Social aspects

The Pangani River Basin covers an area of about 43,650 km2, mostly in Tanzania with approximately 5% in Kenya. The Basin contains a wide array of resources of which water and arable land are arguably the most important to its 3.7 million Tanzanian inhabitants. There is a diversity of interests in the Basin, and these are able to wield various degrees of power as they seek to lay claim to its resources.

This book tells the story of times past, when wetlands were considered as wastelands and decision makers and managers were unaware of their benefits, a time when the adverse impacts of hydropower and irrigation schemes on ecosystems and people downstream seemed unimportant. Today wetland ecosystems are viewed as essential elements in integrated river basin planning, which draws upon the most appropriate modern science and traditional knowledge.

En Afrique de l'Ouest, la désertification menace les conditions d'existence de plus de 250 millions d'individus. Cependant, les résultats des projets de lutte contre la désertification entrepris depuis plus de 40 ans ont été pour le moins mitigés. Une des raisons à cela est probablement que la démarche technique, voire techniciste, a été privilégiée par rapport à l'approche sociale.