Northeast Tanzania 1850-2000: The political ecology of trade networks, food production and land-cover change

The project aims at analyzing the mechanisms and driving forces behind land use and land cover changes in a regional and historical perspective. It contributes to the research on human resource use and global environmental change through its genuine historic perspective (i.e. not deterministic). Land use and land cover change will be traced in a 150 year perspective and causes for land use change will be sought in the history of population, trade networks, political changes and possibly also climate change. It is an interdisciplinary effort, based on historical geography, historical anthropology and physical geography with remote sensing. We will test the implications of current revisionary approaches to environmental exploitation in Africa, which downplay, or reject, the claim that current economic activities result in a depleted resource base and reduced food production. A range of sources, including historical maps, travel accounts, satellite imagery, census data and archival material will be utilized, and researchers carrying out ongoing local case studies in the region will be engaged as expert consultants. The project is carried out in cooperation Stockholm University and Lund University.

Mats Widgren, project leader, Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University

Lowe Börjeson, Department of Human Geography, Stockholm University

Thomas Håkansson, Human Ecology Division, Lund University

Closely related problems are researched within the HEEAL project in YORK

Publications

2004

Widgren, Mats (2004) Northeast Tanzania ca 1850-2000: population, trade networks and land cover change – a proposed project. Abstract in Second PLATINA workshop 17 – 19 October 2002 Usa River, Arusha, Tanzania. Working Paper from the Environment and Development Studies Unit (EDSU) No. 46

2007

Börjeson, L. (2007). Boserup Backwards? Agricultural intensification as ‘its own driving force’ in the Mbulu Highlands, Tanzania. Geografiska Annaler, Series B, Human Geography

Håkansson, N. T. & Widgren, M. (2007). Labour and landscapes: The political economy of landesque capital in 19th century Tanganyika. Geografiska Annaler ser B.

Håkansson, N.T. (2007). Trade, “trinkets” and environmental change at the edge of world-systems: Political ecology and the East African ivory trade. In Hornborg, A., Martinez-Alier, J. and McNeill, J.R. (eds), Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek. 143-162.

Widgren, M (2007) Pre-colonial landesque capital: a global perspective. In Hornborg, A., Martinez-Alier, J. and Mcneill, J.R. (eds), Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change. AltaMira Press, Walnut Creek. 61-78.

2008

Håkansson, N. Thomas (2008). The Decentralized Landscape: Regional Wealth and the Expansion of Production in Northern Tanzania before the Eve of Colonialism. I Lisa Cliggett and Christopher A. Pool (eds) Economies and the Transformation of Landscape. AltaMira Press. A Division of Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. Lanham • New York • Toronto • Plymouth, UK. Pp. 239-266.

Special issue of International Journal of African Historical Studies 2008, 41/3 on “Regional interaction and land use change in Northeastern Tanzania 1850-2000” (Guest editors: Mats Widgren, N. Thomas Håkansson & Lowe Börjeson):

Introduction: Håkansson, T., Widgren, M. & Börjeson. L. : Historical and Regional Perspectives on Landscape Transformations in Northeastern Tanzania 1850-2000. International Journal of African Historical Studies, 41, 369-382

Huijzendveld, Frans D.: Changes in Political Economy and Ecology in West-Usambara, Tanzania: ca. 1850-1950, (pp.383-409)

Sabea, Hanan: Mastering the Landscape? Sisal Plantations, Land and Labor in Tanga Region, 1893-1980s, (pp.411-432)

Håkansson, N.T. :Regional political ecology and intensive cultivation in precolonial and colonial South Pare, Tanzania (pp.433-459)

Tagseth, Mattias The expansion of traditional irrigation in Kilimanjaro, Tanzania (pp.461-490)

Sheridan, Michael: Tanzanian ritual perimetrics and African landscapes: The case of Dracaena (pp.491-521)

Börjeson, L., Dorothy L. Hodgson & Pius Z. Yanda Northeast Tanzania’s disappearing rangelands: historical perspectives on recent land-use/cover change at a regional scale. (pp.523-556)

Brockington, Dan, Hassan Sachedina and Katherine Scholfield: Preserving the New Tanzania: Conservation and Land Use Change (pp. 557-579)

2009

Börjeson, L. (2009): Using a historical map as a baseline in land-cover change study of northeast Tanzania. African Journal of Ecology 47(Suppl1) 185-191.

IN PRESS

Börjeson, L- (in press) "Agricultural Intensification", SAGE Reference project Encyclopedia of Geography

Westerberg, L.O., Holmgren, K., Börjeson, L., Håkansson, T., Laulumaa, V., Ryner, M., Öberg, H. (forthcoming) “The development of the ancient irrigation system at Engaruka, Northern Tanzania. Physical and societal factors”. Accepted in Geographical Journal.