Why should the conservation fraternity be let off the hook, asks Farieda Khan
In recent months we have witnessed the spheres of medicine and journalism being placed under the spotlight of the truth commission. If editors have to answer accusations of collusion and silence when confronted by the excesses of apartheid, and medical authorities have to explain why they allowed the blatantly discriminatory and humiliating practices endured by black medical students to continue unchallenged, why shouldn’t the conservation fraternity be made to examine its conduct under apartheid? For, like the apartheid-era history of many other sectors of society, the story of conservation during this period is an unedifying and sometimes sordid tale of collaboration with those in power.
The victory of the National Party in 1948 ushered in an era in which conservation was destined to become the handmaiden of the apart-heid state. This was signalled by the deproclamation of the Dongola Wildlife Sanctuary, on the border with Botswana, by the new government in its very first year in power. The sanctuary, which had been created by the government of Jan Smuts in 1947, was abolished by the NP, which gained significant political capital out of backing the demands of white farmers to repeal the Act which had created the sanctuary.
Over the next few decades, conservation would be relentlessly subordinated to the demands of apartheid and cynically manipulated by the state, while the farce of its apolitical nature was perpetuated. The state was aided in this task by the conservationists in its employ, at both national and provincial level.
These officials promoted the myth of the environment being ”above politics” while implementing apartheid measures which not only greatly contributed to the alienation of blacks from conservation, but also ensured that few, if any, blacks were employed above the level of an unskilled worker or game guard.
Well-known conservationist Douglas Hey, a former director of Cape Nature Conservation, wrote approvingly of the establishment of separate parks and game reserves in the ”Bantu homelands” and of the establishment of the racially exclusive Manyeleti Game Reserve which, in 1975, ”was visited by over 20 000 Bantu schoolchildren from all ethnic groups”.
Hey’s support for conservation apartheid was not surprising, given his perception of blacks as being environmentally destructive. His comment that ”there can be no doubt that the native youth is one of the greatest destroyers of wildlife in the Cape province today” was typical of the biased attitudes of many conservationists during the apartheid era.
Colonel Jack Vincent, a former senior official of the Natal Parks Board, wrote in 1988: ”It will take years, if not a generation or two, before millions of Africans regard wildlife as anything but the next meat meal.” This is an unsurprising comment from someone who also believed that ”many, if not most, of the Bantu people have mental processes which are still very primitive”.
Support from conservation officials did not stop at political support. During the 1970s, certain officials obligingly looked the other way while politicians and military personnel involved in the mass slaughter of elephants in militarised zones in Angola and Namibia engaged in ivory smuggling. It took exposure of this smuggling racket by conservationists in the United States during 1988 and 1989 before action was taken by the authorities.
One of the most damning accusations to be made against the mainstream conservation movement is its collective silence in the face of the enormously destructive ecological impact apartheid had in black rural areas. While writers based in the United Kingdom and the US (such as Lloyd Timberlake and Alan Durning) exposed the appalling social and environmental costs of the homelands system, many mainstream conservationists in South Africa opted instead for the victim-blaming approach.
An equally damning yet less tangible accusation is the deafening silence which met the negative impact apartheid had on the environmental attitudes of black South Africans. Discriminatory land legislation such as the Group Areas Act of 1950, as well as a host of regulations severely restricting their freedom of movement, resulted in their alienation from the land.
Apartheid legislation made access by blacks to natural amenities, game reserves and national parks extremely difficult. For example, in 1964, when the Natal Parks Board established a hutted camp for African use only, the camp was vetoed by the minister of Bantu administration and development, De Wet Nel, with the words, ”Dit pas my nie (it does not suit me).”
Various state, provincial and local conservation authorities vied with each other in their enthusiastic implementation of discriminatory laws, as a consequence of which the primary aim of protecting the environment was subordinated to the aims of apartheid. The National Parks Board is a prime example.
According to the National Parks Act of 1926, national parks had been established for the benefit of the nation; this was narrowly interpreted to mean the white public, and it was not before the mid to late 1980s that blacks were allowed to use the accommodation facilities.
