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In 2018, Koedoe celebrated an unbroken publication record of 60 years. From uncertain beginnings in 1958, it is now a mature and important internationally recognised scientific journal focussing on conservation and science in national parks in South Africa and beyond into the African continent. After an overview of the emergence of national parks in the 20th century, this retrospective essay reflects on Koedoe’s long and significant contribution to the field of national parks research and management. We identify and make easily available some of the seminal and influential articles that have appeared in the journal over this long time span. Principally relating to matters in national parks in South Africa, these articles (some coming from special issues of Koedoe) have been chosen for their variety as well as for the broader perspectives they open into the longer trajectory of national park conservation and management. Articles illustrate the evolution of paradigms from protectionist and species centric, to ecosystem focus, to complex socio-ecological systems and adaptive management. Conservationists, scientists and managers alike will benefit from an understanding of the transformations in their field over six decades together with appreciating the importance and usefulness of unpacking the intellectual journey of national park science in order to contextualise and enrich – even encourage and direct – present and future research. Conservation implications: The articles included in this essay produced important information that informed and guided later research. Introducing these contributions to a fresh audience we hope will also tempt readers to consult other back issues of this journal, which will benefit conservation by providing an understanding of the long-term transformations in the field.

The Mapungubwe World Heritage cultural landscape, situated on the farm Greefswald at the junction of the Limpopo and Shashi rivers on the border of South Africa, Zimbabwe and Botswana, falls under the management of South African National Parks. This article presents a close examination of contemporary and historical issues around the inscription of the site and argues that the value of places is not self-evident but that significance is culturally constructed. This, as is explained here in respect of Mapungubwe, has changed over time and has been imposed by the concerns, aspirations and values of society at a specific time and within a specific context. Basic facts about Mapungubwe are provided and its importance as a contemporary economic and cultural driver is outlined. A brief history of Mapungubwe’s inclusion in a national park from 1947 to 1949 is presented, as is the archaeological science that it spawned. The effect that the inscription of Mapungubwe may have on elevating South Africa’s international profile and on African national pride is described.

In the late 1970s, a ground-breaking project began in the Pilanesberg district in what is now the North West Province of South Africa to create a wildlife conservation and eco-tourism venture from degraded marginal farmland in an aesthetically attractive extinct volcanic crater. The establishment of this national park was innovative in a number of respects, including a partnership between landscape and ecological designers, local community development and participation, regional tourist satisfaction, trophy hunting, environmental education, ecological restoration, and wildlife conservation and management. This paper briefly explored the park’s early history, explaining its landscape, its early peopling and historical land use. The narrative then concentrated on the first five years of the park’s existence, from its inception in 1977, under the aegis of Agricor, Bophuthatswana’s rural development agency, to 1984, when responsibility for the park was given over to Bophuthatswana National Parks, a parastatal agency, and a new era began. The article contended that 1984 is an appropriate date on which to conclude the early history of the Pilanesberg National Park (PNP) because it was then that the experimental phase of the park ended: its infrastructure was sufficiently developed to offer a satisfactory visitor experience, the management plan was revised, its bureaucratic structures were consolidated and an attitude survey amongst the local community was undertaken. Embedding the originating period of the PNP in its historical, political and socio-economic context, the paper foregrounded those elements in the park’s beginnings that were new in the southern African protected area arena. Thus, elements that relate to socio-politics, landscape and ecological design and restoration, and early relations with neighbouring communities were emphasised. This paper has been written by an historian and is therefore conceptual and historical, conforming in language and structure to the humanities style (environmental history). It relies on published and unpublished literature and oral information and the critical evaluation of these sources. Conservation implications: The pioneering example of the PNP as a protected area is relevant to the field of conservation science because, as human population densities increase, as the tourism sector develops, as marginal farmland becomes available for new uses, and as it becomes important to include neighbouring communities in conservation activities, a study of this park’s early history and socio-political and economic context may be of assistance in the development of similar projects elsewhere in South Africa and beyond.

The concentration on pure scientific research in the Kruger National Park has resulted in a neglect of a humanistic approach to nature conservation issues. The lack of human and political dimensions in important scientific contributions are serious short-comings in the light of present politico-environmental concerns. The impact of race and class on wildlife protection needs to be integrated. Scientifically sound but culturally chauvinistic protectionist strategies have been imposed upon disadvantaged African communities unable to articulate or formulate alternatives. African participation has usually either been ignored or relegated to patronizing and oversimplified accounts of Africans in the roles of 'native rangers' or 'poachers'. This police-poacher view is countered by an over-simplified African perception of national parks as being of benefit only to elitist white recreation. These divergent perceptions have important implications for the future of nature protection in South Africa.

The protection and management of large mammals in Africa’s national parks is not a matter to be left solely for the attention of natural science and scientists. The way in which the natural world is conceptualised by the humanities and social sciences is also significant, because nature is cultural as well as scientific. This article is an interdisciplinary appraisal of the manner in which the writing (e.g. discourse, vocabulary) about elephants in various literary and scientific texts has altered over time. It aims to provide an analysis of some of the literature about elephants in order to examine literate society’s changing responses to the hunting and management of elephants in southern Africa over the past two centuries. The review suggests that new research questions regarding animal cognition and empathy have been generated by these changing attitudes, in conjunction with fresh directions in ecological understanding. Conservation implications: Biodiversity conservation is an inexact science, and even the distinction between conservation research and conservation management is not clear-cut. Moreover, a degree of emotion is evident in scientific and popular discussions around what should be ‘saved’ and how best this might be achieved. Nature is cultural as well as scientific and interdisciplinary insights from the humanities and social sciences may beneficially inform protected area management.

H.S. Hele-Shaw (1854 - 1941) was one of the most outstanding engineering scientists of his generation and an eminent figure in engineering education during the late-19th and early-20th centuries. His work in hydrodynamics (the Hele-Shaw cell and Hele-Shaw pump) and his important contribution to the successful development of high-speed aircraft (his variable pitch airscrew), continues to be relevant today. In 1922, as President of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, he introduced the National Certificate scheme in Britain. It is not well known that Hele-Shaw spent two years in South Africa (1904 - 1905) attached to the Transvaal Technical Institute, a forerunner of the University of the Witwatersrand. One of only three Fellows of the Royal Society of London in southern Africa in 1905, he was a founder Council member of the Royal Society of South Africa and one of the hosts of the 1905 visit to southern Africa by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. The purpose of this paper is to highlight the time he spent in South Africa and to contextualise it within the larger perspective of his engineering career.

La entrevista fue hecha durante el VI Simposio de la Sociedad Latinoamericana y Caribeña de Historia Ambiental, SOLCHA, en Villa de Leyva, Colombia, junio de 2012. El suporte técnico fue amablemente ofrecido por los organizadores del Simposio. Disponible en: http://youtu.be/lZVWFUofmpc