Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land

Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land PDF Author: James McCann
Publisher: James Currey Publishers
ISBN: 0852557744
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This text confronts the alarm about degradation of Africa's natural and human resources by examining two centuries of historical evidence of environmental change. It presents African landscapes as created by humans, not as some idealized notion of Eden. Key topics covered include: the effects of population growth; disease; agricultural change; the state of natural resources; and the role of the state in how Africans have managed and changed their own landscapes. North America: Heinemann

Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land

Green Land, Brown Land, Black Land PDF Author: James McCann
Publisher: James Currey Publishers
ISBN: 0852557744
Category : Africa
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
This text confronts the alarm about degradation of Africa's natural and human resources by examining two centuries of historical evidence of environmental change. It presents African landscapes as created by humans, not as some idealized notion of Eden. Key topics covered include: the effects of population growth; disease; agricultural change; the state of natural resources; and the role of the state in how Africans have managed and changed their own landscapes. North America: Heinemann

Sustainable Poverty Reduction in Less-favoured Areas

Sustainable Poverty Reduction in Less-favoured Areas PDF Author: Ruerd Ruben
Publisher: CABI
ISBN: 1845932773
Category : Technology & Engineering
Languages : en
Pages : 484

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Book Description
Less-favored areas with limited agricultural potential or difficult access conditions, support 40 percent of the world's rural population suffering from chronic poverty. While agricultural innovations and rural development programs have begun to be implemented within developing countries, they do not address the specific obstacles faced by this large population. Instead, a targeted approach is needed to identify different resource management strategies for particular types of households and communities as well as creating balanced investments aimed at sustainable intensification of rural livelihoods. Such efforts have been the focus of the research program on Regional Food Security Policies for Natural Resource Management and Sustainable Economies (RESPONSE). Through the study of less-favored areas in Africa, Latin America, and South and East Asia, development pathways allowing for the careful adjustment of resource use strategies at the field, farm-household and village level are explored.

Tropical Forests

Tropical Forests PDF Author: Thomas K. Rudel
Publisher: Columbia University Press
ISBN: 9780231506908
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 260

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Book Description
In Tropical Forests, Rudel analyzes hundreds of local studies from the past twenty years to develop a much-needed, global perspective on deforestation. With separate chapters on individual regions, including South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Africa, Rudel's work offers an up-to-date assessment of the world's tropical forests. In the concluding chapter, Rudel considers the implications of these trends and describes policy directions for conserving biodiversity and promoting sustainable development in each region.

Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures

Encyclopaedia of the History of Science, Technology, and Medicine in Non-Western Cultures PDF Author: Helaine Selin
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 140204559X
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 2428

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Book Description
Here, at last, is the massively updated and augmented second edition of this landmark encyclopedia. It contains approximately 1000 entries dealing in depth with the history of the scientific, technological and medical accomplishments of cultures outside of the United States and Europe. The entries consist of fully updated articles together with hundreds of entirely new topics. This unique reference work includes intercultural articles on broad topics such as mathematics and astronomy as well as thoughtful philosophical articles on concepts and ideas related to the study of non-Western Science, such as rationality, objectivity, and method. You’ll also find material on religion and science, East and West, and magic and science.

Resurrecting the Granary of Rome

Resurrecting the Granary of Rome PDF Author: Diana K. Davis
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 082144364X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 321

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Book Description
Tales of deforestation and desertification in North Africa have been told from the Roman period to the present. Such stories of environmental decline in the Maghreb are still recounted by experts and are widely accepted without question today. International organizations such as the United Nations frequently invoke these inaccurate stories to justify environmental conservation and development projects in the arid and semiarid lands in North Africa and around the Mediterranean basin. Recent research in arid lands ecology and new paleoecological evidence, however, do not support many claims of deforestation, overgrazing, and desertification in this region. Diana K. Davis’s pioneering analysis reveals the critical influence of French scientists and administrators who established much of the purported scientific basis of these stories during the colonial period in Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia, illustrating the key role of environmental narratives in imperial expansion. The processes set in place by the use of this narrative not only systematically disadvantaged the majority of North Africans but also led to profound changes in the landscape, some of which produced the land degradation that continues to plague the Maghreb today. Resurrecting the Granary of Rome exposes many of the political, economic, and ideological goals of the French colonial project in these arid lands and the resulting definition of desertification that continues to inform global environmental and development projects. The first book on the environmental history of the Maghreb, this volume reframes much conventional thinking about the North African environment. Davis’s book is essential reading for those interested in global environmental history.

