Description
Book SynopsisThe author provides evidence to question many common assumptions about land degradation.What impact do displaced people and refugees have on the place where they eke out a living from resources under pressure? Gaim Kibreab questions the degree of impact on land degradation by war-displaced Eritreans on the Gedaref region of the Sudan. Was land degradation on and around the scheme really due to humans and their livestock? North America: Africa World Press/Red Sea Press
Trade Review...it is one of the best in-depth studies of land use in Africa that I have come across, and it is certainly important to demonstrate in detail how non-demographic factors are the ultimate causes of resource depletion. - -- Tim Allen, London School of Economics
This study is an excellent in depth study of land use and it demonstrates clearly just how non-demographic factors can affect, indeed cause, resource depletion... .This is valuable, useful and an involved work. Gaim Kibreab's final, more optimistic, point deserves to be repeated. The refugees at Qala en Nahal, despite the physical and institutional constraints, have demonstrated extraordinary resilience and abilities to survive, they have found ways of leading a meaningful life. People on the Edge, as Gaim Kibreab hopes, has provided some of the explanations of how they managed to do this. - -- Patrick Gilkes * AFRICAN AFFAIRS *
Table of ContentsOvercultivation and land degradation on the Qala en Nahal scheme; change in vegetation resources; decline in crop yields; the impact of woodfuel use on environmental degradation; overstocking and the problem of overgrazing of range resources; institutions and resource management systems in Eritea - the refugees' resources on the scheme; ecological perception and conservation; population pressure and resource depletion; the farmers' response to land degradation; environmental degradation and predisposition to change; farmers' responses to ACORDs natural resource programmes; conclusion.
