1. Introduction
One of the purposes of law is to provide an operational system for the achievement of shared values.Footnote 1 A key mechanism by which this occurs in transnational environmental law (TEL) is through the negotiation of treaties for the harmonization of laws across jurisdictions. During treaty negotiations, states and other interested parties advance their interests and support their positions in part through narrative arguments that draw on history, culture, economics, and moral and political philosophy. Those narratives compete for priority and are then more or less reconciled through technical exercises in legal drafting. The resulting treaty texts reflect the degree of consensus on values achieved between the parties at that time. Thus, the narratives adopted and employed by interested parties during negotiations and subsequent implementation processes are central to the incremental development of TEL and can strongly influence the pace and effectiveness of regulatory outcomes.
Building on that perspective, this article asserts that historiographic studies of past treaty making and implementation processes are increasingly relevant today, especially as regards the important role of science and scientists in responding to the global biodiversity crisis (and, by extension, the climate crisis). A deeper understanding of the historical role of scientists as participants in biodiversity-related TEL initiatives can bring to bear over a century of experience, illuminating the kinds of narrative that accelerate or delay law reform, and identifying the steps that states and other interested parties have taken in the past to promote convergence on shared values and more effective regulation. At the same time, the article also demonstrates that historical narratives that oversimplify complex questions, or that are themselves too aligned with a particular ideology, must be treated with caution.
In his groundbreaking work The Empire of Nature, cultural historian John MacKenzie analyzed what he called ‘the hunting cult’ and its role in the British imperial advance in India, Africa, and elsewhere.Footnote 2 MacKenzie argued persuasively that the British interest in hunting stimulated colonial incursions into central Africa and subsidized the expanding activities of miners, missionaries, administrators, railway projects, and the military.Footnote 3 His pioneering work on this and other aspects of the cultural history of empire has been deeply influential, including by encouraging new work and perspectives on environmental history.Footnote 4 However, after beginning The Empire of Nature with several chapters on the social-cultural aspects of big-game hunting and empire,Footnote 5 MacKenzie then wandered into unfamiliar territory when he shifted his focus from a cultural history of imperial hunting to a legal history of early transnational law for the preservation of African wildlife.Footnote 6
In MacKenzie's telling, the main advocates for the Convention for the Preservation of Wild Animals, Birds and Fish in Africa (1900 London Convention)Footnote 7 were British aristocrats and big-game hunters (the same kinds of adventurer and villain who populated his cultural history of imperial hunting). MacKenzie then argued that the purpose of the treaty and related regulatory measures was to reserve hunting privileges in Africa to the governing classes in British society.Footnote 8 He wrote that these new legal instruments were a symbolic expression of a ‘quasi-medieval dominance of the landscape through the chase’ and were racist for excluding Africans and suppressing ‘cruel’ traditional African hunting techniques in favour of a more ‘humane’ form of hunting (with firearms).Footnote 9
The present article identifies a significant gap in MacKenzie's analysis by reviewing archival records through the dual lens of legal history and the history of science. This approach highlights the untold story of how science and scientists played a critical role in the early development of the 1900 London Convention and other early environmental laws related to biodiversity. The central argument here is that early regulations, including and in particular the 1900 London Convention, were not based solely or even primarily on the self-interest of social and political elites. In fact, these law reforms were initiated and advanced by Darwin-inspired evolutionary biologists and science-minded policymakers who recognized and promoted the scientific and ecological value of protecting endangered species and their habitats. Hence, the early treaties and regulations on African wildlife can arguably be viewed not as instruments of colonial conquest, but rather as being among the first modern science-based law reforms for the preservation of biodiversity.
Indeed, this central argument aligns with Henny van der Windt's work on scientists as ‘movement intellectuals’ in Dutch nature conservation during the late 19th and early 20th centuries.Footnote 10 He found that scientists gave greater status and legitimacy to the idea of nature protection, empowered new organizations, and formulated the central values and concepts to be employed – in particular, that all species should be protected because of their roles in ecosystems and their importance to scientific research.Footnote 11 The new and original archival research in this article highlights the same process occurring in the United Kingdom (UK) before, during and after the development of the 1900 London Convention, and suggests that the precursors for significant regulatory change include sustained scientific advocacy, a focus on scientific values, and science-minded diplomacy.
The next two sections put the central argument of this article into context: firstly, by offering a brief critique of MacKenzie's method and the limitations of an analysis that is too narrow and ideological (Section 2); secondly, by explaining how, just prior to the 1900 London Convention, Darwinian evolutionary biologists provoked a new science-based approach to regulation for the protection of endangered species in both domestic legislation (wild birds) and foreign policy (fur seals) (Section 3). Having established this contextual framework, the article then broadens and enriches the MacKenzian narrative by highlighting previously unreported documents and events that demonstrate the significant roles played by evolutionary biologists and scientific values in early processes of law reform related to African wildlife (Sections 4 and 5).
The article concludes that the kinds of social-cultural analysis advanced by MacKenzie have been a powerful influence on the historiography of TEL, but that a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the origins of biodiversity-related law is available (Section 6). Indeed, the management and resolution of complex environmental problems necessarily involve the application of scientific knowledge and expert opinion. A historiography that gives a central role to science can help us more clearly to see that scientists have a legitimate role in policymaking and that science-minded practitioners can navigate and respond effectively to political-economic and cultural-philosophic obstacles to reform. Together, scientists and policymakers can design strategies to build consensus on our options to more effectively regulate problematic activities, preserve species, and restore ecosystems for future generations.Footnote 12
2. MacKenzie's Empire of Nature
The gravity of MacKenzie's social-cultural analysis of ‘the hunting cult’ drew in other historians and much of the subsequent scholarship on this topic is consistent with the critical views expressed by MacKenzie. For example, Roderick Neumann cites MacKenzie and confirms that ‘the individuals principally responsible’ for the 1900 London Convention were aristocratic big-game hunters whose attitudes were ‘patrician’ and ‘driven by racial stereotypes’.Footnote 13 For Neumann, nature protection in Africa during this period was a form of ‘conquest’ reinforced by the aristocracy's social and cultural constructions of property, aesthetics, and nature.Footnote 14 Likewise, Bernard Giβibl cited MacKenzie and concluded that the 1900 London Convention was ‘clearly dominated by utilitarian and economic concerns’Footnote 15 and ‘the result of a remarkable Anglo-German transimperial cooperation between hunting-minded individuals in the European centers of imperial decision-making’.Footnote 16 Rachell Adam's analysis also repeats MacKenzian themes and cites both Neumann and Giβibl in arguing that the early regulations ‘echoed the European view of Africans as cruel and barbarous’ and offered ‘legal cover for European takeover’ of Africa's wildlife and other natural resources.Footnote 17
MacKenzie, however, was reluctant to examine in detail the legal history of how the 1900 London Convention was developed and then implemented through the enactment of many new statutory frameworks in different jurisdictions. He wrote: ‘It would be tedious to survey all of this colonial legislation … but a number of themes emerge strongly from it’.Footnote 18 He then presented three general claims, without referencing sources, which included that Africans were legally excluded from hunting, and that European hunters were subject to ‘extraordinarily complex’ licensing regimes the enforcement of which was ‘doubtful’.Footnote 19
Because MacKenzie avoided a more systematic legal analysis and relied instead on a selective reading of archival records,Footnote 20 his claimed links between the ‘hunting cult’ and the 1900 London Convention are largely implicit. He wrote of the 1900 London Convention that ‘British concern was presumably grounded in the fascination of its elite with hunting’,Footnote 21 but he did not go on to identify any direct connections between his ‘hunting cult’ and the treaty. In later work MacKenzie argued that the use of the word ‘preservation’ in the title of the Convention ‘is significant since it had always been applied to preserving game for sport on European estates’.Footnote 22 Here, however, MacKenzie's presumed link hangs tenuously on a single word commonly used for different purposes in different contexts.
