The Environmental Crunch in Africa: Growth Narratives vs. Local Realities

This book discusses the problems and challenges of environmental–ecological conditions in Africa, amidst the current craze of economic growth and ‘development’. Africa’s significant economic dynamics and growth trajectories are marked by neglect of the environment, reinforcing ecological crises. Unless environmental–ecological and population growth problems are addressed as an integral part of developmental strategies and growth models, the crises will accelerate and lead to huge costs in later years.  Chapters examine multiple emerging tension points all across the continent, including the potential benefits and harm of growing urban-based ecotourism, the trajectory of labour-saving technologies and the problems facing agro-pastoralism. Although environmental management and sustainability features of African rural societies should not be idealized, functional 'traditional' economies, interests and management practices are often bypassed, seen by state elites as inefficient and inhibiting 'growth'. In many regions the seeds are now sown for lasting environmental crises that will affect local societies that have rarely been given opportunity to claim accountability from the state regimes and donors driving these changes. 

Table of Contents:
Introduction: Promise and peril in Africa: growth narratives vs. local environmental problems; Jon Abbink.- Chapter 1: Cash for cashews: does it add up?; Margaret Buckner.- Chapter 2: Trade-offs between crop production and other benefits derived from wetland areas: short-term gain versus long-term livelihood options in Ombeyi watershed, Kenya; Serena A.A. Nasongo, Charlotte de Fraiture & JB Okeyo-Owuor.- Chapter 3: Agriculture, ecology and economic development in sub-Saharan Africa: trajectories of labour-saving technologies in rural Benin; Georges Djohy, Honorat Edja & Ann Waters-Bayer.- Chapter 4: Is growing urban-based ecotourism good news for the rural poor and biodiversity conservation? A case study of Mikumi, Tanzania; Stig Jensen.- Chapter 5: Losing the plot: environmental problems and livelihood strife in developing rural Ethiopia. Suri agro-pastoralism vs. state resource use; Jon Abbink.- Chapter 6: Cameroon's Western Region: an environmental disaster in the making?; Moses K. Tesi.- Chapter 7: The impasse of contemporary agro-pastoralism in central Tanzania: environmental pressures in the face of land scarcity and commercial agricultural investment.- Tadasu Tsuruta.- Chapter 8: Down by the riverside: cyclone-driven floods and the expansion of swidden agriculture in southwestern Madagascar; Jorge Llopis.- Chapter 9: Challenging impediments to climate change initiatives in Greg Mbajojirogu’s Wake Up Everyone; Norbert Oyibe Eze.- Chapter 10: Future in culture? Globalizing environments in the lowlands of Southern Ethiopia; Echi Christina Gabbert.