave to us was Gwantai. But because it was our group who fought in the war, it got changed to Mbaya. Our old name got lost, and we were Mbaya. We liked being called Mbaya sana. We were proud because we knew what it meant.
5. The Mau Mau war – the forest as an arena for self-determination
The General eventually joined the Mau Mau in the forests and mobilized his compatriots to fight for the land that had been stolen by both the British settlers and missionaries. When the British learnt about his involvement int he revolt, all his coffee trees uprooted and burned. His timber house was demolished. This was brutal economic sabotage. This is how poverty among Mau Mau guerillas got entrenched, because while they were fighting in the forest, the collaborators and colonizers were plundering their land, crops, livestock, etc. So how did they survive in the forest and what kept them going?
We were sharing the forest with animals. Even Mwariama was in the forest of [what is today] Meru National Park, living with the very furious animals – lions and leopards – but still those animals were far better to deal with than the British, because those animals could give us meat.
Further:
In the forest I kept away from any thinking of my children and family. I was only thinking of the people who we are fighting. We were claiming our land from Europeans. That was the agenda. If you are shot, before you die, you are to scoop some soil and put it in your mouth. That is to say that you are dying because of that soil. You are innocent. And you can never cry. Never. When you are shot, you die without noise. You die without committing any wrong. You did not go to the forest because you wanted to kill anybody, but you were against the people who took your land. That’s the only be belief we put in our head. If you can get soil in your mouth before you die, you have won. You are free now.
When the general was captured, he was thrust into one of these concentration camps.
5. Betrayal by “Black Europeans”
The Mau Mau referred to loyalists and collaborators as “Black Europeans.” To be called so was nothing to be proud of. This was a word imbued with disdain. The Mau Mau fought bravely. They gave their all and remained committed to the ideals of African freedom and dignity to the very end. But the cancer of betrayal lives amongst us. In the end loyalists and collaborators ended up enjoying “matunda ya uhuru. Total betrayal. Is there a God out there who listens to the cry of the oppressed and their descendants? As the general painfully recalls:
The original people who occupied the land are thinking: You chased me from this land, and you paid nothing to me. You put your cattle on the land, occupied it, whatever you did. I ran away because you chased me away. I was fearing you because of power. Now you want to leave the Shamba, but you sold it to somebody, not me. Instead of the land going back to the original people , “black Europeans” came in and took all the lands. When the mzungu left, another black man became mzungu.
Development is one of those words that has been used to dehumanize Africans and other global southerners over the years. Think about terminology like: Developing Countries, Least Developed Countries, Underdeveloped Countries, Developed Countries, and if I may add, OVERDEVELOPED Countries! Development is also a word that is used to de-politicize poverty. There is a profession called ‘Development worker’! There is even a discipline called “Development Studies”! What is development? Who is developing who? Who gets to define who is developed and who is not? What if the developed one is the cause of underdevelopment in the underdeveloped one?
I have been reading a bit of Mwalimu Julius Nyerere of late and I really like his thinking around development and capitalism. I will share some of his thoughts below.
Our struggles for independence were national struggles, involving the rights of all the inhabitants. We were not aiming to replace our alien rulers by local privileged elites, but to create societies which ensure human dignity and respect for all. The concomitant of that is that every individual has the right to the maximum economic and political freedom which is compatible with equal freedom for all others; and that neither well-fed slavery nor the necessity to beg for subsistence are acceptable human conditions.
Absolutely. We have a very serious situation in Africa today. We have colonizers who look like us. Black skins white masks a la Franz Fanon! Most countries are still designed around the extractive logic implanted on the continent during the colonial occupation 1.0. Now in colonialism 2.0 we are quickly realizing that nothing much has changed. We are still enslaved! We are still in the plantation! Our African leaders have become both participants in the new economic order and we remain at the bottom of the racial caste system around which this world is structured. This is not the kind of development that MJN was dreaming about and working towards.
In practice Thirds World Nations cannot become developed capitalist societies without surrendering the reality of their freedom and without accepting a degree of inequality between their citizens which would deny the moral validity of our independence struggle. I will argue that our present poverty and national weakness make socialism the rational choice for us. Under capitalism, money is king. He who owns wealth owns also power.
This was written in the 60’s in his text ‘Man and development’. Is it not a prophecy? Which African country is a capitalist nation? Some of them, like Kenya Colony brag about being capitalists and look down upon neighbouring countries like Tanzania and Uganda, but all we see there is an ogre-fest where those two-mouthed ogres that had a mouth both at the front and the back and ate using both, as told in African stories, dominate and devour everything and everyone on the landscape. Where is the critical mass of African capitalists to be found? Who owns the mines in Africa? Who owns the land? Who owns plantations of various crops that Africa grows to feed Europe? Who owns the water? Who owns African bodies? Kenya colony, a delf-declared capitalist country, recently imported doctors from a socialist country (Cuba), after collapsing its healthcare system. How do you explain that?
By the way, a note on ‘Third World’ – This terminology was created during the stupid cold war and literally meant countries that were neutral – not aligned to either of the two waring sides. Today it is synonymous with underdevelopment and poverty. Hail to all my fellow third worlders! Moving on…
Capitalism is a fighting system. Each capitalist enterprise survives by successfully fighting other capitalist enterprises. And the capitalist system as a whole survives by expanding, that is, by extending its area of operations and in the process eradicating all restraints upon it, and in the process eradicating all restraints upon it, and all weaker systems of society.
In other words, capitalism is war. That is why countries that claim to be capitalist like Kenya colony are oozing with violence from every pore!
Third World capitalism would have no choice except to co-operate with external capitalism, as a very junior partner. Otherwise it would be strangled at birth. You cannot develop capitalism in our countries without foreign capitalists, their money and their management expertise. And these foreign capitalists will invest in Third World Countries only if, when, and to the extent that, they are convinced that to do so would be more profitable to them than any other investments. Development through capitalisism therefore means that we Third world nations have to meet conditions laid by others – by capitalists in other countries. And if we agree to their conditions, we would have to continue to be guided by them or face the threat of the new enterprises being run down, of money and skills being withdrawn, and of other economic sanctions being applied against us.
Enter IMF (What Nyerere referred to as the International Ministry of Finance) and the World Bank and other Lords of Poverty! Is there any African country that does not operate like this? People in the tech world in Kenya colony have been talking about how the industry is dominated by white people. Alas! Who has the capital? People (incl yours truly) in my beloved field of conservation have been talking about the white capture of conservation. Africa remains an appendage of the west because African leaders have refused to imagine other ways of structuring their economies. With capitalism the global south just becomes a subsidiary. Capitalism entails a fight between capitalists themselves and also between capitalists and workers.
The exploitation of the masses is, in fact, the basis on which capitalism has won the accolade fro having solved the problem of production. There is no other basis on which it can operate. For if the workers ever succeeded in obtaining the full benefits of their industry, then the capitalists would receive no profit and would close down the enterprise.
Capitalism cannot operate without exploitation. There has to be an exploiter and the exploited. If you are economically weak, you are the exploited. Nyerere tried a different system in Tanzania, but was severely sabotaged by western capitalists. While there were inherent weaknesses in the system itself, a fact, he fully agrees with, we cannot overlooking or downplay the influence of the west on the collapse of the Tanzanian model – Doing so would be tantamount to being ahistorical.
In so-called capitalist countries extreme wealth and poverty walk hand in hand. Nyerere provides this example:
Look at the developed capitalist societies. Then we can see malnutrition among the people of the Apalachian mountains and of Harlem contrasted with the gadgetry of suburbarn America; or in Britain we can see the problem of homelessness while colour television sets are produced endlessly; and in the same societies we can observe the small resources devoted to things like education and health for the people as compared with those spent to satisfy the inessential desires of the minority.
Proliferation of fast-foods and other western-culture-inspired goodies is considered a sign of development in many African countries. It is seen as a step towards ascending to modernity (read being white or whitening their darkness). Spending huge sums on elections when citizens lack water and food is capitalism or stupidity? Paying politicians huge salaries when there is no medicine in hospitals or books in schools is capitalism or open thuggery? Clear-cutting forests to grow flowers for Europe, diverting water from rivers to irrigate flowers and other horticultural produce for export to Europe is capitalism or sheer plunder of people and their environments?
Capitalists and pseudo-capitalists are to be heard bragging about how their GDP is growing and how they want to achieve double-digit GDP-oriented economic growth. You can sell heroine and other drugs and grow your GDP, you can traffic human beings, ivory, and other animal products and still grow your GDP. You can blow up all the mountains, clear-cut forests, poison all the water and still grow your GDP. Mwalimu sums it up nicely:
A successful harlot, or a favoured slave, may be better off materially than a woman who refuses to sell her body, or a man to sell his freedom. We do not regard the condition of the harlot or slave as being consequently enviable – unless, of course, we are starving, and even then we recognize the possible amelioration in our circumstances as being uncertain and insecure.
Question: If we look back to human origins – who told Homo-habilis, Homo-erectus and previous groups that they were underdeveloped and needed to develop to Homo-sapiens? I thought they just figured it out and adapted to, and innovated within their environments, to best use available resources. If that is the case, is it possible to develop another person or for a country to develop another one? The answer must be NO. The development industry is a SCAM!
