Bibliography (page 3)
Khasiani, Shanyisa A. "Conclusions." In Groundwork: African women as environmental managers, edited by Shanyisa A. Khasiani, 119-121. Nairobi: ACTS Press, 1992.
A short wrap-up of the collection of writings in "Groundwork" that ties the works together well. Khasiani suggests a number of ideas that come out of this study: women have been directly involved in conservation activities for centuries, and colonial policies forced women to engage even more in rural activities and voluntary conservation schemes; development planning and policy formulation based on colonial ideologies have further marginalized women and introduced strategies of economic development that have increased poverty for the majority and have led to environmental degradation on increasing levels; women have been directly effected by environmental resource degradation and thus have been easier to mobilize in efforts to prevent this, although marginalization and oppressive gender inequalities have made these attempts a failure. Khasiani suggests that many steps could be taken to involve women more effectively as environmental managers in Kenya: environmental laws and policies should be more gender specific; women should be incorporated directly into formulation and implementation stages of policy making; a shift in emphasis from exploitation to conservation should occur in policy restructuring (both of which can involve a certain amount of utilization); women should be empowered through ownership of resources that directly effect them; and women's traditional understandings of conservation should be united with modern technologies and perspectives to create more sensitive and sustainable environmental management policies.
Khor, Martin. "Development, trade, and the environment: a third world perspective." In The future of progress: reflections on environment and development, edited by Edward Goldsmith, Khor, Martin, Norberg-Hodge, Helena, Shiva, Vandana, & others, 33-49. Foxhole, Dartington: Green Books, 1995.
A short piece that considers the problems historically between North and South. The author does a particularly nice job of concisely describing general principles of colonization in the South, and the ways in which sustainable Third World communities were disrupted by the introduction of Western systems and ideologies. Khor stresses that the pattern historically has been one of Northern domination, in which Western systems have sucked Third World communities further and further into dysfunctional patterns of degradation and impoverishment. The North / South relationship has been consistently one of Western domination and subjugation, and until this relationship is fundamentally changed and Southern communities are allowed to apply sustainable strategies to their lives, the environmental crisis will continue to escalate.
Korir-Koech, Michael. "Evolution of environmental management in Kenya." In Gaining ground: institutional innovations in land-use management in Kenya, edited by Amos Kiriro, and Juma, Calestous, 21-34. Nairobi: ACTS Press, 1991.
A consideration of environmental management in Kenya from a historical perspective of colonial and postcolonial conservation policies, including the Kenyatta and Moi eras (i.e. independence to the present). Although the postcolonial considerations of conservation successes are fairly biased in assuming the success of environmental management under the Kenyatta and Moi administrations, the author does present a fairly good analysis of colonial policy interests and mismanagement of land and resources. Because colonial officials saw "great agricultural potential" in East Africa, they were extremely concerned with soil conservation (although game reserves and parks were also an essential area of conservation policy). The failures of colonial conservation models were complex, but were primarily the result of a Eurocentric ideological framework that was responsible for introducing conservation models - such as mono-cropping, commercial livestock husbandry, and introduction of non-native cash crop and tree species - that ignored indigenous systems of sustainability in an African environment in which these models did not work effectively. In addition, the British considered African peoples inferior and incompetent, and as a result the African management strategies were ignored and preferred lands were cleared for the white settlers (e.g. the "White Highlands"). This had the effect of confining increasing African populations (due to enforced colonial sedenterization, health care, etc. which the author presents a particularly good analysis of, pg. 26) to smaller areas, according to enforced policies of privatization of land that made the traditional system of cultivation shifting untenable and destructive rather than sustainable for African communities. Colonial enforcements and monopolizing of preferred lands, and isolation of "wastelands" as national parks that could no longer be used as grazing lands and resources by native peoples (an aspect not considered in this section), had the effect of creating a vast sense of native resentment against conservation policies that would be a huge obstacle in postcolonial periods. The author points out that the "moral" of this story is that colonial strategies were disastrous largely because they failed to take into account social, political, economic, and cultural structures that connected African peoples sustainably to the environment, and as a result, colonial strategies drastically disordered conservation systems that worked and created a legacy of lasting dependency and degradation.