Provincial conservation authorities were equally guilty of treating black visitors in a discriminatory manner. The Natal Parks Board, which admittedly offered accommodation to blacks much earlier than the National Parks Board, was equally hostile in its dealings with black visitors. In 1973, for example, the board not only refused accommodation to black students on a trip organised by the Wildlife Society, but also raised objections to the group using the hides in one of its reserves.
As a result of the apartheid laws, freedom of association (the very foundation of private interest groups) was extremely difficult to practise. While few environmental NGOs openly used race as a bar to membership, in practice most, if not all, had an exclusively white membership.
Few NGOs needed government encouragement to ensure racial exclusivity. Organisations such as the National Veld Trust went so far as to encourage the establishment of separate organisations for blacks – the African National Soil Conservation Association, as well as the Indian Soil Conservation Association, established in 1953.
The NP’s mania for racial categorisation extended to ensuring that tribal divisions were adhered to, resulting in the disbandment of the African National Soil Conservation Association on Hendrik Verwoerd’s instructions in 1959 because it had not been established along ethnic lines.
The government went further in 1964, when Senator Jan de Klerk sent notices to all scientific bodies, including the South African Bird Watchers, the South African Ornithological Society and the Zoological Society of South Africa, asking them to alter their constitutions to exclude ”non- White members”. Some refused, opting to give up their government subsidy, but others complied with the demands.
These and other government actions contributed greatly to the fact that the environmental movement remained small and fragmented, with a largely white support base. However, this is only part of the reason, and it is NGOs themselves which must shoulder their part of the responsibility for stunting the growth of the environmental movement.
The reasons for this were that, firstly, the membership of many environmental NGOs was politically conservative; secondly, many NGOs received subsidies from the government. A third factor which discouraged black membership was the practice of inviting government officials to serve as office bearers – for example, the first prime minister of the apartheid regime, DF Malan, served as the Wildlife Society’s vice- president in 1954, while the state president was its patron in 1984.
By the early 1970s, apartheid was so entrenched that its acceptance by most environmental NGOs, whether tacit or overt, was simply a matter of degree. The extent to which blacks were excluded from the environmental movement was clearly illustrated by the actions and philosophy of many of its organisations.
The Wilderness Leadership School, which was started in 1957, did not invite blacks on its trails prior to 1970. The Mountain Club of South Africa, one of the oldest environmental organisations in the country, was a deeply conservative body which never made it easy for black climbers to join its ranks, thus alienating skilled climbers such as Ed February.
What was the response of the NGO sector to the abuses of the apartheid era? There were several individuals within the mainstream movement who challenged the complacency of the conservation fraternity by raising uncomfortable socio-political issues. Most, however, remained silent, claiming that politics had no place in the environment.
Many tacitly or overtly supported the apartheid government; others, like the Wildlife Society, swung between silence in the face of apartheid abuses and a more overt support for the system. Hence the society’s much-heralded 1980 national conservation strategy was eloquently silent on the issue of whether its proposals had any chance of succeeding within a context of racial discrimination.
The Wildlife Society also collaborated with the South African Defence Force to produce a publication partly funded by the South African Nature Foundation (now the World Wide Fund for Nature – South Africa), entitled The Soldier and Nature. At a time when the SADF was effectively fighting an undeclared civil war against its black citizens, both organisations chose to be associated with a publication which adopted a decidedly partisan stance.
This is not the only instance of questionable behaviour by the South African Nature Foundation during the apartheid era. The 1996 report of the Kumleben Commission of Inquiry exposed the foundation’s involvement in the ill-considered scheme initiated in the late 1980s known as Operation Lock.
It is true that no gross human rights violations, such as torture or murder, were committed in the name of conservation; but it is also true that cultural dislocation, widespread suffering and even deaths resulted from the many instances of dispossession and forced removals of black communities in order to protect wildlife and their habitat.
On the whole, mainstream conservation did too little, too late – and as a consequence, South Africa has inherited a blighted environment and a nation ill-equipped to deal with it. At the very least, it owes the public an explanation of its conduct under apartheid.
Farieda Kahn is a member of the environmental advisory unit at the University of Cape Town