Trees have been an essential part of my life and have provided me with many lessons. Trees are living symbols of peace and hope. A tree has its roots in the soil yet reaches to the sky. It tells us that in order to aspire we need to be grounded, and that no matter how high we go it is from out roots that we draw sustenance. It is a reminder to all who have had success that we cannot forget where we come from. It signifies that no matter how powerful we become in government or how many awards we receive, our power and strength and our ability to reach our goals depend on the people, those whose work remains unseen, who are the soil out of which we grow, the shoulders on which we stand.
I have chosen to open the blog with this excerpt from Wangari Maathai’s memoir ‘Unbowed‘ because, I feel, it sets the scene for the forthcoming arguments about WM’s philosophy. Much of her work is understood through the entry point of trees and ecological restoration, but she is a multi-dimensional individual. I want to share what I understand as her philosophy, and make a case for why we should all be Wangari-ists. These views are informed by substantial engagement with her four texts: Unbowed: One Woman’s story, The challenge for Africa, Replenishing the earth, and the Green Belt Movement. In addition, they are informed by engagement with communities & staff that worked with her during her efforts to restore degraded forest lands – this was through the course of my doctoral research in the Nyandarwa landscape.
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Slideshow of book covers
Following are some of the key defining elements of Wangari Maathai’s philosophy. Of course, you can analyze her thought from many other dimensions, but these are those that stick out for me.
A deep environmental consciousness that is grounded in indigenous knowledge systems
WM locates her story at the foothills of Kirinyaga where she was born. Kirinyaga was later renamed Mt. Kenya during the colonial era/error. The mountain was and is considered sacred by the Agikuyu people, the community to which she belongs. She details how the mountain served an anchor to the community because “everything good came for it: abundant rains, rivers, streams, clean drinking water. Whether they were praying, burying their dead, or performing sacrifices, Kikuyus faced Mt. Kenya, and when they built their houses, they made sure the doors looked towards it.” She argues that these communal ecological linkages with land and landscape were dismantled by the destructive legacy of colonialism. She provides a poignant example of the Mugumo tree, which is also considered sacred by the Agikuyu people. When she was growing up, her mother told her that the Mugumo was a tree of God and it was was to be treated with utmost respect. Upon her return from the USA for her studies, she found that the Mugumo tree near their home had been cut and a church erected in its place! She concludes that this is how “hallowed landscapes lost their sacredness and were exploited as the local people became insensitive to the destruction, accepting it as a sign of progress.” These and other experiences that were linked to Agikuyu indigenous environmental thought informed her future community-driven ecological restoration and societal reconstruction works.
Source: New York Times
Anecdote: A person who worked with Prof. Maathai told me that a Mugumo tree that was situated at the Green Belt Movement offices fell when she died in 2011. Nobody dared touch it!
2. A recognition of history as a weapon in social justice struggles
This is tied to no 1 above because, I believe, history and indigenous knowledge systems are related. Throughout her texts and work, she engages with and reaches back into history to understand the present day struggles and triumphs. In ‘The challenge for Africa‘ she embarks in a thorough deconstruction and reconstruction of the history of the brutal slave trade, colonial occupation, and neo-colonial encirclement and links them with the destruction of Africa’s cultural infrastructure, humanity and associated livelihoods. One of her best examples of use of history as a weapon is during the struggle to save Karura forest from land grabbers and the Moi regime. At the height of her brutalization by the state she said: This is our land! Our forefathers fought for this land. This is my blood! This is the blood of Waiyaki wa Hinga. We will not dignify theft. Now, recall that Karura forest actually exists because of application of indigenous knowledge systems. The elders who owned both Karura and city park forests left a death-bed curse and said that those forests should not be destroyed and they should contain indigenous tree species. When the colonial government took over, they established plantation forests there, essentially desecrating the landscape. Back to WM: She memorialized Waiyaki wa Hinga at the height of this struggle. Waiyaki wa a Gikuyu elder who was captured by the British and buried upside down (head first) in Kibwezi. He was later transformed into a martyr for the nationalist cause during the Kenya Land Freedom Army (Mau Mau) struggle for self determination. Emotive songs of protest featuring Waiyaki were sung to memorialize his humiliation, as well as to galvanize the struggle. Songs with these lyrics were sung widely:
Wiyaki’s war was the first one!
Waiyaki called them and asked them!
You are letting all the land be taken away
What will your children inherit?
When WM invoked Waiyaki wa Hinga, she located the struggle to save Karura in history. She remembered. She used memory to link the past, the present, and the future. The struggle to claim Karura from the sleazy tentacles of land grabbers was to be of benefit to all future generations. Karura stands today as a testament of and an immortalization of that sustained struggle.
Hired youth confront WM with bows, arrows and other weapons. Picture: Daily NationWM is carried by other women after being brutalized by the state and state operatives. Picture: Kenya Talks
3. Community mobilization as a critical ingredient for liberation of African peoples
Unbowed was the first of WM’s books that I read. While attending a course in Rome, I met an Inidan colleague who was reading WM’s ‘The Challenge for Africa‘. I had seen the book in the book shops, but I thought it was another book whose focus would be on telling us what is wrong with Africa. At that point I had already been bombarded with too much of that, so I did not buy it. I asked my colleague why she was reading it and she said that she was going to be doing some work in Africa and wanted to get a better understanding of the continent. I decided to borrow her book and give it a quick look. I was still quite skeptical at this point. I read the description at the back and thought: not bad. Then I started reading chapter 1: The farmer in Yaounde. I was hooked! She tells a story of a farmer who she saw cultivating up and down the slope in Yaounde. At that time, she was in a hotel for a conference and observing the farmer from there. She tells the story beautifully and compellingly and finally argues that ” how many even see farmers such as the ones I saw that day? Shuttled from hotel to conference centre and back in luxury cars, accustomed to high powered meetings with donor or officials, many policy makers may not take the time to recognize how hard the people of Africa are working to make a living in circumstances that are getting more difficult, day after weary day….it is on the hillsides like these and with women that we must work. That’s where those of us concerned about the fate of Africa and her citizens must focus our energies, for it is where the vast majority of Africa’s peoples are, and it is with their lives that we must engage.”
Picture: Elephant Journal
4. Environmental issues cannot be divorced from governance, politics, and leadership discourse in Africa
Some people in the CONservation arena in Africa believe that it is not important to engage with politics/governance, because that is too HARD or DIRTY. But, what is not affected by politics and governance? Establishing small enclaves and fencing them off does not separate those enclaves from the larger landscape and associated governance challenges. Through her work with the Green Belt Movement, WM demonstrated that governance and politics are central issues in understanding governance, resisting mis-governance, and cultivating good leadership. The struggle to protect Uhuru Park, Karura, Jevanjee gardens, Ngong forest, Mt. Kenya, Mau, Nyandarwa forests are all tied to governance, stinky bad politics, and pathetic leadership, where the state presides over the destruction of the environment on which its citizenry is so directly dependent. Leadership and governance remain Africa’s primary challenges- in my view. We are now seeing a new scramble for Africa via China and others. To this end, WM’s words are instructive: In the past, people entered Africa by force. These days, they come with similarly lethal packages, but they are camouflaged attractively to persuade Africa’s leaders and peoples to cooperate. Of course, such packages are eye-catching to many African governments , not least because they may be free of “conditionalities,” such as respect for human rights, protection of the environment, and promotion of equity. She makes a case for studying Africa’s pre-colonial governance and leadership systems and applying them to develop robust political systems that serve the needs of African peoples.
5. Calling out the hypocricy of the West, understanding the foundation of white supremacy and racism
In my experience, foreign diplomats and businessmen speak politely when African leaders are present. In the quiet of their boardrooms and embassies, however, I’m sure they know all too well when the leaders with whom they conduct business are not doing right by their people. If their own leaders are doing the same things, they would be chastising them.
Who can argue with this? Hyprocisy reigns in the extractive relationship between Africa and the the west. In the end, those who suffer are African peoples. The other day I was thinking: Is there any western nation that has shut down its mines in the DRC because it insecure and there is war? War, chaos, poverty are necessary for the west and others to flourish in Africa. Who manufactures and sells weapons of war? In her memoir she details her experiences with race and racism in the USA, including a time when a hotel refused to serve them drinks because they are “Black”. She describes her experiences growing up in a settlers farm in the Rift Valley where her father was a squatter. She observed how poverty of the African population was systematically entrenched through amongst others, the use of marketing boards, through which the Africans could sell their produce at a pre-determined price. One day he father was working in Mr. Nelyan’s Compound. She went to see him there and found herself close to Nelyan’s daughter’s room: Through an open door I saw a compartment full of clothes. More than 20 dresses must have been inside…”how can anybody have so many dresses?” I asked myself. It was as many dresses as I had seen in my whole life. At that time, I think I had two dresses, maybe three. Africans must study and understand white supremacy. They must understand and engage with race and racism. Shying away from these issues does not help us understand the assymetrical power relationships that characterize our world today. You can not solve a problem that you do not understand. Also, you cannot be the doctor if you are the disease.
6. Peace and conflict resolution – trees as an entry point
This ties up to the quote used at the beginning of this blog post. Throughout her work, WM structured her work around the tree, starting with the seed, to the seedling, all the way to fully grown tree. She encouraged communities that were in conflict to plant peace trees, again drawing from the well of African indigenous knowledge systems and environmental consciousness. The other dimensions of conflict were tied to environmental governance in the sense that if the environment is in good condition, then there would be less conflict over resources such as land, pasture, water, etc. How many African leaders understand this?
