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Arid Lands Newsletter No Arid Lands Newsletter No. 10 (April 1979) Item Type text; Newsletter Authors University of Arizona. Office of Arid Lands Studies. Publisher Office of Arid Lands Studies, College of Agriculture, University of Arizona (Tucson, AZ) Download date 29/09/2021 20:39:51 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/227873 ALIC LIBRARY COPY Aoril 1979 \o 10 ARID LANDS NEWSLETTER Office of AricOncs Studies niversity of Arizono,Tucson COVER Water harvesting device, southeastern Tunisia near Libyan border, used for sheep watering. Left foreground, part of the "funnel" used to direct water into a concrete - and -rock cistern for storage. Photo, J.D. Johnson. ARID LANDS NEWSLETTER No. 10 April 1979 Randall Baker 1 Arid Zone Research and Development in the Third World: Structure and Orientation 8 Settling the Desert: First Ben - Gurion Memorial Symposium, Institute for Desert Research, Sede Boker, December 4 -8, 1978 Gary Paul Nabhan 11 Tepary Beans: The Effects of Domestication on Adaptations to Arid Environments Patricia Paylore and J. Richard Greenwell 17 Fools Rush In: Pinpointing the Arid Zones Michel Baumer and 19 Edmond Bernus A selective Bibliography on Nomadism in the Sahelo- Saharian and Sahelo -Sudanian Zones 27 International Geographical Union, Inter - Congress Meeting, Tucson, January 1979 Features: 28 ? ? ? Did You Know ? ? ? 29 ? ? ? Have You Seen ? ? ? 30 Remote Sensing Techniques and Applications in Arid Lands / Dry Lands: Man and Plants Cover Design, Mary Ann O'Donnell. Published by the University of Arizona, Office of Arid Lands Studies (OALS), 845 North Park Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85719 USA Editor: Patricia Paylore, Assistant Director (International), OALS Distributed worldwide without charge. Address correspondence relating to contents, or requests for future mailing, to the editor ARID ZONE RESEARCH AND.DEVELOPIVIENT IN THE THIRD WORLD: Structure and Orientation by Randall Baker* In a paper published several how the fundamental "problem' years ago (Baker, 1976), I i.e. what is the problem?. presented the hypothesis that the sorts of "solutions" that are produced land -use planning was as how or whether "solutions are implemented and much at the mercy of the the likely success rate structure of the decision- It was just this framework within which research making process for its success operates,` specifically in the context of the arid zones, that as it was dependent on the is a focus of a study to be published shortly by Unesco in intellectualand technical its: "Man and the Biosphere" program (Unesco,1979). capacitiesof individual Here is presented a summary of some of the basic ideas sciences. This hypothesis .I without the supporting detail and evidence which will be called "The Administrative found in the Unesco report. Trap, " and the main satis- Cynics sometimes say that the only consequence of each faction derived from that of the major UN- sponsored conferences on global matters exercise was a result of the number of researchers and (or "crises," as all global affairs are now designated) is consultants who approached ¡ne, and with an air of the spawning of a new institution providing more jobs for conspiratorial secrecy confided that although I had not more skilled people needed in the field. Whether or not identified the specific case study I had :: used, they true, such conferences do provide opportunities for recognized it immediately. To date, it has been fifteen governments and NGOs to reveal to the world what they different countries. perceive their problems to be as well as ways of tackling Precisely because of the pervasive nature of this them. This in itself is an area of much- needed and :much- problem, I feel it needs much more explicit attention and neglectedresearch.AttheConference on the direct action than in my experience it normally receives.. Environment, atStockholm,for instance some Third The fragmentation of decision- making along artificial World representatives shocked delegates from the sectoral lines in so many countries, particularly in developed world .when they stated that : pollution, :' developing countries where the loss:. ,of productive land conservation, etc., were problems for rich countries: The resources confronts an overwhelmingly peasant agricultural poor had to focus on production and productivity. At the population; confounds the need for integrated planning to UN Conference on Desertification in Nairobi there were tackle a series of urgent ecological problems. several remarks which I felt highlighted the need for In many ways it is equally constructive to look at the studies on research at a much broader level of perspective intellectual and P olitical /administrativesuperstructures than is normal. The two :remarks in particular: which are within which research operates and relates to action. recalled were: "We do not need any more research, the These structural paradigms will influence directly the time has come for action ", and "We