African Buffalo and the Human Societies in Africa: Social Values and Interaction Outcomes

The African buffalo has interacted with human societies for millennia across its vast African range. It is part of the bestiary of the few African imaginaries and mythologies that have managed to reach us. These representations of the species in African cultures seem to have percolated more recently into the imaginaries of European cultures, especially from the angle of hunting and photographic safaris. The buffalo is also at the centre of services and disservices to different actors, providing uses but also generating conflicts in African landscapes, the species being central in so-called Human–Wildlife Conflicts. For animal health services, the buffalo represents in some instances a public enemy, influencing meat trade policies, land uses and boundaries in many parts of the continent. The African buffalo is therefore an emblem of the coexistence between humans and nature in Africa.