1932

Abstract

This review explores what past environmental change in Africa—and African people's response to it—can teach us about how to cope with life in the Anthropocene. Organized around four drivers of change—climate; agriculture and pastoralism; megafauna; and imperialism, colonialism, and capitalism (ICC)—our review zooms in on key regions and debates, including desertification; rangeland degradation; megafauna loss; and land grabbing. Multiscale climate change is a recurring theme in the continent's history, interacting with increasingly intense human activities from several million years onward, leading to oscillating, contingent environmental changes and societally adaptive responses. With high levels of poverty, fast population growth, and potentially dramatic impacts expected from future climate change, Africa is emblematic of the kinds of social and ecological precariousness many fear will characterize the future globally. African people's innovation and adaptation to contingency may place them among the with respect to thinking about Anthropocene conditions, strategies, and possibilities.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060653
2017-10-17
2024-03-29
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

/deliver/fulltext/energy/42/1/annurev-environ-102016-060653.html?itemId=/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060653&mimeType=html&fmt=ahah

Literature Cited

  1. Ferguson J. 1.  2006. Global Shadows: Africa in the Neoliberal World Order Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  2. Simone AM. 2.  2004. For the City Yet to Come: Changing African Life in Four Cities Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  3. Comaroff J, Comaroff JL. 3.  2011. Theory from the South: Or, How Euro-America Is Evolving Toward Africa London: Routledge
  4. Mavhunga CC. 4.  2014. Transient Workspaces: Technologies of Everyday Innovation in Zimbabwe Cambridge, MA: MIT Press
  5. Ferguson J. 5.  2015. Give a Man a Fish: Reflections on the New Politics of Distribution Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  6. Zalasiewicz J, Waters CN, Williams M, Barnosky AD, Cearreta A. 6.  et al. 2015. When did the Anthropocene begin? A mid-twentieth century boundary level is stratigraphically optimal. Quat. Intl. 383:Oct.196–203 [Google Scholar]
  7. Chakrabarty D. 7.  2015. Whose Anthropocene? A response. RCC Perspectives: Transformations in Environment and Society, 2: Whose Anthropocene? Revisiting Dipesh Chakrabarty's “Four Theses, R Emmett, T Lekan 103–14 Munich: RCC (Rachel Carson Cent. Environ. Soc.) [Google Scholar]
  8. Mbembe A. 8.  2001. On the Postcolony Transl. J Roitman, 2001, in Univ. Calif. Press Berkeley, CA (From French):
  9. Mbembe A. 9.  2017. Critique of Black Reason Transl. L Dubois. Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press (From French)
  10. Ogot BA. 10.  2009. Rereading the history and historiography of epistemic domination and resistance in Africa. Afr. Stud. Rev. 52:11–22 [Google Scholar]
  11. Stahl AB. 11.  2004. African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell
  12. Monroe JC. 12.  2013. Power and agency in precolonial African states. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 42:117–35 [Google Scholar]
  13. Mudimbe V. 13.  1988. The Invention of Africa: Gnosis, Philosophy, and the Order of Knowledge Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press
  14. Gordon RJ, Douglas SS. 14.  2000. The Bushman Myth: The Making of a Namibian Underclass Boulder, CO: Westview Press. , 2nd ed..
  15. de Menocal PB. 15.  2004. African climate change and faunal evolution during the Pliocene-Pleistocene. Earth Planet. Sci. Lett. 220:1–23–24 [Google Scholar]
  16. Potts R. 16.  2012. Evolution and environmental change in early human prehistory. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 41:1151–67 [Google Scholar]
  17. Levin NE. 17.  2015. Environment and climate of early human evolution. Annu. Rev. Earth Planet. Sci. 43:1405–29 [Google Scholar]
  18. Midgley GF, Bond WJ. 18.  2015. Future of African terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems under anthropogenic climate change. Nat. Clim. Chang. 5:9823–29 [Google Scholar]
  19. Marshall F, Hildebrand E. 19.  2002. Cattle before crops: the beginnings of food production in Africa. J. World Prehist. 16:299–143 [Google Scholar]
  20. Neumann K. 20.  2005. The romance of farming: plant cultivation and domestication in Africa. African Archaeology: A Critical Introduction A Stahl 249–75 New York: Routledge [Google Scholar]
  21. Gifford-Gonzalez D, Hanotte O. 21.  2011. Domesticating animals in Africa: implications of genetic and archaeological findings. J. World Prehist. 24:11–23 [Google Scholar]
