This inter-disciplinary look at the practice and policies of conservation in Africa brings together social scientists, anthropologists, historians and biologists. The new approach to conservation, the book argues, not only depends on the survival of species and habitats but is also intimately tied to the future of African rural communities.

A new, interdisciplinary look at the practices and policies of conservation in Africa is presented in this volume. For the first time social scientists, anthropologists, and historians have been brought together with biologists, in order to illuminate previously neglected yet critically important social aspects of conservation thinking. The book is introduced by an overview of African conservation in the past, present, and future. There are sixteen papers on a wide range of topics from wildlife management to soil conservation, and from the Cape in the nineteenth century to Ethiopia in the 1980s. These collectively show that conservation must form an integral part of future policies for human development. To date, conservation has been largely the domain of the biologist, but the current ecological crisis in Africa and the failure of orthodox conservation policies demand a radical new appraisal of conventional practices. This, therefore, is essential reading for all those concerned about people and conservation in Africa.