7. Transformative education
WM believed that education should be geared towards solving societal challenges and creating more robust societies. She is probably one of the leading African scholars who used her scholarship and education for social transformation. In my view, one of her greatest accomplishments is changing people’s minds/transforming the way people thought about the forest and associated resources. Over the course of my research, I met elders and other community members who would say to me: WM helped me understand myself, she taught me that self-knowledge is very important, she also made me realize that the forest is mine and I should take care of it. Thus, her work helped to raise consciousness. It is very easy to build large infrastructure and other kinds of “projects”, but transforming the way people think has got to be the pinnacle of intellectual achievement. Regarding education she had this to say:
Education, if it means anything, should not take people away from the land, but instill in them even more respect for it, because educated people are in a position to understand what is being lost.
8. Recognizing one’s mistakes, failures and weaknesses
I really like people who recognize and document their mistakes. When WM was the Member of Parliarment for Tetu, she encountered difficulties in managing the Constituency Development Fund. This was more a clash of ideologies – she believed that people who served in commitees or who came for meetings should not receive compensation because they were doing this work for the common good. On the flipside, the people believed that they deserved to be compensated for their time. She writes:
Although I believe strongly in the value of service…most people in Tetu are poor. Leaving their fields, putting aside work on their small businesses, or finding someone to look after their children in order to attend a commitee meeting was a big sacrifice. Several expressed their dissatisfaction….If I had to do it again, I would try to find a way to compensate those who served in committees.
Mugumo tree: Picture: Eburu TV
9. Spirituality and environmentalism
In ‘Replenishing the earth’ she draws on the religious texts and other verbal spiritual traditions of the world, to make a case of caring for the earth so that in return it cares for us. Infact, she argues that spiritual values, more than science and data, might be the true catalysts in solving global environmental challenges such as climate change. What if we all applied spiritual values of caring for one another, showing compassion, cultivating love, forgiveness, recompense, justice…instead of selfish values of plundering the earth and each other? She calls for a REVOLUTION OF ETHICS among African peoples, and I would extend it to all other peoples’ of the world.
I call for Africans to discover and embrace their linguistic, cultural and ethnic diversity not only so their nation-states can move forward politically and economically but so that they may heal a psyche wound by denial of who they are…It is they who must begin a revolution in ethics that puts community before individualism, public good before private greed and commitment to service before cynicism and despair.
Note: she also challenges the practices of religions, e.g., in Christianity where the clergy want to live off the poor, and in fact encourage the practice of earth plunder so as to give tithes and offerings. She gives an example of where a woman cuts a tree and sells it in order to go and give tithes in church.
Kirinyaga/Mt. Kenya
10. I will be a hummingbird!
This one is best illustrated in this film. It centres around doing the best you can. Doing the little you can. Acting locally. Do not be overwhelmed. I also think of it as being relentless, like a Mosquito! Those who have spent a night with a mosquito will tell you that a small insect/small action can make you change or think differently. Be a humming bird! Be a mosquito!
This is a Nairobi phenomenon. I call these circular congregations ‘Nairobi talking circles’. I was curious about the discussions that go on in these circles, because they always draw quite some good audience. I have stood in two of these circles. What issues are discussed there?
Circle 1
This one was a group of acrobats. They began by showcasing various stunts. This is how they attract people. The circle starts to build up. Then they throw in some humour. More people join! They continue with the acrobatic stunts. Then they get into what must be their core business. The transition is so seamless, you really do not notice how they move from performing stunts to saying that they are selling some kind of medicine. One of them launches into an explanation about how this medicine is good for indigestion. They say the price is 100 bob. Other members move around the circle to sell to their new found customers. I turn to the guy standing next to me.
Me: What is this medicine made from?
Guy: It is from a root of a tree
Now I am intrigued!
Me: Which tree?
Guy: I do not know.
Me: Have you tried it?
Guy: Oh yes!
Me: Did it work?
Guy: Yes! Nakwambia/I am telling you, it works!
The first round of selling comes to an end. More acrobatic stunts, more jokes. The circle is bursting into huge laughter after every few moments.
Then the guy standing next to me says: Just watch, they are going to reduce the price to 50 bob.
And sure enough, after a short while, the lead guy says Kwa sababu umenunua yako na 100 bob, nunulia rafiki na 50 bob/buy for a friend at 50 shillings! More people buy the medicine.
Talking Circle no 2
This one was discussing politics and governance. The guy who was the centre of attraction had chalk which he would use to write on the ground to emphasize the points he was making. This is what I recall.
He pointed to the monument of Tom Mboya and said: “Do you see this man? This is one of the greatest Kenyans that ever lived.” He then spoke about how Tom Mboya was so intelligent, how he was once on the cover of Times Magazine, and so on and so forth. He then spoke about JM Kariuki, Pio Gama Pinto, Robert Ouko et al., and argued that Kenya kills its best and brightest. He said that if Tom Mboya was running for president today, he would not win. Even Obama would not win if he ran for elections here, he thundered through the microphone! Why? Because Kenyans are stuck in the ethnic paradigm.
He then spoke about economic injustice. He talked about how a Kenyan will be paid KES 200 per day, and that person has to eat, travel, raise a family, etc. This same Kenyan will completely ignore candidates who have an economic recovery strategy, and politics that is anchored on social justice, and vote for their respective ethnic lords.
Then he said something that I cannot ever forget: That in the colonial period Kenyans thought that the white man was a God. He said that if a white man defecated, Kenyans would go to see what colour it was! Then somebody in the circle yelled! Hata siku hizi/even today!! And the crowd roared in laughter!
What a great illustration of white supremacy and coloniality in Kenya?
These two talking circles were located near or around the Tom Mboya monument area. There is another talking circle that happens opposite City Hall or outside former Nakumatt City Hall area. This one happens very early in the morning. It is always a group of men huddled close together. It is a much smaller circle than the one in this picture. I think the person in the middle has a newspaper? I am not sure. Anybody knows what this one is about?
Now I am really interested in these circles. These are a good way to read and understand the issues affecting society. For those who are looking for research topics, there is plenty of angles to look at this from:
Urban planning/Use of public spaces
Health and public health –access, Indigenous Knowledge Systems & health
Gender dynamics of talking circles
Theatre and performance
Governance, access to information, the people’s politics
The Kiondo is a basket that is native to Kenya. Embedded in the Kiondo are teachings and philosophies about life, environmental consciousness, social organization, and so much more. What is the philosophy of the Kiondo?
The Kiondo teaches us that to understand anything you have to go to the very beginning, or to the root of the matter. A kiondo is woven by joining several strands of sisal and thread to form the navel, followed by the base, which then supports the cylindrical section. Nobody makes a Kiondo starting from the rim. The Kiondo teaches us that history is important, because history is about going back to the beginning. And the beginning has a bearing on the present.
2. The Kiondo encapsulates wholeness/completeness. The Kiondo is essentially a circle, and circles are very important in African cosmology. They represent continuity and connectedness.
3. The Kiondo is woven by interdependent threads and sisal strings. Nobody weaves a Kiondo using a single thread or sisal rope. Hence, the Kiondo teaches us about interdependence, as expressed in the African philosophy of Ubuntu, which is the belief that you become human in the midst of others, and also that all of nature (including humans as part of nature) is interconnected. In that sense, it teaches us respect, responsibility, and the need to cultivate peaceful co-existence.
4. The Kiondo is a good representation of reciprocity. In many cultures the Kiondo or equivalent is what you use to carry a gift/offering when visiting someone. The person you are visiting also puts something for you in the Kiondo before you leave. That is reciprocity. NB: Some of these practices have been watered down by capitalistic ideologies that encourage exploitative relationships.
5. The Kiondo is about nourishment. It is the carrier of food. When you go to the farm, you carry a Kiondo and use it to carry food. When you go to the market, you use the Kiondo to carry food. Food production and associated practices are arenas of knowledge production.
6. The Kiondo is about environmental consciousness. The Kiondo is about African environmentalism. It is made from elements of the land: sisal (or other fibres), wool, and leather. So, it is about plants and animals – all products of the Land. So, the Kiondo is Land, and Land is the Kiondo.
That is the philosophy of the Kiondo. The Kiondo has been largely relegated to the graveyard of primitive objects, and since we are now ‘civilized’, only elders carry Kiondo’s nowadays. We would rather use plastic bags. What is the philosophy of the plastic bag? The philosophy of the plastic bag is environmental catastrophe. And environmental catastrophe=death. Hence, the philosophy of the plastic bag is DEATH, both for human beings and other living beings. Now, livestock and even the fish in the seas are swallowing plastic bags. Is it not time to return to the philosophy of the Kiondo or other forms of baskets?
Christianity is a big set back for conservation and by extension, community livelihoods. Why?
1. It all begins in the story of creation with the dramatic expulsion of Adam and Eve from the garden of Eden. From then on, human beings and nature are thought of as separate. They cannot coexist. Human beings are seen as threat to nature. This logic drives and informs oppressive conservation practices, such as removal of communities from their land (and by extension livelihoods), to create National Parks and the like.
