INAUGURAL LECTURE DELIVERED BY PROFESSOR JOSEPH UYANGA B.Sc, Hons (Ibadan), Ph.D. (Australia) MNES,MUAPS, MAES.

INTRODUCTION

 

The Chairman, Prof. Abdullahi Y. Ribadu, Vice Chancellor FUT Vola.

The Registrar,

Deputy Vice Chancellors,

The University Librarian & Chairman, Lectures & Award of Prize Committee,

Principal Officers of the University,

Ag. Dean School of Environmental Sciences,

Deans of other Schools,

Members of the Academia,

Gentlemen of the Press,

Great Students of the Federal University of Technology, Yola

Students of other Universities,

Invited Guests,

Distinguished Ladies and Gentlemen

 

I feel extremely delighted and thank the Almighty God for the opportunity to deliver the 2nd Inaugural Lecture of the Federal University of Technology, Yola, and the 1st from the School of Environmental Sciences.

 

On 12th January, 2003, Mostafa Telba the Executive Director of the United Nations Environmental Programme, addressing the forum of African Environmentalists in Nairobi, presented the following grim report and I quote "Despite Stockholm, as at 2002 about 3.1 sq km of once productive land in Africa have become desert in the last 50 years. The number of poor people and incidence of poverty are growing; 180 million people (47 percent of the population) were poor in the mid 1980s, but now 120 million are extremely poor. It is estimated that by the year 2005, 30 percent of the Third World's poor will be living in sub-Saharan Africa. This rise in poverty is particularly high in the arid and semiarid regions. Topsoil is eroding faster than it forms on about 35% of the cropland. Crop productivity on one third of irrigated cropland has been reduced by water logging and salt built-up. Almost half of the original expanse of tropical forests has been cleared. Millions of hectares of grassland have been overgrazed and turned to deserts or semi-deserts. Several million Africans have lost homes and land because of flooding and environmental degradation. Other environmental problems are increasing" unquote.

 

In the last decades, the focus of environmental research has been on the physical deterioration of the human habitat, on the death of places where people live and on the mortuarization of bio-geographical areas. My concern is not only about the struggles against environmental mortuarization, but also about the need to develop the capacity in humankind to enjoy the environment, so that humankind will become true conservationists.

 

In this lecture, I will examine the various settings of environmental dynamics in Africa, the basic scenarios and episodes. I will analyze the problems and imperatives of eco-policy, eco-philosophy and present a sustainability model for bending the curve created by poverty, degradation and development "siamesisation" to avert environmental genocide.

 

The Siamese Triplets

The inextricable triplets - poverty, development and environmental degradation can be demonstrated if my audience will follow me on a tour of the Narok District in Kenya. Poverty and environmental degradation have both been increasing in Kenya. Policy debates on the causes of poverty and environmental degradation have focused on the popular notion that poverty is a root cause of environmental degradation. However, the nexus begs more detailed and rigorous analysis before conclusions and corrective policies can be formulated and implemented.

 

Kenya has witnessed, over the last decade, increasing levels of land degradation (Ogolla, 1996). Unsustainable deforestation, livestock overgrazing and farming activities have been cited as primary causal factors for the persistent deterioration of land quality in Kenya (Hesse, 1999).

 

Parallel with environmental degradation, social welfare conditions in general have deteriorated across the country, especially in recent years. Although, the number of people living below the poverty line had not changed substantially, both the depth of poverty and relative poverty have deteriorated significantly (Ikiara, 1997).

 

There has been much controversy over the relationship between poverty and environmental degradation. One theory which has been adopted and popularized by many policymakers postulates that poverty is a direct cause of environmental degradation (Jalal, 1989). On the other hand, an emerging school of thought argues that the poor do not have the resources or the means to cause environmental degradation (Somonathan, 1991). This lack of a consensus on the relationship between poverty and environmental degradation suggests a nexus governed by a web of factors. The challenge is to resolve the web and identify the fundamental forces which govern its complexity. This lecture is a response to this challenge.

 

The Narok District of Kenya

The Narok District can be categorized into two distinct geographical zones - the highlands and the plains. The highlands are characterized by rich volcanic soils with high rainfall and have been defined as high potential areas (Short,1990). The plains on the other hand are characterized by less fertile soils with lower rainfall distribution patterns and are classified as mid to low potential areas (ibid). The highlands were once predominantly covered with forest type vegetation while the plains are of Savannah type rangelands.

 

The Masai are the indigenous inhabitants of this district. They were and are to a large extent nomadic pastoralists who traditionally used the plains during the wet season and the highlands during the dry season for their livestock, a practice known as transhumance. The highlands served as critical relief zones for the Masai herdsmen and their cattle during the dry season. This nomadic lifestyle implied a culture whereby land was treated as communal property while livestock was considered as individual or family wealth.

 

With the coming of the white settlers in the early part of last century, much of the highlands were appropriated by these colonists for agriculture. The Masai were thus pushed into the lowlands and were prevented from accessing the highlands for their livestock. This appropriation and exclusion policy by the colonists laid down the foundations of the marginalization process of the Masai.