  22. Sandford S. 22.  1983. Management of Pastoral Development in the Third World London: Overseas Dev. Inst.
  23. Svenning J-C, Eiserhardt WL, Normand S, Ordonez A, Sandel B. 23.  2015. The influence of paleoclimate on present-day patterns in biodiversity and ecosystems. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 46:551–72 [Google Scholar]
  24. Oliveras I, Malhi Y. 24.  2016. Many shades of green: the dynamic tropical forest-savannah transition zones. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B 371:170320150308 [Google Scholar]
  25. Dietl GP, Flessa KW. 25.  2011. Conservation paleobiology: putting the dead to work. Trends Ecol. Evol. 26:130–37 [Google Scholar]
  26. Faith JT. 26.  2012. Palaeozoological insights into management options for a threatened mammal: Southern Africa's cape mountain zebra (Equus zebra zebra). Divers. Distrib. 18:5438–47 [Google Scholar]
  27. Rick TC, Lockwood R. 27.  2013. Integrating paleobiology, archeology, and history to inform biological conservation. Conserv. Biol. 27:145–54 [Google Scholar]
  28. Malhi Y, Doughty CE, Galetti M, Smith FA, Svenning J-C, Terborgh JW. 28.  2016. Megafauna and ecosystem function from the Pleistocene to the Anthropocene. PNAS 113:4838–46 [Google Scholar]
  29. Chakrabarty D. 29.  2009. The climate of history: four theses. Crit. Inq. 35:2197–222 [Google Scholar]
  30. Rose DB. 30.  2012. Multispecies knots of ethical time. Environ. Philos. 9:1127–140 [Google Scholar]
  31. Haraway DJ. 31.  2016. Staying with the Trouble: Making Kin in the Chthulucene Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  32. Caro T, Darwin J, Forrester T, Ledoux-Bloom C, Wells C. 32.  2012. Conservation in the Anthropocene. Conserv. Biol. 26:1185–88 [Google Scholar]
  33. Collier MJ, Devitt C. 33.  2016. Novel ecosystems: challenges and opportunities for the Anthropocene. Anthropocene Rev 3:3231–42 [Google Scholar]
  34. Lambin EF, Meyfroidt P. 34.  2010. Land use transitions: socio-ecological feedback versus socio-economic change. Land Use Policy 27:2108–18 [Google Scholar]
  35. Boivin NL, Zeder MA, Fuller DQ, Crowther A, Larson G. 35.  et al. 2016. Ecological consequences of human niche construction: examining long-term anthropogenic shaping of global species distributions. PNAS 113:236388–96 [Google Scholar]
  36. Fuentes A. 36.  2016. The extended evolutionary synthesis, ethnography, and the human niche: toward an integrated anthropology. Curr. Anthropol. 57:S13–S26 [Google Scholar]
  37. Haraway DJ. 37.  2008. When Species Meet Minneapolis: Univ. Minnesota Press
  38. Moore JW. 38.  2011. Transcending the metabolic rift: a theory of crises in the capitalist world-ecology. J. Peasant Stud. 38:11–46 [Google Scholar]
  39. Brasseur GP, van der Pluijm B. 39.  2013. Earth's future: navigating the science of the Anthropocene. Earth's Future 1:11–2 [Google Scholar]
  40. Ferguson J. 40.  1994. The Anti-Politics Machine: Development, Depoliticization, and Bureaucratic Power in Lesotho Minneapolis: Univ. Minnesota Press
  41. Blaikie P. 41.  1985. The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries London: Longman
  42. Ellis EC. 42.  2015. Ecology in an anthropogenic biosphere. Ecol. Monogr. 85:3287–331 [Google Scholar]
  43. Rodney W. 43.  1981. How Europe Underdeveloped Africa Washington, DC: Howard Univ. Press
  44. Vansina J. 44.  1990. Paths in the Rainforests: Toward a History of Political Tradition in Equatorial Africa London: Currey
  45. Braudel F. 45.  1996. The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II, Vol. 1 Berkeley, CA: Univ. Calif. Press. , 2nd ed..