2. This logic of separation of man and nature is further pushed into conservation practice, through the separation of culture and nature. We begin to look at them as different things. But in many cultures, they are intrinsically linked. This logic results in communities being denied access to sacred sites, for example. Because it is believed they will destroy them. That is a livelihood issues. Livelihood is more than just food. It is is about total well-being.
3. Then, there is the passage of: go forth, multiply, fill the earth, subdue and conquer it. This has been severely detrimental to the earth. Because of this logic, human beings have blown up mountains in search of gold, created ugly scars on earth in search of diamonds, poisoned rivers, filled the ocean with plastic bags, hunted animals such as the dodo (in Mauritius) to extinction. This passage tells human beings that they have the power to do whatever with nature. As a result, human beings have defiled the earth. The climax of this defilement is seen in climate change and its catastrophic impacts. Many have died of floods, drought, and so on. Many have no food. I hear Cape Town is running out of water!
4. And my personal favourite -THIS WORLD IS NOT MY HOME, I AM JUST PASSING BY. Now, this one, just like no 3 above, has been a disaster for the planet. Why should I care about the earth if I am just passing by. I can bulldoze my way through it. After all, my treasures are laid in heaven! I can clear-cut all the forests, and not care about whether people get water or not. I can dump toxic wastes in the water. I can litter everywhere, because heaven will be full of gold, and it will be white and clean. I will dance with white angels there. Oh haleluhya! I can privatize water and sell it in bottles and call it “Mineral water”. I can privatize seeds and sell them to farmers, and sue any farmer who tries to save those seeds to plant in the next season. I can hunt down every animal for trophys. This world is not my home, I am just passing by. I might as well do so in style. Make a big impact. Boom!
5. Lastly, when missionaries came to Africa, they told Africans that their ways of worship were devilish. Some of these ways of worship entailed performing prayers and sacrifices under trees, in forests, and other places of spiritual importance. Some of these sacred spaces were around water catchment areas and these belief systems kept them completely out of bounds. This ensured that there was water for all. Christianity up-ends of these belief systems, and trees are cut down to construct churches. Churches are even constructed on some of these sacred sites, hence burying that tradition. And now who stays without water as a result of this environmental destruction? Africans.
Is Jesus going to bring us water? Jesus comes from a very dry environment. Is he going to prioritize Africans over his home area? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔
The book opens with a laugh out loud funny, truthful, and powerful joke.
Have you ever seen a black man aired on Animal planet?” asked Nigerian comedian, …Basketmouth, during an Aljazeera TV Program…The audience became silent. Then the immensely popular stand-up comedian volunteered to explain the courage with which white people aired on the television channel usually advance on some dangerous animal. “White people are never afraid. They only become afraid when you go to the Embassy seeking a visa…They tell you, ‘I am afraid we cannot give you a visa’ Said in an officious mimic, this drew instant laughter from the audience.
A friend of mine sent me a link about the launch of this book earlier this year. I googled it. I looked at the cover, and knew I had to get the book-immediately! My friend and I discussed the cover and had a good laugh. You have to laugh in order to go mad. We are both in the conservation industrial complex, so the cover speaks to our individual and collective struggles.
Mbaria and Ogada share their personal and professional experiences on the intricacies between race, conservation, dispossession, raw capitalism, environmental destruction, community livelihoods, exploitative research and so much more. I think this is one of the most important books to emerge out the conservation arena in Africa in recent times. It a powerful critique of white corruption and conservation in Kenya. The overarching themes of the book include:
Who benefits from the conservation of wildlife in Kenya?
Who shapes the conservation agenda?
The goal of this blogpost is to share some stories that reinforce some of the arguments that Mbaria and Ogada are making, as well as to offer some possible solutions.
So, what exactly did Basketmouth mean?
Basketmouth might have been joking, but the image of white men(they are mostly male characters) taking to the wild, devoting their lives to saving wild animals, and engaging in sensually captivating adventures has forever been used to drive the point home that as the planet experiences immense destruction of species, habitats, and ecosystems, it is only white people who really care. Conservation is now almost exclusively associated with whiteness.
What is the place of Africans in the conservation landscape?
Usually, black people are featured either as cargomen, props, victims, or as hinderances to the conservation enterprise. In most instances, black Africans are portrayed as people who need to be sensitized, so that they can either accept or learn to love the animals that live in their midst or the wilderness they inhabit.
Now, these are issues that quite close to my heart. And I have blogged about this before in Saving Africa from Africans. I highly, highly, resent the idea that Africans do not know or are not interested in conservation, and have actually spent the last 12 years of my life trying to dispel or at least understand this myth. The latest of these ventures is through my PhD research on Indigenous Knowledge Systems and forest governance. Why has this idea that Africans do not care about conservation become so widely accepted, including by Africans themselves? It is argued that Africans do not know conservation because they do not know how to uhhh and ahhh when they see animals. Loving wildlife is reduced to uuhing and aahhing, and attempts at domesticating them by giving them names like Tom, and petting them. These kinds of ideas are completely incongruent with African conservation and environmentalism. The connections that Africans have with their landscapes are more deeper and sophisticated than this superficial and empty romanticization. Let us all do our own research-you have your grandparents or other elders in our community. Ask them what relationships they forged with wildlife or the environment in general, especially before the encounter with colonialism and Jesus. The answers might surprise you. If you are in Kenya and know any Mau Mau guerrillas, ask them how they survived in the forests that are inhabited by wild animals – for close to 10 years.
Where are the African conservationists? Mbaria and Ogada argue that the conservation arena is fed by self-propagating hero worship. All these heroes are white. Take the case of George Adamson and his domestication of lions. A couple of years ago, the Kenya Wildlife Service posted a picture of George and “his lions” on their facebook page. I asked them if they are promoting the domestication of wild animals? The rebuttal was quick – “We are celebrating someone who has contributed immensely to conservation in Kenya.” Yawn! I then asked them why I have never seen any celebration of African conservationists. They never came back to me.
Another good example is Karen Blixen, whose story is told in the movie ‘Out of Africa’. The movie opens with the line “I owned a farm in Africa” the correct opening line should be “I stole a farm in Africa.” I want to use the example of Blixen to demonstrate that the white capture of conservation extends beyond wildlife conservation into the cultural heritage conservation realm. Blixen was an out-and-out racist who argued that she understood Africans better after interactions with wild animals. As Ngugi wa Thiong’o writes in ‘Detained’ “In reality they [white settlers in Kenya] loved the wild game, but Africans were worse, more threatening, instinctless, unlovable, unredeemable, sub-animals merely useful for brute labour.” This was a view strongly held by Blixen. Despite this, there is a museum in her name in the colonial outpost that is known as Karen. Yes, the area is also named after her. I cannot understand why there is a museum that memorializes Karen Blixen and yet there is no museum or anything else built to memorialize the glorious struggle of the Mau Mau, who fought racial oppression and colonial domination with everything they had. Why must Africans continue to celebrate people who oppress(ed) them and think of them as sub-human?
Who is reaping huge economic returns from Africa’s wilderness?
The wildlife conservation narrative in Kenya, as well as much of Africa, is thoroughly intertwined with colonialism, virulent racism, deliberate exclusion of natives, veiled bribery, unsurpased deceit, a conservation cult subscribed to by huge numbers of people in the West, and severe exploitation of the same wilderness conservationists have constantly claimed they are out to preserve.
A truly, truly depressing example of exploitation that is given in the book centres around a tree known as Prunus africana, whose bark is used for treatment of prostrate cancer. Jonathan Leakey preyed on the indigenous knowledge of Africans, and obtained a permit to exploit and export the bark and made a tidy sum. The permit was obtained from his brother Richard Leakey, who is an obiquitous presence in the Kenyan conservation arena. Let us even assume that Jonathan had not been given the permit. If he walked into a community somewhere and started talking to people, wouldn’t they give him this information and access to the trees? Have you seen how people in any part of Kenya react when they see a white person? Everybody goes out of their way to help. And by the way, in Kenya, the term researcher is associated with a white person. This person just preyed on the hospitality of Africans and emerged out of this interaction with loads of money. The hospitable Africans got nothing. Nobody thinks that a white person can be up to no good. We always think they want to help us. This idea is so strongly ingrained and extremely dangerous. Why do Africans think that the people who enslaved them, colonised them, and neocolonise them want to help them? We have not really learnt how to protect what is really ours. That includes knowledge.
What is the role of the government in all this? A friend of mine told me a story a couple of years ago. I think it will help answer this question.
There is a city somewhere in the Congo rain forest. This city was established during the colonial period as a retreat/holiday space for the colonial brigade. After independence, more Africans moved into the city. The government wanted to expand infrastructure in order to serve the public. This would entail the clearing of some trees. A Nordic country successfully blocked this, citing conservation concerns. Hence people live in squalor without basic services like sewer lines, water infrastructure, etc. The perils of flag independence! The government is a powerless. Direction on conservation strategy comes from the west. The white capture of conservation in Africa is total, thorough, and uncompromising.
