Pests or Victims of Human Encroachment? Agricultural Expansion and Human-Wildlife Conflict in Late Colonial Gambia

Abstract— Agricultural expansion and wildlife displacement were not random occurrence, but rather consequences of human encroachment into natural ecosystems. Therefore, it becomes imperative to understand the roots of persistence of agricultural expansion and human-wildlife conflicts in the late colonial period in the Gambia. The study adopts systematic review of the literature with the use of Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-analysis (PRISMA). The final selected literature for the study is sixteen (16). Total of five (5) databases were consulted Scopus, Google Scholar, Taylor and Francis, Emerald, and Web of Science. The study found that the colonial drive for economic development, especially in groundnut cultivation, changed land use patterns and displaced wildlife populations. These environmental transformations led to increasing encounters between human and wildlife, with animals often portrayed as agricultural pests, while their displacement was a direct consequence of human encroachment. The study highlights the contrast between colonial and indigenous perceptions of wildlife and conservation. While colonial policies placed premium on economic output and resource control, indigenous communities maintained spiritual and cultural relationships with the land, which recognized sacred spaces as ecological sanctuaries. This divergence played an important role in shaping conservation attitudes and responses to human-wildlife conflict. The failure of colonial policies to incorporate local ecological knowledge further depend these tensions. The study established that human-wildlife conflict in late colonial Gambia cannot be understood in isolation from broader socio-political and environmental forces. Moreover, wildlife was not merely destructive intruders but victims of colonial transformation.