South African Eden: The Kruger National Park (1902-1946)

In 1902, the Sabi and Singwitsi game reserves in the eastern Transvaal were breeding grounds for malaria and stock diseases. They were also over-populated with lion, seriously depleted of other game and constantly threatened by poachers. South African Eden describes a battle fought by one stubborn, audacious man of vision and a handful of supporters against the popular view that land was for farming and wild animals were for hunting, and tells how a worthless wilderness area was transformed into South Africa’s principal wildlife asset — the Kruger National Park,

Following the proclamation of the park in 1926, James Stevenson-Hamilton was faced with the challenge of developing its tourist potential, and his reminiscences continue until his retirement in 1946. Of especial interest are his astute observations and understanding of what he called ‘the balance of nature’ — a theory that earned him international recognition many years before the ascent of ecology.

Written in a lively style, with exciting anecdotes of encounters with lion, this classic of Africana literature has delighted readers for over fifty years. Now augmented with a new foreword by the son of the author, an introduction by environmental historian Dr Jane Carruthers and more than forty photographs from the Stevenson-Hamilton collection, this fifth edition brings to yet another generation the absorbing account of one of the world’s greatest conservation successes.