Moreover, from a legislative drafting perspective, the early regulations were very simple and straightforward (not ‘extraordinarily complex’,Footnote 23 as MacKenzie asserted), and contemporary policymakers frequently made statements contrary to the other ‘themes’ identified by MacKenzie. In particular, with a few exceptionsFootnote 24 it was widely recognized that traditional African hunting techniques were sustainable and not destructive of wildlife – a view reflected in regulations exempting subsistence hunters from prohibitions and licensing regimes, or by imposing only nominal licence fees on Africans compared to Europeans.Footnote 25 In that regard, MacKenzian scholars could have drawn a more clear distinction between traditional subsistence hunting (which remained largely unregulated by colonial authorities) and regulations aimed at prohibiting the excesses of commercial hunting with firearms, whether by European or African hunters.
Indeed, other historians have acknowledged the potential for the historiography of environment and empire to become coloured by presentist anti-colonial sentiment. For example, William Beinart reviewed various perspectives on African environmental history.Footnote 26 He noted that some scholars harbour suspicions that conservation discourse ‘could mask the real intent of colonial states’ and that ‘ideological vantage points’ are among the factors that inform the interpretations offered by historians.Footnote 27 Elsewhere Beinart more pointedly observed that some arguments about empire and environment ‘draw upon an older moral and economic unease – going back to Marxist theory – about imperialism’.Footnote 28
Likewise, in Nature and the Colonial Mind, William Adams cites the views of MacKenzie and Neumann, and lists wildlife preservation regulations as evidence of ‘colonialism's narrow-mindedness’,Footnote 29 but he goes on: ‘There were, however, compensatory gains and practical achievements’.Footnote 30 Adams writes:
Protected areas, for all their history of misanthropy, thoughtlessness and often arbitrary cruelty, have served a wider social purpose in buying time for colonized peoples to identify the impacts of modern industrial economies, and make choices about their relations with nature.Footnote 31
For Adams, the idea of wilderness, the value of biodiversity, and the moral unacceptability of extinction ought not to be rejected just because they may be Western in origin.Footnote 32
Similarly, although Paul Jepson and Robert Whittaker ‘broadly concur’ with and repeated the MacKenzian themes repeated in the literature,Footnote 33 they also argued that the ‘root motivations’ of protected area policies during the colonial era were ‘noble’Footnote 34 (as opposed to cultish and imperial). These root motivations include a desire to preserve sites of special meaning for the contemplation of nature, and a sense of moral responsibility to ensure the survival of threatened life forms.Footnote 35 Hence, nature preserves of the colonial era ‘embody’ and ‘encapsulate’ social values that are ‘international values to which civilized nations and societies aspire’, notwithstanding that they may derive from elite European society at the end of the 19th century.Footnote 36
The new research undertaken for the present article suggests that MacKenzian scholarship on this topic tends to over-emphasize the role of class, race, and colonial attitudes in policymaking. This can be explained, at least partly, because that scholarship has overlooked the role of science and scientists in treaty-making and law reform processes. In Empire of Nature, MacKenzie briefly refers to scientists in the late 19th century as being concerned only with the collection of specimens for display; thus, he concludes that scientific institutions fell ‘into the hands of the hunting elite’ who provided those specimens and thereby science helped to transmit the ‘virile attributes’ necessary for European expansion: courage, endurance, individualism, and ‘willingness to take a life’.Footnote 37 Yet, that is too narrow a view of science in the UK during the late 19th century; it ignores the important role played by evolutionary biologists in initiating and guiding regulatory responses to declining wildlife populations, which is the topic of the next section.
3. A New Science-Based Approach
3.1. Early Modern Statutes: Breathtakingly Anthropocentric
In Man and the Natural World: Changing Attitudes in England 1500–1800, historian Sir Keith Thomas reviewed a wide range of cultural materials and concluded that the prevailing view of man's place in nature during the Early Modern period was ‘breathtakingly anthropocentric’.Footnote 38 Conventional wisdom held that men were supernatural beings atop a hierarchy of species, all of which were created and continued to exist solely for mankind's use and benefit.Footnote 39 Thomas found this attitude expressed in philosophical, literary, sociological, and scientific works; had he looked, he would also have found the same anthropocentric view reflected in the statutory law of the period. Medieval and Early Modern statutes concerning fish, timber, and wildlife were aimed expressly at achieving economic, social, and political objectives only. The protection of nature for its own sake or for the achievement of biodiversity-related values was not even an afterthought in this legislation.