Korten, David C. When corporations rule the world. West Hartford, Connecticut: Kumarian Press, Inc., 1995.
A blistering account of the ways in which the globalization of the economy according to principles of economic growth and capital extraction have led to massive corporate control of Northern and Southern political and economic institutions. According to Korten, corporate strength internationally has increasingly led to a state of "corporate colonialism" that promotes profitability and economic expansion even when it is at the expense of the basic human needs and sustainability, creating a system of resource exploitation and domination that is proving extremely self-destructive to the survival of the human race and the sustainability of the planet. Korten's consideration of global systems of domination and oppression is particularly relevant in connection with this thesis in relation to the chapter entitled, "People with No Place," which brings together much of his ideas on the extent of corporate colonial control worldwide and traces the connections between traditional colonialism in the 18th and 19th centuries and modern systems of international imperialism and corporate colonialism. As Korten acknowledges clearly, "the Western development enterprise has been about separating people from their traditional means of livelihood and breaking down the bonds of security provided by family and community to create dependence on the jobs and products that modern corporations produce. It is an extension of a process that began with the enclosure, or privatization, of common lands in England to concentrate the benefits of their production in the hands of the few rather than the many. The colonial era extended the process to the people of nonindustrial lands. Post-World War II development assistance and investment continued the same basic process - under a more subtle and friendly guise - monetizing the production and service functions of the social economy, replacing locally controlled systems of agriculture, governance, health care, education, and mutual self-help with systems that were more amenable to central control" (251). Korten provides a general historical consideration of this trend to suggest that "from colonialism to development to structural adjustment, the people of Southern countries have been integrated into the global economy, step by wrenching step" (253), according to systems of Northern domination that have preserved a dependency relationship with the South. Monetization, military assistance, encouragement of Southern exports of goods for Northern markets, and enforcement of Northern goods upon Southern markets at the expense of locally produced goods, have all reinforced Northern strength and wealth at the expense of those conditions in the South. Korten uses the discussion of Southern impoverishment and degradation to suggest that "the economic growth of a globalized free market that weakens and destroys the bonds of culture and community to the benefit of global corporations" (257) cannot possibly provide a sustainable or egalitarian model for social and environmental survival because it is based on profit and expansion motives of the few that are necessarily opposed to this model. Korten's consideration of the IMF, the World Bank, and GATT / WTO in the chapter, "Adjusting the Poor," reinforces this position by documenting numerous ways in which these organizations "have become increasingly intrusive in dictating the public policies of indebted countries and undermining progress toward democratic governance" (165) because they represent Northern power interests predicated upon the stifling of Southern democracy, self-sustainability, and local empowerment to preserve the globalization of corporate colonialism. The promotion of economic growth and of resource extraction has set up an oppressive system that benefits the few at the expense of the many, and this is revealed clearly in the ways in which power have been hoarded in the North and preserved by stifling the human capacities of communities and nations worldwide.
Kundaeli, John N. "Making conservation and development compatible." Ambio 12, no. 6 (1983): 326-331.
A good consideration of environmental degradation and development in the East African Region, especially related to the issues of deforestation, population pressures, industrialization, and coastal resource degradation. The author uses these examples to suggest that development and conservation must be compatible if both are to survive in the long-term, especially because poor environmental management and utilization in the short term can self-destructively threaten just the resources that make development possible and profitable. The author uses examples of the deforestation of mangrove forests to demonstrate ways in which this activity destroys the resource basis for the shrimp markets (because the shrimp rely on the mangroves for survival), the deforestation of tropical forests and woodlands to demonstrate ways in which the local peoples are robbing themselves of the protein source of monkeys through the activity, and the ways in which siltation of rivers, toxic dumping in the ocean, and coral sawing destroys habitats for fisheries, destroys the coral and tourist markets, and destroys the coral buffer zone protecting coastal housing from tidal destruction. Population increase and expansion have made traditional practices - such as cultivation shifting - destructive and ineffective, often destroying the very resources that communities need for long-term survival. The author urges that greater consideration of the links between economic development and ecological diversity be considered to allow for the continued sustainability of both.
