Transcript Environment and Development Master’s Programme

Environment and Development
Master’s Programme
Ton Dietz Febr 23 2009
Geographical Diversity and
“Competing Landscapes”
John Cole
• Geography of the World’s 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
Cole’s Harshlands
•
•
•
•
Mountain systems
Warm deserts
Cold-winter deserts
Tundra communities and icecaps
Embedding
• People’s livelihoods and people’s 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).
World regions’ natural and economic wealth, as
measured by John Cole (1996) for 1990
Nature’s 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
World regions with a benign
nature per capita
Rich nature + rich economy:
world average = 1
-
Oceania
Russia and Central Asia
-
USA + Canada
nat
eco
10.4
3.2
2.6
1.4
2.7
4.5
1.9
1.7
1.4
1.0
0.8
0.3
Rich nature + poor economy:
-
-
Latin America + Caribbean
North Africa and Middle East
Sub-Sahara Africa
World regions with an adverse
nature per capita
Poor nature + Rich economy
world average = 1
nat econ
• West Europe
• Central Europe
• Japan + South Korea
0.7
0.6
0.2
2.8
1.1
2.6
0.6
0.3
0.2
0.5
0.6
0.2
Poor nature + poor economy
• South East Asia
• China
• South Asia
Economic Dynamics 1990-2005
Cole’s 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
Economic Dynamics 1990-2005
II
Situation in
World average = 1
Latin America
N Africa/SW Asia
China
South East Asia
SS Africa
South Asia
1990
2005
1.0
0.8
0.6
0.5
0.3
0.2
1.0
0.7
0.7
0.5
0.2
0.3
RELATIVE
ECONOMIC
GROWTH OF
WORLD REGION
1990-2005
Rich Economy
in 1990
Poor economy
in 1990
Rich Nature
(in 1990)
N Am
Oce
Rus/CAs --
L Am
o
NAf/SWAs SS Afr
--
Poor Nature
(in 1990)
W Eur
Jap/SK
C Eur
China
SE As
S Asia
+
+
++
+
o
++
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
But don’t 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???
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
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
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
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)
Suppose:
• All 70 ha used for grain crop = sorghum, with
one harvest per year, and R=0.33
• 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
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?
How to deal with risks?
• Save bumper harvest crop for lean years
(storage!)
• Spread drought and flood risk by micromanagement: 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.)
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)
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.
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 can’t 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.
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?
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?
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
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
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:
droughts>animal deaths and low milk gifts; animal
diseases>animal deaths; abortions (cows without
calves); wildlife threats>animal deaths; conflict
threats>not all land available for grazing (‘no go areas’).
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.
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 nature’s services (CO2 storage;
water buffer function; biodiversity function
– Secondary production based on local primary
resources (industry, handicrafts)
Besides: Added incomes
• External support from government and
non-governmental agencies as
wages/salaries; gifts/aid; insurance
payments/pensions (partly depends on
area’s ‘public appeal’)
• External support from remittances (labour
migration): translocal/transnational
linkages
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
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.
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)
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
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
But don’t 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.
Batterbury?
• Main argument?
• Specifics about locality?
• Same approach or different?