have all the answers nature and ultimate value of the research in three main for controlling desertification, we just need to know how., ways: to implement them." The "answers" meant in the latter. *The author is a senior lecturer at the University of East Anglia, School of D evelopment Studies, Norwich, currentlyon sabbatical in Paris where he has been working on a forthcoming Unesco MAB study of Research in the Arid Zones: statement are technological answers, mostly devised in and more particularly semiarid, areas. The UN Conference on for the developed countries, and the "action" referred to is Desertification at Nairobi was informed that a preliminary utilizinginthe poor aridzonesthe technology estimate on the annual rate of land degredation isas instrumental in transforming the commercial productive follows (United Nations Conference on Desertification, output of the arid zones in Australia, the USA, etc. 1977, Table 2, p. 9): If anything at all is clear from the last generation of "development" in the arid zones of the LDCs it is that the ...irrigated land, 125,000 ha failure rate of irrigation and grazing schemes has been ...rangeland, 3,600,000 ha extraordinarily high. This, I feel, is precisely because we ...rainfed cropland, 1,700,000 ha do not have all the answers: Technology, "appropriate" or ...TOTAL: 5,425,000 ha otherwise, is not enough. Indeed, the introduction of new A host of worrying detail was offered on desert advance: 5 technology has often accentuated the destruction of kms. per annum in the Sudan (Kovda, 1977, p. 12) and productive resources: tubewells in the Punjab, discs in localized land loss: 100,000 ha per annum in the Sahel Tunisia, etc. It has been said often enough that all (Ibid.). In addition and most alarmingly, between 100,000 technologies relate to a specific social context which and 250,000 people were estimated to have died in the includes education, technical competence, credit, Sahelian region alone between 1968 and 1974 (United communication, access to resources, etc. "Action" without Nations Conference on Desertification, 1977, p. 5). attention to these cooperant areas has a very poor chance Although this is fewer than the estimated losses for the of success. So in many cases we have not had all the great drought of 1913, undoubtedly the total would have answers to merit the action. Often they have been "other been very much greater were it not for over $200,000,000 peoples' answers" or answers to only partially -perceived worth of international emergency relief provided during problems. But the trends in research, at least, are 1968 -1974. encouraging. How can we be confronted with such an extraordinary Almost twenty years ago Professor Gilbert White of the paradox of deterioration in the face of a greatly expanded University of Chicago carried out a study for Unesco research effort? The easy solution is that of global or local entitled "Science and the Future of Arid Lands" (White, climatic change, but the Conference has this to say, via its 1960) which, as is so often the case, did not come to my consultant expert on climate, Professor F.K. Hare: attention until after the MAB paper was underway. The "...AreAre these changes due to a harshening of world depressing, and initially rather embarrassing, thing for me climate? ...to the ... question we can return a confident was that I had repeated so many of the points he had 'no'. There is no evidence of a lasting deterioration of stated so eloquently and forcefully in 1960.That fact climate" (Hare, 1977, p. 7). So, we have to look for the alone, however, highlights the paradoxical reality of what weaknesses in our scientific and technical work and its is happening in much of the arid zone where research application, misapplication, or lack of application in the effort and destruction have sometimes grown together. For field. I see no reason, twenty years on, to modify White's the intervening twenty years can hardly be described as a warning of 1960: "...We can be certain that fluctuations period of scientific and technological inactivity. Indeed, as will continue (i.e. droughts) and that man has multiplied early as 1950 Unesco established an Arid Zone Research his capacity to accelerate or retard the process of Council which led on to the Arid Zone Research desiccation. While aridity. .. is not spreading on a broad programme resulting in over thirty volumes *, numerous front, human abuse of arid lands isstill going largely symposia, fellowships, and exchanges. In addition, about unchecked. The need to halt this deterioration and at the 200 desert research stations were established in more than same time make better use of the remaining resources as a 40 countries (Kassas, 1977, p. 189). Writing at the outset means of improving the life of its burgeoning population of this effort, White said, "Most fortunately, man's need presents the central problem in the development of the to exploit the arid and semiarid areas occurs at a time arid lands" (White, 1960, p.
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