The creation of the Maasai image and tourism development in Kenya

Abstract

In order to put Kenya's wildlife conservation problems and issues in proper perspective, it is important to trace the historical and political evolution of the country's wildlife conservation policies. The arrival of Europeans in the rural African landscape, in the early nineteenth century, and Kenya's incorpora- tion into the global market economy was a turning-point in nature-society rela- tionships. Many of the contemporary socioeconomic issues of wildlife conser- vation in Kenya can be traced back to that period. The underlying socio-economic trend of the conservation of wildlife in Kenya has been alienation of resource user-rights from the rural communities. The proprietorship and user-rights of wildlife resources have been transferred to the state, conservation organizations and tourism groups. In most cases, local subsistence hunting came to be termed as "poaching"1. Thus, the onset of colonial rule set in motion social and political processes of gradual removal of indigenous decision-making institutions through state wildlife conservation policies and programmes. Rural people's natural resource use methods were weakened vis-a-vis those of the state, international conservation organizations, and tourism groups. This paper gives an historical and political evaluation of wildlife con- servation policies in Kenya. It also argues that Kenya's pioneer conservation policies were based on experts' and government officials' conception that indigenous resource use methods were incompatible with the principles and Western philosophy on wildlife conservation. This conceptual and philosophical under-pinning has persisted to the present. However, wildlife conservation poli- cies and programs which derive from this conception coupled with increasing human population in lands adjacent to parks and reserves has resulted in severe and accelerating people versus wildlife conflicts.