The environmental revolution played out in Africa somewhat differently from elsewhere. In South Africa it was directly shaped by apartheid and by the differing worldviews of black and white citizens. Nature protection exposed the gulf between an ideology of a white elite, for whom national parks and other protected areas were morally worthwhile, accessible, and important, and impoverished black people, the majority of whom were forced to eke out a precarious living as a migrant proletariat or face rural poverty on marginal or unproductive land. With an emphasis on national parks, this article examines the kinds of environmental edges particular to South Africa and to Africa more generally.
DOI: doi.org/10.5282/rcc/6288