  46. Tsing AL. 46.  2015. The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  47. Tsing AL. 47.  2016. Earth stalked by man. Cambridge J. Anthropol. 34:12–16 [Google Scholar]
  48. Chakrabarty D. 48.  2000. Provincializing Europe: Postcolonial Thought and Historical Difference Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  49. Scheffer M. 49.  2009. Critical Transitions in Nature and Society Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  50. Werdelin L, Lewis ME. 50.  2013. Temporal change in functional richness and evenness in the eastern African Plio-Pleistocene carnivoran guild. PLOS ONE 8:3e57944 [Google Scholar]
  51. Klein Goldewijk K, Beusen A, Doelman J, Stehfest E. 51.  2016. New anthropogenic land use estimates for the Holocene; HYDE 3.2. Earth Syst. Sci. Data. In Press http://www.earth-syst-sci-data-discuss.net/essd-2016-58/ [Google Scholar]
  52. Gasse F, Chalié F, Vincens A, Williams MAJ, Williamson D. 52.  2008. Climatic patterns in equatorial and southern Africa from 30,000 to 10,000 years ago reconstructed from terrestrial and near-shore proxy data. Quat. Sci. Rev. 27:25–262316–40 [Google Scholar]
  53. Tierney JE, Russell JM, Huang Y, Damsté JSS, Hopmans EC, Cohen AS. 53.  2008. Northern hemisphere controls on tropical southeast African climate during the past 60,000 years. Science 322:5899252–5 [Google Scholar]
  54. Wanner H, Beer J, Bütikofer J, Crowley TJ, Cubasch U. 54.  et al. 2008. Mid- to late Holocene climate change: an overview. Quat. Sci. Rev. 27:19–201791–828 [Google Scholar]
  55. Dupont L. 55.  2011. Orbital scale vegetation change in Africa. Quat. Sci. Rev. 30:25–263589–602 [Google Scholar]
  56. Bobe R, Behrensmeyer A. 56.  2004. The expansion of grassland ecosystems in Africa in relation to mammalian evolution and the origin of the genus Homo. . Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 207:3–4399–420 [Google Scholar]
  57. Ferraro JV, Plummer TW, Pobiner BL, Oliver JS, Bishop LC. 57.  et al. 2013. Earliest archaeological evidence of persistent hominin carnivory. PLOS ONE 8:4e62174 [Google Scholar]
  58. Lorenzen ED, Heller R, Siegismund HR. 58.  2012. Comparative phylogeography of African savannah ungulates. Mol. Ecol. 21:153656–70 [Google Scholar]
  59. Johnson TC, Werne JP, Brown ET, Abbott A, Berke M. 59.  et al. 2016. A progressively wetter climate in southern East Africa over the past 1.3 million years. Nature 537:7619220–24 [Google Scholar]
  60. Trauth MH, Maslin MA, Deino AL, Junginger A, Lesoloyia M. 60.  et al. 2010. Human evolution in a variable environment: the amplifier lakes of eastern Africa. Quat. Sci. Rev. 29:23–242981–88 [Google Scholar]
  61. Adams JM, Faure H. 61.  1997. Review and atlas of paleovegetation: preliminary land ecosystem maps of the world since the Last Glacial Maximum. Oak Ridge Natl. Lab., TN. http://www.esd.ornl.gov/projects/qen/adams1.html
  62. Nicholson SE, Nash DJ, Chase BM, Grab SW, Shanahan TM. 62.  et al. 2013. Temperature variability over Africa during the last 2000 years. Holocene 23:81085–94 [Google Scholar]
  63. Bond WJ. 63.  2008. What limits trees in C4 grasslands and savannas?. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 39:1641–59 [Google Scholar]
  64. Buitenwerf R, Bond WJ, Stevens N, Trollope WSW. 64.  2012. Increased tree densities in South African savannas: 50 years of data suggests CO2 as a driver. Glob. Change Biol. 18:2675–84 [Google Scholar]
  65. Donohue RJ, Roderick ML, McVicar TR, Farquhar GD. 65.  2013. Impact of CO2 fertilization on maximum foliage cover across the globe's warm, arid environments. Geophys. Res. Lett. 40:123031–35 [Google Scholar]
  66. Higgins SI, Scheiter S. 66.  2012. Atmospheric CO2 forces abrupt vegetation shifts locally, but not globally. Nature 488:7410209–12 [Google Scholar]
  67. 67. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). 2014. Fifth Assessment Report Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  68. Ségalen L, Lee-Thorp JA, Cerling T. 68.  2007. Timing of C4 grass expansion across sub-Saharan Africa. J. Hum. Evol. 53:5549–59 [Google Scholar]
  69. Castañeda IS, Mulitza S, Schefuss E, dos Santos RAL, Damsté JSS, Schouten S. 69.  2009. Wet phases in the Sahara/Sahel region and human migration patterns in North Africa. PNAS 106:4820159–63 [Google Scholar]
  70. Drake NA, Blench RM, Armitage SJ, Bristow CS, White KH. 70.  2011. Ancient watercourses and biogeography of the Sahara explain the peopling of the desert. PNAS 108:2458–62 [Google Scholar]
  71. Wright DK. 71.  2017. Humans as agents in the termination of the African Humid Period. Front. Earth Sci. 5:4 [Google Scholar]
  72. Iliffe J. 72.  2007. Africans: The History of a Continent Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. , 2nd ed..
