Jane Carruthers

Dissecting the Myth: Paul Kruger and the Kruger National Park

South‐Africans generally assume that the Kruger National Park was called after Paul Kruger, the president of the Transvaal Republic, in order to commemorate his personal interest in nature conserva...

Taxonomic imperialism in the battles for Acacia: Identity and science in South Africa and Australia

ABSTRACT This review analyses the retypification of Acacia Mill. by the International Botanical Congress in 2005, from an African type to an Australian one. It explores the cultural, historical and trans-national context of what proved much more than a routine scientific decision. It contributes to a growing critique of historian Alfred Crosbys thesis Ecological Imperialism, and provides a historical review of the ecological literature leading to the discipline of invasion biology in South Africa, Australia and elsewhere, particularly the work of Charles Elton. The aim of the article is to narrow the gap between the historically ecological and the ecologically historical literature through a closely worked case study that reveals the role of national identity in even the most arcane and international science. The history of the ‘wattle wars’ (or the ‘battle for Acacia’) in Australia, South Africa and the rest of the world reveals a need for a new literacy in both culture and nature and increasingly sophisticated conversations between C.P. Snows ‘Two Cultures’.

Scientists in society: The Royal Society of South Africa

The full account of how the Royal Society of South Africa acquired its Charter and Statutes in 1908 is given here for the first time. The article explains the socio-political context in which the Society was founded in 1908 and analyses the legacies of other learned societies in southern Africa—particularly the South African Philosophical Society which was established in 1877—that preceded it. The relationship between the Royal Society of South Africa, the Royal Society of London and similar societies is briefly examined. As the premier South African multidisciplinary scientific society during the twentieth century, the Royal Society of South Africa has contributed to the intellectual vibrancy of the country as well as to its national research output, and the institutional transformations and challenges relating to the Society over the past one hundred years are explored1.

Africa: Histories, Ecologies and Societies

A survey of African environmental history during in the period 1994 to 2004 is is provided and distinctions between the environmental history of Africa and that of other geo-regions are identified. It is argued that the promises of the earlier environmental historiography have not been realised and that an emerging trend embeds Africas environmental history within the framework of social history and issues around science and changing societies. The article focuses on work that has appeared in Environment and History, analysing the trend-setting role that this journal has played.

Ecological research and conservation management in the Cape Floristic Region between 1945 and 2015: History, current understanding and future challenges

In 1945, the Royal Society of South Africa published a wide-ranging report, prepared by a committee led by Dr C.L. Wicht, dealing with the preservation of the globally unique and highly diverse vegetation of the south-western Cape. The publication of the Wicht Committee’s report signalled the initiation of a research programme aimed at understanding, and ultimately protecting, the unique and diverse ecosystems of the Cape Floristic Region. This programme has continued for over 70 years, and it constitutes the longest history of concerted scientific endeavour aimed at the conservation of an entire region and its constituent biota. This monograph has been prepared to mark the 70th anniversary of the Wicht Committee report. It provides a detailed overview of the circumstances that led up to the Wicht Committee’s report, and the historical context within which it was written. It traces the development of new and substantial scientific understanding over the past 70 years, particularly with regard to catchment hydrology, fire ecology, invasive alien plant ecology, the harvesting of plant material and conservation planning. The Wicht Committee’s report also made recommendations about ecosystem management, particularly with regard to the use of fire and the control of invasive alien plants, as well as for the establishment of protected areas. Subsequently, a combination of changing conservation philosophies and scientific conservation planning led to the creation and expansion of a network of protected areas that now covers nearly 19% of the Cape Floristic Region. We also review aspects of climate change, most of which could not have been foreseen by the Wicht Committee. We conclude that those responsible for the conservation of these ecosystems will face many challenges in the 21st century. These will include finding ways for effectively managing invasive alien plants and fires, as foreseen by the Wicht Committee. While the protected area network has expanded beyond the modest targets proposed by the Wicht Committee, funding has not kept pace with this expansion, with consequences for the ability to effectively manage protected areas. The research environment has also shifted away from long-term research conducted by scientists embedded in management agencies, to short-term studies conducted largely by academic institutions. This has removed a significant benefit that was gained from the long-term partnership between research and management that characterised the modis operandus of the Department of Forestry. Growing levels of illegal resource use and a changing global climate also pose new challenges that were not foreseen by the Wicht Committee.

