Características y microcontextos donde abordar una ciudadanías para

Fears about the impact of deforestation on hydrology were widespread in southern Africa from the mid-nineteenth century onwards, particularly amongst Cape colonial officials, and have been well documented by Grove.3 Nineteenth century scientific analysis of the inter-relationships between forest, climate and hydrology had resulted in a strong adherence to a desiccation theory, which linked deforestation to drought.

Grove argues that the roots of this belief (and indeed of modem environmentalism) can be found in the colonial encounter with the fragile environments of a number of small island such as St. Helena and Mauritius which were strategically placed along the major shipping routes of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Colonial

1 In this chapter I have not discussed the development of environmentalist ideologies amongst Basotho. Robertson’s article on James Jacob Machobane indicates that environmental concerns did exist amongst Basotho by the 1950s, but there is no literature on earlier concerns (Robertson,

‘Popular Scientist; James Jacob Machobane’). Khan’s work on African attitudes to environmental issues across the Calendon in South Africa indicates that there is more research to be done in this field (Khan, ‘Re-writing South Africa’s Conservation History’). However, as the purpose of discussing the rise of environmentalism here is to explain its influence on colonial policy, that research is beyond the scope o f this thesis.

2 See Phimister, ‘Discourse and the discipline o f historical context’, for a critique o f studies that emphasise general colonial discourse rather than the local historical context.

3 Grove, ‘Early themes in African Conservation’, and Grove, ‘Scottish Missionaries, Evangelical Discourses and the Origins o f Conservation Thinking’.

administrators quickly encountered the limits of these small islands to meet the demands placed on them for food, water and wood and resulted in some of the

world’s earliest conservation legislation. These early environmental fears were given added impetus during the mid-nineteenth as British officials in India and elsewhere came to believe that deforestation was leading to the drying-out and heating-up of the climate. These beliefs were backed by scientific evidence and became widely

accepted by colonial officials.4

The Cape Colonial Botanist during the 1860s, John Crombie Brown, wrote

extensively on the issue of desiccation, and proposed a number of radical solutions.5 His criticisms of the ecological impact of colonialism eventually led to his being sacked by the Cape government, though he continued to publish widely on the South African situation, including a monograph (published in 1875) entitled Hydrology o f South Africa.6 The book quoted extensively from a report on a paper presented to the Royal Geographical Society by James Fox Wilson. The paper described a severe drought, in 1862, affecting the broad maize-growing belt of lowland Lesotho (much of which later become the Conquered Territories within the Orange Free State).

Wilson ascribed this drought largely to the impact of grass-burning and tree cutting by the African population of the interior.

Dessicationist ideologies also arrived in South Africa via British officials trained in the Indian Forestry Service, such as F.E. Kanthack who moved from India to the Cape in 1907 to take charge of irrigation affairs.7 Kanthack was a strong adherent of the idea that deforestation of mountain slopes lead not only to increased rates of erosion and consequently to siltation of irrigation works but also to climatic changes. In an address to the South African Association for the Advancement of Science in July

1908, Kanthack explained that research findings from around the world indicated that temperatures inside forested areas tended to be significantly cooler than in deforested areas. This meant that condensation was more likely to take place above forests and hence precipitation would be higher. It therefore followed that if forests were cleared rainfall would decrease and the environment would become increasingly desiccated.8

4 Grove, Green Imperialism.

5 See Grove, R. ‘Preacher o f a Green Gospel’.

6 Brown, J.C. Hydrology o f South Africa: or Details o f the Former Hydrological Condition o f the Cape o f Good Hope, and o f Causes o f its Present Aridity (Edinburgh, 1875).

7 Beinart and Coates, Environment and History, p.43.

8 Kanthack, F.E. ‘The Destruction o f Mountain Vegetation: its Effects upon the Agricultural Conditions in the Valleys’, Agricultural Journal o f the Cape o f Good Hope, 3 3 ,2 ,1 9 0 8 , pp. 194- 204.

