"Africa: Histories, Ecologies and Societies"
A survey of African environmental history during in the period 1994 to 2004 is provided and distinctions between the environmental history of Africa and that of other geo-regions are identified.
A survey of African environmental history during in the period 1994 to 2004 is provided and distinctions between the environmental history of Africa and that of other geo-regions are identified.
The modernization, the declinist, and the inclinist paradigms of the late twentieth century, despite their differences, all tended to frame environmental change in a unilinear Nature-to-Culture fashion, which in turn entailed homogenizing the agency, process, and outcome of environmental change. This article examines the characteristics of each paradigm, as well as some of the paradoxes that have arisen in their wake. Finally, it looks to alternative approaches.
This article sketches the contours of the emerging paradigm: a complementary system of traditional and modern methods of water provision, a participatory water resources management and a ‘post-mechanistic’ ethico-religious framework.
This study draws on economic and environmental historical approaches to explore the consumption-conservation nexus in the use of African natural resources. It explores environmental changes resulting from a range of interactive factors, including climate, population, disease, vegetation and technology.
This article discusses the need to broaden the debate about land rush by including a few key issues that have been neglected. Control over land is increasingly dictated by global actors and processes, leading to a patchwork of locally disembedded land holdings, not conducive for inclusive and sustainable development at the local level.
This paper explores the history of trees and scientific forestry in South Africa and how it changed southern African hydrologies.
Recent research on Africa has emphasised conservation and trypanosomiasis control as the major factors, which first motivated colonial officials and scientists to embark on forestry preservation and bush clearing policies. This paper contends that in Chepalungu, Kenya, forestry preservation and bush clearing were implemented with the objective to create a racially and tribally segregated landscape.
This paper explores imperial forestry networks by focusing on a single individual, Sir David Hutchins, who spent the final years of his life in New Zealand extolling the need for scientific forest management in the Dominion.
In this special issue on Disempowering Democracies, Melis Ece, James Murombedzi and Jesse Ribot show how, though all major agencies intervening in community-based and carbon forestry – such as international development agencies, conservation institutions, and national governments – state that their interventions must engage local participation in decision making, forestry interventions conversely weaken local democracy.