Concept Caching: El Salvador Pan American Highway Virtual Field Trip

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

The link between food and land has been a crux of human-environment interaction.  Today that relationship is increasingly complex and abstract with many modern humans having no direct experience or conception of the land from which their food came.  The post Geography Directions: Eat to be healthy and save the planet provides an example of that disconnect.  Increasingly, the food we eat (recognizably that “we” is not an even, inclusive global “we”) is affecting many diverse environments across the globe, which aggregates into a significant scale global environmental problem.  Also in the post is the world’s development divide.  Increasingly, it is the diets of the developed world that ruin the environments in developing world or in emerging economies.  This image of the El Salvador environment reveals such an example as the legacy of global coffee demand among other globalized connections is evident on the landscape.  However, with the rise of truly global-scale environmental problems, like climate change, the world’s affluent are eating away (yes, pun intended) at their own future.  For starters, we should reconsider the phrase, “You are what you eat,” accounting for the indirect environmental consequences.

Geography Directions: Eat to be healthy and save the planet

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

It is well documented that around the world pristine environments are being destroyed to produce some of the food that we eat in the United Kingdom. For instance, the Brazilian savannah or Cerrado is currently being destroyed faster than the Amazon; this is largely due to soy production (most of which is fed to the animals we eat), beef and other agriculture. A further example is that of Borneo whose tropical forests are being cleared to plant palm trees to produce palm oil for biscuits and fish fingers. If everyone in the world lived as we do in the UK we would require two planets by 2030. But now we may be able to save the planet over lunch. Researchers believe that we can and they say that if we all ate what they would like to see on our plates, Britain’s greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by a quarter, our meat consumption would be reduced drastically and we would be a lot healthier at the same time.  All this comes in the guise of the Livewell Diet, which is a weekly menu assembled by nutritionists, which sets out the best ingredients to balance healthy eating with sustainable food production. The average weekly cost of the diet would be £29 per person.

At present an estimated 79kg of meat a year are consumed by the average UK resident and the Livewell 2020 diet is expected to reduce this to 10kg a year; thus reducing the pressure on natural resources.  Scientists from the Rowett Institute of Nutrition and Health at Aberdeen University have produced the diet commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) which is designed to be familiar and normal. The diet is based on nutritional guidelines from the government for eating healthily. It will also help us meet the 2020 targets for greenhouse gas reductions, as laid out the in UK Climate Change Act by steering away from processed food (whose environmental impacts are due to their extra production, packaging, transportation and energy consumption) and meat.

For a more complete discussion and explanation of the complicated interplay between  human diet, energy, climate change, the financial crisis and the socially and environmentally unsustainable grain–livestock relationship it is recommended to read, Energy, Climate Change, Meat, and Markets: Mapping the Coordinates of the Current World Food Crisis in the Geography Compassjournal. In the meantime the WWF will lobby the government and the food industry to use the Livewell diet as a blueprint and if we just adapt our diets slightly by eating less meat and fewer processed foods, and replacing them with more fruit, vegetables and grains, we’ll be making a positive difference for ourselves and the planet.

By Paulette Cully

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

The Conservation Balance in Sub-Saharan Africa

Most of our mental images of Sub-Saharan Africa are associated with the physical environment: its vast, open landscapes; its unique big mammals; and its native, “traditional” peoples.  Our geographic imaginations have been coded by historical travels, popular media, tourism, other narratives tagged as African.  Today, the real African landscapes behind our imaginations are caught in a struggle between population growth, development needs, and globalization.  In the middle of all this are Africa’s plant and animal systems.  Conserving Africa’s biodiversity is a complicated problem that marks battle lines between various actors: global organizations and local peoples; hunters, environmentalists and tourists; rich and poor; Africans and non-Africans.  In a September issue of The Economist, the article “Game Conservation in Africa: Horns, claws and the bottom line” provides a broad look at the debates over conserving African biodiversity, in particular its iconic large animal species.  Using this article as a starting point, we can analyze the geographies of human-animal conflict and interaction to gain a better understanding of the challenges to conserving Sub-Saharan Africa’s biodiversity.

