Political Ecology and Land Degradation: How Does the Land Lie 21 Years after Blaikie and Brookfield's Land Degradation and Society?

© 2008 The AuthorJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Geography Compass 2/3 (2008): 671–694, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00109.x

Political Ecology and Land Degradation: How Does the Land Lie 21 Years after Blaikie and Brookfield’s Land Degradation and Society?

Samantha Jones*Division of Environmental Management, Northumbria University

AbstractThe application of political ecology approaches to the study of land degradationsince Blaikie and Brookfield’s (1987) book are notably scant in the academicliterature. This brief review traces the way in which the field of political ecologyhas evolved towards a tendency to question the extent and ‘narratives’ of degra-dation. It illustrates how studies that have examined the causes of degradation haveconcentrated on single relationships (e.g. between land degradation and povertyor population) albeit recognising the mediating effects of other variables such asinstitutions; rather than examining the multiple causes operating at different scalesas the political ecology approach advocates. The influence of post-structuralismhas been strong and some suggest that philosophical debates seem to be leadingtowards a ‘dissolution of political ecology’ (perhaps only in its early form). Yet,there are calls for a return to appreciating the influence of political economy onland degradation. Some authors note that it is possible for a revived politicalecology approach to benefit from the insights of post-structural political ecology,while still providing a basis for informed policy recommendations.

Introduction

This short review article explores the evolution of ideas in politicalecology with a particular focus on land degradation. Since Blaikie’s(1985) The Political Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries andBlaikie and Brookfield’s (1987) Land Degradation and Society landmarkstudies, which according to Muldavin (2008) are seen as foundational inthe rising sub-discipline of political ecology (see Paulson et al. 2003 foran earlier history of the concept), there appears to be relatively fewstudies in the literature that explicitly examine land degradation from apolitical ecology perspective (a couple of examples include: Lestrelin andGiordano 2007; Warren et al. 2001a). This brief discussion traces someof the twists and turns in the political ecology debate but necessarilyrepresents a partial view of the complex heritage and multiplicity anddiversity of issues that energise political ecology (a comment borrowed

672 Political ecology and land degradation

© 2008 The Author Geography Compass 2/3 (2008): 671–694, 10.1111/j.1749-8198.2008.00109.xJournal Compilation © 2008 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

from Paulson et al. 2003), not least as it presents a specific focus on landdegradation.

Muchena et al. (2005, after Blaikie and Brookfield 1987) describe landdegradation as the ‘loss in productivity of the land and its ability to providequantitative and qualitative goods and services as a result of natural andhuman induced changes in physical, chemical and biological processes’.However, many definitions of land degradation have been advanced andas such there is no simple or commonly agreed definition or measure ofdegradation (IFAD 1992, cited by Stocking 2000). For the purpose of thisarticle, it is not considered important to adhere to a rigid definition, butthe article broadly considers soil erosion and fertility decline as well asdryland degradation (sometimes indicated by vegetation change) but doesnot include a review of the literature on other types of vegetation changessuch as deforestation. What is important to note, is a point made byBlaikie and Brookfield – that there are many diverse ways in whichenvironmental changes may or may not be experienced as degradation,depending in part on the use to which the land is put. Below an accountof political ecology and the evolution of the field is explored before someof the studies that examine land degradation specifically are discussed.

Political Ecology: Origins and Themes

Peet and Watts (1996, 4) describe political ecology as ‘perhaps the mostimportant line of recent social scientific thinking about environment anddevelopment’. It has certainly emerged as a dominant framework ofanalysis in the field since the late 1980s. Political ecology is regarded tohave been developed in response to the more narrow perspective offeredby cultural ecologists,1 particularly the lack of attention given to thepolitical and social contexts of environmental change, the overemphasis onhomeostatic human–environment relations and Malthusian explanationsfor environmental problems (Bryant 1992). Its roots lie in radicaldevelopment geography and it is an approach heavily informed byneo-Marxism, as it essentially links political economy to environmentaldegradation. Political ecology is characterised by attention to thediversity of ecological environments; a sensitivity to the role of the stateand the wider global economy in fashioning environmental change;contextual analysis of multiple scales of influence; emphasis on the diverseresponses of decision-makers; and affirmation of the centrality of poverty,exploitation and inequality as causes of ecological deterioration (Bassett1988; Bell and Roberts 1991; Moore 1993; Peet and Watts 1996). Thus,the emergence of political ecology has facilitated a significant deepeningof the analysis of environmental problems in the developing world, notleast by combining attention to local specificity and ‘the constantlyshifting dialectic between society and land based resources’ (Blaikie andBrookfield 1987, 17).


