Transactions of the Western Section of the Wildlife Society

1970, Volume 6


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Year1970
Volume6
TitleThe Changing Ecology of East Africa
Author(s)Norman Myers
ArticleLink to PDF

Abstract:
While the countries of East Africa have cause for credit in much of their wildlife policy since independence, they are now faced with a threat of growing human populations, together with growing expectations, that could severely limit the lands ultimately available for wildlife. The attempts to support these people on areas suited for arable agriculture are well above average for Africa, as for much of the developing world. But there is need for increased crop productivity to bridge the interval before such birth control programs as are in hand come into ultimate effect. Wildlife is largely to be found in the rangelands, mostly outside the parks on reserves; moreover these wildlife territories are invariably unviable as independent eco-units. Extensive development of the rangelands is scheduled for the near future. The needs of wildlife - seen here as an economic factor in land use - should be urgently integrated with the needs of the pastoralist peoples, within the sociological as well as the agricultural perspectives of these emergent communities. For policy purposes, parks are generally loosely defined entities. Tourism is not always the support for conservation it is represented; wildlife could be exploited through game cropping, in association with, rather than in opposition to, livestock husbandry.


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