  73. Rossi B. 73.  2015. From Slavery to Aid: Politics, Labor, and Ecology in the Nigerian Sahel, 1800–2000 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  74. Kuper R, Kröpelin S. 74.  2006. Climate-controlled Holocene occupation in the Sahara: Motor of Africa's evolution. Science 313:5788803–7 [Google Scholar]
  75. Nicholson SE. 75.  2013. The West African Sahel: a review of recent studies on the rainfall regime and its interannual variability. ISRN Meteorol 2013:453521 [Google Scholar]
  76. Swift J. 76.  1996. Desertification: narratives, winners and losers. The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment M Leach, R Mearns 73–90 Oxford: James Currey [Google Scholar]
  77. McCann JC. 77.  1999. Climate and causation in African history. Intl. J. Afr. Hist. Stud. 32:2/3261–79 [Google Scholar]
  78. Rishmawi K, Prince SD, Xue Y. 78.  2016. Vegetation responses to climate variability in the northern arid to sub-humid zones of sub-Saharan Africa. Rem. Sens. 8:11910 [Google Scholar]
  79. 79. Food Agric. Organ. United Nations (FAO). 2016. The State of Food and Agriculture 2016 New York: FAO https://www.slideshare.net/FAOoftheUN/the-state-of-food-and-agriculture-2016-67283022
  80. Blach-Overgaard A, Balslev H, Dransfield J, Normand S, Svenning J-C. 80.  2015. Global-change vulnerability of a key plant resource, the African palms. Sci. Rep. 5:July12611 [Google Scholar]
  81. Kopytoff I. 81.  1987. The African Frontier: The Reproduction of Traditional African Societies Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ. Press
  82. Smith AB. 82.  2006. Origins and spread of African pastoralism. Hist. Compass 4:11–7 [Google Scholar]
  83. Silva M, Alshamali F, Silva P, Carrilho C, Mandlate F. 83.  et al. 2015. 60,000 years of interactions between central and eastern Africa documented by major African mitochondrial haplogroup L2. Sci. Rep. 5:12526 [Google Scholar]
  84. Grollemund R, Branford S, Bostoen K, Meade A, Venditti C, Pagel M. 84.  2015. Bantu expansion shows that habitat alters the route and pace of human dispersals. PNAS 112:4313296–301 [Google Scholar]
  85. Cooper F. 85.  1997. Plantation Slavery on the East Coast of Africa Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
  86. Manning P. 86.  2014. African population, 1650–2000: comparisons and implications of new estimates. Africa's Development in Historical Perspective E Akyeampong, RH Bates, N Nunn, J Robinson 131–53 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press [Google Scholar]
  87. Berry S. 87.  1989. No Condition Is Permanent: The Social Dynamics of Agrarian Change in Sub-Saharan Africa Madison, WI: Univ. Wisconsin Press
  88. Guyer JI. 88.  1993. Wealth in people and self-realization in equatorial Africa. Man 28:2243–65 [Google Scholar]
  89. Fuller DQ. 89.  2007. Contrasting patterns in crop domestication and domestication rates: recent archaeo-botanical insights from the Old World. Ann. Bot. 100:5903–24 [Google Scholar]
  90. Schmidt PR. 90.  1997. Archaeological views on a history of landscape change in East Africa. J. Afr. Hist. 38:3393–421 [Google Scholar]
  91. Heckmann M, Muiruri V, Boom A, Marchant R. 91.  2014. Human-environment interactions in an agricultural landscape: a 1400-yr sediment and pollen record from North Pare, NE Tanzania. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 406:49–61 [Google Scholar]
  92. McCann JC. 92.  2005. Maize and Grace Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  93. Mortimore MJ, Adams WM. 93.  1999. Working the Sahel: Environment and Society in Northern Nigeria London: Routledge
  94. Kiage LM. 94.  2013. Perspectives on the assumed causes of land degradation in the rangelands of sub-Saharan Africa. Prog. Phys. Geography 37:5664–84 [Google Scholar]
