Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
account for the commodification of resources in Africa and the role played by others,
notably international players. “The primary cause of conflict is the dissonance between
the modes of production in which Africa is immersed, while population pressure is a
secondary source of environmental stress'' (Obi 1997: 9-11). Obi is close to suggesting
that pre-capitalist societies are resource conflict free by nature. His focus on the west
is equally questionable as, in a globalised world, there is a wide range of extra forces
active on the African continent (see Box 4.1), including Asian countries (China, India,
Malaysia, S. Korea), Brazil, and some African countries (e.g., South Africa, Libya).
We should not
a priori
lump all resource conflicts together and suggest they all have
global and commodifying strings attached.
Box 4.1: Intensification of International Players in the Natural ResourceArena
Increasingly, the latest wave of globalisation, which jump-started after the fall of
the Berlin wall, has intensified and widened the multitude of claims in an arena
that is no longer local per se. Enabling western consumers to continue a certain
level of well-being, i.e., driving cars, enjoying adventurous holidays in far-away
countries, roasting beef, eating off-season vegetables and sending flowers to their
beloved ones, has an impact on natural resources in developing countries, notably
on land and water. Many transnational corporations or newly constructed business
ventures have signed contracts to lease land for agricultural purposes. Lately, other
players, namely from the Middle East and Asia, as well as hedge funds and other
portfolio holders searching for profitable investments, have joined the search for
land and water, especially in Africa. These resources are used to produce soya, rice,
maize, flowers, oil palm and biofuel to fulfil a demand arising from western, and
increasingly eastern, hemisphere consumers.
These new land acquisitions (mostly by way of long term leases, but free hold
purchases are also known) sometimes result in arrangements that directly affect the
local population's access to natural resources such as trees and grazing pastures. In
other instances, water resources are depleted or diverted away over time (Rutten
2008). This also means that a Code of Conduct entailing a single check at the
time of purchase of the resource is not good enough, nor is the implementation
of legal instruments as a single weapon of defence to improve the resilience of the
local agricultural sector. Technological solutions to promote sustainable agriculture,
including soil enrichment and revolutionary water harvesting techniques for both
the original and especially the new large-scale players, are also needed. Finally,
but certainly not least, political and economic power will further determine the
outcome for the poorest groups in society. If these mitigation measures fail, open
conflict may erupt.
Another African scholar, Gufu Oba, used Homer-Dixon's (1999) resource scarcity-
violence model to analyse the drivers of conflicts between ethnic groups that shared the
pre-colonial ethnic frontiers of trans-Jubaland/Wajir and competed over water sources
during the colonial period in the Northern Frontier District (NFD) of Kenya from 1903
to 1939. Oba (2011) concludes that pre-colonial ethnic conflicts were not induced by
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