Lindsay, W.K. "Integrating parks and pastoralists: some lessons from Amboseli." In Conservation in Africa: people, policies and practice, edited by David Anderson, and Grove, Richard, 149-167. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Emphasizes failures of Amboseli National Park connected to colonialism and the exclusion of the Maasai; threatened species part of lack of valid development plans and frustrations of people.
Marcuse, Herbert. "The new forms of control." In Thinking about the environment: readings on politics, property, and the physical world, edited by Matthew Alan Cahn, and O'Brien, Rory, 112-119. Armonk, New York: M. E. Sharpe, 1996.
Marcuse presents an excellent, critical analysis of the totalitarianism of the modern age, arguing that we have arrived at a point in the "progress" of modernization in which we have the potential to "release individual energy into a yet uncharted realm of freedom beyond necessity" (112). However, the modern age is characterized by just the opposite trend, in which toil and poverty are maintained repressively, and in which "false needs" of material consumption and luxuries characterize most of the things that make us "happy," and allow us to relax and consume. Marcuse argues that in our society, this proliferation of false needs has led to a "euphoria in unhappiness... no matter how much such needs have become the individual's own,... they continue to be what they were from the beginning - products of a society whose dominant interest demands repression" (114). Basically, Marcuse argues that the modern age is characterized by the perpetuation of "obsolete forms of the struggle for existence" (113) that directly threaten the realization of the potential for overcoming necessities in human existence; the modern age is contrary to progress towards a greater degree of human liberation. Marcuse suggests that "advanced industrial society is approaching the stage where continued progress would demand the radical subversion of the prevailing direction and organization of progress" (119), and that the "powers that be" stifle this trend to maintain domination over the society, by encouraging a kind of "one-dimensional thought" and a preservation of obsolete necessities that preserve systems of power as they currently exist. According to Marcuse, this reveals "the internal contradiction of this civilization: the irrational element in its rationality" (119). As advanced industrial societies "progress" towards the potential for unimagined human liberation from necessity, they also attempt to "contain this trend within the established institutions" (119), and herein lies a significant contradiction. If the modern age is to remain consistent to its aims for "progress," it cannot "struggle for existence" and deny it simultaneously, and remain faithful to a quest for human liberation. Clearly, Marcuse's criticism focuses on capitalism's tendency to preserve unnecessary forms of profit motives and appropriation, which are contradictory to true progress towards human liberation from the toil of labor and the struggle to gain one's livelihood through private enterprise. This contradiction is also played out clearly in relation to environmental issues today: continuing obsolete forms of resource use - pollution, waste, etc. - further constrain humanity by forcing us to pay for clean resources; continuing to rely on fossil fuels when we have the potential to make use of solar power, electric power, etc. prevents humanity from progressing towards a more pollution-free environment (and one in which the production of energy and fuel, and the toil of labor contained therein, would be unnecessary).
Marekia, E. Njeri. "Managing wildlife in Kenya." In Gaining ground: institutional innovations in land-use management in Kenya, edited by Amos Kiriro, and Juma, Calestous, 155-176. Nairobi: ACTS Press, 1991.
An excellent analysis of the historical roots and current failings of wildlife conservation in Kenya and to a lesser extent in Tanzania. The author argues that the instituting of the U.S. parks ideology of isolationist management during the colonial period completely disregarded social, cultural, and political systems in place in Africa and created numerous land-use conflicts and forms of land degradation inside and outside of the parks. Marekia stresses that significant decimation of wildlife was caused by white hunters, the slaughter of animals during the world wars, and that parks were originally set up as "playgrounds" (157) for the whites that hid the fact that significant access to important resources were being denied to indigenous peoples; "the idea behind establishing parks was to protect nature from the natives" (157). Marekia makes the important point (often overlooked by analyses) that white colonial officials, fearing the native resentments of conservation which denied them access to resources, actively sought to set up a postcolonial group of elitist rulers that catered to their needs and ideologies (i.e. Nyerere and Kenyatta especially). The national parks and reserves were set aside based on the American isolationist model, a move that proved disastrous for the East African majorities who relied upon the resources in park and reserve spaces for their livelihoods (158-159). The author suggests that setting aside large areas for parks and reserves is irrational when a majority of the people do not accept the resulting landlessness and impoverishment; new mutli-use policies targeted for the benefit of the people must be devised to prevent national parks from becoming islands (which will lead to biodiversity loss and overpopulation (pg. 167) and to prevent increasing human and land degradation outside of the protected "band aids." Marekia also demonstrates - by speaking of destructive potentials of over-used tourist runs and mismanaged county councils for reserves - that postcolonial strategies have continued to be plagued by problems because they do not adequately address the needs of local peoples. Unchecked agricultural expansion and settling near reserves "may be the greatest threat to wildlife conservation in Kenya" (166), especially because the bulk of wildlife populations exist outside of reserves where land use may determine the survival of many species. Development around marine (168) and wildlife parks has been damaging and does not take into account the importance of wildlife as a lasting and sustainable resource. Marekia stresses that wildlife conservation will only truly emerge if it has utility as a profitable resource for the local communities; they will only preserve it if they have the incentive to sustain its presence. This is especially important as land use for food production and an increasing human population make it important to devise ways in which people will respect the presence of wildlife around them rather than seeing it as intolerable and antagonistic (e.g. because it destroys crops, people, etc.). This will require that wildlife conservation and economic welfare emerge hand in hand and that people are educated about the importance of preserving wildlife as a long-term resource.