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As the best-known early text on political ecology, Blaikie’s (1985) ThePolitical Economy of Soil Erosion in Developing Countries showed how capitalistagrarian production was instrumental in the ‘mining’ of soils (Bryant2001). Blaikie’s political ecology started from the resource managers fromwhom surpluses are extracted (e.g. commercial crop growing for lowfinancial return) ‘who then in turn are forced to extract surplus from theenvironment leading to degradation’ (Watts 2000, citing Blaikie 1985,124). A key concept conveyed in the work was social marginalisation,which was both the result and the cause of land degradation (Paulsonet al. 2003). The cornerstone of Blaikie’s work though, was the ‘Chain ofExplanation’, which linked the land user to these wider forces operatingat multiple scales, the central premise of which is that is that decision-makingof individual farmers cannot be understood without reference to thewider society’s dynamics (Dove and Hudayana 2007). Forsyth (2007b, 3)notes that while ‘Blaikie’s work in the early 1980s sought to link structuralMarxism with the environmental crisis’, in Land Degradation and Society hesought to ‘expand the social context of environmental meaning’. Bryant(2001) explains that subsequent scholars within this tradition combinedanthropological understandings of localities with neo-Marxism’s concernwith class and North–South dependency relations. Not only has theapproach now been applied to various environmental and land managementissues such as biodiversity and forest conservation (Armitage 2002; Batesand Rudel 2000; Brown 1998) and agriculture and agricultural change(Anderson 1994; Awanyo 2001; Jansen 1998; Neuburger 2000; Park 1993;Steinberg 1998; Stonich 1993) but also to topics as diverse as plastic bagwaste in Kenya (Njeru 2006) and frozen concentrated orange juice inFlorida (Hamilton 2003). Increasingly, political ecology emerges from alarge and fragmented literature from several disciplines including geography,sociology, anthropology, ecology and biology (Brown and Purcell 2005).

Critiques of Political Ecology and New Directions

Three strands or changes in direction are identified here for analyticalcoherence based on some key critiques of Blaikie’s (1985) and Blaikie andBrookfield’s (1987) work.2 In reality, these merge and the distinctions areartificial but the three strands identified below have progressively increas-ing post-structural leanings.3

POLITICS AND POWER IN A REFASHIONED POLITICAL ECOLOGY

Bryant (2001) notes that research in political ecology has followed a similartrend to the response to the ‘impasse’ in neo-Marxism. Neo-Marxistwriters were accused of sustaining a narrow vision of political, economicand cultural processes (Bryant 2001) and overemphasised the structuresdetermining human action. The ‘Chain of Explanation’, similarly has



been described as overly deterministic (Peet and Watts 1993); havingstructuralist underpinnings, and suffering from ‘indeterminate causalexplanation’ (Watts et al. 1997, cited by Bryant and Goodman 2007). Blaikieand Brookfield’s work has been interpreted as structuralist because it emp-hasised ‘the fundamental constraints placed on human agency and creativityby political and economic processes’ (Warren et al. 2001a).4 Watts (2000)also notes that political ecology was remarkably silent on politics, as landmanagers were ‘curiously apolitical’ (Paulson et al. 2003) a charge that Blaikie(1997) accepted, noting that he suspected structural Marxism did not easilylend itself to a sensitive treatment of day-to-day politics.

In a move away from structuralist explanations then, greater attentionhas been given to the complexities of cultural and political practices andthe role of human agency, as people not only reproduce but also transformthe structures around them (in the form of conflict, power struggles andresistance). An emphasis on class and simplistic notions of power, havetended to be replaced by a more nuanced attention to the way in whichthe control of and access to resources are defined, negotiated and contestedwithin the political arenas of household, the workplace and the state(Bryant 2001; Peet and Watts 1996). Thus, politics is more broadlydefined as the practices and processes through which power is wielded andnegotiated (Paulson et al. 2003). In political ecology, a number of articlesfocused on struggles over resources (Bassett 1988; Gezon 1997, 1999; LeBillon 2000; Moore 1993, 1998) and as well as household level andgender struggles (e.g. Hovorka 2006; Nightingale 2003, 2006; Rocheleauet al. 1996; Schroeder 1993). Some of these had a discursive element,described in the section below. In the wider literature, or in what Rocheleau(2007)5 terms ‘second generation’ political ecology, (new) social movements,alternative development and the ‘politics of resistance’ emerge as keythemes (e.g. Escobar 2001, 2004; Scott 1985). In essence, a very differentquestion is being asked in these political ecology writings. Whereas inBlaikie and Brookfield’s work the central question might have been ‘whatcauses land degradation?’, in this body of work (sometimes called ‘LiberationEcology’ following the title of the text by Peet and Watts 1996) thequestion is about how resource struggles play out in the landscape – ‘whohas power and who resists it?’ Less attention to local ecological dynamicsor the causes of environmental degradation is evident in this literature andsome have responded to this by a call for greater attention to ecology andin particular the ‘new’ ecology (see below) (Nightingale 2003; Walker2005; Watts 2000).

