Dryland production systems in Africa Essay Example

Dryland production systems in Africa Essay Example Dryland production systems in Africa Essay Dryland production systems in Africa Essay How useful is the concept of desertification to understanding the sustainability of dryland production systems in Africa? Man is both the cause and victim of desertification; a process which is continuing or even accelerating in Africa. action is needed now to alleviate the plight of the large populations affected. If these people are not helped, they will exert more pressure over a weak natural system. Independent Commission on International Humanitarian Issues (1986: p15, 111) Desertification is perhaps the best example of a set of ideas about the environment that emerge in a situation of scientific uncertainty and then prove persistent in the face of gradually accumulating evidence that they are not well founded. Swift (1996: p73) At the interface of environment and society relations, the productive use of African drylands has been both a source and testing ground for the theory and practice of key environmental issues. Dryland areas are characterised by aridity and the variability of precipitation, with growing periods of 75 to 179 days a year (Mortimore, 1998). Often perceived to be on the brink of sustainability, analysis of drylands has variously drawn upon Malthusian ideas of carrying capacity, Hardins (1968) idea of the tragedy of the commons in terms of property rights and land tenure, and broader themes such as the colonial mindset and native irrationality, post-colonialism and development (Mortimore, 1998). Desertification has been the dominant conceptualisation through which these ideas have been reformulated and refracted in dryland regions, leading to its consecration in international law as a discrete chapter of Agenda 21 (Adams, 2003). Although the process of desertification has been the subject of over eighty years of scientific research and policy intervention, it remains hotly contested (Thomas, 1997). The term was coined by Aubreville in 1949, yet over 100 definitions have since been published (Glanz Orlovsky, 1985). In 1995, the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (CCD) defined desertification as land degradation in arid, semi-arid and dry sub-humid areas resulting from various factors including climatic variations and human activities. The evolution of the concept of desertification, however, embodies much more than any definition of its process. By identifying and delimiting an environmental problem, the term has been used to legitimate the study and identification of its causes, the attribution of blame and the need for policy intervention to remedy its effects. Therefore, as the term of choice in most discussions of dryland sustainability, it is critical that desertification presents an accurate and useful method to conceptualise ecosystem change. In the last decade, there have been a number of calls to debunk the myth of desertification and to expose the winners and losers in its narrative (Thomas Middleton, 1994; Swift, 1996). In the context of such claims, the extent to which desertification can inform our knowledge of dryland production systems and their sustainability will be examined in this essay. The validity and utility of any concept may be considered to rest upon mutual understanding of its meaning and the accuracy of its description and explanation of process. Judged against these criteria, I will argue that desertification (and the narrative that has built up around it) is unhelpful in explaining the sustainability of dryland production systems for three interrelated reasons. Firstly, at an abstract and theoretical level it is poorly conceptualized and ill-defined, mixing symptoms and causes in continually shifting boundaries of what processes it does and does not include. Secondly, the scientific work that has been used to support the concept has serious flaws and has failed to adequately represent the problem of sustainability in dryland areas. And lastly, the narrative has effectively blocked more accurate and progressive understandings of dryland sustainability. It will then we suggested that although desertification does not serve as a particularly useful lens to continue to analyse dryland sustainability, a knowledge of its history may yet prove useful in illuminating the relationship between science, policy and action. At an abstract level, the definition of desertification offers a number of problems for clear and objective understanding. Firstly, rather than a unitary process in itself, desertification is an amalgam of drought, desiccation and degradation which are three interrelated but discrete phenomena (Warren, 1996). Each of these has different causes and feedback mechanisms but has a similar outcome, and therefore desertification creates operational difficulties for assessment and subsequent intervention (ibid. , 1996). Pinpointing the exact cause of similar short-term physical manifestation is important to provide an effective solution (Warren Khogali, 1992). The inclusion of a subjective causal element such as human pressure in the definition also leads to problems delimiting the identification of desertification from its measurement (Mortimore, 1998). For example, in its attempts to map desertification hazards in 1977, UNEP added the parameter of high human and animal pressure to a map of aridity (ibid, 1989). However the duality of human action and natural changes is not necessarily so distinct and defined, and this obscures the mutual constitution of the two (Thomas, 1997). Secondly, and possibly as a result of this complexity of process, a definition of desertification has been problematic (ibid. , 1997). As noted earlier, there are more than 100 published definitions of desertification, which variously include or exclude the range of ecological processes within its boundaries (Glanz Orlovsky, 1985; Swift, 1996). Mainguet (1991) has argued that the term has been rendered obsolete by the extent of the confusion over its meaning. At a purely conceptual level therefore, the usefulness of the desertification may be severely compromised by the ambiguity over its definition, and within this the inclusion of both causal mechanisms and identification factors. Possibility related to the problem of definition of desertification, the theory and evidence used to support the concept has also been questioned (Mortimore, 1998). In this section the accuracy of the received narrative will be shown to have been challenged on three bases, the physical form of its occurrence, the processes that lie behind this form and the structural mechanisms that account for the continuation of these processes. The history of the narrative has been comprehensively reviewed by Swift (1996). Analysis of the process (without reference to the term) of desertification began in earnest in the late 1920s and 1930s, following a period of severe drought in the Sahel. One of the most influential writers on the subject was Stebbing, a forester who carried out fieldwork in the British and French colonies of West Africa in 1934. Stebbing asserted that the Sahara was moving southwards and estimated that this had occurred at a rate of 1km / yr for the previous three centuries (Stebbing, 1937 cited in Swift, 1996). Desiccation was ascribed as the process responsible for this change, with the increase in the use of indigenous agricultural land use through population pressure as the structural mechanism (ibid, 1937). This process was thought to have a subsequent feedback effect on rainfall, making it more intermittent (ibid, 1937). Although Stamp (1940) raised the severe shortcomings of Stebbings research, a number of elements of his argument can be traced in current consideration of desertification. In the 1970s and early 1980s, the desertification issue was revived, once again following a period of intense drought (Swift, 1996). The work of Lamprey (1975) and Ibrahim (1984) proved particularly important during this period, despite seriously flawed data analysis (ibid, 1996). Lamprey used ground surveys and aerial reconnaissance to compare contemporary boundaries on Kordofan and Darfur with those of a 1958 botanical survey. However, this distinction did not take account of the fact that the contemporary data was taken in a series of exceptionally dry years, whilst that 1958 represented a relatively wet period in the Sahel (Mortimore, 1998). In terms of the physical manifestation of this process, Lamprey (1975) concluded that ecological boundaries were shifting southwards and that sand was encroaching and threatening farmland. The work of Ibrahim (1984), based on observations in Darfur, Sudan over the period of 1976 1982, supported Lampreys conclusions and suggested that desertification had claimed over 650,000 kmi of productive land in the previous fifty years. In both of these studies, man was seen as the cause of desertification, with the rate of the process controlled by the increase in population pressure. Actions such as excessive use of agriculture in unsustainable areas, extensive pastoralism and high herd numbers and the indiscriminate collection of firewood were suggested as the triggers for this process (Swift, 1995). In combination the ideas of Stebbing (1937), Lamprey (1975) and Ibrahim (1984) became the scientific basis of a received narrative in terms of the form, process and causation of desertification. These ideas were reflected in policy circles, culminating in the UN Convention on Desertification in 1977. The main elements of the desertification concept may be thus identified as the expansion of the desert at a measurable rate, with desiccation is main process of this change and that man (driven by population pressure) is its agent. A Malthusian spiral of population growth, resource mismanagement, environmental degradation and a reduced carrying capacity may then be extrapolated (Mortimore, 1998). Many aspects of this conception have been the subject of critique.