Image caption: Zodwa Masinga returns from grass cutting on the edge of Lake St Lucia at KwaNibela, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Picture: Screenshot from ‘Indalo Yethu’ documentary, shot by Shoot the Breeze for PLAAS. 2024
By Professor Thembela Kepe
For many people in the conservation sector, discussions about the ugly history of colonial conservation are sensitive. In order to have a productive discussion about it, colonialisation’s negative impact on conservation must be acknowledged. It must also be admitted that colonial thinking, knowledge, and practices remain as enduring legacies of conservation in many parts of the world that experienced colonialism on a large scale, such as in the continent of Africa.
To address decolonisation in conservation, one has to confront race because research shows that the vast majority of people negatively affected by conservation are racialised people living in the Global South and mostly in areas that were colonised by Europeans. My experience shows that discussions about links between race and conservation make people in conservation uncomfortable. State departments, agencies, conservation organisations, activists, and conservation officials can easily become offended or discouraged if discussions do not at first acknowledge the often insufficient positive efforts made in conservation over the last few decades, including moving away from fortress conservation, promoting inclusion via community engagement in conservation, and co-management.
Disciplinary training and areas of focus in the conservation sector – between conservation biologists/natural scientists and social scientists who focus on issues such as politics and justice, for example – make it difficult to agree on whether colonial legacy remains relevant in conservation today.
In my own journey as a scholar-activist with an interest in the legacy of colonial land dispossessions, race, justice, and local people’s agency, I have reached a point of being comfortable with discussing topics that make others uncomfortable, so long as I am respectful while being clear that silence is not an option. As a scholar who studies land rights, justice, conservation, poverty, and race, I am convinced that all of us need to at least acknowledge that silence on colonialism’s effects is not an option. This is because conservation, despite its positive ideological shifts and practices, still reeks of colonial presence.
Don’t be confused: basic understandings of decolonisation
Decolonisation is many things to different people, but at the most basic level involves gaining independence from colonial powers – withdrawal from the colonies and undoing political and economic domination. Through the decolonisation process, people should be able to return to their authentic selves after being indoctrinated into subservience and inferiority. Scholars suggest that we understand and appreciate the concept of ‘coloniality of power’, because this can encourage critical thinking about colonialism and decolonisation beyond the mere take-over of power over the state’s juridical and political boundaries. This helps us become aware of the colonial present, which means we are constantly on the look-out for ideas, structures and actions that are consistent with, or resemble, colonialism.
Decolonising conservation means a change
Decolonising conservation implies a shift in three interrelated areas:
- Decolonising narratives.
- Decolonising knowledge.
- Decolonising practices.
Narratives
The narrative that blames poverty or traditional systems for environmental degradation should be deconstructed and reassessed to further reflect on the roots of both global development and global environmental issues. For example, the role played by the dominant production and consumption models and resulting values have been proven to be more of a threat to conservation than poor people and their ways of life. This requires shifting focus from local/immediate environments to broader/external spaces that we rarely consider as affecting local environments.
Knowledge
Conservation initiatives should shift from only operating through the same technical apparatuses, such as on the basis of scientific expertise and data. It is wrong to assume that science is the only factor influencing the creation of new protected areas. Areas that are selected for protection are not just influenced by science, but also by politics. Additionally, traditional knowledge needs to be recognised and valued, not just as an ethical imperative, but because it has been proven that it has a role to play in conservation.
Practice
Third, practices at the local level have to shift if decolonising conservation is the goal. Progressive and inclusive guidelines and resolutions developed by the conservation sector should be legally binding to bring about social justice for local people. Examples of shifts in practices include intentionally combating colonial practices such as displacement and exclusion for the sake of conservation, engaging in land reparations for victims of exclusion or displacement, and removing structural barriers to accessing nature.
Simple things to remember
Before we begin to believe that decolonising conservation is the responsibility of only those in power, such as state agencies and others authorities, we need to know that all of us, as individuals, hold the power to initiate change. In addition to putting pressure on those in power to effect change, we have a duty to begin changing how we think and do things within the spaces we work in. We have the choice to follow along, but we also have the power to refuse to be only followers. We can do things differently, even in the midst of threats and challenges.
Secondly, decolonising conservation is an evolving process. It will not always be about the same issues as it was yesterday and it will be context specific and unfold in multiple ways.
A third point is that we need to (i) acknowledge different conceptualisations of nature and conservation, as this impacts how decolonisation of conservation unfolds; (ii) recognise and adapt existing practices and priorities that may (intentionally or unintentionally) further marginalise certain populations, and (iii) seek out multiple ways of knowing about environmental quality and processes of change. All of these are possible if we think something has to change and the personal commitment it requires personal from all of us.
Further reading
Some insights discussed here are drawn from
- Germond-Duret, C. 2022. Decolonising Conservation: Towards a Postcolonial Conservation Regime.
- Mullenbach, E and others. 2022. An antiracist, anticolonial agenda for urban greening and conservation. Conservation Letters, 16(4),1-11.
Professor Thembela Kepe on 12 June 2025 delivered a Masterclass on decolonising conservation. He was hosted by PLAAS’s Living Landscapes in Action project. Kepe is a Professor in the Department of Human Geography, and is cross-appointed to the Department of Global Development Studies, University of Toronto, Canada. Read more about him.
