Environment and Development Masters Programme

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Environment and DevelopmentMasters Programme

• Ton Dietz Febr 23 2009
• Geographical Diversity and Competing Landscapes

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John Cole

• Geography of the Worlds Major Regions (1996)
• Friendly environments
• - tropical humid and dry forests/woodlands
• - subtropical and temperate rainforests
• - evergreen sclerophyllous
• - temperate broadleaf forests
• - temperate needle leaf forests
• - tropical grasslands savannas
• - temperate grasslands

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Coles Harshlands

• Mountain systems
• Warm deserts
• Cold-winter deserts
• Tundra communities and icecaps

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Embedding

• Peoples livelihoods and peoples lives are
  embedded in space each person needs direct
  livelihood space, often in different places, and
  each person needs indirect livelihood space
  (which has a footprint elsewhere).

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World regions natural and economic wealth, as
measured by John Cole (1996) for 1990

• Natures wealth based on
• - total land area
• - productive land
• - fresh water availability (rainfall)
• - fossil fuels
• - non-fuel mineral wealth
• Economic wealth on
• - Gross Domestic Product
• Both per capita

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World regions with a benign nature per capita

• Rich nature rich economy
  world average 1
• nat eco
• - Oceania 10.4 2.6
• - Russia and Central Asia 3.2 1.4
• - USA Canada 2.7 4.5
• Rich nature poor economy
• - Latin America Caribbean 1.9 1.0
• - North Africa and Middle East 1.7 0.8
• - Sub-Sahara Africa 1.4 0.3

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World regions with an adverse nature per capita

• Poor nature Rich economy
• world average 1
• nat econ
• West Europe 0.7 2.8
• Central Europe 0.6 1.1
• Japan South Korea 0.2 2.6
• Poor nature poor economy
• South East Asia 0.6 0.5
• China 0.3 0.6
• South Asia 0.2 0.2

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Economic Dynamics 1990-2005

• Coles Rich World regions in 1990 and 2005
• World average 1
• Usa/Canada 4.5 4.3
• West Europe 2.8 3.2
• Oceania 2.6 2.4
• Japan/SKorea 2.6 3.0
• Russia/C Asia 1.4 0.8
• C. Europe 1.1 1.7

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Economic Dynamics 1990-2005 II

• Situation in 1990 2005
• World average 1
• Latin America 1.0 1.0
• N Africa/SW Asia 0.8 0.7
• China 0.6 0.7
• South East Asia 0.5 0.5
• SS Africa 0.3 0.2
• South Asia 0.2 0.3

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What does this suggest?

• During the last fifteen years the world economy
  was growing faster in world regions which are
  less endowed with natural resources per capita
  than in world regions which are better endowed by
  nature.
• Paul Collier proves that regions with more
  natural resources have had a higher chance during
  the past few decades to be engaged in war and
  violence (often with bad effects for economic
  growth). Other way around regions without many
  natural resources had to find peaceful ways to
  get access to those had to become clever in
  using them effectively

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But dont become a-historical!

• This is true for the last fifty years!
• During the period 1870-1945 world regions with a
  growing economy but not many own natural
  resources tried to get those by violent conquest
  (Britain and France first, Germany, Italy and
  Japan later).
• This proved to be disastrous, particularly for
  the newcomers.
• The world economy was then taken over by the
  powers which were well endowed with natural
  resources USA and Russia
• Until that imploded (Russia 1990 USA 2008)
• And what is next???

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Back to Cole Productive potential for crops,
livestock and forest products

• Rainfall/area as a basis for calculation of sweet
  water availability (for agriculture, drinking
  water and other use)
• Existing land use as a basis for quality
  assessment of land
• Crop land x 1
• Pasture land x 0.1
• Forest land x 0.2

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However

• Land evaluation for productive use
• Also assessment of soil quality, including micro
  nutrients
• Assessment of crop and seed quality in terms of
  (potential) productivity
• Assessment of animal quality and management in
  terms of (potential) productivity
• Assessment of water management irrigation, water
  harvesting
• Assessment of soil erosion and land degradation
• The potential of fisheries and productive use of
  water bodies is missed

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Land evaluation for agriculture

• For a particular (type of) land surface
• Assessment of the percentage of the land that can
  be used (potentially) for crop cultivation, for
  pasture, and for productive forest use (including
  NTFP)
• Assessment of the most likely/recommended use
  pattern (crops/livestock/forest product) and its
  productive capability
• Assessment of the population supporting capacity

