1st Edition

Sustaining the Soil Indigenous Soil and Water Conservation in Africa

Edited By Chris Reij, Ian Scoones, Calmilla Toulmin Copyright 1996
288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

288 Pages
by Routledge

Indigenous soil and water conservation practices are rarely acknowledged in the design of conventional development projects. Instead, the history of soil and water conservation in Africa has been one of imposing external solutions without regard for local practice. There is a remarkably diverse range of locally developed and adapted technologies for the conservation of water and soil, well suited... Read more
Sustaining the soil ? Making the most of local knowledge ? Drought and the need to change ? The mastery of water ? Mountains, foothills and plains ? Improving traditional planting pits in the Tahoua Department ? Rehabilitating degraded land ? A measure for every site ? The zai ? Mulching on the Central Plateau of Burkina Faso ? Firki-masakwa cultivation in Borno, north-east Nigeria ? Indigenous SWC in Southern Zimbabwe ? Environmental change and livelihood responses ? ?Grandfather?s way of doing? ? How rice cultivation became an ?indigenous? farming practice in Maswa district, Tanzania ? Making the most of compost ? Cultivating the valleys ? Pit cultivation in the Matengo Highlands of Tanzania ? ?Back to the grass strips? ? The ?flexibility? of indigenous SWC techniques ? Traditional ditches in Northern Shewa, the Ethiopian Highlands ? Creating an inventory of indigenous SWC measures in Ethiopia ? Local farming in the former Transhei, South Africa ? Traditional SWC techniques in the Mandara Mountains, Northern Cameroon ? New perspectives on local conservation techniques ? The rapid evolution of small-basin irrigation on the Jos Plateau, Nigeria ? A SWC system under threat ? Evolution of traditional techniques of soil conservation in the Bamileke region, West Cameroon

Biography

Calmilla Toulmin, Chris Reij, Ian Scoones