The forest becomes desert: forest use and environmental change in Tanzania's West Usambara mountains

Conte, Christopher A.

doi:10.1002/(sici)1099-145x(199907/08)10:4<291::aid-ldr363>3.0.co;2-w

Cited by 26 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…It tells a land-use/cover change story for a specific locality (178)(179)(180). Historical analyses of landscape grasp all the complexity of events, in particular stochastic or nonrandom but unpredictable events that significantly affect land-use/land-cover changes.…”

Section: Narrative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions

Lambin¹,

Geist²,

Lepers³

2003

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

2,338

1,306

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We highlight the complexity of land-use/cover change and propose a framework for a more general understanding of the issue, with emphasis on tropical regions. The review summarizes recent estimates on changes in cropland, agricultural intensification, tropical deforestation, pasture expansion, and urbanization and identifies the still unmeasured land-cover changes. Climate-driven land-cover modifications interact with land-use changes. Land-use change is driven by synergetic factor combinations of resource scarcity leading to an increase in the pressure of production on resources, changing opportunities created by markets, outside policy intervention, loss of adaptive capacity, and changes in social organization and attitudes. The changes in ecosystem goods and services that result from land-use change feed back on the drivers of land-use change. A restricted set of dominant pathways of land-use change is identified. Land-use change can be understood using the concepts of complex adaptive systems and transitions. Integrated, place-based research on land-use/land-cover change requires a combination of the agent-based systems and narrative perspectives of understanding. We argue in this paper that a systematic analysis of local-scale land-use change studies, conducted over a range of timescales, helps to uncover general principles that provide an explanation and prediction of new land-use changes.

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Section: Narrative Perspectivementioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions

Lambin¹,

Geist²,

Lepers³

2003

Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour.

2,338

1,306

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Because of a favourable climate and fertile soils, these mountains are very important for food, fibre, and fodder production. However, high population pressure (>100 persons km À2 ) has resulted in overexploitation of natural resources causing deforestation and land degradation (Conte, 1999;Kaoneka and Solberg, 1994). Currently, soil erosion is widespread and forms the major limiting factor for agricultural production (Tenge et al, 2004).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatial evaluation of soil erosion risk in the West Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

2006

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Effective soil and water conservation programmes require the concentration of resources on limited areas. For that purpose regional-scale assessments of erosion risk are required. However, availability of good-quality spatial data for such assessments is often poor, especially in regions like sub-Saharan Africa. This study was conducted to evaluate the potential of analysing regional erosion risk using a limited amount of readily available data. The analysis was executed for the 70-km 2 Baga watershed in the West Usambara Mountains, Tanzania. Principal data sources were a Landsat image and an SRTM DEM. Two qualitative mapping methods resulting in five erosion risk classes were evaluated against field-based erosion risk estimates. The first method derived slope classes from the DEM and fractional vegetation cover (FVC) classes from the Landsat image and FVC field estimates. Data integration was achieved with a decision tree. The second method did not apply field data for the map construction, but combined five equally sized NDVI classes and five slope classes using the minimum-operator. Resulting maps showed a high and comparable accuracy, 80 per cent for Method 1, and 81 per cent for Method 2, when allowing a maximum difference of one class with field erosion risk estimates. Spatial patterns of erosion risk were well represented by both methods and high erosion risk areas can be properly identified within the Baga watershed. Due to the limited data requirement of Method 2, it has a high potential for quick identification of erosion risk in other areas of the East African Highlands.

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“…The German and British colonial policies increasingly marginalized the local population from once-revered forest resources, a trend that continued with post-colonial policies of forest conservation and commodity production favoring exotic species (Conte, 1999). These policies marginalized local residents from state-managed protected areas and timber plantations, and gave impetus to afforestation programs introduced in the 1950s.…”

Section: Benchmark Sitesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Social and environmental trade-offs in tree species selection: a methodology for identifying niche incompatibilities in agroforestry

German¹,

Kidane

Shemdoe³

2006

Environ Dev Sustain

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Natural resource degradation in highland regions is of increasing concern to the global community due to its role in aggravating poverty and the loss of environmental services to local and downstream users. The integration of trees into smallholder farming systems has been promoted as a means to enhance rural livelihoods while reversing the degradation of soil, water, biodiversity and related environmental services. Yet in addition to these benefits, negative impacts of trees on certain stakeholders or system components have also accompanied such efforts-suggesting that important trade-offs accompany afforestation. This paper presents a methodology for diagnosing problems stemming from cultivation of certain tree species in specific landscape niches. Data derived from the application of this methodology in two sites in the eastern African highlands are presented. Participatory diagnoses of landscape-level problems suggest that the negative impact of trees on water resource availability and crop yield are of critical concern to smallholder farmers. Ethnoecological data highlight the properties of different tree species that determine their suitability to specific farm and landscape niches. These data point to important opportunities for more socially-and environmentally-optimal integration of indigenous and exotic tree species into agricultural landscapes, and highlight the critical importance of local knowledge in forging solutions appropriate to contemporary realities.

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The forest becomes desert: forest use and environmental change in Tanzania's West Usambara mountains

Cited by 26 publications

References 19 publications

Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions

Dynamics of Land-Use and Land-Cover Change in Tropical Regions

Spatial evaluation of soil erosion risk in the West Usambara Mountains, Tanzania

Social and environmental trade-offs in tree species selection: a methodology for identifying niche incompatibilities in agroforestry

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