Welcome to this special edition of the WRM bulletin looking at Africa through the eyes of Africans. To many people in the world, Africa is an exotic continent filled with dances and songs of both people and birds.
Africa is a big continent. Its land mass covers 31 million square kilometres and takes up 20% of the earth. It is the second largest continent in the world and has a population of some 900 million people, meaning that it is less populous than India and China.
Issue 133 – August 2008
Africa Talking About Africa
FOCUS OF THIS ISSUE
A great deal of attention is focused on Africa today, but hidden beneath all the talk about fighting poverty there are ambitious plans to exploit its enormous wealth. This widely heterogeneous continent, home to almost 900 million people, artificially divided into 53 states by European colonialism, is now under siege in the face of new advances by corporate globalization, while serving as the stage for the battle between the imperialists of old – the United States, European Union and Japan – and the economic and political expansion of China and India. It would seem that the future of the continent and its peoples is being decided in the distant seats of the world’s wealth and power.
Within this framework, WRM is also focusing its attention on Africa -not in order to talk about Africa, but rather to listen to what Africans themselves have to say. That is the whole purpose of this edition of the bulletin: to open up a space where Africa can speak about Africa.
We have created this blog where you can make comments on every article. We encourage and invite you to do so!
WRM Bulletin
133
August 2008
OUR VIEWPOINT
AFRICA SPEAKS OUT!
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28 August 2008“Mr. Chairman, Honourable Delegates; We, women representatives from different organisations in Africa, representing farmer’s, Community Based Organisations, Landless Peoples Movements, Pastoralists and Youth, from Western, Southern and Eastern Africa, meeting in Nairobi from June 16-18, 2008, to share our diverse experiences on women’s access, control and ownership of land/natural and productive resources in Africa and governments’ extent of implementation of the International Conference on Agrarian Reform and Rural Development (ICARRD) Declaration in Africa and the current food crisis.
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28 August 2008Members of FoE Africa from Ghana, Togo, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Nigeria, Mauritius, Tunisia and Swaziland met for five days in Accra, Ghana reviewing issues that confront the African environment. A particular focus was placed on the current food crisis and agrofuels on the continent.
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28 August 2008“Co-management: a situation in which two or more social actors negotiate, define and guarantee amongst themselves a fair sharing of the management functions, entitlements and responsibilities for a given territory, area or set of natural resources.” (Borrini-Feyerabend et al., 2000) [1] In the countries of Central Africa, numerous programmes have been undertaken since 1990 to demonstrate that protected areas can be more effectively managed through a participatory or “co-management” approach. There are three main reasons for the adoption of this approach:
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28 August 2008It is difficult to analyse the question of indigenous rights in Africa without engaging with the question of statehood, and it is impossible to address the latter without considering its dubious origins. The colonial enterprise in Africa, marked by domination and annexation of territory, was masterminded by Leopold, the Belgian monarch, and Bismarck, the German chancellor. It reached its peak in the Berlin conference of 1884, which was convened ostensibly to regulate trading relations between European powers but ended by legislating for the partition of Africa. The result was the dismemberment of the continent into 53 multi-ethnic and odd states with no basis in scientific or social rationality save that of resolving territorial disputes between the colonisers.
CORPORATE INTERESTS VS. PEOPLES LIVELIHOODS
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28 August 2008Simple lessons are not necessarily easy to learn. For example: oil is a non-renewable and limited resource (1) Oil and conflicts appear to be twins in today’s world. When people think of oil, in general terms, what come to mind are ‘progress and development’. Thus, people speak of oiling the wheel of progress. Today, however, what we see and experience is that oil greases the wheels of conflict. And this is very much the case in the oil fields of Africa.
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28 August 2008Ignorance is the night of the mind, but a night without moon or star. -Confucius Introduction
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28 August 2008In the past For hundreds of years, it seems the African continent has been viewed as a kind of take-out convenience store by countries in the North – at first mainly for rare and exotic commodities like gemstones, precious metals, ivory, plants and slaves; and later for more basic items such as minerals, food, timber and oil. There is however a new rush to exploit Africa’s resources, this time aiming at the very basics – the fertile soil, relatively abundant water, and low-cost labour represented by poor people across the continent.