  95. Reid RS, Fernández-Giménez ME, Galvin KA. 95.  2014. Dynamics and resilience of rangelands and pastoral peoples around the globe. Annu. Rev. Environ. Resour. 39:1217–42 [Google Scholar]
  96. Peters PE. 96.  1994. Dividing the Commons: Politics, Policy, and Culture in Botswana Charlottesville, VA: Univ. Virginia Press
  97. Galvin KA. 97.  2009. Transitions: pastoralists living with change. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 38:1185–98 [Google Scholar]
  98. Bollig M, Schnegg M, Wotzka H-P. 98.  2013. Pastoralism in Africa: Past, Present, and Future London: Berghahn Books
  99. Vetter S. 99.  2005. Rangelands at equilibrium and non-equilibrium: recent developments in the debate. J. Arid Environ. 62:2321–41 [Google Scholar]
  100. Westoby M, Walker B, Noy-Meir I. 100.  1989. Opportunistic management for rangelands not at equilibrium. J. Range Manag. 42:4266–74 [Google Scholar]
  101. Behnke RH, Scoones I, Kerven C. 101. , eds. 1993. Range Ecology at Disequilibrium: New Models of Natural Variability and Pastoral Adaptation in African Savannas London: Overseas Dev. Inst.
  102. Homewood KM, Rodgers WA. 102.  1984. Pastoralism and conservation. Hum. Ecol. 12:4431–41 [Google Scholar]
  103. Ellis JE, Swift DM. 103.  1988. Stability of African pastoral ecosystems: alternate paradigms and implications for development. J. Range Manag. 41:6450–59 [Google Scholar]
  104. Homewood KM, Rodgers WA. 104.  2004. Maasailand Ecology: Pastoralist Development and Wildlife Conservation in Ngorongoro, Tanzania Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  105. Briske DD, Washington-Allen RA, Johnson CR, Lockwood JA, Lockwood DR. 105.  et al. 2010. Catastrophic thresholds: a synthesis of concepts, perspectives, and applications. Ecol. Soc. 15:337 [Google Scholar]
  106. Miehe S, Kluge J, von Wehrden H, Retzer V. 106.  2010. Long-term degradation of Sahelian rangeland detected by 27 years of field study in Senegal. J. Appl. Ecol. 47:3692–700 [Google Scholar]
  107. 107. United Nations. 2015. World population prospects: the 2015 revision: key findings and advance tables Work. Pap. No. ESA/P/WP.241, United Nations New York:
  108. Brandt M, Rasmussen K, Peñuelas J, Tian F, Schurgers G. 108.  et al. 2017. Human population growth offsets climate-driven increase in woody vegetation in Sub-Saharan Africa. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 1:00811–6 [Google Scholar]
  109. Ripple WJ, Beschta RL. 109.  2007. Restoring Yellowstone's aspen with wolves. Biol. Cons. 138:3–4514–19 [Google Scholar]
  110. Ripple WJ, Estes JA, Beschta RL, Wilmers CC, Ritchie EG. 110.  et al. 2014. Status and ecological effects of the world's largest carnivores. Science 343:61671241484 [Google Scholar]
  111. Ripple WJ, Newsome TM, Wolf C, Dirzo R, Everatt KT. 111.  et al. 2015. Collapse of the world's largest herbivores. Sci. Adv. 1:4e1400103 [Google Scholar]
  112. Pringle RM, Prior KM, Palmer TM, Young TP, Goheen JR. 112.  2016. Large herbivores promote habitat specialization and beta diversity of African savanna trees. Ecology 97:102640–57 [Google Scholar]
  113. Coverdale TC, Kartzinel TR, Grabowski KR, Shriver RK, Hassan AA. 113.  et al. 2016. Elephants in the understory: opposing direct and indirect effects of consumption and ecosystem engineering. Ecology 97:113219–3230 [Google Scholar]
  114. Faurby S, Svenning J-C. 114.  2015. Historic and prehistoric human-driven extinctions have reshaped global mammal diversity patterns. Divers. Distrib. 21:10115–66 [Google Scholar]
  115. Ford AT, Goheen JR, Otieno TO, Bidner L, Isbell LA. 115.  et al. 2014. Large carnivores make savanna tree communities less thorny. Science 346:6207346–49 [Google Scholar]