For example, the earliest fish ‘preservation’ statutes prohibited wasteful fishing practices for the express purpose of securing the economic prosperity of the commonwealth.Footnote 40 Later statutes regulated fisheries to ensure that urban markets were stocked with reasonably priced fish, and to advance the training of sailors for naval duties.Footnote 41 Similarly, timber ‘preservation’ statutes were aimed at furthering domestic and foreign policy goals.Footnote 42 These can be organized into four main types: (i) rules for the enclosure and management of woodlands to encourage production;Footnote 43 (ii) prohibitions on unauthorized cutting or spoiling;Footnote 44 (iii) restrictions to curb non-essential industrial timber consumption;Footnote 45 and (iv) special reservations of timber suitable for naval purposes.Footnote 46
With respect to wildlife, since medieval times the so-called English Game Laws had reserved hunting rights for persons who ‘qualified’ by meeting prescribed standards of wealth.Footnote 47 That standard was updated in 1671 through legislation for the better preservation of game.Footnote 48 Thereafter, qualification was determined as follows: every person was prohibited from possessing any guns, bows, dogs, nets and other hunting devices, unless the heir of an Esquire or person of higher rank, or possessing lands with an income of £100 per annum, or long-term leasehold interests with an income of £150 per annum. In his excellent book-length study, Gentlemen and Poachers: The English Game Laws, 1671–1831, Peter Munsche concluded that the emphasis on income from real property was calculated to exclude the urban bourgeoisie and promote the notion that land was better than money. The so-called Game Laws were not intended to preserve species of wildlife; rather, they amounted to ‘blatant class legislation’ intended to preserve the kind of society that the aristocracy wished to continue.Footnote 49
MacKenzie's suspicion of the 1900 London Convention is rooted partly in his understandable distaste for the anti-democratic and classist qualification system codified in the Game Laws.Footnote 50 For the purposes of this article, however, it is important to note that the Game Laws were products of their time and were applied only to a small group of species valued for sport and food – deer, hares, pheasants, partridges. Two other species of bird – hawks and swans – were reserved for the political elite by specific statutes.Footnote 51 The hunting of other species was either unregulated or encouraged by the so-called Tudor Vermin Acts.Footnote 52 Moreover, qualification based on income from land was the only regulatory mechanism imposed; other mechanisms that have since been used for the management of hunting and conservation of wildlife – such as bag limits, closed seasons, licence fees, and the setting aside of areas as wildlife sanctuaries – were not features of the old Game Laws but rather were developed in response to concerns raised by scientists.
3.2. New Scientific Rationales for Endangered Species Legislation
Indeed, a wholly new and modern approach to endangered species legislation arose in the second half of the 19th century following the publication of On the Origin of Species in 1859.Footnote 53 In that work Darwin showed that humanity is part of an interconnected network of species, that biodiversity contributes to the stability and productivity of natural systems, and that human agency can upset the balance of nature and cause species extinction.Footnote 54 Those ideas inspired Darwin's friend and scientific colleague Alfred Newton, the eminent ornithologist, who then embarked on a 25-year campaign for the enactment of new laws to protect endangered species of birds in the UK.Footnote 55 It was Newton's view that endangered species had enormous scientific value and that any species at risk of extinction should be protected by law, without regard for whether the species was useful or beautiful.Footnote 56 He also intuited that public education was critical because public opinion in favour of the protection of wildlife would be ‘the most effectual form of protection’.Footnote 57
Newton's efforts were effective; a distinguished scientist with extensive social networks among scientists and policymakers, he put this new science-based approach into action by drafting bills, lobbying influential parliamentarians, and encouraging public support for law reforms based on scientific values. In so doing, Newton was directly responsible for the first modern laws for the preservation of endangered species: the Sea Bird Preservation Act 1869,Footnote 58 the Wild Fowl Preservation Act 1876,Footnote 59 and the Wild Birds Protection Act 1894.Footnote 60 Those statutes were innovative for their focus on endangered species and the mechanisms employed to protect them: closed times, schedules of allied species, restrictions on hunting methods, bag limits, and exceptions for traditional subsistence harvesting. The latter of the three statutes is particularly remarkable for the way in which it empowered local councils to set aside habitat areas as sanctuaries for endangered wild birds.Footnote 61 These same kinds of mechanism were later applied in the 1900 London Convention and the regulations enacted to implement that treaty. Hence, contrary to the assumptions in MacKenzie's analysis, the 1900 London Convention is much more closely related to the then new Wild Bird Preservation Acts than to the old Game Laws.
Newton's ideas and strategies influenced other key players in this unfolding story. In February 1895, shortly after the enactment of Newton's Wild Birds Protection Act 1894, Edward North BuxtonFootnote 62 published a letter in The Times announcing that he and his fellow verderers had combined with adjacent landowners to turn Epping Forest into a bird sanctuary.Footnote 63 Buxton wrote that they were ‘extending protection to some species in danger of extinction or of serious diminution’, including rare birds sometimes considered to be nuisance species: owls, hawks, magpies, peewits, herons, and kingfishers.Footnote 64 He also noted that Londoners took great interest in wild birds and he hoped that his new bird sanctuary would give the public more opportunities to see rare birds.Footnote 65 Buxton's effort to protect endangered bird species in the UK is mentioned here because (as discussed in Sections 4 and 5) he would soon go on to play a significant role in advocating law reforms to protect African wildlife.
3.3. Salisbury's Interest in Science and Endangered Species
Like Buxton, the Marquess of Salisbury, Robert Gascoyne-Cecil (1830–1903) was another person who would bridge the new science-based laws to protect birds in the UK with the protection of wildlife in Africa and elsewhere. Salisbury was an ardent admirer of Darwin,Footnote 66 and long held many leadership roles in government, including, for example, as a Member of Parliament and the House of Lords, Secretary of State for India, Foreign Secretary, and Prime Minister (circa 1885–1892 and 1895–1902). He was also an accomplished scientist in his own right, elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) and serving on its Council as well as President of the British Association for the Advancement of Science (BAAS). His obituary in the Proceedings of the Royal Society confirmed that he ‘combined genuine scientific instinct and interests with a unique position as a statesman’.Footnote 67 Indeed, Salisbury is one of only a few Prime Ministers identified as being ‘science-minded’ by historians of science and government.Footnote 68
Moreover, Salisbury was a member of the House of Lords during the debates on each of Newton's law reforms for the preservation of wild birds. The archive of Newton's papers held at the Cambridge University Library includes a telegram expressing Salisbury's attentiveness to Newton's science-based approach; parliamentary journals show that Salisbury consistently voted for the enactment of the new laws on the terms proposed by Newton, and Hansard records comments he made in the House of Lords favouring the strict protection of bird sanctuaries.Footnote 69
In addition, while Salisbury was participating in the development of science-based regulations for the protection of wild birds, he was also designing British foreign policy on the management of Alaskan fur seals, which were being hunted to extinction by American and British sealers. Salisbury insisted that any new sealing regulations be based on science, and directed the establishment of two joint commissions of inquiry in 1893 and 1896.Footnote 70 The commissioners were unable to reach shared conclusions on the causes of declining seal populations so, in July 1898, Salisbury proposed a solution first suggested by P.L. Sclater (1829–1913), the eminent British evolutionary biologist and close friend of Alfred Newton (discussed below), whereby the United States (US) would pay compensation to other sealing nations in exchange for restraint in the exercise of their seal fishing rights.Footnote 71 That solution was later incorporated into a multilateral treaty, hailed at the time as a ‘conservation measure of the highest importance’ and a ‘first definite step in the elaboration of an international game law’, and successfully implemented.Footnote 72
It was in this legal-scientific context that work on the 1900 London Convention was initiated. The UK had already made a radical departure from the old Game Laws by applying a new science-based approach to the protection of endangered species in both domestic (wild birds) and foreign policy (fur seals). The main advocates for this new approach were evolutionary biologists and parliamentarians with scientific credentials. The next two sections present additional original research using documents from the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The archival sources consulted included, for example, Parliamentary Papers, newspapers and scientific journals, the archives of key scientific institutions, and collections of personal correspondence and other papers of scientists and parliamentarians held by universities. Together these records highlight the influence that scientists and scientific ideas had on the early policy for the protection of African wildlife, with a focus on key documents and events missed or omitted by MacKenzian historians.