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Example

• One square kilometre in the tropical dryland zone
  with savannah vegetation 100 hectare
• 10 bare rock 10 severely degraded 10 used
  for habitat/infrastructure purposes
• 70 can be used for productive purposes 70
  hectare
• However without external fertilisation it may
  need 2 years of rest for every 1 year of
  production (Fallow or Ruthenberg factor 0.33)

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Suppose

• All 70 ha used for grain crop sorghum, with one
  harvest per year, and R0.33
• Farmers on average produce 1000 kg per hectare of
  grains (stalks used for fertilisation)
• This means 0.33 x 70 x 1000 kg 23,000 kg in a
  year
• 1 kg 3500 Cal of food value
• 80 million Cal
• 1 human being needs 2260 Cal/day 825,000
  Cal/year
• This area may feed 100 people

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However

• Strong fluctuations in rainfall and crop yields
  between years in this area total crop failure
  once every ten years bumper crops once every ten
  years between 0 and 2000 kg/ha
• Hence this area can feed between 0 and 200
  people in a year
• And also people need to cook the food they need
  energy to do so unused and fallow land may
  provide that (but you take it away from nature,
  and then nature needs longer fallow periods)
• And room for nature? On the 25 unused land?
  On fallow land? In the rivers and water bodies?

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How to deal with risks?

• Save bumper harvest crop for lean years
  (storage!)
• Spread drought and flood risk by
  micro-management high spots flood avoidance
  low spots/ wetlands in drylands water
  harvesting
• Spread drought risks by combining crops and
  varieties (sorghum-millet-maize early
  maturing-late maturing, etc.)

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How to improve?

• Develop irrigation (canal/river by gravity or
  pumps groundwater manual animal or pumps)
  avoid droughts add harvests up to three in a
  year possible (Risk siltation aquifer
  depletion breakdown of equipment social
  conflicts about water and land rights)
• Add manure/fertilisers or combine with crops
  which fix nitrogen, e.g. Pulses. Restricts fallow
  needs and improves harvest yields. (Risk
  availability price fluctuations
  overfertilisation pests water pollution)

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Suppose

• All 70 hectares used continuously and with
  irrigation, giving three sorghum harvests of
  3,000 kg/ha per year
• Potential production
• 70 x 1.0 x 3 x 3000 630,000 kg 2.268 million
  Cal.
• If all would be used locally 2750 people can be
  fed.

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And what could you do more?

• Change crop to rice, with a maximum of three
  harvests of 10,000 kg/ha
• Develop the soil where it cant be used from 70
  to 95 of the land.
• So 12.440 people can be fed locally
• However if these would all live there they need
  habitat space. If they would live on the
  remaining 5 hectare they each have 4 square meter
  per person....
• And they can no longer gather their firewood
  needs locally.

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And what about the market?

• Suppose rice is 2x price of sorghum if you sell
  all your rice and buy sorghum you can feed twice
  the number of people.
• You can select high-value crops, like tomatoes or
  cotton depends on the net terms of trade how
  much you would gain.
• Risks?

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What if you would be a pastoralist in the same
area?

• Suppose you have cattle this savannah dryland
  area on average has a feed carrying capacity of
  100 cattle, and enough water sources for
  year-long watering and some salt(y grass).
• How many people can be fed with 100 cattle? What
  do you need to know?

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Cattle productivity

• Milk, meat (and blood) (and non-food products)
• Composition of the herd old/young female/male
• Suppose out of 100 there are 70 calves, 5
  steers/bulls and 25 cows
• Suppose all 25 cows produce milk for calves and
  for human consumption
• For humans suppose 3.3 litres per day for 300
  days/year 1000 litres per cow/yr
• Total production of milk 25 x 1000 25,000
  litres
• 1 liter of milk 700 Cal
• So 25,000 x 700 17.5 million Cal
• This can feed 21 people for a year if they would
  only drink milk

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And what about the meat?

• Suppose cows and bulls are slaughtered when they
  are 15 years old and steers when they are on
  average 3 years old
• In a herd of 100 cattle with 30 adults and 70
  calves (50 male of which 1/3 slaughtered each
  year when they become adults)
• Two adults slaughtered each year
• Twelve steers slaughtered each year
• 14 x 100 kg of meat 14,000 kg of meat
• 1 kg of meat 2000 Cal
• So meat food value 28 million Cal/year
• Potentially feeding 34 people, if they only eat
  meat

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So

• Potential food value of cattle pastoralism in
  this area of 100 ha
• Milk 21 people
• Meat 34 people
• Together 55 people per sq km.
• But major fluctuations from year to year
  droughtsgtanimal deaths and low milk gifts animal
  diseasesgtanimal deaths abortions (cows without
  calves) wildlife threatsgtanimal deaths conflict
  threatsgtnot all land available for grazing (no
  go areas).

