Roots in the African Dust Sustaining the Sub-Saharan Drylands

By: Michael Mortimore

219 pages, B/w photos, illus, figs, tabs, maps

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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ISBN: 9780521457859 Paperback Sep 1998 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 1 week
£32.00
#85652
ISBN: 9780521451734 Hardback Sep 1998 Not in stock: Usually dispatched within 1 week
£104.00
#85651

Selected version: £32.00

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About this book

The image of Africa in the modern world has come to be shaped by perceptions of the drylands and their problems of poverty, drought, degradation, and famine. Michael Mortimore offers an alternative and revisionist thesis, dismissing on theoretical and empirical grounds the conventional view of runaway desertification, driven by population growth and inappropriate land use. In its place he suggests a more optimistic model of sustainable land use, based on researched case studies from East and West Africa where indigenous technological adaptation has put population growth and market opportunities to advantage. He also proposes a more appropriate set of policy priorities to support dryland peoples in their efforts to sustain land and livelihoods.

1. Introduction; 2. Global perspectives on Africa's drylands; 3. A smallholder's perspective; 4. Risk in the rangelands; 5. Risk for the farmer; 6. Risk for the household; 7. Degradation; 8. Intensification; 9. Conservation; 10. Systems in transition.

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By: Michael Mortimore

219 pages, B/w photos, illus, figs, tabs, maps

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

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'! admirably demonstrates how both herders and farmers recognise and act upon environmental variability in their short and long-term decision making.' Cambridge Anthropology

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