Editorial

Abstract

‘Landscapes of change: socio-environmental interactions in developing areas’ is the result of a session organized by the Developing Areas Research Group of the RGS-IBG at the Institute of British Geographers’ 2002 Annual Conference in Belfast. At a broad level these papers demonstrate how ‘hybrid’ (cf. Batterbury et al. 1997) approaches to analysing human–environment interactions are becoming central within geographical discourse. All the papers reflect dynamic people–environment interactions as people shape their environment through activities such as urbanization, industrialization or agriculture, and as the environment shapes people's lives in defining livelihood opportunities. This issue of The Geographical Journal contains a selection of the papers presented at this conference session. One other was included in a previous issue of The Geographical Journal focussing on ‘Sustainable development in drylands’ (Binns and Nel 2002). Several common themes emerged from the conference session, and are illustrated in the selection of papers presented here. The role of history in shaping human–environment interactions is illustrated well by two papers: Porter et al., focussing on irrigated vegetable production on the Jos Plateau in Nigeria, and Hurst, discussing forestry in Tanzania. In Nigeria, tin mining created a landscape of fresh water ponds which, now abandoned by the mining companies, provide fresh water for exploitation in irrigated vegetable production. Tin mining also attracted immigrants to the region, including those from areas where the techniques of irrigated vegetable production were well known. The combination of fresh water, and people seeking new livelihoods, has led to the development of irrigated vegetable production on such a large scale that it supplies not only local markets, but also national and regional markets in West Africa. In Tanzania, Hurst demonstrates that the history of land use and natural resource management choices in post-colonial Tanzania can be better understood through a more nuanced focus on historical–geographical interpretations. He also emphasizes that such an approach gives utility in describing and explaining land use politics in post-colonial developing contexts. The State has also played a role in creating landscapes and this emerged as another key theme within the session. Hurst demonstrates this well through his discussion of forest policy in Tanzania. However, the State is also responsible for the development of landscapes through its inactivity: Bakker discusses the role of the collapse of the State in creating the conditions in which water provision in ‘megacities’ has been privatized. Furthermore, Hill and Woodland discuss the role of decentralized environmental management in creating community autonomy in the development of rainwater harvesting techniques. Several papers focus on the commodification of natural resources. Bakker focuses on the commodification of water, and the change of perception of water from being a public good to a tradeable good, from entitlement to commodity. Binns and Nel (2002) also considered the commodification of natural resources as they studied environmental management and social change in South Africa, presented in the same session. They discuss how people can manipulate their environment in response to market forces and the need to secure livelihoods. Overall, each paper shows an example of adaptive management of the environment in response to external as well as internal stimuli, such as the role (or not) of the State, legacies of history, market forces and urbanization. These stimuli act as drivers of change, and act alongside the need to secure livelihoods and to secure the environments on which these are based at the local level. The papers also show how people respond to the challenges presented by their environments, and their resilience and ingenuity when faced with uncertain and changing social, political, economic and environmental contexts.