East Africa’s Human Environment Interactions: Historical Perspectives for a Sustainable Future

✍ Scribed by Rob Marchant

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 441
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

This book is an ambitious integration of ecological, archaeological, anthropological land use sciences, drawing on human geography, demography and economics of development across the East Africa region. It focuses on understanding and unpicking the interactions that have taken place between the natural and unnatural history of the East African region and trace this interaction from the evolutionary foundations of our species (c. 200,000 years ago), through the outwards and inwards human migrations, often associated with the adoption of subsistence strategies, new technologies and the arrival of new crops. The book will explore the impact of technological developments such as transitions to tool making, metallurgy, and the arrival of crops also involved an international dimension and waves of human migrations in and out of East Africa. Time will be presented with a widening focus that will frame the contemporary with a particular focus on the Anthropocene (last 500 years) to the presentday. Many of the current challenges have their foundations in precolonial and colonial history and as such there will be a focus on how these have evolved and the impact on environmental and human landscapes. Moving into the Anthropocene era, there was increasing exposure to the International drivers of change, such as those associated with Ivory and slave trade. These international trade routes were tied into the ensuing decimation of elephant populations through to the exploitation of natural mineral resources have been sought after through to the present day.
The book will provide a balanced perspective on the region, the people, and how the natural and unnatural histories have combined to create a dynamic region. These historical perspectives will be galvanized to outline the future changes and the challenges they will bring around such issues as sustainable development, space for wildlife and people, and the position of East Africa within a globalized world and how this is potentially going to evolve over the coming decades.

✦ Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Contents
List of Figures
1 Foundations: The Environment, Ecosystems, and Cultures of East Africa
1.1 Introduction
1.2 East African Climate: Foundation for Diversity of Life and Livelihoods
1.3 East African Geology, Topography, and Drainage
1.4 Soils and Edaphic Factors Influencing Ecosystem Composition in East Africa
1.5 East African Ecosystem Composition and Distribution
1.5.1 The Coastal and Lowland Vegetation
1.5.2 Highland Vegetation
1.6 Disturbance Factors Influencing Ecosystem Composition
1.7 Cultural and Land Use Diversity
References
2 Origins and Migration: Environmental and Cultural Change Over the Last 300,000 Years in East Africa
2.1 Introduction
2.2 Detection of Environmental Change Across East Africa
2.3 Detection of Cultural Changes in East African Geoarchives
2.4 Chronological and Methodological Considerations
2.5 Environmental and Human and Cultural History
2.5.1 Foundations of Modern Humans
2.5.2 Last Glacial Period: Forest Refugia and Imprints on Today’s Landscape
2.5.3 The Holocene and the Shaping of Human Impacted Ecosystems
2.5.3.1 The Early Holocene
2.5.3.2 Mid Holocene Environmental Shifts and the Arrival of Food Production
2.5.3.3 Archaeological Insights into the Timing and Spread of Pastoralism
2.5.3.4 The Pastoral Iron Age
2.5.3.5 The Onset of Iron Age and the Arrival of Bantu Agriculturalists and Cereal Crops
2.6 Environmental-Human Interconnections: Linking Environmental and Cultural Change
References
3 Trading Language, New Crops, New Relationships: Digging Anthropocene Foundations
3.1 The Last 1000 Years: Continued Environmental Variability
3.2 Developing and Managing Mixed Agricultural Complexes
3.3 Managing Water and the Growth of Industrial Agriculture
3.4 The Development of Modern Pastoralist Societies
3.5 Globalised and Commodified World: The Rise of the Swahili Coast
References
4 Elephants, Maize, and Pervasive Societal Environmental Transformations
4.1 Introduction
4.2 The Arterial Caravan Routes—Founding the Transport Network
4.3 Impact of Ivory Trade on African Elephant Populations
4.4 The Slave Trade and the Caravan Routes
4.5 The Arrival of Maize, Potatoes, and Tobacco
4.6 Social, Land, and Legacies of Ivory and Slave Trade
4.7 Ecological Impacts and Legacies of Caravan Trade
4.8 Social Impacts Late Nineteenth Century Drought
4.9 Shifting World Views; Establishing Rather than Hunting Controls and National Park Foundations
References
5 Colonial Transitions
5.1 Colonial Foundations—An Atypical Moment in Time
5.2 The Colonial Explorers and Missionaries
5.3 The Colonial Partitioning of East Africa
5.4 Land Use Transformations
5.4.1 Rangelands
5.4.2 Agricultural Lands
5.4.3 Forest Transformations
5.5 Protected Area Foundations
References
6 Postcolonial Transitions and Recent Political History
6.1 Postcolonial Pathways: Early Transitions
6.1.1 Kenya
6.1.1.1 Independence Challenges and the Greenbelt Movement
6.1.1.2 Uganda
6.1.1.3 Tanzania: Ujamaa and the Rise of African Socialism
6.2 Colonial Legacies and New Forms of Land Management
6.2.1 Forest Management
6.2.2 Agricultural Transformations
6.2.2.1 Pasture and Rangelands
6.3 Postcolonial Approach to Wildlife and Protected Areas
6.3.1 Marine Protected Areas
6.4 The Rise and Fall of Fortress Conservation Through the Poaching Crises
6.5 Development of New Partnerships: The Belt and Road
References
7 Using the Past to Chart Future Pathways?
7.1 Introduction
7.2 Developing Data and Methodologies to Better Understand Human Environmental Interactions
7.2.1 Data Gaps and How to Fill Them
7.2.2 Harmonising Datasets and Interlinking Databases and Disciplines
7.3 Linking the Past to the Future Through Modelling Frameworks
7.3.1 Climate Models
7.3.2 Ecosystem Models
7.3.3 Land Use Scenarios
7.3.4 Remotely Sensed Land Use Transformations
7.4 Future Challenges for East Africa
7.4.1 Agricultural Expansion and Consequences of Land Conversion
7.4.1.1 Pastoral to Agricultural Transitions
7.4.2 Climate Change
7.4.3 Population Growth in East Africa and Expansion of Urban Centres
7.5 Past to the Present and Towards the Future: Underpinning Sustainability Science with the Long Term
7.6 Commodification of Nature and the Rise of Ecosystem Services: Nature-Based Solutions to Challenges
7.6.1 Carbon: Reforest Africa—The New Green Revolution?
7.6.2 Water: Adapting to the Climate Variability Challenge
7.6.3 Soil: The Foundation for Agricultural Production
7.7 Current Conservation Challenge: Future-Proofing Protected Areas
7.8 Next Steps
References
References
Index