4. Scientific Values and the 1900 London Convention
4.1. Scientists Prompt Salisbury into Action
On 19 May 1896, a little more than a year after announcing the Epping Forest bird sanctuary, Edward North Buxton published another letter in The Times, this one on ‘the preservation of the African elephant from extinction’.Footnote 73 He argued that a portion of Somaliland adjacent to the existing Aden Game Reserve ought to be set aside as ‘a sanctuary for the remaining herds’ and that ‘the shooting of elephants should be prohibited within the whole of the reserve’. He also noted that the area was particularly favourable as a sanctuary because it included a range of different kinds of elephant habitat. Buxton declared: ‘The preservation of the race from extinction is urgent. Two or three years hence it may be too late as far as Somaliland is concerned’. He closed by inviting ‘an expression of opinion from naturalists’.Footnote 74
Two days later, The Times published two letters from eminent scientists. W.H. Flower (1831–99) wrote that it was his earnest wish that Buxton's project should be successful and that ‘unless some such step is taken, it is certain that this, the finest of all land animals, is inevitably doomed to extinction before long over the greater part of the continent’.Footnote 75 Flower's opinion carried considerable weight. He had been elected a fellow of the Royal Society in 1864, with the support of Charles Darwin and Thomas H. Huxley. He served as President of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) (1879–99), the Anthropological Institute (1883–5), the Museums Association (1893), and the BAAS (1889), as well as its biological and anthropological sections (1878, 1881, 1894). He succeeded Huxley as Conservator at the Hunterian Museum of the Royal College of Surgeons (1861–84) and was appointed (through the influence of Huxley and Salisbury) to succeed Richard Owen as Director of the British Museum (Natural History) at its splendid new site in South Kensington (1884–98). His numerous academic and official honours included the Royal Society's highest awards, several honorary doctorates, and the Royal Prussian Order of Merit. In 1892, he was knighted by Queen Victoria for his exceptional service to the nation.Footnote 76
A second letter in response to Buxton's plea was written by the aforementioned P.L. Sclater. He expressed his approval of Buxton's proposal for ‘a sanctuary for elephants’ and wrote ‘I trust his plans may be carried into execution’.Footnote 77 Sclater had scientific credentials almost on a par with those of Flower. He was trained as a lawyer and an ornithologist, a founding member of the British Ornithologists Union and, for many years, the editor of its journal The Ibis. He was a Fellow of the Royal Society and the Linnean Society, had long occupied the prestigious position of Secretary to the ZSL (1860–1902), and was himself a former President of the Biological Section of the BAAS (1875).Footnote 78 Both Flower and Sclater were close friends and colleagues of Charles Darwin and Alfred Newton, having worked together for many years at the ZSL and on many other scientific committees.Footnote 79
None of the MacKenzian accounts of this period mention the Flower and Sclater letters. Yet, less than a week later, on 27 May 1896, Salisbury wrote to the Commissioners in the British East Africa Protectorate and Uganda. His letter begins:
My attention has recently been called to the excessive destruction, by travellers and others in East Africa, of the larger wild animals generally known as ‘big game’. There is reason to fear that unless some check is imposed upon the indiscriminate slaughter of these animals, they will, in the course of a few years, disappear from the British Protectorate.Footnote 80
Salisbury went on to write that it was ‘eminently desirable … that some steps should be taken’ and requested that the Commissioners furnish him with reports on the subject. He recommended they consider close times, bag limits, and wildlife reserves.
4.2. Competing Interests and Policy Options: Sanctuaries or Trade Restrictions?
The next few months saw much discussion within the British government about the best way to protect African wildlife. Opinions differed on the priority to be given to trade restrictions, hunting regulations, or sanctuaries. Salisbury was later advised that regulations had been issued in German East Africa, including a hunting licence regime with nominal fees for Indigenous people and restrictions on killing females and calves.Footnote 81 Two large districts had also been set aside as sanctuaries where no shooting was permitted; these were to be ‘of special interest to science, as a means of preserving from extirpation the rarer specimens of the animal kingdom’.Footnote 82 German officials also suggested that an international agreement authorizing the confiscation of underweight tusks would prevent the indiscriminate slaughter of elephants.Footnote 83
Salisbury despatched the German regulations to British overseas administrations for comment.Footnote 84 In the meantime, he received a mixed opinion from Alfred Sharpe, Acting Commissioner for the British Central African Protectorate. Sharpe confirmed that elephants were ‘being gradually exterminated’ and that ‘it will not take many years before they are practically extinct’.Footnote 85 In his view the only way to stop this was by international agreement to prohibit the export of underweight tusks. The creation of elephant sanctuaries was impractical; a small preserve would do little while a large tract would be costly to monitor.Footnote 86 Yet, despite his reservations, in a note appended to his despatch Sharpe advised Salisbury that he had decided to immediately prohibit the killing of game of all descriptions within an area of approximately 400,000 acres known as ‘the Elephant Marsh’.Footnote 87
In November 1896, Buxton published another letter in The Times reporting that, as a result of his agitation and ‘the far weightier appeals’ made by the scientists Flower and Sclater, the government had strictly prohibited the shooting of elephants in the Aden Reserve.Footnote 88 He also noted with satisfaction that the authorities in German East Africa had simultaneously established two important reserves and others were in contemplation.
4.3. Salisbury Puts Sanctuaries on the Agenda
In January 1897, Salisbury directed his ambassador in Berlin to communicate a copy of Sharpe's despatch (recommending trade restrictions) to the German government and ‘to ascertain whether they would be prepared to suggest to the Powers interested the signature of such an international arrangement as that contemplated’.Footnote 89 He further directed the ambassador to suggest that it would be desirable to have close times and a system of licences for Europeans. At this early stage, Salisbury appears to have been focused on trade restrictions and hunting licences for Europeans. He made no mention of reserves or sanctuaries in his note to Berlin.