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There was, however, a problem in applying these theories to southern Africa. Unlike the Himalayan foothills, where Kanthack had undertaken his previous work, or the European and North American mountains, where the scientific research he cited had been carried out, most of southern Africa’s mountain environments did not support large areas of forest Nevertheless, Kanthack argued that the beneficial effects of trees also held for other forms of vegetation and that efforts should be made to ensure as lush a vegetational covering of mountain slopes as possible. Where forests could be established they should be, but the main emphasis should be on protecting the vegetation of mountain slopes from burning and grazing. Kantack argued that this work should fall to the Forestry Department, whose role should be significantly expanded:

We must learn to clothe the word ‘Forest’ with a far wider meaning than is customary. It should stand for the veld in general and the mountain or forest-clad veld in particular. Its chief aim should be die restoration and conservation of the natural growth of vegetation on the mountain slopes or other places liable to erosion and denudation. Briefly the Department should have control of the land wherever the physical conditions are such that the removal of the protection afforded by vegetation must result after a longer or shorter period in the destruction or deterioration of agricultural conditions.9

In the same year as Kantack arrived in the Cape the Basutoland authorities invited A.W. Hey wood, the Conservator of Forests, Kingwilliamstown, to write a report on forestry in Lesotho. The Basutoland authorities were initially interested in the commercial possibilities of forestry but Heywood’s report emphasised the ability of forests to ‘regulate and restrain the flow of water’ (though he did not comment on the impact of forests on climate). Heywood admitted that, with the exception of some kloofs in the foothills, Lesotho was a tree-less environment Nevertheless he argued that forestry was possible, at least below about 6,000 feet, and that the colonial authorities should embark on a programme of tree planting as well as ensuring the control of grass burning.10

K. A. Carlson, the Conservator of Forests in the Orange Free State, also argued that efforts should be made to plant a large number of trees in the Lesotho mountains. In a paper presented at the 1913 South African Irrigation Congress, Carlson argued that this forest planting scheme should be undertaken by the South African government, as the forests would act as a huge reservoir for the Orange river. Not only would the forest hold water and reduce evaporation; it would also increase the rates of

precipitation, at least on a local scale. Although there were no indigenous trees which could survive the harsh climate, exotics introduced from elsewhere would be able to

9 Kanthack ‘The Destruction of Mountain Vegetation’, p. 196.

10 SAB FOR/158/A217/1. Heywood, A.W., Report on Forestry in Basutoland, 11 May 1908.

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cope. Carlson simply brushed aside the thought that the local population might not agree to the project, arguing that the area was uninhabited:

Here is an area of about 3 million acres of uninhabited country in a neighbouring state, the afforestation of which, wholly or in part, is as much in the interest of that State as in ours. To expect a small native community to undertake a task of such magnitude is out of the question, but... not so for the Union of South Africa.11

While his arguments concerning the positive impact that afforestation could have for South African irrigation schemes along the Orange were accepted by the other delegates, his proposals were treated with scepticism. There were a number of comments suggesting he was more concerned with enhancing his department’s influence than anything else.

Carlson essentially conceived this afforestation programme as an improvement to the natural environment rather than as a programme to conserve or restore what was already there. Basotho livestock owners were blamed for starting veld fires and for overgrazing, but their role as agents of environmental destruction received

significantly less emphasis than in subsequent publications. Though tree planting has regularly been advocated since these two reports this type of massive state sponsored afforestation was not suggested subsequently as a solution to hydrological problems.

Subsequent afforestation policies have rather stressed small-scale village woodlots as sources of fuel, therefore encouraging people not to bum dung needed as fertiliser.12 Kanthack, Heywood and Carlson all made good use of the forestry discourse that dominated international environmental concerns during the period in question. They used this discourse to discuss not simply forestry but also other environmental issues

11 Carlson, K. A. ‘Forestry in Relation to Irrigation in South Africa’, Agricultural Journal o f the Union o f South Africa, 5 ,2 ,1 9 1 3 , pp. 219-234, p. 227. The obvious implications o f this proposal for the transfer issue were made explicit in a 1933 comment by Jan Smuts: ‘It is desirable in the interest o f the Union, as well as Basutoland itself, that steps are taken on an extensive scale along the

headwaters of several important rivers which arise in Basutoland and flow through the Union, to prevent, by means of afforestation and other methods, the erosion which is causing so much damage in the mountain parts o f the country. These steps might have to be taken on both sides of the border and could be carried out satisfactorily only by the Union Government.’ Memorandum on the Proposed Incorporation o f Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland in the Union o f South Africa, submitted to Mr Thomas, Secretary o f State for Dominion Affairs on 28th July 1933 by General Smuts, Annex 13 of Union o f South Africa (White Paper), Negotiations Regarding the Transfer to the Union o f South Africa o f the Government o f Basutoland, Bechuanaland

Protectorate and Swaziland, 1910-1939 (Pretoria, 1952), p. 35. See chapter 6 for further details.

Aforestation for this purpose was first undertaken on a national scale during the Second World War in an effort to increase agricultural yields. See Basutoland, Department o f Agriculture, Annual Reports, 1941 and 1942. Between then and the end of the colonial period something in the order o f 40 million trees were planted. Very few o f these were still alive in the early 1970s when a new project, the Lesotho Wood-lot Project, was initiated; Food and Agriculture Organisation, Advancing Forestry in Lesotho (FAO Forestry Project Profile, Rome, n.d. [c. 1986]).

