“Every African a Nationalist”: Scientific Forestry and Forest Nationalism in Colonial Tanzania

Scientific forestry was practiced in virtually the entire colonized world. Although methods of scientific forestry might differ from one colony to another, its basic premise was the need for the state to assume control over forests and woodlands so that they might be managed productively for their timber and other forest resources as part of a strategy of colonial development. The author analyzes grassroots Tanzanian attempts to thwart 'scientific forestry' within the larger context of Cold War global economy and anti-colonial nationalist movements. As British governmental and industrial interests created huge reserves of hardwood forests in Tanzania, dressing their actions in a rhetoric of conservation, progressive resource management, and colonial development, they emptied them of peasants and pastoralists, and policed against encroachment by people and livestock. Tanzanians were mustered as laborers to cut fire lines, fight forest fires, and fell and transport trees, often for private corporations, while at the same time villagers would be largely deprived of the use of these forests for their own subsistence or commercial purposes, and as religious sites. Popular dissatisfaction with the reserves, and with working conditions inside them, was channeled into support for the Tanzanian independence movement. The author argues that this collision of factors led to national independence far in advance of the British timetable. Figures, References. Adapted from the source document.