One of the most difficult problems facing African wildlife is the encroachment of human settlements into wildlife habitats.  As human settlements move out into undeveloped, “wild” lands, fences are built, native vegetation is changed, and fresh water sources are taken over.  This expansion and appropriation of land and water in Africa is the main source for clashes between humans and animals.  Farm lands and crops are trespassed by elephants and other foragers.  Livestock is targeted by lions and other predators.  Shared water sources can bring human populations in direct conflict with dangerous animals like hippos and crocodiles.  When humans feel they are in danger, the only recourse is to kill offending or threatening animals. As more and more settlements materialize, the end result is the overall decline of wildlife populations.  Another effect of human settlement is the fragmentation of habitat, particularly of range lands.  Many large animals in Africa require significant land areas to hunt, migrate or forage.  As these human settlements pop up, they break up the necessary open land that many animals, especially big cats, need.  This creates more opportunity for conflict between these animals and settlements.

Local peoples are not solely to blame.  And in fact, this conflict between humans and ecosystems has happened the world over.  However, it is the power of the African landscape in Western imaginations that seems to make conservation such a necessity.  The questions are what kind of conservation should be supported and how to best integrate tourism.  Historically, conservation has involved the creation of parks or conservancies that had expelled indigenous peoples, creating “conservation refugees.” These early parks were built on imaginations of pristine, untouched wilderness that did not include the presence of native people.  However, increasingly, conservation projects have begun to centrally involve indigenous people in the stewardship of the land and its biodiversity.  Some of these conservation projects are seen as community initiatives where they provide local peoples with actual income or social support in exchange for promoting conservation or for more sustainable livelihoods.  Some hope that such initiatives will eventually provide an avenue for poverty alleviation, yet when studies have proved more data is necessary to judge them a success.  Safari tourism has provided a somewhat positive outlook, as first of all safaris are geared toward viewing wildlife, as opposed to hunting it.  Safari fees in some areas have been used to lease land from locals, which relieves some pressures allowing native vegetation and wild animals to return.  Further, fees have supported local schools, in addition to the staff, rangers and maintenance of the conservation area. However, the safari business has its spatial limitations, since most safari tourists are interested in the big game seen in the African savannas.  Such a model has yet to provide any benefits to other African ecosystems like the Congo Basin, which is plagued by illegal logging that directly threatens gorillas and other forest wildlife.

Ultimately, the question seems to relate to economic bottom lines.  The hope tied to locally inclusive, community initiatives requires a balance between providing indigenous people more income or a better quality of life than they would achieve exploiting the land and its wildlife as they had prior to the presence of conservation efforts.  And, that conservation money comes from private, international interests, which has political implications and creates a reliance on goodwill and continued valuation of outside geographic imaginations of Africa.

Concept Caching: Rice Terraces – Bali, Indonesia

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

Reflecting on the interdisciplinary nature of our discipline in the post Geography Directions: Geography in all directions: interdisciplinary research, Matt Ebiner’s exquisite photo of Balinese rice terraces illustrates the intersections of physical with human, technology with art, and humanity with “nature.”  Studying such landscapes necessitates interdisciplinary approaches to consider the long cultivated relationship between people and earth.  Geography is certainly the best suited discipline to balance, manage and succeed in such an interdisciplinary endeavor.  It is only a bonus that Geographers also get to enjoy such alluring environments.

GeoDiscoveries: South Asian Agriculture

In addition to providing quality textbooks and course content, Wiley offers an excellent media library of GeoDiscoveries that include content animations and comprehension activities.  These media tools will aid students in visualizing concepts over time and space and test their understanding using geographer’s tools.  Check with your Wiley representative to ask about the library of GeoDiscoveries that may accompany your course textbook.

GeoDiscoveries: South Asian Agriculture

One of the basic relationships that help to explain some of the devastation associated with the 2010 Pakistan Floods, described in the post Interconnections amid the floodwaters of Pakistan, is that of climate and agriculture.  This activity includes several interactive maps where students can identify and draw connections among the climatic, vegetation and population patterns of South Asia.

Interconnections amid the floodwaters of Pakistan

The devastating floods that have inundated most of Pakistan over the summer provide plenty of opportunity for a sobering look at the interconnections between climate, politics, economy, and society, across scales.  Outside of the aid and trade questions that have been raised among the international community in helping Pakistan recover, there have been other interesting connections that can be discussed in many geography classes.