Nevertheless, as debate over the best way to protect African wildlife continued, Salisbury began to express his preference for a more scientific and less commercial approach. In May 1897, Salisbury received a reply from the German authorities commenting on Sharpe's despatch and proposing that ‘steps should be taken for convening a Conference’ in Brussels.Footnote 90 Salisbury took the position that the Conference should be held in London, so that the British delegation could consult with scientific experts during the Conference.Footnote 91
Salisbury had, in the meantime, received a despatch from the India Office, which included several reports by local officials offering comment on the German East Africa Regulation. These officials were unanimous in advocating the creation of sanctuaries in which no shooting is permitted, referring to the proposal as ‘especially recommended’, ‘most excellent’, and ‘the only proper and rational course to pursue if the interesting fauna of the country is to be preserved from eventual extinction’.Footnote 92 In their judgement it would be easier to prevent trespass in a specified area than to enforce general game laws for an entire district. In a covering memo the Viceroy, Lord Elgin, noted that ‘[i]n India the reserved forests afford extensive sanctuaries, and elephants have increased considerably’.Footnote 93 He concluded by observing that, while he was not familiar with the circumstances of East Africa, ‘the establishment of sanctuaries is no doubt an excellent measure, and that the provision of a “close” season seems also desirable’.Footnote 94
Later that summer, the Foreign Office received similar recommendations from P.L. Sclater and Sir John Kirk, FRS (1832–1922). Kirk was a physician and explorer turned colonial administrator with significant scientific credentials in the fields of botany and zoology.Footnote 95 Kirk took a decidedly anti-hunting position by strongly recommending a prohibition on all killing of game by ‘sportsmen’ within large defined areas.Footnote 96 These sanctuaries should be located in sparsely populated areas that were not pierced by any main road and not desirable for agriculture. They should also, Kirk insisted, include a variety of grass, bush, and forest, as well as steep and level ground. He concluded: ‘The time will come when more will be needed, but not yet. The thing now is to preserve the game that is there and keep hunters out’.Footnote 97
Having consulted these and other experts, Salisbury concluded that there was a general consensus that the Conference should aim at the ‘establishment of reserves within which innocuous wild animals shall be strictly preserved’.Footnote 98 Other objectives could include a ‘close time for all animals’ or the ‘prohibition of the slaughter of females’, the ‘complete preservation of certain useful animals and birds’, and a ‘system of licences for natives as well as for Europeans’. Trade measures proposed included a prohibition on the export of underweight tusks, and the enforcement of the Brussels Act to limit the supply of arms. These six general points were presented to the Colonial Office, the Foreign Office, and the German government for their consideration.Footnote 99 Salisbury then issued a circular instructing British ambassadors to invite states with African territories to send representatives to a conference in London to endeavour to reach agreement on the bases described above.Footnote 100
Salisbury's view of the scientific purpose of the proposed treaty is evident in his exchange with the French ambassador. The ambassador replied to Salisbury's invitation, saying that his government was generally in favour of the British project, but feared that restrictions on the sale of skins, horns, and feathers would unduly prejudice French interests.Footnote 101 He added that France intended to retain its liberty of action on the Island of Madagascar.Footnote 102 Salisbury assured the ambassador that his government could bring forward its concerns at the Conference. He explained that ‘the only object which Her Majesty's Government have in view’ was to discuss and arrive at an agreement ‘on the best methods of preventing the wanton destruction of animal life’.Footnote 103 It is telling that Salisbury added: ‘The only reason for including Madagascar was that there are certain fauna peculiar to that island which naturalists are anxious to protect’.Footnote 104
4.4. Convergence of Opinion in Favour of Sanctuaries
In the meantime, Salisbury's interest in the matter had stimulated the enactment of a number of new regulations. Sharpe reported that prohibiting shooting in reserves was working well in the Central African Protectorate. He wrote:
[T]here has been absolutely no shooting whatsoever in the Elephant Marsh since the game regulations came into force. Buffalo have increased largely in numbers; zebra, waterbuck, and other game also; and during the last two seasons occasionally elephants have been seen there. Game has become very tame, and steamers passing up the Shiré River see herds of buck and buffalo grazing within a few yards of the banks.Footnote 105
Salisbury received further encouragement in this regard from Sir Harry Johnston, then Special Commissioner for Uganda. He described looking out of the windows of the Uganda Railway at the ‘rare and beautiful sight’ of ‘immense stretches of grass land’ covered by herds of game, including zebras, gnus, gazelle, giraffe, pallah, oribi, warthog, jackals, and ostriches.Footnote 106 This ‘wonderful zoological garden’, with its ‘wonderful collection of animals’, was the Athi Game Reserve. He wrote:
The restrictions imposed on all persons entering the Game Reserve have been so firmly and consistently enforced, that here, more than anywhere else in British Africa, has the Government met with a prompt reward in its first efforts to preserve from extinction the remarkable and beautiful animals which still constitute the glory of African fauna.Footnote 107
A few weeks later, Johnston presented another report, which provides some insight into the way in which competing interests – scientific, hunting, and economic – were still being blended in the minds of policymakers at this early stage in the process. He wrote:
Nobody is more interested in the natural history of this country than myself, nor in lending aid to scientific investigation. I also thoroughly sympathize with the fascination of big game shooting; but I really think the time has come to be severe on professional sportsmen whose devastations considerably affect the value of what may prove to be an important asset in the productions of this Protectorate.Footnote 108
Nevertheless, in keeping with the approach favoured by scientists, Johnston then requested permission to create a temporary reserve in the Sagota District to better protect elephants and other rare animals.Footnote 109 Salisbury gave permission and approved the proposed reserve.Footnote 110
In addition, during this period leading up to the London Conference, several eminent evolutionary biologists wrote letters advocating the establishment of reserves. For example, famed Cambridge zoologist Sydney Hickson, who had ‘taken an active part in the application of the principles of Darwinian evolution’, wrote to The Times to ‘ask politicians to consider … a proposal to … reserve a large tract of land as a great international park for the preservation for all time of the Central African fauna and flora’.Footnote 111 Similarly, the Foreign Office also received a report from Hickson's mentor, fellow Cambridge evolutionary biologist (later Sir) E. Ray Lankester, who had succeeded W.H. Flower as Director of the British Museum (Natural History). Lankester, a close friend and frequent correspondent of both Alfred Newton and Charles Darwin, opened his letter: ‘I inclose a few notes with regard to the extermination of certain species by human agency’.Footnote 112