 

In the 1950s and 1960s a series of land reforms were implemented, beginning with the Swynnerton Plan for tenure reform. The prime directive was to return the land to the original inhabitants. But instead of reverting back to the traditional communal land system, the land tenure reforms introduced the Western concept of individual land ownership. The concept of land privatization was perceived by policymakers at that time as an appropriate incentive tool for Kenyans to create a wealthy local farming community (Dickerman, 1989). Moreover, land privatization was also introduced to discourage the nomadic lifestyle of the Masai, which was thought to be an inefficient use of land resources (Okoth-Ogendo, 1996; Galaty, 1980).

 

However, Table 1 clearly demonstrates a displacement of the Masai from the District and indirectly infers the transfer of land use and ownership from the Masai to new inhabitants from other regions of Kenya.

 

Table 1: Population demographics in the Narok District.

 

Year of Census	1948	1962	1969	1979	1989	1997	2000
Total Population	37,000	101,000	125,000	210,300	398,300	576,000	662,000
% Masal	99	95	85	56	47.3	n.a	43:Z
% Non-Masai	1	5	15	44	52.7	n.a.	56.8
Density (No.lkm2)	2.5	6.9	8.6	14.5	27.4	44	52
Area of land per
capita in Narok
District	0.39	0.145	0.116	0.068	0.036	0.023	0.010

 

Source CBS (Kenya Central Bureau of Statistics) 2000.

 

The provision of individual land titles led a large number of the Masai to sell their plots of land. The prospect of quick wealth, which could then be used to buy more livestock, was the driving force for the transfer of land ownership from the Masai to non-Masai. Inevitably, the purchase of more livestock in the situation of decreasing land, especially critical land, resulted in overgrazing and consequently land degradation. The dual forces of less land and higher livestock numbers culminated in higher livestock mortality rates, especially during drought years. This in turn caused many Masai families to suffer a drop in their income and wealth levels and in many cases they were pushed below the poverty line of US$1 a day (Okali: 1999).

 

The majority of the new immigrants were from the Kalenjin and Kikuyu group. Most of these immigrants bought land in the highlands, cleared the forest and planted a combination of food and cash crops. Another group which had also taken advantage of the land reforms were large-scale commercial farmers of White and Asian descent. This group, who were wealthy and politically well-connected, though much smaller in numbers, acquired large tracts of land. Commercial wheat, barley and dairy farming were the main activities of this group.

 

In the plains, a similar situation was taking place. The plains with large tracts of flat and relatively fertile land coupled with adequate rainfall provided ideal conditions for the adoption of large-scale wheat farming. However, unlike in the highlands, only the big commercial farmers were present. The large economies of scale prevented the small-scale farmer from farming in this area. The expansion of wheat farming in the plains gave the Masai no choice but to move deeper into the plains. Although land ownership in the plains remained with the Masai, under the group ranch land tenure system, many of the commercial farmers were able to secure attractive lease terms for the use of the land.

 

However, displacement into the plains was facing increasing constraints. The government, under increasing pressure from international as well as domestic NGOs, had adopted a strategy of nature wrapping over large tracts of land in the plains. Consequently, a combination of displacement from both the highlands and the outer plains had in essence boxed the Masai into a narrow corridor with very little degree of environmental maneuverability, resulting in more poverty, less land, more intensive use of the available land resources and its subsequent environmental degradation.

 

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CONCLUSION

 

Mr. Vice Chancellor, Sir, for the last one hour I have laboured to analyse the problems and policy scenario on ecoconcern in Africa. The question arising from the analysis is "Why do we ignore our environmental problems?"

 

Pita Agbese enumerates them. Several converging factors allow African governments to ignore environmental problems for as long as they did. First, the backlog of underdevelopment as manifested in mass poverty, illiteracy, lack of industrialization, low life expectancy, high infant mortality rates and lack of infrastructural development was so formidable that the decision to pay greater attention to issues of economic development and industrialization seemed to make sense. Yet these are the same issues which "created" most environmental problems.

 

In the face or wrenching poverty, many people were preoccupied with devising coping mechanisms and survival strategies. Issues of environmental protection were therefore of minor importance to both the governments and the governed. Even if people had paid much attention to environmental issues, they had very little political space in which to articulate their concerns.

 

Yet another factor that inhibits the adoption of effective environmental policies in Africa derives from the reliance of some African governments on the very foreign business corporations that are responsible for much of the environmental pollution in the first place. For instance, oil accounts for about ninety-five percent of Nigeria's export earnings and over eighty percent of the total annual revenue of the federal government. Given this extreme dependence on revenues from oil, for many decades the Nigeria government could not enforce its environmental regulations on the oil companies for fear of killing the goose that lays the golden egg. Chris Ikporukpo captures the essence of this dilemma for the Nigerian government when he observes that "given the importance of petroleum to the Nigerian economy, the .Iaxity in enforcing the existing legislation may be due to a deliberate policy of not discouraging the operation of the oil producing companies". (Ikporukpo 1985 p.204).

The elements and process involved in bending the curve of siamesation polarity in the direction of democratizing the approaches to environmental sustainability and concludes by enunciating the role of both the government and the community on each problem and priority areas. "Since mass poverty is often at the root of environmental degradation its elimination and ensuring equitable access of people to environmental resources are essential for sustainable development" (UNEP 1987).

More than anything else, the environment has become an engaging topic in international relations and must be addressed as such. The reasons are clear; the global economy can only be guaranteed when the ecosystems on which it depends are sustainable and economic partnership is only possible when poor nations such as those in Africa receive full international support in the true spirit of partnership in the current African Donor Dependency Syndrome (DOS).

 

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