Environmental Management: Principles and practice

An African crisis?
Africa is frequently singled out as having or being close to an environmental crisis,
a development crisis or both (Ravenhill, 1986; Commins et al., 1986; Watts, 1989;
Davidson et al., 1992), although there are some who feel this is exaggerated (Blaikie
and Unwin, 1988). Things look grim for a large portion of sub-Saharan Africa.
Harrison (1987:17–26) has concluded that there was a crisis, particularly an
environmental crisis, and that, unlike the rest of the world, most of the African
continent was not developing but was regressing, because:
1
there was a food supply crisis, manifest as a decline in per capita food
production;

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2
poverty was increasing;
3
there was a debt crisis which got worse as Africa’s exports fell in value and
imports rose in cost;
4
there was an environmental crisis, getting worse, as vegetation and soils become
degraded.
To these difficulties may be added unrest (sometimes an important factor): Africa,
with less than 10 per cent of the world’s population, had almost 50 per cent of the
world’s refugees in the late 1980s (Harrison, 1987:52). Another problem, the disease
AIDS, seems to have taken a particular hold in parts of sub-Saharan Africa and
increasingly contributes to the continent’s problems by depleting agricultural labour.
The trends for food production are worrying: in the 1950s most of Africa was
self-sufficient, but now many states import, and it is the only continent to show a per
capita decline in food production. By AD 2000 it has been predicted that 65 of the
world’s 117 nations will be unable to feed their populations, and at least 30 of those
will be in sub-Saharan Africa. Food security for Africa would probably demand a 4
per cent per annum increase in the continent’s food production, plus a similar increase
in export crops to provide foreign exchange for inputs. Over the last 30 years the
average growth rate for food production has been ca. 2 per cent and export crop
production has shown a decline (added to which the prices for these crops have
fallen, making it difficult to buy inputs and to encourage producers). There is
widespread acceptance that Africa has a food problem but little agreement on why
(Rau, 1991), although suspicions have been voiced that it reflects widespread
traditional communal or state land ownership, and that a move towards individual
land ownership or improved communualism might help.