ENVIRONMENTAL NARRATIVES: CHALLENGING RECEIVED WISDOMS

Questions of power struggles and resistance are not easily separated fromlanguage and knowledge. An intimately related strand of political ecologyhas emerged, on the discursive struggles over resources or discourses or



narratives of degradation (Peet and Watts 1996). This more critical bodyof literature, influenced by the post-modern agenda of deconstructinggrand-narratives or meta-narratives, questions the science and/or theassumptions made about degradation and the interests behind variousclaims made about the environment. Many of these contributions comefrom authors who do not mention political ecology at all (e.g. Leach andMearns 1996, although some do, such as Forsyth 2007a below), butthey have been placed in the field of political ecology by other authors(e.g. Forsyth 2007b; Neumann 2007).6

In one of the key early articles exploring the idea of environmentalnarratives, it is explained that ‘crisis narratives’ are the primary meanswhereby institutions claim rights to stewardship over land and resourcesthey do not own (Roe 1991). These may be development or technologicalexperts or colonial administrators. Indeed, many of the narratives thatdrive contemporary environmental policy in Africa can be traced to colonialtimes.7 Narratives have apparently incontrovertible logic but depend onnaïve, unproven and simplifying assumptions about the problem to beaddressed (Hoben 1996). ‘Stabilizing’ assumptions tend to universalise,package and label environmental problems to justify standardized, off-the-shelfsolutions (Leach and Mearns 1996). Such ‘solutions’ are not only rarelysuited to local conditions, but also may be imposed in a top-down manner,constrict local practices and undermine indigenous knowledge. One keyreason for the persistence of environmental narratives is that many studiesstart with the premise that they are true. For example, short-term developmentconsultants may be commissioned to examine the causes and consequencesof a particular environmental problem without ever questioning its existence(Leach and Mearns 1996). Journalists have a preference for reporting thenegative and the dramatic (Leach and Mearns 1996). Even Blaikie hasadmitted that while he challenged the assumptions about the causes ofland degradation, he had assumed that there was a universally understoodprocess of soil erosion and that it was occurring, to the extent that it wasa significant social problem (Dove and Hudayana 2007), although a morecritical view is presented in Blaikie and Brookfield’s Land Degradation andSociety through Stocking’s contribution.8

As Sullivan (2000, 15) writes, a fundamental aspect of many modernenvironmental narratives, particularly those relating to the developingworld, ‘is that they have been accepted as “fact” even in the absence ofwhat most natural scientists would today acknowledge as the praxis ofscience’. In the case of the narrative around ‘desertification’, for example,Swift (1996, 73) has noted that this concept has ‘less to do with sciencethan with the competing claims of different political and bureaucraticconstituencies’. Therefore, should science be used to discredit these simplifiednarratives, or is the use of such an expert knowledge another exercise ofpower? However, this question is answered, as Neumann (2007) notes,natural science research is often used to discredit old truth claims in the



deconstruction of environmental narratives.9 This is discussed furtherbelow.

A NOTE ON POST-STRUCTURAL POLITICAL ECOLOGY

The ‘discursive revolution’ of post-structuralism, notably led by MichelFoucault, emphasises the role of language in conditioning human–environmentinteractions and social reality (Bryant 2001; Escobar 1996). Post-structuralpolitical ecologists tend not to be interested in considering whetherstatements are ‘true’ or ‘false’ in orthodox scientific terms (Forsyth 2007b),but instead examine the discourses and practices through which natureis historically produced and known (Escobar 1996). Escobar (1996) uses theterm ‘discourse’ to mean the process by which social reality inevitablycomes into being. The emphasis is less on how interests and worldviewsshape discourses (as in the ‘narratives’, but on how discourses shapereality). For some, Escobar notes, there is no materiality unmediated bydiscourse. Only a few writers in the field label themselves as post-structuralpolitical ecologists (notably Escobar 1996; Robbins 1998). Robbins’s (1998)post-structural political ecology entails asking how discourse matters in thereconstitution of material ecologies and by linking the construction ofecological categories to the formation of landscape. He provides an empiricalexample of the way in which the environment is the location for materialand discursive exercises of control. For example, the discourse of ‘wasteland’was adopted as a category to legitimise its appropriation by the state, despiteit being valuable land for local people. As Bryant (2001) notes, materialor lived reality are inseparable from the ways in which reality is portrayed.