Environmental Change and African Societies

Environmental Change and African Societies PDF Author: Julia Tischler
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004410848
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 367

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Book Description
The volume Environmental Change and African Societies contributes to current debates on global climate change from the perspectives of the social sciences and the humanities. It charts past and present environmental change in different African settings and also discusses policies and scenarios for the future. The first section, “Ideas”, enquires into local perceptions of the environment, followed by contributions on historical cases of environmental change and state regulation. The section “Present” addresses decision-making and agenda-setting processes related to current representations and/or predicted effects of climate change. The section “Prospects” is concerned with contemporary African megatrends. The authors move across different scales of investigation, from locally-grounded ethnographic analyses to discussions on continental trends and international policy. Contributors are: Daniel Callo-Concha, Joy Clancy, Manfred Denich, Sara de Wit, Ton Dietz, Irit Eguavoen, Ben Fanstone, Ingo Haltermann, Laura Jeffrey, Emmanuel Kreike, Vimbai Kwashirai, James C. McCann, Bertrand F. Nero, Jonas Ø. Nielsen, Erick G. Tambo, Julia Tischler.

A Companion to Global Environmental History

A Companion to Global Environmental History PDF Author: J. R. McNeill
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 111897753X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 578

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Book Description
The Companion to Global Environmental History offers multiple points of entry into the history and historiography of this dynamic and fast-growing field, to provide an essential road map to past developments, current controversies, and future developments for specialists and newcomers alike. Combines temporal, geographic, thematic and contextual approaches from prehistory to the present day Explores environmental thought and action around the world, to give readers a cultural, intellectual and political context for engagement with the environment in modern times Brings together environmental historians from around the world, including scholars from South Africa, Brazil, Germany, and China

Is There a Middle East?

Is There a Middle East? PDF Author: Abbas Amanat
Publisher: Stanford University Press
ISBN: 0804775273
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
This book offers diverse debates on the possible manifestations and meanings of the term "Middle East."

Imperial Gullies

Imperial Gullies PDF Author: Kate Barger Showers
Publisher: Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0821416138
Category : Soil conservation
Languages : en
Pages : 377

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Book Description
Once the grain basket for South Africa, much of Lesotho has become a scarred and treeless wasteland. The nation's spectacular gullying has concerned environmentalists and conservationists for more than half a century, In Imperial Gullies: Soil Erosion and Conservation in Lesotho, Kate B. Showers documents the truth behind this devastation. Showers reconstructs the history of the landscape, beginning with a history of the soil. She concludes that Lesotho's distinctive erosion chasms, called dongas, often cited as an example of destructive land-use practices by African farmers, actually were caused by colonial and postcolonial practices. The residents of Lesotho emerge as victims of a failed technology. Their efforts to mitigate or resist implementation of destructive soil conservation engineering works were thwarted, and they were blamed for the consequences of policies promoted by international soil conservationists since the 1930s. Imperial Gullies calls for an observational, experimental and, most importantly, a fully consultative and participatory approach to address Lesotho's serious contemporary problems of soil erosion. The first book to bring to center stage the historical practice of colonial soil science and a cautionary tale of western science in unfamiliar terrain it will interest a broad, interdisciplinary audience in African and environmental studies, social sciences, and history. "Showers shows how local people understood that colonial contour conservation methods and road building actually stimulated gully erosion, something colonial scientists failed to realize. Overall it is undoubtedly one of the most important books written to date on any part of the environmental history of Africa. Moreover it stands out in the discipline of environmental history in general as an unusually sophisticated work of great insight and explanatory power."---Richard H. Grove, author of Green Imperialism: Colonial Expansion, Tropical Island Edens and the Origins of Environmentalism, 1600-1860 Kate B. Showers is a visiting research fellow and senior research associate at the Centre for World Environmental History, University of Sussex, England. She has lived in rural Lesotho and has served as head of research, Institute of Southern African Studies, National University of Lesotho.

A Companion to American Environmental History

A Companion to American Environmental History PDF Author: Douglas Cazaux Sackman
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
ISBN: 9781444323627
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 696

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Book Description
A Companion to American Environmental History gatherstogether a comprehensive collection of over 30 essays that examinethe evolving and diverse field of American environmental history. Provides a complete historiography of American environmentalhistory Brings the field up-to-date to reflect the latest trends andencourages new directions for the field Includes the work of path-breaking environmental historians,from the founders of the field, to contributions frominnovative young scholars Takes stock of the discipline through five topically themedparts, with essays ranging from American Indian EnvironmentalRelations to Cities and Suburbs