For many following this story, it seemed to begin with the torrential monsoon rains.  However, the actual events began with drought.  Below average rainfall levels were experienced in 2009 and as of early July 2010 they were expected to worsen.  National Geographic released a series of photos titled, “Amid Drought, Pakistan Prays for Rain.” And come the end of July, their prayers were answered.

Only a few weeks after the National Geographic photos, torrential monsoon rains begin to engulf Northern Pakistan, the very area shown to be stricken in the photos.  The levels of rainfall in just a few weeks broke records for the last 100 years.  Early on, there were cautionary words for the stressed Pakistani government, already fighting insurgency and coping with other domestic disasters, as they began to appeal to the international community for aid.  Following the initial rains, Pakistan was hit by high temperatures and continued rains that caused additional flooding and landslides.

For a developing world infrastructure, already uneven and inconsistent, the magnitude of destruction during and following the floods proved immense.  The first reports profiled the human devastation as thousands of people were killed and millions made homeless.  Included in these reports were the effects on livelihoods, as entire villages and towns, agricultural fields and livestock herds, food stores, and essential transport and social networks of roads, hospitals, etc., were wiped out.  The widespread damage is seen to set back the Pakistani infrastructure by many years.

For survivors, they were challenged with the day to day battle for food, limited by actual provisions or by rising food prices.  Limited access to clean water was leading to dehydration and dangers of water-borne disease.  The lack of shelter saw many flood victims exposed to the sun, high temperatures, disease-bearing insects and poisonous snakes.  The largest at-risk group of survivors are the millions of Pakistani children who are incredibly vulnerable to disease and malnutrition.  Continued rains on top of existing destruction meant survivors had to improvise transport and had to continue moving from one flood-ravaged area to the next.  The spreading impact of the floods and of survivors led to renewed fears over the future food and livelihoods of much larger populations.

Amid the devastation, some reports focused entirely on the destabilizing affects of such a natural disaster, in the already delicate stability of a place like Pakistan.  Much of this potential destabilization was shared between two foci:  the government and the Taliban.  The recovery was argued as the “Last Chance for Pakistan” being the “gravest security crisis” to be faced by the country and the South Asia region.  There were discrimination accusations of aid being delivered first to certain party supporters or wealthy landowners diverting floodwaters from their own fields to others’.  Out of this disarray, it was reported that the Taliban in Pakistan were able to regroup to the degree that considered targeting the already under-resourced aid workers in the country.  In the last few weeks after the flooding, the same problems remain, yet political in-fighting on how to move forward and who should act is now worse than ever.  This has led some to argue that it is the civil-military elite in the Pakistani government that have hindered international aid and that should be relieved of their duties in leading the recovery.  Ultimately, the appeals for international aid have been made on behalf of political stability, fighting insurgency, and also in mitigating the effects of climate change.

Through the drama of Pakistan’s natural disaster, issues of environment and society can be discussed in geography classes.  In physical geography courses, the discussion can focus on big scale issues of climate change and increasing extreme weather events, or can be smaller scale in illustrating flood plain events, like 100- and 500-year events.  In human geography courses, the discussion may venture into economic and social development, political structures, inequality, and the consequences of these for certain cultural/social groups, or overall recovery.  In world regional courses, the discussion can weave these issues together looking at the many human-environment interactions within the country, but also investigate global connections among security, international aid, and sovereignty.

As if this event was not powerful enough in black and white print, there have been many accompanying photo reports.  They add a greater significance to in-class discussions allowing students to visually identify the magnitude of the flooding, destruction and human devastation that these reports entail.  Photojournals have been posted by the Huffington Post, NPR, NPR’s The Two-Way blog, NPR’s Picture Show blog, and National Geographic.  NPR has also produced an interactive map detailing the extent of the floods in Pakistan’s four provinces, providing links to images and videos.

Discussion Questions:

1. Identify what climate region is Pakistan and the Indus River included in and what other climate regions border it?  How might this climate position explain the cycles of drought, monsoon rains, and flooding stages that have been seen in the 2010 Pakistan Floods?
2. Review some of the articles discussing the extent and effects of the Pakistan flooding.  What do these impacts tell us about the economic and social development in Pakistan, and in South Asia?  Think about infrastructure and settlement, population and poverty, and gender equity, among others.
3. What is the primary economic activity in Pakistan?  In what ways is it already environmentally vulnerable?  How has this vulnerability informed issues related to food security and development?  What additional vulnerabilities are revealed in the 2010 Pakistan Flood event?
4. What are some of the global concerns that hinge on Pakistan’s political security?  How are arguments over aid or trade in Pakistan’s recovery aimed at serving global security concerns?

