The Rise of Conservation in South Africa: Settlers, Livestock, and the Environment 1770-1950The Rise of Conservation in South Africa is an innovative contribution to the growing comparative field of environmental history. Beinart's major theme is the history of conservationist ideas in South Africa. He focuses largely on the livestock farming districts of the semi-arid Karoo and the neighbouring eastern Cape grasslands, conquered and occupied by white settlers before the middle of the nineteenth century. The Cape, like Australia, became a major exporter of wool. Vast numbers of sheep flooded its plains and rapidly transformed its fragile natural pastures. Cattle also remained vital for ox-wagon transport and internal markets. Concerns about environmental degradation reached a crescendo in the early decades of the twentieth century, when a Dust Bowl of kinds was predicted, and formed the basis for far-reaching state intervention aimed at conserving natural resources. Soil erosion, overstocking, and water supplies stood alongside wildlife protection as the central preoccupations of South African conservationists. The book traces debates about environmental degradation in successive eras of South African history. It offers a reinterpretation of South Africa's economic development, and of aspects of the Cape colonial and South African states. It expands the understanding of English-speaking South Africans and their role both as farmers and as protagonists of conservationist ideas. The book is also a contribution to the history of science, exploring the way in which new scientific knowledge shaped environmental understanding and formed a significant element in settler intellectual life. It paints an evocative picture of the post-conquest Karoo, analysing the impact of self-consciously progressive farmers and officials in their attempts to secure private property, curtail transhumance and kraaling, control animal diseases, enhance water supplies, eradicate jackals, destroy alien weeds such as the prickly pear, and combat drought. It concludes by analysing conservationist interventions in the African areas, and discussing evidence for a stabilization of environmental conditions over the longer term. |
Contents
Livestock Farming and Environmental Regulation at the Cape | 1 |
Chains of Knowledge and the Cape Vernacular 17701850 | 28 |
Colonial Science and the Origins of Conservation at the Cape 17701860 | 64 |
3 Fire Vegetation Change and Pastures 18601880 | 99 |
4 Vets Viruses and Environmentalism in the 1870s and 1880s | 128 |
5 Water Irrigation and the State 18801930 | 158 |
Sheep Pastures and Predators 18901930 | 195 |
The Career of H S du Toit 18901930 | 235 |
Useful Plants and Invaders in the Livestock Economy 18901950 | 266 |
Sidney Rubidge at Wellwood GraaffReinet 19131952 | 304 |
10 Debating Conservation in the African Areas of the Cape 19201950 | 332 |
Debating Degradation over the Long Term Animals Veld and Conservation | 367 |
Bibliographical Note | 391 |
Select Bibliography of Secondary Sources | 395 |
403 | |
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Common terms and phrases
African Agricultural Journal animals areas argued became Beinart Boers botanical British Brown bush Cape Colony Cape Town cattle Chapter Ciskei Collett colonial Committee conservation conservationist Cradock dams dassies Department of Agriculture developed disease districts doornblad dry-farming early eastern Cape economic environmental eradication evidence exports farm fencing fodder forests Graaff-Reinet Grahamstown grass grazing Grootfontein History hunting Hutcheon Ibid ideas increased indigenous irrigation jackals Karoo Khoikhoi kraals land landowners livestock locusts London MacOwan major merino Merwe Middelburg midland morgen natural nineteenth century northern Cape numbers officials opuntia ostrich pastures plants poison Port Elizabeth predators Pretoria prickly pear problem production PTA LDB rainfall Report river Rubidge Rubidge papers rural scab scientific semi-arid settlement settlers sheep farmers sheep numbers soil erosion South Africa Sparrman species spineless cactus spread tion Toit transhumance Transkei Transkeian Transvaal Travels trekboers twentieth century University Press vegetation veld Vermin Extermination veterinary Wellwood wild wool Xhosa