Friedrich Jeppe: Mapping the Transvaal c. 1850-1899

This article is an attempt to identify and discuss some of the maps and mapmakers in the late nineteenth-century Transvaal at a time when nascent colonial ‘nationalities’ and sub-imperialisms were in the process of delineation. In the historical circumstances of the region in that era, with the uncertain hegemony of the Transvaal Boers and other polities, both local and international, over the geographical space between the Vaal and Limpopo rivers and beyond to the north, mapping played an important part in negotiations over colonial conquest. With an emphasis on the career of Friedrich Jeppe, and in the context of a number of map makers of his time, the article argues that cartography – as promoted in Europe through the publications of geographical societies – was a visible way of securing settler domination and providing conceptual reality in advancing the formation of the South African Republic as a modern nation-state. Moreover, given the rivalry in the region between the Boer Republics and the British colonies, two streams of cartographical capacity and audience can be discerned. One can be broadly defined as ‘British’, located in the Cape Colony and Natal, and the other was an alternative from Germany that was promoted north of the Vaal River. That Jeppe introduced a German scientific cartograph ical perspective in mapping the Transvaal is further explored here.

National Identity and International Science : the Case of Acacia

The article considers the role that history and botanical politics played during the nomenclatural debates surrounding the decision taken at the XVII International Botanical Congress (IBC) in Vienn ...

G. Evelyn Hutchinson in South Africa, 1926 to 1928: ‘An immense part in my intellectual development’

As a scientific discipline in South Africa, limnology has enjoyed a lower status and profile among both the academic community and the general public than has, for example, mammal research, palaeoanthropology, or ecology. Despite the fundamental importance of freshwater systems to the countrys environmental health, sustainability and resilience, overviews of South African science either mention limnology briefly, or not at all. It is therefore not well known that George Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991) – one of the most renowned 20th-century limnologists and a man responsible for introducing many of the crucial ideas in modern ecology that emanated from his limnological study – spent two years in South Africa (1926–1928). At the time, he was employed by the University of the Witwatersrand, but he was fired as a Senior Lecturer by Zoology Professor Harold B. Fantham. However, encouraged by Lancelot T. Hogben, Professor of Zoology at the University of Cape Town, Hutchinson and his first wife, Grace Evelyn Pic...As a scientific discipline in South Africa, limnology has enjoyed a lower status and profile among both the academic community and the general public than has, for example, mammal research, palaeoanthropology, or ecology. Despite the fundamental importance of freshwater systems to the countrys environmental health, sustainability and resilience, overviews of South African science either mention limnology briefly, or not at all. It is therefore not well known that George Evelyn Hutchinson (1903–1991) – one of the most renowned 20th-century limnologists and a man responsible for introducing many of the crucial ideas in modern ecology that emanated from his limnological study – spent two years in South Africa (1926–1928). At the time, he was employed by the University of the Witwatersrand, but he was fired as a Senior Lecturer by Zoology Professor Harold B. Fantham. However, encouraged by Lancelot T. Hogben, Professor of Zoology at the University of Cape Town, Hutchinson and his first wife, Grace Evelyn Pickford (1902–1986), travelled widely in the region observing, sampling and identifying life in many ponds, lakes and other water bodies. In 1928 the couple left for Yale University, where Hutchinson remained for what was to be an illustrious career. Later, Hutchinson described this South African interlude as having played ‘an immense part’ in his intellectual development and the work he did in South Africa is reflected in his four-volumeTreatise on Limnology,published in 1957, 1967, 1975 and 1993. Situated within the broader context of Hutchinsons life and work, the aim of this article is to examine the connections between Hutchinson and South Africa that are of particular significance to historians of science and scientists in the region.

Lessons from South Africa: War and Wildlife Protection in the Southern Sudan, 1917-1921

For a few years at the end of the First World War, James Stevenson-Hamilton, warden of the Kruger National Park in South Africa, was employed in the Sudan civil service, Despite the dissimilar human history and natural environments of South Africa and the Southern Sudan, Stevenson-Hamiltons experiences in Mongalla province were informed by his professional life in South Africa and his comments on the game protection initiatives in the Sudan at that time are relevant to the modern conservation doctrine of sustainable yield. In the early 1920s Stevenson-Hamilton was responsible for drafting Sudanese game protec tion legislation which endured for a number of decades.

The changing shape and scope of Southern African historical studies

ABSTRACT This article considers the trajectory of the discipline of history from the inception of the Southern African Historical Society in 1965 up to the present time. The Society has arranged regular biennial conferences at which the Societys President has generally addressed the gathering on an aspect of history that not only reflects the position of the President, but also summarises the state of the profession as a whole. Using these addresses as benchmarks, and combining them with statements from the Presidents of the American Historical Association at similar gatherings, a number of articles in the South African Historical Journal and significant recent publications, the author points to new directions in historical studies in southern Africa, identifies fresh fields of endeavour and argues for greater interdisciplinary tolerance and collaboration.