Marx, Karl. "The two sides of society." In Social theory: the multicultural and classic readings, edited by Charles Lemert, 36-74. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993.
A good summary of some of Marx's main points and ideas in relation to his excellent analyses of capitalist dynamics and tendencies. Marx's writings deconstruct capitalist institutions and workings to demonstrate ways in which the system reproduces itself, is alienating and exploitative, and contains a number of fundamental and self-destructive contradictions. For the purposes of this thesis, Marx's analysis provides an invaluable foundation for understanding some of the basic dynamics in capitalism. Marx stresses that the labor production of the worker in the capitalist society is fundamentally alienating. According to Marx, the externalization and objectification of labor from man is an enslaving process that wrests from human beings their species being (i.e. "the productive life is the life of the species" (40)); capitalism is founded upon the "estranged labor" of workers. "Through estranged, alienated labor, the worker produces the relationship to this labor of a man alien to labor and standing outside it. The relationship of the worker to labor engenders the relation to it of the capitalist, or whatever one chooses to call the master of labor" (42). On an international scale, this has important consequences for the ways in which peoples relate to each other, and has been significant in promoting a socioeconomic system globally that encourages economic growth and expansion at the expense of human needs and interests. In Marx's discussion of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat in "The Communist Manifesto," Marx makes several especially insightful points. He stresses that capitalism has not liberated societies from oppression, but "has established... new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place of the old ones" (44), and dismisses the idea that privatization of property and estrangement from labor are "natural" processes. Rather, they are historically manifested social structures that reflect capitalist tendencies and not "human nature." Marx also makes an important point in arguing that the bourgeois embrace of exchange value - and the capitalist ethic of economic growth and expansion - has brought about the stifling of human potential in a number of ways, contributing to a global system of economic expansion today that is increasingly in opposition to the human interests of environmental and social justice. "Naked self-interest, callous 'cash payment'... has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of the numberless indefeasible chartered freedoms, has set up that single, unconscionable freedom - Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, it has substituted naked, shameless, direct, brutal exploitation" (45). Marx was also ahead of his time in saying that capitalism "creates a world after its own image" (46), as the globalization of capitalism today is accomplishing just this, creating an international dependency relationship that favors the "towns" at the expense of the country on a national level, and the "civilized" countries at the expense of the "barbarian" ones on an international level (46). Marx also argues that the exploitation of labor in the form of the proletariat will ultimately prove self-destructive for the capitalist system (although the increasingly extractive relationship with the environment is proving to be an even more significant factor that presents the possibility of the breakdown of not only the capitalist system but the earth's ecosystems as well). It is important to note - in connection with this thesis - that Marx's ideas on crisis situations in capitalist structure have been clearly played out in the relations between Europe / America and Africa; the "conquest of new markets" (47) in Africa allowed European capitalism a "lease on life," as Walter Rodney puts it, and the "more thorough exploitation" of these markets today is making it increasingly difficult for capitalism to handle the crises of impoverishment, degradation, and oppression that result from North / South relationships in Africa and throughout the world.
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