Whites and Water: How Euro-Africans Made Nature at Kariba Dam

At Lake Kariba, conservation policies protect cultural heritage. In 1958, engineers created the lake by damming the Zambezi River. Over the next five years, the reservoir flooded 5,580 square km, displacing 57,000 Tonga farmers and destroying more habitat than any single human action ever had before. In response to this devastation, whites – particularly conservation-minded writers and photographers – expressed their shock and alarm. Gradually, however, they grew to accept the artificial lake, for the lake answered a deep European longing for water in inland, semi-arid Africa. Kariba Dam did the work of glaciers, carving intricate ‘fjords’ and ‘lochs’ in a country that previously lacked any shoreline at all. With Kariba, whites imported their hydrological heritage, and they found the lake to be beautiful. Writers soon called it ‘nature’ and advocated for its protection. Kariba thus exemplifies what has been until recently a hidden tension in ecological conservation: the tolerance – indeed, celebration – of history and cultural heritage. Until now, Euro-Zimbabwean heritage has benefited disproportionately from that tolerance.