Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series editor's preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Politics, Institutions, and Animals: Explaining the Content, Continuity, and Change of African Wildlife Policy
- I The National Politics of Wildlife Policy
- 2 Unkept Promises and Party Largesse: The Politics of Wildlife in the Independence Period
- 3 The Political Logic of Poaching in One-Party States
- II The Bureaucratic Politics of Wildlife Policy
- III The Local Politics of Wildlife Policy
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
2 - Unkept Promises and Party Largesse: The Politics of Wildlife in the Independence Period
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Series editor's preface
- Acknowledgments
- 1 Politics, Institutions, and Animals: Explaining the Content, Continuity, and Change of African Wildlife Policy
- I The National Politics of Wildlife Policy
- 2 Unkept Promises and Party Largesse: The Politics of Wildlife in the Independence Period
- 3 The Political Logic of Poaching in One-Party States
- II The Bureaucratic Politics of Wildlife Policy
- III The Local Politics of Wildlife Policy
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
The man who looks at an animal and sees beauty is a man who has eaten well.
University of Zambia employeeContrary to promises made by future President Kenneth Kaunda and other Zambian nationalists during Zambia's independence movement, the government of the ruling United National Independence party (UNIP) did not revoke the much-despised wildlife policy they inherited from their British predecessors. In fact, immediately after independence in October 1964 Kaunda began to make radio broadcasts and public speeches about the need to protect wild animals as an integral part of Zambian history. His government submitted a new wildlife bill to the National Assembly in 1968 that closely followed the proscriptions of the colonial ordinances while conferring even more authority over wildlife on the central government. By the end of 1971 the UNIP government had declared eight statutory instruments that detailed the laws regarding trophies, hunting license requirements, protected animals, and legal methods of hunting. That same year President Kaunda signed an order that created thirty-two game management areas, and his minister of lands and natural resources introduced a motion into the National Assembly to declare a system of eighteen national parks within Zambia. Like their colonial predecessors, the new government's administrators shunted aside calls for granting locals access to wildlife. Despite the widespread dislike for their similar colonial-style wildlife conservation policies, politicians in Kenya and Zimbabwe also chose to maintain the status quo.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Politicians and PoachersThe Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa, pp. 21 - 48Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1999