An environmental history of palm oil development in Dahomey in the twentieth century

Abstract

The relation between development and the environment has only occasionally been taken into consideration by historiography so far. This article stresses its importance by focusing on the development of palm oil production in Dahomey/Benin in the twentieth century. On the one hand, the respective development projects were determined by the experts’ reading of the surrounding environment. On the other hand, the outcomes of the projects included concrete ecological transformations. The initial French understanding of the palm groves as a “natural” environment made their protection the primary concern of development. This conservationist view informed the choice of development measures. From the end of the 1920s the colonial administration opted for a more active approach by planting high-yielding palms. Nevertheless, the environment that the French wanted to develop and protect did not correspond to the existing one. This became evident after Dahomean independence (1960), when development interventions created a new landscape with standardized plantations.