Regarding conservation in colonial Kenya raised by Jamie McGowan,
when the British government declassified the colonial records in the
1980s serveral documents on this emerged. There is an incident in
Fort Hall starting in 1951 which had to do with terracing. I have a
conference paper that treats this subject and will be happy to share
the references with you if you send me your address.
There was also a paper presented at the 1992 Southwestern Soccial
Science conference on the terracing issue and gender, though it was
for Tanzania. I'll be on vaction for a week or so but will be happy
to enter into discussion with you on this after June 10th.