Published online by Cambridge University Press: 11 November 2008
The listing of the African elephant in Appendix I to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species in late 1989 provided a dramatic indicator of the overwhelming pressures threatening the natural heritage of a number of states in Africa. While both their leaders and international organisations express concern about the longterm environmental stability of many areas, the more immediate economic difficulties in producing enough food and obtaining sufficient foreign exchange to finance essential imports and service debts mean that effective conservation measures have been largely neglected.
1 The international community's official view of the economic crisis, the World Bank's Sub-Saharan Africa: from crisis to sustainable growth (Washington, D.C., 1989),Google Scholar scarcely mentions environmental degradation in its litany of problems. Cf. more ‘ecological’ perspectives, such as Lloyd, Timberlake, Africa in Crisis: the causes, the cures of environmental bankruptcy (London, 1988).Google Scholar
2 Some people might still argue that the western industrialised states have disrupted almost all their natural eco-systems and managed to prosper by doing so. However, it is coming to be recognised today that their extensive ‘mining’ of timber and high-input, soil-depleting agricultural practices are simply not sistainable over more than a few more decades, as even the very cautious, middle-of-the-road Bruntland report makes clear. See the World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future (Oxford and New York, 1987).Google ScholarPubMed
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