Let me give you another example. This is in regards to nominating sites into the UNESCO World Heritage List. The process works like this: A country nominates a site to be a world heritage site. Once the site goes through all the hoops at the UNESCO level, somebody is sent to evaluate the site in situ. This consultant writes a report on whether the site you are proposing is deserving of world heritage status or not. In all the instances I know for African sites, the consultant has always been a white person. I do not know of any instance where an African has ever been commissioned as a consultant to evaluate any site either on the African continent or elsewhere. Can we envision a situation where an African goes to evaluate a site in Europe, for instance? And needless to say, these consultant are paid handsomely. You cannot acquire world heritage status without white approval. Also, can we envison a situation where a Kenyan owns 100,000 acres of land in the UK and turns it into a conservancy? This is satirized in this conservation conundrum.
Tourism and conservation. In kenya, these are siamese twins.
In ‘The wretched of the earth’, Fanon writes:
The national bourgeoisie will be greatly helped on its way towards decadence by the Western bourgeoisies, who come to it as tourists avid for the exotic, for big-game hunting and for casinos. The national bourgeoisie organizes centres of rest and relaxation and pleasure resorts to meet the wishes of the Western bourgeoisie. Such activity is given the name of tourism, and for the occasion will be built up as a national industry…Because it is bereft of ideas, because it lives to itself and cuts itself off from the people, undermined by its hereditary incapacity to think in terms of all the problems of the nation as seen from the point of view of the whole of that nation, the national middle class will have nothing better to do than to take on the role of manager for Western enterprise, and it will in practice set up its country as the brothel of Europe.
I want to illustrate this aspect of the turning of a country into the brothel of Europe.
I once went with a friend to a hotel in Nairobi. This hotel has an in-house dance troupe which entertain tourists. We were excited to see the dances. My friend and I were among the very few Africans there. The place was packed with white people with cameras. In Kenya, tourist=white person. When we say we want tourists to come, we do not mean people from Papua New Guinea. Nor do we even mean Kenyans who live next to the so-called tourist attractions. The show starts. It is good. It keeps getting exciting. At some point, the ladies dance is a way that reveals their behinds. The sway the skirt upwards and there, the bum is fully exposed. The tourists click away. My friend and I turn to each other and ask “what was that?” It is not all of them who showcase their behind. It is selected, slender, light skinned ones. It is pathetic. It is very pathetic. It is disgusting. I have never gone back to that hotel. By the way, this dance troupe had come to perform at my university and there were no bum-showing stunts! You know why? There were no white people there. It is their fantastic performance at my university that made me want to see them again, hence the visit to the hotel.
If you want to see who controls the conservation industry in Kenya look no further than the Cabinet secretary’s facebook page. She is is always posting pictures of signing MOU’s or other agreements with some foreign entities known as “development partners”. It feels like Kenya has been sold.
Another story: I once went for a meeting at the Karen Country Club. I was one of 2 Africans there. The meeting began with a presentation. After that, there was a discussion. Most of the time was spent bashing the Kenya Wildlife Service. I have never felt more out of place. That was the first and last meeting I ever attended.
So why not start your own NGOs ?
Conservation NGOs must also be seen to toe the racial line; one can only succeed in the NGO world if they are white or have a close and preferably familial or business affiliation with one or more members of the Kenya white community. Starting an American chapter or getting and American to sit on the board is an added advantage.
I think it comes down to governance. Failure of the state to put public interests first. Failure of government to support local conservationists. Colonized mentality that reinforces the idea that Africans do not know conservation. It also persists because the state itself is captured by the white NGO lobby.
I was invited to a meeting to discuss Indigenous Community Conservation Areas(ICCAs) and the possibilities for implementation of this type of conservation in Kenya a few months ago. During the discussions one of the participants made a claim that the Kenya Forest Service (KFS) was presiding over the destruction of forests in Kenya. A representative from the Ministry of environment took issue with that and asked him to substantiate. The debate went on and on. Then, during tea break, we the Africans congregated at one table. The discussion continued. Several other Kenyans supported the person who had made the claim about KFS. Then, the person from KFS said something astonishing. He said: “Even if it is true, you cannot say that in the presence of donors.” In Kenya, donors, like tourist =white person. There were several white people there representing various international organizations, the UN etc. This probably is the root cause of the situation that we find ourselves in. The government is not accountable to the people, is not interested in what the people think or feel, it is more interested in pleasing donors. Subsequently people lose faith in the government and chose to work with NGOs or to just give up all together. Quagmire.
What is to be done?
Talk about these things openly. You cannot solve a problem if you do not understand it. You cannot solve a problem if you do not even know that it exists. Ogada and Mbaria have provided a solid foundation from which these issues can be interrogated.
We must get governance right. We must have people who care about the public and put their interests first. Without this, nothing will work in our favour. It is not just in conservation, it is in all other aspects of life. We must all engage with politics constructively. Being apolitical enables the system of exploitation.
Africans must stop thinking that white people love them and want to help them. Everybody is in the conservation sector for economic or other interests. If you do not believe this ask yourself why a lot of the settlers who own huge tracts of land have now turned their land into “conservancies”. And if you do not find this convincing think of this:
A question well worth asking in Kenya is which sector makes the most money per elephant in Kenya- the government, the poachers, the tourism investors, or the conservationists.
4. Africans should support African conservationists in which ever way they can. By conservationists, I do not mean only those people who are formally trained. Some of the most formidable conservationists in the African context are people who work the landscapes and waterscapes on a day to day basis-farmers, pastoralists, fishermen, hunters and gatherers, etc
5. Education. Education. Education. I do not mean formal education alone. Let us all strive to learn what African conservation really means. Talk to elders, talk to farmers, teach others, learn from others, write about it, speak about it, film it, share it. Educating ourselves has to be a deliberate project. We must continue striving for freedom in all spheres of engagement.
This post is an interview I gave to a PhD student in the Faculty of Law at the University of British Columbia. This interview was a requirement for their research methods class. The aim of this exercise was to equip the student with skills on how to conduct one on one interviews. The interview was transcribed for by the student and I will present it in that form. Here is our conversation.
Interviewer(GD): Can you tell me about your current position?
GKB(me): I am now a PhD student here at the Faculty of Forestry, and I am at the stage of starting to write my dissertation. My research focus is on indigenous knowledge systems and their application in forest governance. I try to understand how people relate to their forests or to landscapes through indigenous knowledge systems in the Kenyan context. But my interest is more in the African scope.
Mugumo tree in Kakamega Forest, western Kenya
GD: Have you been involved with any environmental protection initiatives in Africa?
GKB: Yes. Prior to starting my PhD in 2014, I worked on several community conservation or community-oriented conservation projects, actively in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and Malawi. These projects were mainly around heritage sites, but heritage sites or cultural sites exist in landscapes. And, so, communities view their sites and landscapes in the sense of a general landscape orientation and not – this is a forest, this is a mountain, this is an agricultural land, this is an archaeological site- but all in one encompassing landscape. That was what I was involved in for 8 years before beginning my PhD.
Ankole cattle in Uganda
GD: So, from an African perspective, is land a seamless transition without divisions?
GKB: Yeah, I would argue that in the traditional set-up, before the encounter with colonialism, most African societies had different conceptions of land or landscapes. It might not be the same, but amongst the group of people I do my research with, land was just land. There was no subdivision which has been created by colonialism [and furthered by post-independence African governments], where you would say this is a protected area, forest reserve or national park that is out of bounds to everybody including the community on whose traditional territory it sits because it is preserved for conservation. Then you have agricultural land or land for pastoralism or other kinds of land uses. So, that kind of subdivision was not necessarily there from what I have begun to understand, so far.
Sunset in Pokotland, northern Kenya
GD:What do you see as the most unique challenges in the recognition and incorporation of local values in environmental protection in Africa, today?
GKB: There are many problems, I do not know which is the most important one [respondent laughs], but I would say the most important one for me, is the dismantling of communities from their landscapes. Physical dismantling or psychological dismantling of their understanding of their landscapes, and also treating communities, majority who live in rural areas as stupid people who do not know anything. They need to be taught conservation, they need to be taught development, they need to be taught this, they need to be taught that. And, that diminishes their power. People have different kinds of synergies with the environment in which they live and we do not seem to harness that or recognise that properly. It might be in legislation, and legislation now seems to be changing towards that orientation, but in actual practice it is not as valorized as say conservation of national parks or other areas for tourism or protected areas. Communities are still viewed as trespassers or poachers, or I do not know [respondent shrugs] shifting cultivators or whatever other unpalatable adjectives that you might come up with [respondent laughs]. I think to me, that is the failure of, failure to harness the potential of the people, the power of the masses in landscape governance. And, that stems from the colonial experience.
Turkana people, Kenya
GD: You mentioned the dismantling of communities, physical and psychological. Can you tell me more about that?
So, the physical is the relocation of people, physical movement of people either to create a national park or create a forest reserve or some other land use. Dislocating them and moving them to another place or dislocating them from one place so that you can have settler agriculture. This creates dis-organisation within the landscape. I see the psychological dismantling as the destruction of knowledge systems, destruction of connections to the land, destruction of synergies with the land. This is tied to physical dislocation because knowledge is produced as a result of interaction with the environment. It just does not happen. It is not an abstract thing. It is based on practical use of resources and responding to challenges in nature. So, if you have been moved, from your traditional territory, dislocated to another place, it means you have to learn a whole new knowledge system and also, even if you remain within your territory and your knowledge systems are completed devalued, then you to relearn, a kind of formatting of our people’s heads [respondent laughs] and telling them that anything that they knew before is bad, is not good, is primitive, is destructive, and environmentally destructive and you have to learn afresh. So, how do you learn that? And, how effective is that when it comes to the actual practice of resource use or environmental governance or any other aspect for that matter?
