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标题：TRADITIONAL ENVIRONMENT CONSERVATION STRATEGIES IN PRE-COLONIAL AFRICA: LESSONS FOR ZIMBABWE TO FORGET OR TO CARRY FORWARD INTO THE FUTURE?
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作者：Munyaradzi Mawere
期刊名称：Afro Asian Journal of Social Sciences
印刷版ISSN：2229-5313
出版年度：2013
卷号：4
期号：1
出版社：onlineresearchjournals.com
摘要：While the subject of conservation has been heavily contested in environmental studies inthe last few decades in many African developing countries, the monumental studies onthe subject have focused on post-independence period. In Zimbabwe, for instance,insignificant attention has been devoted to examining the environment conservationstrategies that were used in the past, especially in pre-colonial Zimbabwe. Yet, thesestrategies were used at considerable success to conserve the ‘natural’ environment beforewestern scientific strategies were instituted by the colonial government and later onadopted by post-independence government. This paper attempts to critically examine thetraditional environment conservation strategies that were used during pre-colonial periodin Zimbabwe in terms of their effectiveness and possible use in complementing modernconservation efforts. The choice of Zimbabwe as a case study is premised on the fact thatit is one country that suffered colonialism and continues to use the western-basedconservation strategies in its national conservation projects; it therefore represents manyothers in similar situations. The main thesis of the paper is that while scientificconservation strategies adopted by post-independence Zimbabwe cannot beunderestimated, these strategies could have been more successful if they integrated the‘traditional’ conservation strategies that were used in pre-colonial Zimbabwe. To thisend, the paper concludes that the despising and disuse of traditional environmentconservation strategies by advocators of scientific conservation strategies in Zimbabwehave done more harm than good to the country’s national conservation project.
关键词：Environment conservation; tradition; science; pre-colonial; Zimbabwe