I was interested in the request for information and, although I do
not know much about the Kenyan experience, certainly Nyasaland was
affected by post-war colonial conservation measures. I am sure
Kenya was too; environmental constraints played a role in stimulating
the Kikuyu uprising.
In the case of Malawi (the Cinderella of the British Empire),
colonial neglect as food production ran down and soil was exhausted
in the 1930s changed in the 1940s once the British recognized the
importance of their colonial estates. Coupled to this were early
notions of "development", planning and the application of scientific
agricultural advances - not always based on tropical conditions -
which led to an intereference in rural society by well-meaning
experts in the 1940s and 1950s.
For Malawians hitherto little bothered by white folks at home, the
combination of accelerating white immigration, colonial pressure to
stimulate agricultural production and the federation boded ill. The
issue of soil ridging became a flashpoint - for whom were Malawians
preserving the soil's fertility anyway? While people may have
theoretically appreciated the need for conservation, set within a
context of worsening imperial pressure and interference in everyday
life by officious young experts, many refused to comply.
Banda found strong support in his opposition to colonial
conservation practices. Conservation was not untainted by politics,
and was opposed for this association, not its intrinsic merits.
In the case of Kenya, I am sure that the combination of more
intensive white settler as well as imperial pressure and a longer
history of interference by government in rural society set
conservation demands into a strong political context. Equally, given
the place of men in the cash economy and womens' role as the main
workforce in the traditional subsistence economy I am sure gender
added an overlay to bad politics and good ecology. I think it did in
Malawi too.
Good luck in your search for information. I am sure the questions
you are asking about conservation in Kenya could as profitably be
asked elsewhere.