Gabbra women, northern Kenya
GD: You mentioned four countries you worked in, are there any peculiar values you see in those regions, or what you talk about is general in character?
GKB: Okay, I think they are all facing devaluation of knowledge systems, apart from the remote rural communities who do not have that push of government or the push of international NGOs to modernise or change them. So, there are similarities and differences. The similarities can bee seen when communities are made to feel that what they know is not good enough and this is buttressed by modern education systems. So, when they see a person coming from outside the community, especially an educated person, they think that they should not speak or say what they think because this person is there to teach them whatever it is that they are discussing. But, it depends on how you engage with the communities. Out approach (when I was working in those countries) was not to tell those communities that we are not here to teach you or to train you. “Teaching” and “training” is the most common language in use with respect to communities. Our approach was to say we are engaging. So, everyone is here to make a contribution and we are here to learn from each other. Once you create that kind of atmosphere, people begin to really open up and share ideas and lots of interesting stuff [respondent laughs]. There is a huge base of knowledge that is held within these communities and by different kinds of people and presented in different ways. This is not to say we were prefect or did not make mistakes. We made lots and lots of mistakes. But, like anything else in life, you have keep improving…correcting ourselves. We have to keep learning. Learning with humility.
GD: Can you tell me one or two examples of these local values?
GKB: So, for the Abasuba people in Western Kenya, they understand their environment through the history of their migration routes and peace and conflict resolution, and give a story of how they came from Uganda and settled on Mfangano Island. So, this is an island on the Kenyan side of the Lake Namlolwe otherwise known as “Lake Victoria”. It was so named by John Hanning Speke after in honour of his queen after he allegedly”discovered” it. Yes, one of Africa’s magnificent waterscapes is named after a woman who presided over their death and destruction. I am digressing. Let us come back to the Abasuba. Their understanding of land, the lake, is tied to their migration, their quest for peace, and conflict resolution. Mfangano remains a very peaceful island as compared to many other places where there is conflict over natural resources and other things. Read more about the Abasuba people in a book I co-authored with a colleague here.
Abasuba Community Peace Museum: picture courtesy of the Trust for African Rock Art
GKB continued: And then, there is the Chewa people in Malawi. Interestingly, they still practice what you would call very traditional systems of using rock art sites which are paintings and engravings on stones and caves, and these are sites set in mountainous forest landscapes. They are still used for initiation rituals to date. You would think that some of these practices would have died off as a result of the colonial missionary assault but they have not. They also have another practice known as the ‘gule wamkulu’ which is a secret society in which they dress in masks. There are teachings to be impacted through different kinds of masks and different kinds of costumes. They parade round the community tackling different kinds of issues including health, conservation, landscape use, and relationships between people and so on.
GKB: Oh yeah, it is a unique form of cultural heritage among the Chewa people. So, there are these kind of practices, the fact that they are alive, to me, is indicative of a very strong form of resistance from the communities saying that we think it is important and we want to continue practising it.
A gule wa mukulu dancer in Malawi
GD:What are the threats to environmental values in Africa?
GKB: For me, where there is no honest community engagement, then there is a threat to these values.
GD:Why do you see this as a threat?
GKB: To me, threats must be seen as injustice, because if people are denied their livelihood, if I cannot feed my children or take my children to school and you have locked up the forest which is only accessed by tourists, and I cannot even fetch firewood from it, people become antagonistic to conservation spaces when there is no proper community engagement. There has to be equitable sharing of benefits from conservation spaces with communities living around these spaces because all our sites are surrounded by people. I do not know of any conservation spaces in Africa that are not surrounded by people. As difficult as it is, I think that is where we have to find a way of unlocking that deadlock and it has to vary from case to case with the communities.
Chewa people in Malawi
GD: Who are those creating these threats to environmental values?
GKB: I think there are different kinds of people. Usually the communities are blamed for all the environmental ills. They are poachers, deforesters or whatever. But environmental destruction, if I can give the Kenyan case, if we look at the 1990s, was more of a government-driven initiative. A failure of government by opening up forests and dishing out land to people. This was one of the things Wangari Maathai was fighting for. Government’s failure to enhance or oversee or manage, because you know, these are public spaces, and so they should be accessible to the public, first and foremost. But if the government is the one that is grabbing the land or allocating the land to individuals or to communities as well in order to mobilise votes, then who is to blame, who is to bear more responsibility? I think all sides bear responsibility. But, if you are a government and you have been given a responsibility to oversee, then I think you should take more responsibility.
Shores of Lake Malawi
GD: Apart from governments, who else?
GKB: Conservation in Africa remains a very colonial discipline or colonial undertaking. Who makes conservation decisions on Africa’s landscape? Not even African governments. It is tightly controlled by international organisations. It is tightly controlled by researchers. It is tightly controlled by the philanthropists and philanthrocapitalists.
GD: That is an interesting term, philathro-capitalists. Can you explain, please?
GKB: [laughing] People who are seen to be benevolent but really they are just furthering the capitalist agenda of more accumulation of wealth. So, I am dissatisfied with the place of Africans in conservation generally. I feel like the people who drive the agenda of conservation and environmental protection are organisations who have the say, governments seem to be following what conservation organisations say, and not so much what the communities say although at times the communities can also get support from international organisations against destructive environmental governmental policies.
Kalacha, northern Kenya
GD: So, is there a dichotomy between international organisations that are pro or against?
GKB: I think it is not that. The point is whichever way you look at it, the international organisations still wield a lot of power even if they are supporting communities the government is going to listen to them more because they wield a lot of power. If they are supporting government against communities, the government would listen to them because they still wield a lot of power. So, it speaks to the asymmetrical nature and matrix of power that exists in our world today.
Ilingwesi community lodge, Laikipia, Kenya
GD: What solutions do you propose or suggest to solve this problem?
GKB: I think, the conservation community, as I said at the beginning, seems to be seeing the light if you could say that, because, if I may use Kenya again as an example, in terms of forest governance there is a new legislation passed in 2005, which now recognizes the role of communities in forest governance because these protected spaces are large protected spaces, hundreds and thousands of hectares surrounded by people and communities. So, historically, you would have people with guns, forest law enforcement officers, how many of those people do you need to man a 100,000-hectare property for 24 hours? People would still infiltrate into these spaces. So, the discourse is changing. Now, you need to work with people who are living outside and around these spaces in creating management regimes where everyone feels like they are benefiting from these landscapes. I think that is a good thing.
Kalacha, northern Kenya
GD: In which ways do you think this would help?
GKB: I think it just needs more enforcement and support. And, the other thing in conservation agendas is the recognition of indigenous communities’ conservation areas (ICCAs). These are places managed purely by communities and these are the oldest forms of conservation spaces in the world. Again, it pints to that aspect of communities being taught conservation. These people have been doing conservation thousands of years. So, the recognition of ICCAs is an endorsement that communities do not need to be formatted, to have their brains formatted so they can be taught conservation. Also, more respectful collaboration between different agencies or players in the conservation industry be it government, non-governmental organisations, or researchers, as I said, those with power and those with less power. So it is more of how do you make that equitable or how do you create spaces where there is mutual exchange and benefit such that it is not only one group benefiting or certain people lording over the other group of people
Ilingwesi, Laikipia, Kenya
GD: Do you anticipate any challenges in implementation?
GKB: Of course there would be implementation problems, but if people are keen on solving a problem… problems get resolved when people decide to engage and work together and cede power and have common goals and well-thought agendas that are inclusive of everybody. Not that there would not be challenges, but you will find a way of working around them.
Gabbra peoples’ (northern Kenya) architecture
GD: What special considerations would you propose?
GBK007: I would suggest a high degree of inclusivity. Again, as I said, a lot of communities living around these conservation spaces are highly marginalised especially the big conservation landscapes we have on the African continent are still seen as a problem and not an asset and that is because of poor engagement and powerful people destituting communities.
GD: Thank you very much for your time.
GKB: My pleasure. I hope I was able to answer your questions.
GD: Yes, thank you. I have learnt a lot.
Samburu women, Kenya
Note: The title of this blog post”Saving Africa from Africans” has been borrowed from a a paper by Robert H. Nelson on the same subject. You can read the paper here.
See another conversation about conservation in Africa here.
This interview was conducted by a masters student in a research methods class at the University of British Columbia. They were required to interview somebody on a topic of their interest. So, we had a conversation about conservation in Kenya and Africa.
Interviewer – We are going to start off today just to discuss some of your research, to begin with. I know you have quite a few experiences over the years, from your master’s stuff and now with your PhD work. I have read some of your papers on the work that you have done on the rock art sites and I am particularly interested in some of the East African cases you have worked at. So if you would like, discuss some of your research.
Me: So, on the East African scope, I worked with the Trust for African Rock Art(TARA) . Our work was around rock art sites but the more you work with communities, you realize that these sites exist in a landscape setting. So, they are either within forests or on mountain landscapes or in other kind of settings within the larger cultural landscape belonging to that community. In that sense, you end up not just focusing on the rock art itself as the particular heritage that we were interested in, but dealing with other things – environmental issues, cultural issues, social issues, economic issues, and dealing with those things within the context of, or through the entry point of rock art heritage.