  116. Kohi EM, de Boer WF, Peel MJS, Slotow R, van der Waal C. 116.  et al. 2011. African elephants Loxodonta africana amplify browse heterogeneity in African savanna. Biotropica 43:6711–21 [Google Scholar]
  117. van Langevelde F, van de Vijver CA, Kumar L, van de Koppel J, de Ridder N. 117.  et al. 2003. Effects of fire and herbivory on the stability of savanna ecosystems. Ecology 84:2337–50 [Google Scholar]
  118. Bond WJ, Midgley GF. 118.  2012. Carbon dioxide and the uneasy interactions of trees and savannah grasses. Phil. Trans. R Soc. B 367:1588601–12 [Google Scholar]
  119. Daskin JH, Stalmans M, Pringle RM. 119.  2016. Ecological legacies of civil war: 35-year increase in savanna tree cover following wholesale large-mammal declines. J. Ecol. 104:179–89 [Google Scholar]
  120. Staver AC, Bond WJ. 120.  2014. Is there a “browse trap”? Dynamics of herbivore impacts on trees and grasses in an African savanna. J. Ecol. 102:3595–602 [Google Scholar]
  121. Ogutu JO, Owen-Smith N, Piepho H-P, Said MY. 121.  2011. Continuing wildlife population declines and range contraction in the Mara region of Kenya during 1977–2009. J. Zool. 285:299–109 [Google Scholar]
  122. Wittemyer G, Northrup JM, Blanc J, Douglas-Hamilton I, Omondi P, Burnham KP. 122.  2014. Illegal killing for ivory drives global decline in African elephants. PNAS 111:3613117–21 [Google Scholar]
  123. Dirzo R, Young HS, Galetti M, Ceballos G, Isaac NJB, Collen B. 123.  2014. Defaunation in the Anthropocene. Science 345:6195401–6 [Google Scholar]
  124. Koch PL, Barnosky AD. 124.  2006. Late Quaternary extinctions: state of the debate. Annu. Rev. Ecol. Syst. 37:1215–50 [Google Scholar]
  125. Faurby S, Svenning J-C, Kerkhoff AJ, Kalisz S. 125.  2016. Resurrection of the island rule: human-driven extinctions have obscured a basic evolutionary pattern. Am. Nat. 187:6812–20 [Google Scholar]
  126. Bertola LD, van Hooft WF, Vrieling K, de Weerd DRU, York DS. 126.  et al. 2011. Genetic diversity, evolutionary history and implications for conservation of the lion (Panthera leo) in West and Central Africa. J. Biogeogr. 38:71356–67 [Google Scholar]
  127. Bauer H, Chapron G, Nowell K, Henschel P, Funston P. 127.  et al. 2015. Lion (Panthera Leo) populations are declining rapidly across Africa, except in intensively managed areas. PNAS 112:4814894–99 [Google Scholar]
  128. Bibi F, Kiessling W. 128.  2015. Continuous evolutionary change in Plio-Pleistocene mammals of Eastern Africa. PNAS 112:3410623–28 [Google Scholar]
  129. Faith JT. 129.  2014. Late Pleistocene and Holocene mammal extinctions on continental Africa. Earth-Sci. Rev. 128:Jan.105–21 [Google Scholar]
  130. de Vivo M, Carmignotto AP. 130.  2004. Holocene vegetation change and the mammal faunas of South America and Africa. J. Biogeogr. 31:6943–57 [Google Scholar]
  131. Yeakel JD, Pires MM, Rudolf L, Dominy NJ, Koch PL. 131.  et al. 2014. Collapse of an ecological network in ancient Egypt. PNAS 111:4014472–77 [Google Scholar]
  132. Heller R, Brüniche-Olsen A, Siegismund HR. 132.  2012. Cape buffalo mitogenomics reveals a Holocene shift in the African human-megafauna dynamics. Mol. Ecol. 21:163947–59 [Google Scholar]
  133. Keesing F, Young TP. 133.  2014. Cascading consequences of the loss of large mammals in an African savanna. BioScience 64:6487–95 [Google Scholar]
  134. Hempson GP, Archibald S, Bond WJ. 134.  2015. A continent-wide assessment of the form and intensity of large mammal herbivory in Africa. Science 350:62641056–61 [Google Scholar]
  135. Bakker ES, Gill JL, Johnson CN, Vera FWM, Sandom CJ. 135.  et al. 2015. Combining paleo-data and modern exclosure experiments to assess the impact of megafauna extinctions on woody vegetation. PNAS 113:847–55 [Google Scholar]
