Soil erosion and state intervention into estate production in the Shire Highlands economy of colonial Malawi, 1891-1964

This paper examines the history of soil erosion on private estates in the Shire Highlands region of Malawi and the limits of the colonial state's coercive capacity to intervene. It shows that the problem of soil erosion on the Shire Highlands estates was serious and widespread. In contrast to the intense, harsh conservation campaigns imposed on African Trust Land, the colonial state virtually ignored the environmental degradation taking place on these estates. The introduction of soil conservation measures on private estates exacerbated conflicts over many issues that had characterised the relationship between the state, the plantation and the peasant sectors. It generated a controversy over such issues as labour, land, crop production and the state's powers to intervene in privately owned lands. After a description of the process of creating a plantation economy and European land use practices, this paper argues that, until the 1950s, the state conservation policy toward private estates was one of benign neglect. After 1951, state offficials finally began to focus on massive environmental degradation on settler estates but the actual intervention was weak. Various factors are shown to have inhibited an effective state conservation programme on private estates and it is demonstrated that state policies in this period were met with either indifference or opposition both on the part of the estate owners and the labour tenants.