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28 August 2008Liberia has just emerged from a civil crisis. The sanction on the exportations of Liberian Timber was lifted in 2006 by the United Nations Security Council UNSC. The timber industry, which provided substantial revenue for government, is closed pending the completion of a forestry reform process. But unemployment is at an alarming rate. There is an increased demand for timber on the international market and the interest of commercial logging companies is clearly seen on the table; all these presently stand as factors to undermine the on-going forestry reform process if the government does not complete this process. If the reform process is not carried through to a logical conclusion, there is a high possibility of starting business as usual in the sector.
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28 August 2008In Gabon, forests and the communities that depend on them for survival face a range of different problems. The logging industry is one of the most serious. On the one hand, it does not benefit local communities in any way. At the same time, the majority of the forestry companies operating in the country (particularly those from Asia, with China and Malaysia in the lead) do not respect any technical standards, and cut trees that do not meet the minimum diameter requirements, for example.
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28 August 2008The current development patterns and inequities in the country present a number of forest management challenges. Industrialization today is synonymous with cutting down of natural forests like what has been done to Namanve forest where a Coca-Cola plant was constructed, Kalangala island in lake Victoria which was cleared in favour of oil palm oil plantations and the proposed plans of cutting down Mabira tropical rainforest in favour of sugarcane growing. Forests are also faced with the problem of pollution, particularly from industries such as Nile breweries, Mukwano group of industries and substandard incinerators land fills.
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28 August 2008Mozambique is a country rich in forest resources, with a total forest area of approximately 40.6 million hectares and 14.7 million hectares of other wooded areas (DNTF, 2007). Most provinces have vast areas of unspoiled, beautiful forests, from where rural communities acquire several goods for subsistence as well as for cultural and spiritual reasons. Forest diversity is however poorly documented due to several reasons such as the vastness of the country, poor transport network, the long-lasting civil war, and the general lack of human and financial resources.
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28 August 2008The Itombwe Massif lies northwest of Lake Tanganyika (28º02′ - 29º04′ E, 2º41’ - 3º52′ S), stretching over a vast area of 1,600 km2 that encompasses the territories of Mwenga, Fizi and Uvira. It forms part of the Mitumba mountain range, with altitudes ranging from 60 metres above sea level in the western portion to 3,475 metres (Mount Mohi) in the north, with numerous peaks of 2,000 metres or higher, then abruptly dropping to 770 metres in the east, where it borders on Lake Tanganyika.
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28 August 2008The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has the second largest tropical rainforest in the world, second only to the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. The country’s forests have recently drawn international attention, not only due to the challenges posed by climate change, but also because of the struggle being waged by Congolese civil society in general, and the environmental movement in particular, to stop the government from lifting its current moratorium on new logging concessions.
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28 August 2008Madagascar is one of the world’s most impoverished countries. 70% of the population lives below the poverty line, the majority working in subsistence agriculture in isolated rural communities, relying on forest resources for their daily livelihoods – for firewood (42% of wood consumption), charcoal (39%) and timber (see ‘National Supply-Demand Study on Wood-based products’ http://www.frameweb.org/ev_en.php?ID=64661_201&ID2=DO_TOPIC), as well as a variety of non timber forest products.
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28 August 2008Introduction The inter-tidal forest communities called mangroves occurring in tropical and subtropical areas in the world cover most of the coastal regions of Africa and have been playing significant ecological, economical and socio-cultural roles in the lives of coastal communities in the continent. This paper presents an overview of current conservation status of mangroves in Africa including their coverage, biodiversity status, important threats and gaps in major conservation efforts. Recommendations are made to further combat rising threats, address sustainable use issues and restore these mangrove ecosystems. Extent and distribution
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28 August 2008Mt. Elgon is an extinct volcano that is the fourth highest mountain in East Africa. The Bagisu and Sabiny are the two ethnic tribes around the mountain. It has a total area of 2,504 Km² in which the protected area of Mt. Elgon covers approximately 2045 Km² with 1145 km2 comprising the Uganda side and 900 km² comprises the Kenyan side. (Source:en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mount_Elgon_National_Park)