  136. Estes JA, Terborgh J, Brashares JS, Power ME, Berger J. 136.  et al. 2011. Trophic downgrading of planet Earth. Science 333:6040301–6 [Google Scholar]
  137. Couvreur TLP. 137.  2015. Odd man out: Why are there fewer plant species in African rain forests?. Plant Syst. Evol. 301:51299–313 [Google Scholar]
  138. Kissling WD, Baker WJ, Balslev H, Barfod AS, Borchsenius F. 138.  et al. 2012. Quaternary and pre-Quaternary historical legacies in the global distribution of a major tropical plant lineage: historical legacies in tropical biodiversity. Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. 21:9909–21 [Google Scholar]
  139. Terborgh J, Davenport LC, Niangadouma R, Dimoto E, Mouandza JC. 139.  et al. 2016. Megafaunal influences on tree recruitment in African equatorial forests. Ecography 39:2180–86 [Google Scholar]
  140. Terborgh J, Davenport LC, Niangadouma R, Dimoto E, Mouandza JC. 140.  et al. 2016. The African rainforest: Odd man out or megafaunal landscape? African and Amazonian forests compared. Ecography 39:2187–93 [Google Scholar]
  141. Scheiter S, Higgins SI. 141.  2012. How many elephants can you fit into a conservation area. Cons. Lett. 5:3176–85 [Google Scholar]
  142. Durant SM, Mitchell N, Groom R, Pettorelli N, Ipavec A. 142.  et al. 2017. The global decline of cheetah Acinonyx jubatus and what it means for conservation. PNAS 114:3528–33 [Google Scholar]
  143. Maisels F, Strindberg S, Blake S, Wittemyer G, Hart J. 143.  et al. 2013. Devastating decline of forest elephants in Central Africa. PLOS ONE 8:3e59469 [Google Scholar]
  144. Robson AS, Trimble MJ, Purdon A, Young-Overton KD, Pimm SL, van Aarde RJ. 144.  2017. Savanna elephant numbers are only a quarter of their expected values. PLOS ONE 12:4e0175942 [Google Scholar]
  145. Løvschal M, Bøcher PK, Pilgaard J, Amoke I, Odingo A. 145.  et al. 2017. Fencing bodes a rapid collapse of the unique Greater Mara ecosystem. Sci. Rep. 7:41450 [Google Scholar]
  146. Ogutu JO, Owen-Smith N. 146.  2003. ENSO, rainfall and temperature influences on extreme population declines among African savanna ungulates. Ecol. Lett. 6:5412–19 [Google Scholar]
  147. Ferguson J. 147.  1999. Expectations of Modernity: Myths and Meanings of Urban Life on the Zambian Copperbelt. Berkeley, CA: Univ. Calif. Press [Google Scholar]
  148. Showers KB. 148.  2005. Imperial Gullies: Soil Erosion and Conservation in Lesotho Columbus, OH: Ohio Univ. Press
  149. Tilley H. 149.  2011. Africa as a Living Laboratory: Empire, Development, and the Problem of Scientific Knowledge, 1870–1950 Chicago, IL: Univ. Chicago Press
  150. Cooper F. 150.  1981. Africa and the world economy. Afr. Stud. Rev. 24:2/31–86 [Google Scholar]
  151. Beinart W. 151.  2008. The Rise of Conservation in South Africa: Settlers, Livestock, and the Environment 1770–1950 Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press
  152. Beinart W, Middleton K. 152.  2004. Plant transfers in historical perspective: a review article. Environ. Hist. 10:13–29 [Google Scholar]
  153. Hughes DM. 153.  2010. Whiteness in Zimbabwe: Race, Landscape, and the Problem of Belonging New York: Palgrave Macmillan
  154. Merchant C. 154.  1989. Ecological Revolutions: Nature, Gender, and Science in New England Chapel Hill, NC: Univ. North Carolina Press
  155. Fratkin E. 155.  1997. Pastoralism: governance and development issues. Annu. Rev. Anthropol. 26:235–61 [Google Scholar]
  156. Hutchinson S. 156.  1996. Nuer Dilemmas: Coping with Money, War, and the State Berkeley, CA: Univ. Calif. Press
  157. McCabe JT. 157.  1990. Turkana pastoralism: a case against the tragedy of the commons. Hum. Ecol. 18:181–103 [Google Scholar]
  158. Quinlan T. 158.  1995. Grassland degradation and livestock rearing in Lesotho. J. South. Afr. Stud. 21:2491–507 [Google Scholar]
