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Climate change and population growth have prompted calls for African countries to embrace a ‘new Green Revolution’ in order to promote food security. What is ‘new’ about this new Green Revolution? What configurations of capital, the state, agribusiness, and the law define this period of agricultural transition? In this new Green Revolution, I argue, there is a proliferation of new forms of capital – biocapital and philanthrocapital – that integrate biotechnology with philanthropy to create market value. These shifts are engendered by philanthropic giving, in the form of donated genetic material for the development of ‘pro-poor’ biotechnology which normalises seed as commodity, and legislative reform that renders seed patentable material. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Africa's Albertine Rift region faces a juxtaposition of rapid human population growth and protected areas, making it one of the world's most vulnerable biodiversity hotspots. Using satellite-derived estimates of forest cover change, we examined national socioeconomic, demographic, agricultural production, and local demographic and geographic variables, to assess multilevel forces driving local forest cover loss and gain outside protected areas during the first decade of this century. Because the processes that drive forest cover loss and gain are expected to be different, and both are of interest, we constructed models of significant change in each direction. Although rates of forest cover change varied by country, national population change was the strongest driver of forest loss for all countries – with a population doubling predicted to cause 2.06% annual cover loss, while doubling tea production predicted to cause 1.90%. The rate of forest cover gain was associated positively with increased production of the local staple crop cassava, but negatively with local population density and meat production, suggesting production drivers at multiple levels affect reforestation. We found a small but significant decrease in loss rate as distance from protected areas increased, supporting studies suggesting higher rates of landscape change near protected areas. While local population density mitigated the rate of forest cover gain, loss was also correlated with lower local population density, an apparent paradox, but consistent with findings that larger scale forces outweigh local drivers of deforestation. This implicates demographic and market forces at national and international scales as critical drivers of change, calling into question the necessary scales of forest protection policy in this biodiversity hotspot. Using a satellite derived estimate of forest cover change for both loss and gain added a dynamic component to more traditionally static and unidirectional studies, significantly improving our understanding of landscape processes and drivers at work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization and industrialization, uncontrolled population growth, indiscriminate waste discharge and poor infrastructure are problems that African cities are facing. This paper describes an exemplary case study from Jimma, south-west Ethiopia. A cross-sectional study was conducted along the Awetu- Kito drainage system in Jimma town to assess the level of pollution from urban dwellers and related activities. The study indicates that the Environmental Protection Agency ( EPA) norms for biochemical oxygen demand ( BOD), dissolved oxygen ( DO) and orthophosphates are not met downstream of the major industrial and institutional activities. Small-scale industries, Jimma University and residential areas contributed 50, 15 and 23% pollution load on the river, respectively. It can be concluded that the pollution effect in Jimma town is mainly as a result of the growing (uncontrolled) industrial activities and not to discharge of household wastewater. Given the same trends of urbanization and population growth, similar development (socio-economic) indicators and similar climatic conditions, the key findings for Jimma are transferable to other mid-sized African cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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Although Modern Man had developed long before the migration from Africa began ∼ 55,000 years ago no agricultural societies developed until about ∼ 10,000 years ago. In the next 5,000 years agricultures developed independently in at least six regions of the world. It is virtually certain that it was not a chance occurrence that so many new agricultures appeared in the same 5,000 years. What inhibited agriculture world wide for 44,000 years and what changed ∼ 10,000 years ago? Here we suggest that a major factor influencing the development of agricultural societies was climate stability. From the experience of four cultures we estimate that the development of agriculture needed ∼ 2,000 years of climate free from significant climate variations on time scales of a few centuries. Using the Empirical Mode Decomposition technique specifically designed to exhibit the time history of the amplitude of variations in non-stationary time series such as climate proxy records, we find that between 50,000 years ago and the termination of the Younger Dryas ∼ 11,600 years ago there was probably no time span as long as 2,000 years that was free of relatively large century scale variations. Furthermore variations on these time scales appear to have been relatively small since the Younger Dryas (YD) ended, supporting our proposition concerning the importance of climate stability in the history of human culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the anthropology of the ethnic population of Sub-Saharan Africa and the effects of environmental factors on the growth and maturation of Africans. It presents tables which depict the anthropobiological means and frequencies of the people in the region and notes that skeletal maturation in general is delayed among Africans compared to that of the Europeans. At the end of the study, the author suggests that further study is needed for the growth of anthropobiological research in various areas of population in the region, which include the variety of its human habitat and way of life and the rapid change of its human ecosystem.

The article comments on the decline of large mammals, specifically antelopes, in many African national parks. The natural and anthropogenic causes of the herbivore population declines include illegal hunting, drought, poaching, population growth, immigration and demands for a higher standard of living. Factors that promote bush meat consumption are also discussed. Setting aside large tracts of land in remote areas far from human populations is a viable conservation option in some parts of Africa, but this approach is increasingly outmoded by land-use change, demographics and policy reform. A faunal relaxation in Africa's network of reserves is an option that could leave a continent containing isolated pockets of large mammals diversity living at low population sizes.