In fact, Lankester enclosed a lengthy aide-memoire in which he described past examples of human-induced extinction and identified instances where legal protection would have been, or had actually been, important in saving an animal from extinction. Lankester went on to emphasize the value of an absolute prohibition on the trade in skins, horns, and tusks (in certain cases) but concluded by emphasizing the primary importance of establishing wildlife sanctuaries: ‘No doubt the proclamation of protected areas is the most important step to be taken in an unsettled country’.Footnote 113 Lankester also offered, ‘if at any time there is any definite piece of zoological information which I can procure for you, I shall be very glad to be of service’.Footnote 114
5. A Modern Science-Based Treaty
5.1. The Innovations in the 1900 London Convention
The stage was then set for Salisbury's Conference, which took place in London between 24 April and 19 May 1900. Salisbury appointed Lankester to be one of three British plenipotentiaries, together with Sir Clement Hill and Lord Hopetoun.Footnote 115 On the opening day, the objectives of the Conference were endorsed in a lengthy editorial in The Times, which echoed Lankester's memo by discussing firstly the extent and the causes of the ‘terrible extermination’ of African wildlife during the preceding 50 years, and then expressing the view that while mechanisms like hunting licences, high fees, bag limits, and prohibitions on shooting the young were sound in theory, in practice ‘the real remedy … is to create large game reserves … where wild animals can be allowed to live their natural life’.Footnote 116 Indeed, the editorial concluded by emphasizing that ‘in the main, the preservation of the magnificent fauna of Africa … must be sought in the creation of “reserves’’’.Footnote 117
Representatives from France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Spain, and the Congo attended the Conference, which concluded with the signing of a new treaty with several innovative features, refreshingly short and simple by modern standards, consisting of fewer than six pages.Footnote 118 The Preamble expressed the wish of the parties to ensure the preservation of ‘the various forms of animal life existing in a wild state’.Footnote 119 Article II set out 15 general principles, declared by the parties to be ‘the most effective means’ of achieving that goal.Footnote 120 First among them, the parties undertook to prohibit the destruction of certain species threatened with extinction, and to establish reserves ‘within which it shall be unlawful to hunt, capture, or kill any bird or other wild animal’.Footnote 121 Moreover, the term ‘reserves’ was expressly defined as ‘sufficiently large tracts of land which have all the qualifications necessary … for preserving birds or other wild animals, and affording them the necessary quiet during the breeding time’.Footnote 122
Other ecosystem and biodiversity-related aspects of the text are also apparent in its broad application to 47 different species and groups of species, including giraffe, hippo, elephant, rhinoceros, gorilla, chimpanzee and other monkeys, zebra, gnu, eland, ibex, over 20 species of antelope and gazelle, more than a dozen species of bird, large and small cats, jackals, hyenas and other hunting dogs, tortoise, and rarities like aardvarks, dugongs, and manatees. These were listed in five schedules according to the proposed type of protection. For example, Article II(1) and Schedule I specify the animals that are to be afforded complete protection, including four birds (‘on account of their usefulness’) and eight mammals (‘on account of their rarity and threatened extermination’).Footnote 123
With regard to hunting, the parties agreed to prohibit the hunting of females and young of certain species (Articles II(2) and II(3)), to set bag limits on the hunting of other species (Article II.4), and to establish close times to facilitate the rearing of young (Article II(6)). The parties further agreed to impose a licensing requirement for all hunters (Article II.(7)), to prohibit certain indiscriminate hunting methods (nets, pitfalls, explosives, and poison (Articles II(8) and II(9)), and to impose penalties for the killing of young elephants (Article II(11)). Moreover, the parties agreed that such provisions may be relaxed only in order to permit the collection of specimens for scientific purposes or for ‘important administrative reasons’ (Article III).Footnote 124
Lankester and his fellow British plenipotentiaries reported to Salisbury that the Convention reflected the view that the Conference was convened with ‘the sole object of protecting the wild animals, birds, and fishes of Africa’.Footnote 125 They further stated that, although not technically operative before ratification, there was ‘every reason to hope’ that the Convention would immediately stimulate new regulations that will ‘go far to secure from molestation the rarer and more valuable animals now threatened with extermination’.Footnote 126 The plenipotentiaries enclosed with their report 10 supporting documents, including reports from administrators concerning the successful implementation of game reserves, extracts from scientific reports by Alfred Newton and W.M. Flower, and data on the harvest levels of threatened birds, seals, monkeys, and other species.Footnote 127
MacKenzie's account omitted Lankester from these events. He briefly mentioned Lankester's pre-Conference memo on endangered species but did not identify the author, and described the memo as an alarmist exaggeration.Footnote 128 Moreover, MacKenzie only mentions Sir Clement Hill and Lord Hopetoun as members of the British delegation (even though their names always appear together with Lankester in the records of the Convention).Footnote 129 These and other omissions seem intended to downplay the role of scientists in order to emphasize MacKenzie's view that the 1900 London Convention was motivated by a desire to protect hunting privileges for the European social elite. The better and more nuanced view, however, is that the Convention was an innovative, primarily science-based treaty, which called for the establishment of wildlife reserves to protect endangered species, as well as calling for the application of the kinds of restriction on hunting that had been successfully applied in domestic legislation for the protection of wild birds.
Lankester and his fellow plenipotentiaries also noted the importance of shared values in the development of new laws. They observed that ‘much depends on the formation of sound public opinion’.Footnote 130 Indeed, one of the main achievements of the Convention was the stimulus it gave to the further discussion and adoption of policies with a view to the scientific value of endangered species and biodiversity. With that in mind, the next section presents a new analysis of the lobbying efforts made by the Society for the Preservation of the Wild Fauna of the Empire (SPWFE).
5.2. Scientists Among the Founders of the SPWFE
Buxton responded to the close of the Conference with an optimistic letter in The Times, writing: ‘We have now got well-devised regulations and the Foreign Office are zealous in the cause’.Footnote 131 Early in 1903, however, it was reported that the authorities in Sudan wished to de-gazette the White Nile Reserve, created pursuant to the 1900 London Convention, and replace it with another area further south.Footnote 132 Buxton considered the new area unsuitable. He organized a group of influential persons, successfully petitioned the Governor General of Sudan, and incorporated the SPWFE shortly thereafter.Footnote 133
MacKenzie described the Society in a manner that suited his narrative of a ‘hunting cult’ of self-interested elites. The members, he wrote, included ‘almost all the great African hunters of the day’ and ‘a winning combination of aristocrats, hunter-naturalists and officials’.Footnote 134 He also claimed that ‘the society was anxious to promote a policy of preservation for elite access’ and that ‘the society's avowed policy was to eliminate African hunting’.Footnote 135 Those claims were made without citing sources and deserve closer scrutiny. Nevertheless, other historians have since followed MacKenzie's lead on this topic.