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What can pastoralists do?

• Risk management spread animals over large area
  (Pokot tilia) be mobile have more types of
  animals (more and less drought and disease
  resistant) share indigenous insurance
  arrangements avoid conflicts and no-go areas
  improve veterinary care improve availability of
  water and extra feed change to zero
  grazing/stall feeding
• Improvements improve animals more weight, more
  milk production change composition of the
  herd/flock
• Sell milk and meat and make use of caloric terms
  of trade (often 10 x compared to grains) by
  eating grains instead of animal produce.

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And besides ecology-dependent livelihoods?

• Different possibilities to supplement (or
  replace) ecology-dependent livelihoods with local
  resources other than crops, livestock and forest
  products
• Mining
• Tourism
• Payment for natures services (CO2 storage water
  buffer function biodiversity function
• Secondary production based on local primary
  resources (industry, handicrafts)

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Besides Added incomes

• External support from government and
  non-governmental agencies as wages/salaries
  gifts/aid insurance payments/pensions (partly
  depends on areas public appeal)
• External support from remittances (labour
  migration) translocal/transnational linkages

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From nature as provider to nature as theatre

• Competition between different resource uses
• Crops (for local and for extra-local use local
  food security versus market-dependent food
  security)
• Livestock (idem)
• Energy (firewood, charcoal, other idem)
• Mining (idem)
• Habitat (for locals for visitors)
• Nature (for tourists for biodiversity
  conservation for other natural and esthetic
  functions)
• Competition between different stakeholders with
  different frames of access/use rights

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Entitlements to resources

• Ownership rights (private individual, private
  company, communal, state, open)
• Use rights exclusive, sharing, seasonal, often
  group specific (nationality, ethnic, gender, age)
• Right of access/right of way (de jure/de facto
  free or through payments, fees and fines)
• Obligations of maintenance institutions of
  sustainable use, e.g. Water points irrigation
  canals forest reserves)
• Institutions of conflict mitigation and avoidance
  (local courts legal pluralism religious
  leaders community leaders external powers
  through district heads, police, military
• Institutions of (economic) power brokerage and
  frames of acceptable (normalised) behaviour to
  mediate between livelihood needs and spatial
  access.
• With generally very unequal distribution of
  positions of power and impacts on wealth and
  livelihood space.

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Zoning as spatial governance

• Areas are divided in rights-zones, with different
  (legal) power-holders
• Layered claims-arrangements
• Between individuals
• Between households and families
• Between clans and ethnic groups
• Between villages and other meso-spatial units
• Between nations/ state territories
• Ever more supra-national global claim-making
  agencies (private companies, NGOs, UN agencies,
  foreign military personnel)

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For instance

• Our 1 square kilometre area might have
• A nature reserve, partly forbidden for everyone
  and harsh rules (shoot on sight), partly
  tolerated access for gathering
• A tourist hotel in foreign hands
• An unclear wasteland that local people avoid
  (bewitched)
• A forest reserve with partial access and seasonal
  restrictions (and fines by a local court)
• Water bodies with rules of access and exclusion
• Village lands, under elected village leadership
• Mosque lands and sacred groves under local
  priests
• State property (e.g. Government schools and a
  police post)
• Individual crop fields, but with free access to
  some tree products during some months
• Individual houses and gardens, some enclosed and
  guarded

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Political ecology

• This is the domain of political ecology or
  political environmental geography
• Careful mapping of zones of entitlements
• Connecting that with stakeholder analysis, and
  power positions
• And with local-global connectivity analysis
• And connecting livelihoods with space and
  governance
• And looking for dynamics changes in stakeholder
  positions and hence in outcomes of competing
  landscapes shifts in land use shifts in zoning

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But dont forget culture

• Discourses of useful and useless landscapes,
  of beautiful and ugly landscapes, of
  acceptable and disgraceful landscape
  behaviour are cultural constructs
• These are created by often generation-old
  learning patterns, but also by manipulation and
  PR management.
• And opinions about nature (and nature
  conservation) have competing frames of reference
  urban vs rural rich vs poor men vs women local
  vs global farmers vs pastoralists.

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Batterbury?

• Main argument?
• Specifics about locality?
• Same approach or different?