At Kondo UNESCO World Heritage Site in Kondoa
Interviewer – Yes, definitely – where were these sites located?
Me: There were sites in Kenya – mainly in northern Kenya, western Kenya, in central Tanzania, and eastern Uganda. We also worked in Malawi.
Interviewer – And how many sites were there in total? How many communities were you working with?
In Kenya we had 4 community projects with the Abasauba people in Mfangano Island, the Iteso in western Kenya, the Turkana in nothern Kenya, and with the Abagusii people in western Kenya. In Tanzania it was the Warangi, in Malawi it was the Chewa, and in Uganda it was the Iteso – who are split in between the Kenya and Uganda boarder. The Kenyan and Ugandan Iteso people are the same people . It is the same landscape historically, but the people are dissected into two by the colonial boundary which positions them in two different countries.
So, what were the specific goals that you guys were looking at in terms of the research on the rock art.
Me: The main goal was to, of course, ensure conservation of this heritage, but we approached it through the communities. That is, if communities understand the importance of this heritage, if communities embrace this heritage, they will be its best defenders , better than any fence or any kind of infrastructure that you put in place. That was our position. That is TARA’s strategy with regard to community engagement. And that always turned out to be the case where there is good community buy-in, and understanding of the project. And as the projects progressed communities would report other sites and people began taking a lot of interest in it.
Warangi people in Tanzania
Me continued: So, our approach for community engagement was based on a set of interrelated objectives .What we call community engagement is not training but rather, creating spaces of communities to share and exchange knowledge among themselves, and other people to contribute to knowledge, knowledge production in a community setting. Discussions revolve around these kinds of questions: What heritage to you have in this landscape? How is it useful to you as a community? What’s your understanding of it? How has it changed? How can we make things better? How can we improve our livelihoods using this heritage? And then, the second part of that was promotion of that heritage, once we know that this is what we have here, then we ask how do we promote it within the community and outside the community. The other aspect is infrastructure development around sites, and then there is improvement of community livelihoods. Ensuring that there is revenue or trying to generate revenue through these kinds of things for community projects or community interests.
Working on signage for placement at sites in Tanzania
So, in this specific example you have talked about how the conservation goal is around the heritage sites, you have approached this through a community engagement process and a co-production of knowledge. In general, in Kenya, what do you feel, where do you feel the motivation is in conservation. What is the primary goal, generally in Kenya.
Me: I would say, what we see portrayed is the strong linkage between conservation and tourism. That comes out very strongly – that’s what we see. That, it is important to conserve whatever it is – the natural heritage, or the wildlife or other cultural things because of tourism. So that tourist can come see these things. Historically that creation of conservation spaces in Kenya and I think in the larger African context was associated with the colonial experience. Parks were created so that settlers or tourists could come and enjoy this pristine landscape. That is the origin of these ‘wildernesses’ some of which have been created at the expense of the traditional owners/communities of these territories.The communities are blocked and told : you cannot access it, you cannot hunt, you cannot earn a livelihood. But then we have this very beautiful landscape within a larger degrading landscape when people cannot attain their livelihoods or earn a livelihood.
Me continued: And a lot of resentment develops around conservation areas with communities that are been locked out of these protected areas. The creation of this exclusive spaces, I feel, removes communities, dismantles communities from their landscapes. Not just physical removal, but also the knowledge systems that are associated with active use of a landscape. If you are not using land, then you are not generating knowledge. That knowledge system destroyed it is not regenerated by way of using the land. That is my understanding of the historical context of the creation of conservation spaces as we know them today. That is not to say that indigenous communities or African communities or Kenyan communities have not historically had conservation spaces or protected spaces within their own social and cultural or economic structures of protecting their landscapes. But we don’t hear about that.
Me Continued: The current discourse about conservation in Kenya is about let’s preserve wildlife – especially wildlife, because that is the big thing – so that tourist can come. And this time around they are not shooting them with their guns. They are shooting them with their cameras. In the 20’s and 30’s they were shooting them with their guns – trophy hunting, which is not allowed in Kenyan anymore, but practiced in other African countries. So, really, to me the landscape of conservation hasn’t changed much because the word tourist in Kenya is equivalent to the white person. So, we are still creating these spaces so white people can come and enjoy them- just like in the 1920’s and 30’s. But how many people, Kenyan people, can access these spaces? How many people can even access the hotel industry. There is quite a bit of racism in the hotel industry. I hear people complaining about it from time to time. The people who get better treatment are the white people. Africans get poor treatment, in hotels and other tourist related aspects like the guiding industry and all of that.
Me continued: And then people start asking why are Africans or not interested in conservation? They are not interested in conservation because it is a hostile environment. That is one of the reasons I can think of. Also, who owns the tourism industry? If we say it is the main economic driver, who owns the hotel industry? Is the hotel industry owned by Kenyans? I mean, I don’t think so – I don’t have the data or the figures to support the argument but I think, the Kenyan people are the bottom of the tourism industry. They are tour guides, they are porters carrying luggage for tourists, they are chefs, they are not hotel owners, they are not conservancy owners, they are not in positions of power. The tour guides and chefs and waiters and all that, they are necessary positions to support the industry, but my point is that they are not powerful positions. They do not shape policy, they do not change the infrastructure of the tourism industry. They just fall in the line. So are we training our people to own the tourism industry, if we say this is the most important economic driver of our economy? Are we training them to own the tourism industry or to be employed by people in the tourism industry? And who is it that owns the hotels? I don’t know! Most of them I think are foreign owned. Apart from, maybe, the community conservancies models which would be 100% community owned but I don’t know what the figures there as well.
Well, it sounds like some of these new conservancies are in response to a lot of these challenges. The marginalization, not benefiting from any of the incentives of conservation and as you are saying the connection to the motivation behind conservation and not being acknowledged as their traditionally livelihood strategies as being something that has naturally conserved the environment for many years. I think it would be really interesting to talk more about that because it is related to your research project . Could we could shift to your research?
Me: Let me say something before we shift…
Definitely
Me: I am very dissatisfied with that kind of notion “I am conserving this so the tourist can come and take pictures” or whatever, do whatever. There has to be more to conservation for Kenyan’s, African’s, than just having tourists come to take pictures of things, or enjoy things that you yourself cannot enjoy. I am sure there are many communities that work on their landscapes and have understanding of their landscapes and have been doing things on their landscapes with other intentions of, I don’t know, maybe accessing water or spiritual sites, or sites of sacred significance, or other reasons but that is not dominant discourse. I think that needs to be the dominate discourse. That we are conserving this because it is important to us. I’m not preserving my culture, dance or making of cultural objects just because I want to sell it in the tourism industry. There has got to be more, I would hope, there have to be more reasons that our cultural, natural heritage is of value, or is important.
I would be interested to think about specific instances where it is possible to value your system beyond its economic importance within this global economy that is now of the globalized world. I think that when you at an area like the Maasai Mara where that has become a very valuable economic landscape, and there has been a lot of pressures on that landscape, and is it possible for a community member to demonstrate other value? How do we compare these relative values then? In order to have the true value of the connection to the land, and the knowledge of the land, and benefits for livelihoods compete against someone coming up an offering 300,000KES for their title deed. How do those two frames of evaluating a landscape compete?
Yes, that is the main problem. I think that everything is up for sale. Even your own culture is up for sale to the highest bidder. That is where you have people who say for instance they are Maasai when in fact they are not Maasai, and I understand that completely because it is a kind of economic survival strategy. How do you do it? I don’t know, but I think there has to be models out there, and I think they are there, it is just that we don’t know about them, of people who are able to communicate and demonstrate that there is more value to this than just 300,000KES or whatever amount of money. I am sure there are cases like that but you don’t hear about them.
I imagine a part of it would be to have further recognition and understanding for the local perspective of what they value, what collective knowledge system are created in the local context. If I am understanding what you are saying you are suggesting that is not translating between scales of interactions. So while on a community level they may have an understanding of the value system, those values are not communicated.
Exactly. If there are good value systems within communities, the different ways of viewing things is not recognized, it is not communicated effectively, and it is always someone coming into communities and telling them what they need to do. Never asking what they think about the landscape, what needs to be done about the landscape or what their thoughts about the landscapes are. There is still a lot of paternalism in engagements in conservation and it is always portrayed that African’s do not know how to conserve. That, they have to be taught conservation. It is really a very colonial type of discipline and space to date. It is very rare that you hear Africans being celebrated for their conservation efforts. I mean who have you heard being celebrated? Apart let’s say Wangari Maathai.
Source: maathaiwangari.blogspot.ca
And the reason Wangari Maathai was successful was she demonstrated to communities that you are conserving for yourself. Not so that people can come take pictures of your forest. No! You are conserving this forest, you are protecting this forest so that you don’t have to walk for long distances to fetch water. You are protecting this forest so that you do not have to walk long distances to look for fire wood. You are protecting the indigenous knowledge systems through seed revitalization and indigenous crops so that you have food security. She demonstrated to communities that -this is for you.
Have you seen any practical or tangible effects of this type of empowerment within the forestry communities that you are working in most recently? Is there a sense that indigenous people or local people at that landscape are standing up and saying no, we are taking some sense of ownership here, we want to be involved in decision making process. Where is that at in terms of maybe the grassroots movement of engagement?
