AFRICA: Africa World Press Guide

compiled and edited by WorldViews

"The African green movement cannot afford to ignore the mundane issues of development....How to save the tree and cut it, that is our question!"
--Mohamed Suliman, What Does It Mean to Be Green in Africa? (Suliman 1993), p. 1

"During the 1970s and early 1980s," Mohamed Suliman writes, "many African environmental organisations declared that pollution was their enemy number one, even though there was little evidence to substantiate this claim. Our awareness campaigns looked s uspiciously similar to those of Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth, in both content and form. Our northern partners gave us support and encouragement. Our own people scarcely understood what we were talking about." "Besides failing to develop our own env ironmental priorities," Suliman continues, "the African green movement also failed to consider its specific role as a movement of a developing region. Our people were yearning for a better quality of life and issues of development were paramount to them.. ..[The African green movement] cannot go around preaching to people not to do harm to their environment when their very survival [is] at stake" (Suliman 1993, p. 1).

The London-based Institute for African Alternatives (IFAA), of which Mohamed Suliman is the director, has produced a number of publications that reflect African perspectives on environmental issues. The title of one such publication poses the cr itical question succinctly: What Does It Mean to Be Green in Africa? (Suliman 1993). Attempts to draw out the implications of this question--and to search for answers--are found in IFAA publications such as Alternative Development Strategies for Africa. Volume 2: Environment - Women (Suliman 1991), and Greenhouse Effect and Its Impact on Africa (Suliman 1990).

The International African Institute (London) shares a similar perspective on environmental issues in Africa. See two recent International African Institute publications in the Africa Issues series edited by Alex de Waal: The Lie of the Land: Challen ging Received Wisdom on the African Environment (Leach and Mearns 1996) and Fighting for the Rain Forest: War, Youth and Resources in Sierra Leone (Richards 1996).

The search for a definition of African environmental priorities is also examined in Voices from Africa: Local Perspectives on Conservation (Lewis and Carter 1993) and, on a regular basis, in periodicals issued by ENDA (Environmental Development Action in the Third World), in Dakar, Senegal, and the Environmental Liaison Centre International (ECLI), in Nairobi, Kenya. ENDA's quarterly is entitled African Environment: Environmental Studies and Regional Planning Bulletin; Ecoforum is the nam e of the multilingual bimonthly published by the Environmental Liaison Centre.

Contributed essays in Development and Environment: Sustaining People and Nature (Ghai 1994) speak to the development issue that Mohamed Suliman raises, as they identify the vital elements of an alternative approach to sustainable development--on e that links livelihood, security, environmental protection, and community empowerment. Ghana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, and Madagascar are among the developing nations studied in-depth in Development and Environment.

Two books that set the issue of environmental protection in Africa in a larger geographical context are The Third Revolution: Environment, Population and a Sustainable World (Harrison 1992) and Environmental and Economic Dilemmas of Developin g Countries: Africa in the Twenty-First Century (James 1994).

Global Ecology: A New Arena of Political Conflict (Sachs 1993) and No Time to Waste: Poverty and the Global Environment (Davidson et al. 1992) chart a new course in environmental activism, calling for local grassroots involvement in safeg uarding and improving the environment (in Africa and elsewhere).

For additional listings on this topic, see Environmental Issues in the Third World: A Bibliography (Nordquist 1991).

Environmental issues in Africa

Environment and women:

The significant role that women play in managing natural resources in Africa (and in other developing areas) is increasingly becoming a subject of interest. See, for instance,

• Close to Home: Women Reconnect Ecology, Health and Development Worldwide (Shiva 1994);
• Women and the Environment (Rodda 1991);
• Ecofeminism (Mies and Shiva 1993); and
• Women and the Environment: A Reader. Crisis and Development in the Third World (Sontheimer 1991).

The Zimbabwe Women's Resource Centre and Network (ZWRCN) in Harare has issued a number of resources on this subject:

• Fact Sheet on Women and the Environment in Zimbabwe (Zimbabwe and Regional Network of Environmental Experts 1993);
• Women and Environment. ZWRCN Bibliographies, no. 6 (ZWRCN 1993); and
• Gender, Environment and Sustainable Development: Zimbabwe's Case. ZWRCN Discussion Paper, no. 8 (Mvududu 1993).