For example, William Beinhart and Lotte Hughes repeat MacKenzie's observation that the originating petition was signed by ‘big game hunters and colonial elite’ who can be characterized as ‘penitent butchers’.Footnote 136 Neumann described the SPWFE as being founded by ‘a small group of British aristocratic big game hunters’ whose goal was to maintain access to their preferred hunting grounds.Footnote 137 Jeff Schauer's recent account is richer than most but still approaches the SPWFE with some scepticism, perhaps because, as he noted, ‘[m]any of its members were aristocrats with connections to powerful government officials’.Footnote 138
It is true that some of the founding members were aristocrats and others had previously written literary accounts of their hunting exploits, as was the fashion at the time. The latter included E.N. Buxton, F.C. Selous, and Henry Seton-Karr,Footnote 139 but other founders were distinguished scientists and presidents of scientific societies. For example:
• P.L. Sclater, FRS, FLS, FZS, ornithologist, Council member and Secretary to the ZSL (1857–1902), President of the Biological Section of the BAAS (1875), Chairman of the British Ornithologists Club (1892–1913);Footnote 140
• E. Ray Lankester, FRS, zoologist, frequent correspondent of Charles Darwin and Alfred Newton, Vice-President of the Royal Society (1883 and 1896), President of the BAAS (1906), Royal Medal (1885), Copley Medal (1906), Director of the Natural History Museum (1898–1907);Footnote 141
• Richard Lydekker, FZS, FGS, FRS, naturalist, paleontologist and biogeographer, Keeper of Paleontology, Natural History Museum (1882–96), Lyell Medal (1902);Footnote 142
• Sir John Lubbock, FRS, protégé of Charles Darwin, frequent correspondent of Alfred Newton, member of the X Club, distinguished amateur biologist, President of the BAAS (1881), President of the Linnean Society (1881–86), President of the Royal Statistical Society (1900–02).Footnote 143
• H.A. Russell, FZS, FRS, 11th Duke of Bedford, studied physiology under T.H. Huxley, President of the ZSL (1899–1936), Gold Medal (1936);Footnote 144
• Sir Harry Johnston, celebrated explorer, botanist and administrator, Livingstone Medal, Royal Scottish Geographical Society (1901), Founder's Medal, Royal Geographical Society (1904), Honorary D.Sc. (University of Cambridge), appointed to the Council of the ZSL (1902).Footnote 145
• Sir John Kirk, FRS, explorer, botanist and zoologist, Vice President, Royal Geographical Society (1891–94), Vice President, Linnean Society (1882), and Vice President, Royal Society (1894).Footnote 146
In fact, the philosophy of the SPWFE reflected the British scientific view that rare and interesting species should be preserved in their natural habitat for their scientific, ecological, and intrinsic values. The Society put pressure on the government to fulfil the promise of the 1900 London Convention and advocated the creation of permanent wildlife sanctuaries in which no shooting would be permitted. One of the ways it did this was by sending delegations to wait on successive Colonial Secretaries.
5.3. Contrasting Views of SPWFE Delegations
In The Empire of Nature, MacKenzie reviewed and paraphrased the minutes of meetings between the Colonial Secretaries and SPWFE delegations in 1905,Footnote 147 1906,Footnote 148 and 1909.Footnote 149 His accounts begin by highlighting that the first deputation urged the Colonial Office to classify more game as ‘royal’.Footnote 150 This leaves the impression that the Society was anxious to protect hunting access for aristocrats, but MacKenzie isolated the word ‘royal’ from a longer sentence. In fact, the delegation explained that they considered it very important ‘to have a royal or sacred list of those animals which are to be absolutely immune from slaughter’.Footnote 151
Similarly, MacKenzie's account of the second deputation inaccurately states that the Society ‘opened the meeting’ by urging the Colonial Office to use hunting privileges as a way to attract young officers to foreign postings.Footnote 152 That topic was mentioned briefly in passing but, in fact, the meeting was opened with statements urging the government to treat reserves as sacred, to consider larger expenditures to better ensure the sanctity of the reserves and the security of the wildlife, and to listen to expert scientific opinion on the value of reserves that are ‘well-chosen and strictly preserved’.Footnote 153
Other examples of MacKenzian narratives about the SPWFE delegations include Schauer's colourful assertion that the Colonial Office ‘engaged in horse-trading of reserve territory on the spot with SPWFE members’Footnote 154 and Neumann's claim that the Society was made up of ‘titled English landowners’ who relied on ‘family connections’ to dictate Colonial Office policy.Footnote 155 These claims present the SPWFE as a group of hunters and aristocrats whose motives were self-interested and transactional. A wider reading of the minutes makes clear that the main objectives of the organization incorporated the science-based approach to the preservation of endangered species.
In particular, the SPWFE delegations repeatedly made the following key points and arguments:
• that the Society was interested only in the preservation of species (not the interests of hunters);Footnote 156
• that the extinction of any African species would be an irreplaceable loss;Footnote 157
• that the preservation of endangered species was a duty owed to the world and future generations;Footnote 158
• that the best way to preserve species is through the establishment of wildlife reserves, within which fauna must be treated as ‘sacred’ and absolutely protected;Footnote 159 and
• that traditional African methods of hunting should be permitted to continue but access to modern firearms should be restricted (to prevent commercial over-harvesting).Footnote 160
In addition, the delegations made submissions on two other relevant topics. Firstly, the 1905 delegation explained that there was ‘a remarkable force of public opinion’ in favour of preserving endangered species and the public was determined not to allow other species to suffer the fate of the buffalo in the US.Footnote 161 The delegation further explained that ‘[i]t is a case of quid leges sine moribus’ (laws are empty without public morality) and suggested that the role of the Colonial Office was ‘to guide and lead public opinion’.Footnote 162 This can include making regulations that may at first appear to be ‘harsh and arbitrary’ but for which the government would be thanked in the future.Footnote 163 These statements speak to the Society's intuition that convergence on shared values is an important step in the iterative process of law reform.
Secondly, the 1909 delegation urged the Colonial Office to listen to experts about the scientific value of endangered species. For example, Dr P. Chalmers Mitchell, FRS, Secretary to the Zoological Society, who had also participated in the 1906 delegation to the Colonial Office,Footnote 164 provided his opinion that altering the boundaries of wildlife reserves can have profoundly negative effects on biodiversity. He said: ‘All these pieces of primeval land and primeval forest contain a very large number of small animals of different kinds which are very interesting, and which are very easily exterminated’.Footnote 165 He also drew the Colonial Office's attention to the impending extinction of other species that were of ‘very great zoological interest’, especially sea elephants and king penguins.Footnote 166 (MacKenzie does not mention the participation of Chalmers Mitchell in his accounts of the SPWFE delegations.)
In reply, the Colonial Secretaries made remarks showing that they understood the scientific basis for the positions taken by the delegations. For example, Lord Elgin agreed that reserves ought to be ‘sacred’ and that the Society's principal object is ‘the preservation of species’.Footnote 167 The Earl of Crewe referenced ‘the extreme danger of disturbing the balance of nature as between the different species’, noted that the subject is one of ‘real national importance’, and confirmed his view that the SPWFE is ‘a scientific Society in the main, and it is on those lines and in those interests that you wish us to help you’.Footnote 168 Indeed, when the significant roles played by scientists and scientific values are included in the historiography of the 1900 London Convention, the MacKenzian claim that early regulations to preserve African wildlife were intended to reserve hunting privileges to European elites appears to be an over-simplification. The policy debate at the time was richer, more complex, and more informed by scientific opinion.