Concept Caching: Nairobi, Kenya

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

Africa is one of the last areas on Earth where “wild” and “domesticated” seem to coexist, interact and rely on one another.  The post, Geography Directions: Mhiripiri bombs, guard donkeys, and conservation planning in Sub-Saharan Africa describes the complex interactions between national economies and tourism, with local economies and agriculture/animal domestication.  This image provides an illustration of local animal domestication and the taming of the “wild” in Nairobi, Kenya.

Geography Directions: Mhiripiri Bombs, guard donkeys and Conservation Planning in sub-Saharan Africa

From our Geography Directions site reviewing Wiley-Blackwell’s Geography Compass review journal covering the entire discipline.  Keep up with cutting edge academic geography.  These articles may be useful for introducing students to the discipline or may be appropriate for upper division Geography classes.

In Brian King’s article “Conservation Geographies in Sub-Saharan Africa: The Politics of National Parks, Community Conservation and Peace Parks” in Geography Compass he reviews the history of conservation planning in sub-Saharan Africa. The study provides an insight into National Parks, community conservation, and Peace Parks, and affords an understanding of ‘the development politics and governance challenges of global conservation’.

The establishment of National Parks was largely set up for the purposes of hunting and tourism but at the same time the indigenous populations were forcibly evicted from the area. Since then, concerns about the ethical and economic impacts on the protected areas have generated interest in including the local population in natural resource management. More recently the integration of ecology concepts into the planning process has produced an interest in larger scale initiatives which maximise protected habitat. Central to this are transboundary conservation areas otherwise known as Peace Parks which cross national political borders. Although these approaches are not mutually exclusive, the study stresses that they represent major routes to conservation planning in Sub-Saharan Africa.

As for community conservation, a recent report from the Food and Agriculture Association of the United Nations (FAO) offers advice to people living within (and outside) park boundaries who come into contact with wildlife on a daily basis, on how to live side–by-side with wild animals.  The Human-Wildlife Conflict Toolkit, currently being tested in southern Africa offers colourful advice on how to solve, mitigate and prevent conflict between humans and wild animals. Designed to reduce the threat to peoples’ lives, crops and livestock and to their health from animal-borne diseases, the Conflict Toolkit offers tips to keep cohabitation safer for everyone.  For instance, in order to chase off elephants which are trying to eat villagers’ crops, the FAO suggests using a Mhiripiri Bomber which is a plastic gun that shoots ping-pong balls full of a highly concentrated chilli solution (which elephants hate), that burst over the elephants skin. For hippos that enjoy raiding crops by night they suggest shining a strong light in their eyes. As for warning of the approach of predators the FAO suggest investing in a guard donkey, because they are fearless and can drive away even large carnivores by braying, biting and kicking.

Generally speaking, however, the FAO see that the best way to reduce the human-wildlife problem, is to educate farmers, villagers and  policy makers, to see wild animals as an asset. The FAO feel that villagers will only stop seeing wild animals as a nuisance if rural communities receive some material advantage from living in close contact with animal populations. They suggest that paying villagers a percentage of the revenue derived from tourism, paying for the environmental services they provide and compensation for damage to crops, injury or loss of life should also be considered.

By Paulette Cully

To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

Concept Caching: Luxor, Egypt

From our Concept Caching image cache that hopes to promote student spatial awareness by relating specific features on the Earth’s surface with their visual character and GPS coordinates. Through the site photographs and GPS coordinates demonstrate core concepts in geography.  Images are “cached” for viewing by core concept and by region.  Images are certainly useful for introducing visual content to students in all Geography classes.

In our Concept Caching site, there are countless examples of the human-environment connection.  Despite its subdued appearance, this image of Luxor, Egypt offers an extraordinary representation of this interaction.  On the banks of the Nile River, surrounded by the vast Egyptian desert, Luxor is one of the world’s oldest continuously settled and cultivated areas on Earth.  In the post Biomes to Anthromes, the inclusion of human influence on ecological communities puts this Egyptian riverine landscape in true perspective.