Me: There is a lot of work being done at the community level. With or without the support of the government in some cases, sometimes in partnership with the government. But there are a lot of good people putting a lot of good work. A lot of effort. Conservation is really difficult work, really difficult work. And who bears the brunt of conservation? It falls onto the communities who do not even access some of this landscapes that we are trying to protect. So there are excellent community members doing a lot of work. Most of it voluntary work. To safeguard critical landscapes. I have met some people who work with the Green Belt Movement, doing fantastic work, difficult work. Scaling up mountains with seedlings! First of all, collecting the seeds from the forest floor, propagating the seeds to get the seedlings, and then transporting the seedlings up the mountains where it is degraded. Planting them, ensuring that they survive, and restoring ecosystems. It is a lot of work! How much compensation can you pay such a person? How much payment is commensurate for the kind of benefits will accrue from these landscapes to millions of people who depend on them?
Community members of the Green Belt Movement preparing to carry tree seedlings to the mountain for planting
So, why don’t we look for those kinds of stories and speak about them? I am tired of conservationists being portrayed as tourists or researchers or someone who is not from, I don’t want to use the word foreigners, but it is always portrayed that conservationists are the ones who have saved whatever it is, elephants, lions. Conservationists are never the local communities who have to bear the brunt of having their crops destroyed by elephants but conservationists are people who have the money, the influence, the exposure. Those are the conservationist or the saviors of African heritage. What about the people who put in who put in the work everyday? Put your hands in the ground, plant the tree or do something else, ensure that tree survives, and to me you are an excellent conservationist. But that is not the way it is. People do a lot of work with conservation and in the end they do not get the recognition that they deserve.
This is a conservationist.
The other thing about conservation in the African context is that the continent is portrayed in terms of conservation attractions and tourism is portrayed as being emptied of human presence. That the only human beings who will be featured in conservation discourses in the massai jumping up and down for tourists. Showcasing their skill or other communities who have preserved their culture – but that is a very small segment of African who are engaged in conservation. And then you hear case of say Cecil the lion, who was killed in Zimbabwe. It is huge uproar internationally, and Africans are wondering how a lion came to be known as CECIL. Is it named after Cecil Rhodes the imperial magnate who has done untold damage and destruction to African people, the effects of which are still felt today? If you do not believe conservation is a colonized discipline look no further than the names of these animals. You might also want to ask who is it who gives them these names.
Cecil’s goal was to colonize Africa from Cape Town in South Africa to Cairo in Egypt. He achieved his goal.
Me continued: So back to Cecil the lion. You have this discussion globally about how a lion has been killed, and the world(read white people) is outraged. The lion is even displayed on the empire state building in New York. I have never heard of anyone complaining that a guide or other person has been killed by an elephant. I have never heard of anyone saying the lion has eaten someone’s livestock or eaten somebody for that matter! So people don’t matter ? African people don’t seem to matter in the larger conservation discourse globally. Yet, they are the ones that bear the brunt of conservation. They do all the the back-breaking work of ensuring that all of these spaces exist so that other people can enjoy them.
Cecil the lion on the empire state building
Me continued: There is then also the aspect of who makes decision about conservation. I just saw Judy Wakhungu(Current cabinet secretary for environment) post a few weeks ago that they were trying to get the African elephant into appendix one of CITES, hence granting it higher protection. But lo and behold, this move was strongly opposed by the EU. More on that here. So, who is making decisions about conservation? Is it the people have the heritage or people who enjoy the heritage? There are huge issues around poaching and stuff, and I don’t know, I just don’t understand. It just seems like it still very much related to the asymmetrical power relations that exist in the world. I don’t know how I got into that? What was your question?
I think it is a strong point because to me it is a real disconnect between the scales of understanding of what is going on at the grassroots level to the county government, to the national government of Kenya to various NGO’s who are working on all of those levels to then, this international community who is making these global decisions as you say about how important an elephant is without strongly determining if the context of where that elephant exists is going to determine where is should sit in conservation priority. Instead, they are asking the people who are perceived to benefit from it who are not the custodians of that land that the elephant lives on. From my personal interests I am really interested to know where research is going in this area specifically around the recognition around indigenous knowledge in these systems and I think a lot of your work touches on those aspects. How can an outside researcher can begin to engage in that process of genuinely acknowledging, representing and discussing local and indigenous knowledge in the context of emerging conservancies which I believe are a response to the marginalization, lack of benefit sharing, lack of ownership. How can the research community perhaps offer some validation of these systems? Offers some kind of platform to look at and recognize that these systems are participating in conservation. What do you see as the biggest limitations of that kind of research work that is going on in Kenya? Is it limitations of weather it is communicated well, is the research asking the right questions, working with the right people? Is it the fact that it is mainly outside researchers, that it is not coming from within the Kenyan community itself? I wonder whether the biggest issues today in research being able to validate some of these knowledge systems in the context of conservation.
Me: Well, I don’t think there is much research on that, on the conservancy model. I haven’t looked keenly, but I don’t think there is a lot of research on that, the community conservation is pretty new and if at all there is research conducted around that area it might not be necessarily around indigenous knowledge systems. It might be around other issues of the conservancy model because there are other issues. I don’t know if there are people working on indigenous knowledge systems.
Do you think that is part of the problem?
There are too few people doing this kind of work. Or who are interested in this kind of work. Indigenous knowledge is still pretty, very severely marginalized across the continent, and everywhere, globally. So, people who are working on indigenous knowledge systems are struggling to push this knowledge system out there. And then there is a lot of push back in terms of what is considered valid scientific knowledge. I don’t know who has to validate and who doesn’t have to validate. The point is, people have lived in landscapes for millenia- forever-as far back as we can go. You cannot tell me that if you are living in the landscape for 1000s and 1000s of years you have not developed a knowledge system on how to cope with this landscape, how to use this landscape. If you are an agricultural community you have to know science. You have to be the best scientist. You have to know the soil, you have to know the weather patterns, you have to know the crops, you have to know how to select seeds. To me that is science. If you are a pastoralist, you have to do the same. If you are a hunter and gatherer you have to have a knowledge system with which you engage with the land. If you are engaged in fishing you have to have an intricate knowledge of the waterscape in which you operate. We have to stop bastardazing people. The whole question about validation speaks also about the marginalization of indigenous knowledge. First of all, we have to prove that we have knowledge. After we prove we have knowledge then that knowledge has to be validated. What gives them the right, or the moral authority to validate, when in most instances the so called “validators” are the ones that have contributed to the marginalization and the weakening of the indigenous knowledge systems?
Iteso people in western Kenya
But I hope there are good cooperation out there between people who work in these kinds of issues. If there are people of good will working with communities – I mean, it is just about respect. Creating an atmosphere where people can really make contributions and try and achieve something, instead of contestations of which knowledge is better, or who is better. Who is teaching who? I think anyone can learn something from anyone. No one has monopoly on knowledge. So if that is the kind of attitude we have I think we can move further than saying this is valid, and this is invalid. Rather than having to prove you are right. That kind of contestation does not get us very far. Collaboration and seeking solutions and creating mutual respect and interdependencies I think, can move people forward.
Iteso children in western Kenya
Changing how the conversation is happening in this context?
Me: Yes!
I think we can find evidence of this happening on a local scale, I struggle to see how that is going to move up the scale when you have the complexity of international donor funding, and national government agendas, all of the politics of these systems. I think that will be the next challenge.
Me: I think it is really worthwhile to consolidate the strong base with communities. I mean things happen because people make them happen. They just don’t happen if we sit back and say the international donors and the government and etc are so powerful and anti-change and anti-that. If we take that position then nothing happens. But, if people work towards something then its good! What is the goal of the international donors? What do they want to achieve? What does the government want to achieve? If it is tourism that is the driver of your economy as we say, then you want spaces that are dynamic that are well protected, in which people are supportive, not where there is contestation. When people are benefiting! So how do you achieve that by locking people out of knowledge production first of all, and out of participating in conservation spaces? Legislations are changing. Why are legislations changing? Because people have been pushing for it for years. The IUCN now recognizes ICCAs, Indigenous Community Conservation Areas, which are older than national parks and national reserves and all of these other conservation spaces. So that didn’t just happen. People have been pushing, there are people working out there to make right the wrongs of conservation. Because conservation has also been unjust to communities. People have to keep doing what is right. People have to keep fighting injustice because all of this is tied to injustice.
I think that is a great place to sum up our interview here.
5. The Kiondo is about nourishment. It is the carrier of food. When you go to the farm, you carry a Kiondo and use it to carry food. When you go to the market, you use the Kiondo to carry food. Food production and associated practices are arenas of knowledge production.
That is the philosophy of the Kiondo. The Kiondo has been largely relegated to the graveyard of primitive objects, and since we are now ‘civilized’, only elders carry Kiondo’s nowadays. We would rather use plastic bags. What is the philosophy of the plastic bag? The philosophy of the plastic bag is environmental catastrophe. And environmental catastrophe=death. Hence, the philosophy of the plastic bag is DEATH, both for human beings and other living beings. Now, livestock and even the fish in the seas are swallowing plastic bags. Is it not time to return to the philosophy of the Kiondo or other forms of baskets?
Kendi Borona 