Environment and conflict:

Greenwar: Environment and Conflict (Bennett 1991) explores the role of environmental degradation in "the complex web of causes leading to social and political instability, bloodshed and war" in Africa (p. 1). In chapter 8 of No Time to Waste (Davidson et al. 1992) environmental degradation is shown to be the impetus for conflicts, as well as the effect of armed conflicts. "Environmental degradation can...be a factor generating conflict as pressure on a shrinking natural res ource base leads to competition for control of resources," the authors explain. "A vicious circle of environmental degradation and conflict can develop, where inequitable distribution of natural resources leads to environmental degradation, which exacerba tes conflict over shrinking resources" (p. 134). Examples of the interrelatedness of poverty, conflict, and environmental degradation are given in the cases of Ethiopia and the Sudan.

Resource management:

Wasting the Rain: Rivers, People and Planning in Africa (Adams 1992) critically examines the ways in which water resources have been developed in Africa (includes dams, wetlands, etc.). Resource Management in Developing Countries: Africa's E cological and Economic Problems (James 1991) explores key resource management issues such as threats to ecological systems, water quality management, and agricultural production, using case studies of Nigeria, Zambia, and other African nations when ap propriate.

Wildlife conservation:

Striking a balance between human needs and wildlife conservation is an issue taken up in Wildlands and Human Needs: Reports from the Field (Stone 1991). This World Wildlife Federation publication describes innovative conservation projects in Ca meroon, Zambia, Kenya, Tanzania, and the Central African Republic.

Eco-tourism:

Environmentally sensitive tourism in Kenya is described in Perez Olindo's article, "The Old Man of Nature Tourism: Kenya," in Nature Tourism: Managing for the Environment (Whelan 1991) and in a slim volume by Daniel Nusili Nyeki, Senior Educati on Officer of the Kenya Wildlife Service, Wildlife Conservation and Tourism in Kenya (Nyeki 1993).

Rainforests:

The range of issues surrounding the preservation and/or appropriate use of Africa's vast rainforests are identified and examined in The Rainforests of West Africa (Martin 1991). Swiss biologist Claude Martin underlines the urgency of studying t his topic, pointing out that "during the past decade each year has seen an average loss of 7,200 square kilometers of West African forest." Thus it is Africa--and not South America or Southeast Asia--that has suffered the greatest losses to its rainforest s in recent times.
In Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa (Vansina 1990) historian and anthropologist Jan Vansina (University of Wisconsin-Madison) traces the history of the incredibly rich rainforest area of West Af rica and describes the many complex societies that came to settle this region. Most of the devastated rainforest land in Africa is in areas that have been opened up by logging interests--an issue that is explored in a pseudonymous article, "Deforestat ion in Zaire: Logging and Landlessness," in a collection of readings compiled by Marcus Colchester and Larry Lohmann, The Struggle for Land and the Fate of the Forests (Colchester and Lohmann 1993).

African success stories

• Whose Trees? A People's View of Forestry Aid (Hisham et al. 1991);
• Women and the Environment (Rodda 1991);
• Dying Lake Victoria: A Community-based Prevention Programme (Akatch 1996).

Two other books are also noteworthy in this regard:

• More People, Less Erosion: Environmental Recovery in Kenya (Tiffen et al. 1994); and
• Portraits in Conservation: Eastern and Southern Africa (Braun 1995).

Two historical studies show that enlightened environmental protection has a long tradition in the East African region:

• Custodians of the Land: Ecology and Culture in the History of Tanzania (Maddox et al. 1996); and
• Ecology Control and Economic Development in East African History: The Case of Tanganyika, 1850-1950 (Kjekshus 1996).

Reference books on Africa's Environment

• The Conservation Atlas of Tropical Forests: Africa (Sayer et al. 1992);
• Dictionary of Environment and Development: People, Places, Ideas and Organizations (Crump 1993);
• Dictionary of the Environment (Allaby 1989);
• The Environment Encyclopedia and Directory: A World Survey (Europa Publications 1994);
• Environmental Profiles: A Global Guide to Projects and People (Katz et al. 1993);
• Green Globe Yearbook 1993 (Bergesen and Parmann 1993);
• International Directory of Non-Governmental Organizations Working for Environmentally, Socially, and Economically Sustainable Development (WorldWise 1992);
• The Pocket Green Book (Rees 1991);
• The Southern African Environment: Profiles of the SADC Countries (Moyo et al. 1993);
• State of the Environment in Southern Africa (Chenje and Johnson 1994);
• World Directory of Environmental Organizations: A Handbook of National and International Organizations and Programs--Governmental and Non-Governmental--Concerned with Protecting the Earth's Resources (Trzyna and Childers 1992);
• World Resources 1994-95: A Guide to the Global Environment (Hammond 1994); and
• The World Watch Reader on Global Environmental Issues (Brown 1991).

For environmental information available on computer networks and bulletin boards see Ecolinking: Everyone's Guide to Online Environmental Information (Rittner 1992).