  159. Mamdani M. 159.  1996. Citizen and Subject: Contemporary Africa and the Legacy of Late Colonialism Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press
  160. Peters PE. 160.  2013. Conflicts over land and threats to customary tenure in Africa. Afr. Aff. 112:449543–62 [Google Scholar]
  161. Isaacman A. 161.  1996. Cotton Is the Mother of Poverty: Peasants, Work, and Rural Struggle in Colonial Mozambique, 1938–1961 London: Heinemann
  162. Mitman G. 162.  2017. Forgotten paths of empire: ecology, disease, and commerce in the making of Liberia's plantation economy. Environ. Hist. 22:11–22 [Google Scholar]
  163. Cooper F. 163.  2014. Africa in the World: Capitalism, Empire, Nation-State Cambridge, MA: Harvard Univ. Press
  164. Smale M, Byerlee D, Jayne T. 164.  2013. Maize revolutions in sub-Saharan Africa. An African Green Revolution K Otsuka, DF Larson 165–95 Netherlands: Springer [Google Scholar]
  165. Beinart W. 165.  2008. The Political Economy of Pondoland 1860–1930 Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press
  166. Scott JC. 166.  1998. Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed New Haven, CT: Yale Univ. Press
  167. Green L. 167.  2013. Contested Ecologies: Dialogues in the South on Nature and Knowledge Cape Town, S. Afr.: HSRC
  168. Beinart W. 168.  1989. Introduction: the politics of colonial conservation. J. South. Afr. Stud. 15:2143–62 [Google Scholar]
  169. Leach M, Mearns R. 169. , eds. 1996. The Lie of the Land: Challenging Received Wisdom on the African Environment Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann
  170. Anderson DM. 170.  2002. Eroding the Commons: The Politics of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya, 1890–1963 London: James Currey
  171. Kjekshus H. 171.  1977. The Tanzanian villagization policy: implementational lessons and ecological dimensions. Can. J. Afr. Stud. 11:2269–82 [Google Scholar]
  172. Byerlee D, Eicher CK. 172. , eds. 1997. Africa's Emerging Maize Revolution Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner Publ.
  173. Cotula L. 173.  2013. The Great African Land Grab? Agricultural Investments and the Global Food System New York: Palgrave Macmillan
  174. Hall R. 174.  2011. Land grabbing in southern Africa: The many faces of the investor rush. Rev. Afr. Polit. Econ. 38:128193–214 [Google Scholar]
  175. Edelman M. 175.  2013. Messy hectares: questions about the epistemology of land grabbing data. J. Peasant Stud. 40:3485–501 [Google Scholar]
  176. Balehegn M. 176.  2015. Unintended consequences: the ecological repercussions of land grabbing in sub-Saharan Africa. Environ. Sci. Policy Sustain. Dev. 57:24–21 [Google Scholar]
  177. Stoler AL. 177.  2013. Imperial Debris: On Ruins and Ruination Durham, NC: Duke Univ. Press
  178. Wily LA. 178.  2012. Looking back to see forward: the legal niceties of land theft in land rushes. J. Peasant Stud. 39:3–4751–75 [Google Scholar]
  179. Hughes DM. 179.  2006. From Enslavement to Environmentalism Politics on a Southern African Frontier Seattle, WA: Univ. Washington Press
  180. Austin G. 180.  2005. Labour, Land, and Capital in Ghana: From Slavery to Free Labour in Asante, 1807–1956 Rochester, NY: Univ. Rochester Press
  181. Geisler C. 181.  2015. New terra nullius narratives and the gentrification of Africa's “empty lands.”. J. World-Syst. Res. 18:115–29 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060653
Loading
/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-environ-102016-060653
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Review Article
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was a Success
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error