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with little or nothing to do with forestry. While the reports and articles cited above were written by foresters and are full of references to trees, the environmentally destructive activities given most weight, over-grazing and veld-burning, were identical to the concerns raised in later reports which never mention forestry.

Grove records that the concentration on a forest and desiccation discourse within the Cape waned during the first few decades of the twentieth century and was replaced by more explicit concerns about over-grazing and soil erosion.13 He does not, however, explain why this shift occurred and, as Beinart notes, ‘a detailed history of the shifting emphasis in the debate has yet to be constructed’.14

One of the reasons the shift in the South African debate occurred at this time was probably related to the rapid expansion of the arable farming frontier into the dry Great Plains regions of the south western United States. The infamous sodbusters of the American west, heeding the slogan ‘Rain follows the plow’, turned thousands of acres of grassland into arable fields during the 1880s and 1890s. As early as 1894 this expansion brought dust storms to many areas and, combined with the 1890s economic crisis, led to the abandonment of huge swathes of farm land.15 In the wake of these environmental problems the US Department of Agriculture began a programme of research into soil conservation and published numerous pamphlets about the dangers of soil erosion. Many of these found their way to South Africa and fuelled pre­

existing fears about environmental degradation. Despite the fact that the soil

conservation movement in the USA lost ground during the agricultural boom of 1910s and 1920s, the new discourse of soil conservation had taken root and displaced the dominant desiccation and deforestation discourse that had previously dominated South African concerns.16

Another cause of this shift in discourse can be traced to the expansion of the British empire into the semi-arid regions of central and east Africa. There were numerous links between the officials in South Africa and their colleagues to the north, and fears about soil erosion were reinforced by case studies from different areas. Links of kinship and camaraderie drew the settler societies of East and southern Africa closer together and examples from one country were readily applied to the others.17 While late nineteenth-century Cape officials had to look to the woodier environments of

13 Grove, ‘Early themes in African conservation’.

14 Beinart, ‘Environmental Destruction in Southern Africa’.

15 Worster, Nature’s Economy, p. 229.

Beinart, ‘Soil erosion, conservation and ideas about development’; Worster, Nature’s Economy.

17 Anderson, ‘Depression, Dust Bowl, Demography and Drought’.

India, Europe and the eastern North America for their comparative examples, those in early twentieth century Southern Rhodesia could point to the semi-arid zones of South Africa.18

The shift from a discourse dominated by trees and climate to one dominated by grasses and soil did not mean, however, that the link between climate change and vegetational change no longer existed in popular environmentalism. This issue was discussed in the early 1920s in South Africa by a Drought Investigation Commission but no evidence was found to support the dessicationist hypothesis. Despite these findings the perception that there must be a link between vegetation and climate persisted in South Africa, and the 1951 Desert Encroachment Committee specifically aimed to examine whether ‘man-made desiccation had altered the natural conditions of the veld to such an extent that the climate itself had in turn been affected’.19 As in the 1920s no evidence was found to suggest that rainfall figures showed a longer-term downward trend.

Both the Desert Encroachment Committee and the earlier Drought Investigation Commission were primarily concerned with environmental degradation in the ‘white’

farming areas of South Africa’s interior. Despite the impression created by some of the literature that ‘the environmentally destructive activities of European farmers were virtually ignored’20 in reality the initial emphasis of environmental concerns were the extensive settler farming regions. Anxiety over ecological decay on the settler farms of South Africa co-existed, however, with similar fears about the African-occupied

reserves. Beinart argues that by the time of the 1932 Native Economic Commission

‘the basic points about environmental decline in the reserves were firmly entrenched and have permeated a great deal of literature since’.21

18 See for example Watt, W. M. ‘The Dangers and Prevention of Soil Erosion’, Rhodesia Agricultural Journal, 10, 5,1913, cited in Beinart ‘Soil erosion, conservation and ideas about development’, p.

56.

19 Union o f South Africa, Report o f the Desert Encroachment Committee, UG 59, (Pretoria, 1951), p.

2, quoted by Beinart, ‘Environmental Destruction in Southern Africa’, p. 155.

20 Mackenzie, F. ‘Selective Silence: a Feminist Encounter with Environmental Discourse in Colonial Africa’ in Crush, Power o f Development, pp. 100-114, p. 102.

21 Beinart, ‘Environmental Destruction in Southern Africa’, p. 155.

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