Concept Caching: Zebras in South Africa, Thornbrush Savanna

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.

It is images such as these that make up the geographical imaginations of Africa as mentioned in the post, The Conservation Balance in Sub-Saharan Africa.  The African savanna is home to its “big-game” and thus, to it’s major tourism industry.  The creation of National Parks, like Kruger, can be seen as partnerships made between conservation, government and tourism.  It is the indigenous people, however, that rely on the virtue of that partnership, as they can either be included in conservation efforts or excluded/displaced from their land altogether.  Ultimately, that decision seems to depend on economic, not social, accounting.

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: 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: Kericho, 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.

This image submitted by Harm de Blij offers a glimpse into the landscapes and scale of the globalization of Kenya’s agriculture.  It provides a visual context to the discussion of Kenya in the post Geography Directions: Africa and economic recovery.

Geography Directions: Africa and economic recovery

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.

The recent media coverage of the disruption to air travel due to volcanic activity in Iceland concentrated mainly on the impact it had upon holiday travel. However, stranded holiday  makers were not the only victims of the flight ban across Europe, not least the flower and vegetable growers of Kenya. Recent news articles on this subject have highlighted that Kenya provides nearly a quarter of all the fruit and vegetables that are air-freighted into Britain and it is estimated that in total, 1,000 tons of roses, carnations, mange tout, asparagus green beans and other fresh produce is exported each day to European supermarkets. Additionally,there are more than 150,000 people who work in Kenya’s horticulture industry, which is one of the country’s largest earners of foreign exchange, providing a fifth of the economy which in 2009 was worth $924 million.

The horticultural industry in Kenya is just one example of recent economic growth within the countries of the African continent and Pádraig Carmody discusses this in his Geography Compass article “Exploring Africa’s Economic Recovery”.  Pádraig investigates the depth, structure and significance of Africa’s current economic recovery’. He explains that for most of the past 30 years Africa has been blighted with economic decline, AIDS, degradation of the environment and conflict, but more recently the number of conflicts has reduced, the economic growth rate has improved and for the first time in decades poverty may be reducing.  He also pays attention to the rising role of the Chinese trade and investment in the country.

To fully understand how and why these changes are taking place it is highly recommended to read Pádraig’s fascinating article and the next time that you buy flowers from the florist or choose green beans cultivated in Kenya from the supermarket shelf you will appreciate how and why they got there.

By Paulette Cully
To view the original article please visit the Geography Directions Blog.

World Cup 2010: Globalization, Geopolitics and Sport

During the last World Cup in 2006, the Yale Center for the Study of Globalization (YCSG) highlighted the deeper symbolism that cultural activities, like sports – namely the sport most illustrative of globalization, football – can offer an understanding of geopolitics.  Speaking particularly in the context of political conflicts, the YCSG contends that, “Rituals of the match, such as waving flags or singing anthems, can inject new passion into national rivalries or also diffuse hostility.”  Viewing sport in this way, the matches of the 2010 World Cup held in South Africa have been symbolically framed in many geopolitically and historically significant ways.  The expectations and representations of national and regional rhetoric bring the sport far beyond the matches and scores.

Where the tone of the 2006 YCSG essay was hopeful for the role of football in diffusing hostility, Foreign Policy magazine offers a disheartening look at the symbolic hopes that football might offer to the Middle East region, specifically.  The article recounts the 2010 World Cup qualifying match between Egypt and Algeria, which was accompanied by attacks and rioting, arguing that it provided, “an uncanny analysis of the region.”  Noting the success of soccer as an “act of cultural imperialism,” the author contends that it is a perfect frame from which to view the region, through its inherent tension between uniting and dividing peoples.  The remainder of the article discusses each of the national teams, their quests to qualify, and their eventual undoing.  Some of the most politically telling include:  the plight of Palestine as, “a national team without a nation”; the divisions of Lebanon’s domestic teams controlled by various sectarian groups and the resulting hopelessness of uniting a national team; and the donning of green wristbands by the Iranian team in their match against South Korea, which were then conspicuously missing during the second half.

Quite the reverse of the divisions in the Middle East region, 2010 World Cup football sparked the flame of pan-African solidarity when Ghana was the only African nation to advance into the quarterfinals.  The Atlantic magazine cites some interesting geopolitical and historical circumstances that may have led to the trans-national camaraderie of the Sub-Saharan African region.  The author briefly describes the nationalism that thrived in the 1960s and 1970s, but then goes on to underscore the let downs of national governments since.  Ultimately, it may have been the historical beyond-borders identities, like ethnicity, language, or religion, some of which were divided in 1885 but have proved lasting in the minds of many Africans.  The author also discusses the essentialist ‘lumping’ of Sub-Saharan Africa into a single category, perhaps an interesting counterpoint to the tenets of regional geography.  Further, the article concludes with a look at the globalized marketing campaign, “brand Africa,” which may also be leading the notions of unity through “Africa United” jerseys and products featuring paint colors that were custom-made from soil samples of four different African countries.

A final perspective looks at the event, through a historical lens, using the games to analyze the distinct evolving relationship between two nations over time.  The South African Mail & Guardian Online views the 2010 World Cup as, “The symbol of a new postcolonial world order.”  The author argues that the event offers a “snapshot” of the current world system along with a “retrospective view” for the globalization currents shaping it.  Taking a closer look at the match between Portugal and Brazil, the author highlights the shift in the balance of power between these two nations in a postcolonial world.  The rising power of Brazil is set politically, economically, and diplomatically against its former colonial master, Portugal.  The article offers an interesting take on the historical metamorphism of the world political and economic system.

Discussion Questions:

1)  What are some other examples of cultural activities or products that can serve to unite or divide people?  Explain your example.

2)  How would you explain the relationship between football and nationalism/regionalism?

3)  Following a prior introduction of both the Middle East and Sub-Saharan Africa regions – Compare the two regions.  What explanations can you offer for understanding the football experiences of the two regions as described by the articles in Foreign Policy and The Atlantic magazines?

4)  How does globalization inform the World Cup or football in general?  Think of historical, economic, cultural, political connections, among others.

Sarah Goggin