Biomes to Anthromes

Many have debated the semantic tags of “natural” or “pristine” when discussing the physical environment or landscape.  At the heart of this is the reality that humans have long been shaping and outright changing the physical landscape; that there is no true pristine or natural environment in our history or today.  In ecology, discussions and research often do not account for human activities in an inclusive way.  Ecosystems and biomes are often seen as disturbed, disrupted, or destroyed by humans.

Two ecologists set about to change the paradigm from which biomes are viewed as natural systems.  Re-orienting the existing theoretical approach of biogeography, ecology, biology, and more, this new paradigm incorporates the long present human influence in nature.  Using the established ecological tool of the biome, these scientists added the various patterns of human alterations.  Presented in Frontier in Ecology and the Environment, the paper titled, “Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world” is a fascinating read for geographers of every stripe.  It includes an intriguing map of these new regions, along with some other interesting graphics for further investigation.

Following up their 2008 paper, came a 2010 Global Ecology and Biogeography paper titled, “Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000.” As the title declares, this paper is interested in the temporal trends of human alteration.  The results are presented in a series of maps that illustrate the changes to anthromes across the Earth’s surface.  This paper offers striking visuals for the global-scale developments that have been associated with the history of human-environment transformation.

Not only are these papers enthralling reads with provocative visuals, but this new paradigm provides an excellent discussion or lecture topic for any geography class, from the pre-undergrad, to undergrad, to graduate levels.  Among the patterns of anthropogenic biomes are correlations to a myriad of environmental, demographic, economic, urban, and social issues.  Some of the issues that have emerged from discussion are: deforestation; sprawl; changing land-use; technological advancement; environmental limits on settlement or agriculture; regional comparisons; and so on.   By viewing the series of maps, students can interpret patterns, investigate historical and contemporary issues, and draw correlations to many related topics in environmental science and geography.  For the most part, they can do so without much pre-instruction.  The relationships they reveal are often intuitive and amount to a very fulfilling classroom dialogue.  Even the classification of the anthrome regions themselves is an interesting topic for consideration.  Interrogating the legend that accompanies these maps uncovers relationships among changing population patterns and densities, agricultural land-use practices, and the significance of various environments to human practices.  A fun activity is to bring up the serious of maps in power point or Google Earth, to view them sequentially, moving forward and backward, and seeing the change in the patterns on the surface.  Students always gasp at the changes they see in “real-time” and remark at the accelerating pace and spread of some of the world’s anthromes.

Both of these papers are provided and expanded on in the website for the Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape Ecology at UMBC.  This website is a great companion for instructors, students, and all other interested parties.  Some of the great downloadable extras are Google Earth maps and educator resources, like power points and educational guides.

To end with a quote:

“In this century we need to change the way we educate our children about the biosphere, about the ecology of the world.  We need to think of it as a human ecology.  Ecology in which people interact with nature and that we’re responsible for the way that nature behaves now and we’ll be responsible for the way it behaves in the future.  And if we want to live in an environment that is desirable for all of us, it’s up to all of us to make that happen.  It’s not going to happen out there somewhere; it’s really the nature around us that matters now.”  -  Earl Ellis

Great articles/resources for students:

Keim, Brandon (2010) “Maps: How Mankind Remade Nature” Wired Magazine

Madrigal, Alexis (2008) “Mapping the Humanized World” Wired Magazine

The Encyclopedia of Earth “anthropogenic biomes” Last updated 2010.

Discovery Channel News (2009) “Earth: Human Influence on Ecology Mapped” (video).

Discussion Questions:

1. Examine the legend associated with the Anthromes map.  Reflect on the organization, order, and naming of each legend item.  What patterns can you see with respect to varying population density, type of agricultural activities, scale of land-use, and utility of diverse environments?
2. Upon viewing the maps of Anthromes, what can you infer about the relationship between population growth/density and agricultural activity?  Compare and contrast the Europe, East Asia, South Asia, and Sub-Saharan Africa world regions.
3. Analyze Figure 2(a) from “Anthropogenic transformation of the biomes, 1700 to 2000.”  Describe the trends in the changing proportions of Used, Seminatural and Wild global lands.  Provide some explanations for the scale and pace of these trends.

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