The Eroding the Commons: (Ohio University Press Series in Eastern African Studies) The Politics of Ecology in Baringo, Kenya, 1890s-1963 FROM THE PUBLISHER
"Colonial Baringo was in many respects an unexceptional place, a backwater in the semi-arid Rift Valley of Kenya, lacking in cash crops and distant from larger markets. But in the middle years of colonial rule Baringo's anonymity gave way to notoriety. Prolonged drought and localized famine in the district from the mid-1920s led to claims that Baringo was a land of dramatic decay, brought on by overcrowding and livestock mis-management." In response to the alarm over erosion, the state embarked upon a programme for rehabilitation, conservation and development. Baringo's experience became a point of reference for similar programmes elsewhere in British Africa, especially in the 1950s when state-led rural development encompassed not just economic growth but an accelerated transformation of African society. The politics of African nationalism was fuelled by opposition to colonial development policies, and in Baringo the politics of the nationalist era were the politics of ecology.
SYNOPSIS
Anderson (history, U. of London, UK) draws on extensive research of primary sources to tell the complex story of environmental use in the Baringo area of Kenya before and after British colonial intervention. The book's first half describes the people of the area and the history of their use of the environment, particularly for the grazing of livestock by Tungen herders after 1900. The development programs of the British, based on what Anderson suggests were mistaken notions about why the land was degraded, are described at length in the second half. Annotation (c)2003 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
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