A pair of previously unreported letters sent by Buxton to President Theodore Roosevelt help to illustrate the distorting effects that narratives based on ideological positions can have on historiographies. In March 1908, Roosevelt wrote to Buxton asking for advice on an African hunting expedition he was planning for himself and his son, Kermit. The two corresponded on Roosevelt's itinerary, the purchase of gear, the hiring of porters and guides, etc.Footnote 169 Other prominent Britons also offered Roosevelt help and advice. In August 1908, the US ambassador wrote to Roosevelt: ‘Winston [Churchill] volunteered to say that you ought to go into the preserves, and that he would be glad to make out suggestions for an itinerary. He has hunted all through the region himself’.Footnote 170
Buxton quickly intervened. In a letter, dated 2 September 1908, he wrote to Roosevelt expressing concern for the sanctity of the game reserves:
As to Entering the Reserves, personally I hope you will not do so, but I think it highly probable you will be invited to enter. I should not like to hear the things said of you which were said of Winston Churchill. A prominent man doing this with Official leave helps to break down, even with the officials themselves, the sanctity of the Reserve more than anything.Footnote 171
The following day, Buxton wrote again:
I hope I did not write too vigorously yesterday about the Reserve. Pray excuse my language but questions were asked in the House of Commons about Winston Churchill and there was a strong feeling about his having gone in to hunt there, especially among the members of the Fauna Society. … The ‘Fauna’ have a difficult task in resisting the baneful influences of a certain class out there – rather influential socially – to break down the Reserve. You will soon discover this for yourself.Footnote 172
Here, Buxton appeals to Roosevelt's honour (and his dislike of Churchill) to persuade him not to hunt in African wildlife reserves.
Roosevelt ignored Buxton's pleas. He did hunt within the reserves. A colonial official who received and entertained Roosevelt found it ‘a matter of great regret’ that ‘he was so utterly reckless in the expenditure of ammunition’ and that ‘he so unduly exceeded reasonable limits in certain species’.Footnote 173 The official noted, in particular, that Roosevelt had killed nine rare white rhinoceros and failed to track down wounded animals. Roosevelt deemed his safari a great success. He estimated that he and his son had shot 512 ‘specimens’, including 17 lions, 3 leopards, 7 cheetahs, 11 elephants, 9 white rhinoceros, 8 hippos, 29 zebras, 9 giraffes, 10 buffalos, and over one hundred of the various types of gazelle and antelope.Footnote 174 In his account of the safari, Roosevelt justified his activities with an argument that appears painfully ironic today, writing that he believed hunting is necessary lest increasing wildlife populations ‘crowd man off the planet’.Footnote 175
Since then, some historians have hailed Roosevelt as a visionary and inspirational leader of the conservation movement,Footnote 176 while MacKenzie and others have disparaged Buxton and the SPWFE as being concerned primarily with protecting the interests of European big-game hunters. Today, it is increasingly urgent that scholars and practitioners adopt less polarized and more clear-eyed views of the values, narratives, and rationales that inform new laws to protect biodiversity. In that regard, historiographical studies such as the enriched narrative in the present article can help.
6. Conclusion
The late 19th century was a period of transition in the UK, when the Early Modern anthropocentric view of nature was replaced with a science-based perspective inspired by the work of Charles Darwin. This new understanding that humanity is part of an interconnected network of species was embraced by science-minded policymakers and expressed in both domestic policy (wild birds) and foreign policy (fur seals) aimed at the preservation of endangered species. In that regard, the 1900 London Convention is an extended application of Darwinian ideas and represents an early example of science-informed TEL for the protection of biodiversity.
That is not to say that the MacKenzian view is entirely erroneous. British and European hunting culture did play a role in the imperial advance; the governing classes did assert their social status; and there was ongoing competition between expansion and conservation interests. Opinions varied on the causes of declining wildlife populations, and persons with different perspectives used similar terminology and words like ‘preservation’ for different purposes. It is also impossible to ignore the moral turpitude of colonialism as a system of government. In these and similar circumstances, polarizing political narratives can be a potent force in the historiography of TEL.
However, those narratives can also obscure and distract from pathways to more effective policy options and regulatory solutions. The new history set out in this article is intended to take a step back from ideological perspectives and better position the 1900 London Convention in legal history and the history of science. As Beinart and Hughes noted, the history of empire has focused on scientists only as agents of economic development (in agriculture and engineering), but ‘scientists in the Empire should be analyzed in a more complex framework’, including as ‘agents of conservationist initiatives and ecological thinking’.Footnote 177 They proposed departing from ‘recent polarized understandings’ of the history of colonial environmental interventions and instead ‘restoring the salience of science in the empire, as an exciting field of practice and research’.Footnote 178 The analysis in this article tends to confirm their views; the key role that science played in advancing TEL reforms for the preservation of African wildlife has been understudied and under-appreciated. A more nuanced view is available and needed. Indeed, 15 years after The Empire of Nature, MacKenzie penned an editorial prefacing an issue of Environment and History in which some of his work was reviewed. He explained:
All scholarship proceeds by revision. To avoid stagnation, ideas have to be subjected to constant process of testing and evaluation leading to support, modification, or radical overturning. … This organic movement presents risks as well as exhilaration to members of the scholarly community.Footnote 179
MacKenzie concluded his editorial with an exhortation: ‘Let Revisionism Rule!’
As the regulation of complex environmental problems necessarily involves the application of scientific knowledge and expert opinion, further interdisciplinary research into the legal and scientific history of biodiversity law is to be welcomed. Historiographical studies of past treaty-making processes can help scientists, policymakers, and institutions to better appreciate the important dialogue that can occur at science-policy interfaces. That dialogue, in turn, can promote convergence on the narratives and shared values required to advance new regulatory options for the more efficient and effective recovery of endangered species and biodiversity. The analysis of the 1900 London Convention in this article brought forward to today suggests that scientific advocacy can usefully expand the scope and urgency of the information that policymakers need to know and understand in order to make effective policy choices. It may be time to reconsider whether science and law are necessarily separate or if greater collaboration between disciplines will produce more effective TEL more quickly. It may be necessary for scientists to have increased engagement in policymaking and for policymakers to have increased engagement with science.
Acknowledgements
This article has been greatly improved by the thoughtful observations made by anonymous TEL peer reviewers.
Funding statement
The author wishes to thank Gonville & Caius College, University of Cambridge (UK) and the W.M. Tapp Trust for their past support for much of the research presented in this article.
Competing interests
The author declares none.
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