ABSTRACT
The control of the population and movement of goats was one of the tenets that informed colonial conservation intervention in Africa. “African goats” came under a lot of intense scrutiny from colonial officials who viewed them with disdain. Goats were perceived as a nemesis that could not be sustained within the marginal environments and fragile ecologies in African reserves. Unlike cattle, goats seemed to have no economic value to Africans but destroyed rangelands, pastures, decimated forests, and caused massive erosion. This chapter engages with how African goats navigated colonial boundaries and environmental landscapes. It unpacks the socio-environmental debates and conflicts between colonial conservation ideas and goats. It uses goats as a prism through which to interrogate environmental racism, colonial bigotry, and the scapegoating of the subalterns in colonial declension narratives.