In one of Blaikie’s writings, he expressed concern about the implicationsof post-structuralism for political ecology in that it created a ‘vacuum ofresponsibility’ (cited by Neumann 2007). Indeed, Foucault generated hisdiscourses about the proliferation of marginalized and excluded subjectsto clarify the positions of the oppressed but refrained from laying down apolitical programme (Pratt 2000). This is because truth (as opposed to‘reality’)10 as a social process and an effect of power ‘loses its foundationalstatus and its capacity to ground politics’ (Pratt 2000). Similarly, inpost-structural political ecology, Robbins (1998) notes that a fundamentalcontradiction is faced by the researcher who is interested in both thediscursive constructions of the social and environmental reality, and thematerial conditions to which they are linked. Others have tried to emphasisehow this need not be the case. Neumann (2007), for example, notes thatHayles (1995) proposes an approach of ‘constrained constructivism’11 thatmaintains the ability to judge the relative validity of various representationsof nature. Neumann (2007) also notes that other authors – citing Cronon(1992) and Fairhead and Leach (1996) – make similar points, emphasisingthat treating interpretations of ecological change as socially constructeddoes not negate the fact that certain readings can be demonstrated as false.



Taking a constrained constructivist position requires more empirical evidencenot less, and stronger objectivity not an abandonment of objectivity forrelativism, Stott and Sullivan (2000) explain (cited by Neumann 2007).Blaikie also argues that a weak form of social constructionism can enablethe policy-making process to build on a variety of different constructionsin a more democratic manner (Neumann 2007).

Essentially, those who have labelled themselves as post-structural politicalecologists seem to have focused on the role of language (especiallyenvironmental categories and concepts) in shaping reality and generallygive primacy to the role of discourse. In contrast, those who havechallenged the received wisdoms of environmental narratives have tendedto use ‘better science’ to destablise the claims of those in positions ofpower. The aims of these two projects are quite distinctive while theirphilosophical underpinnings are not necessarily dissimilar. Other authorsactually take a much broader definition of post-structural political ecology,to include all authors responding to the critique of early political ecologywith an emphasis on both material and discursive struggles and a conceptof politics as processes of power.

A Demise of Political Ecology or a Vibrant and Alive Discipline?

In summary then, as Brown and Purcell (2005) explain, part of the moveaway from political economy is traceable to the turn in political ecologytowards post-structural, post-colonial and post-modern perspectives that areoften critical of the overarching meta-narratives advanced by some politicaleconomists (Brown and Purcell 2005, citing Mohan and Stokke 2000).Certainly, applications of the ‘Chain of Explanation’ idea are rare in currentliterature. Watts (2000, 592) suggests that ‘political ecology has in a sensealmost dissolved itself over the last fifteen years as scholars have sought toextend its reach.’ Bryant and Goodman (2007) also remark that in helpinga fledging political ecology to avoid the pitfalls of the ‘impasse’ by openingout the field to new ideas and perspectives, Blaikie has inadvertently nudgedit along an ambiguous path. Rocheleau (2007), however, suggests thatthe plethora of new departures in no way contradicts, opposes or rejectsBlaikie’s work – rather ‘it demonstrates the dynamism and vibrancy of thefield in which he has played a foundational and continuing role’ (p. 6).12

Muldavin (2008) argues political ecology is experiencing a renaissance. Ifthe newer strands of political ecology are included in a broader definitionof political ecology, it truly appears to be a vibrant and alive discipline, inwhich interest is stimulated in part because of its ambiguities and tensions.

Land Degradation Research in the Social Sciences

The discussion here turns back to land degradation to examine the relativeimportance of political ecology to the study of land degradation. A substantial



critical body of literature has emerged with respect to land degradationand its causes. However, in some respects, the (early) political ecologyapproach, which examines a multitude of influential variables working atdifferent scales, could be regarded to have relatively limited impact on theliterature as it is still heavily permeated by studies that focus on the specificrelationship between one (explanatory) variable and land degradation.Warren et al. (2001a) note that by its very nature, scientific research mustisolate one or very few factors from an extremely complex mix of factorsof production. It also seems to have been the case in social studies of landdegradation that one or two variables have been isolated, the most prevalentof which are population and poverty. These are briefly reviewed below. Itis worth noting that some of this literature is also framed in terms of‘challenging dominant narratives’, and may therefore be regarded as partof the body of literature discussed above, but focuses on the causesrather than the extent of degradation.13

Neo-Malthusian explanations for environmental degradation havedominated the development literature historically and present a particularlypessimistic view of human–environment interactions. Boserup’s (1965)seminal book The Conditions of Agricultural Growth, which argued convincinglythat population pressure can act as a stimulus for increased agriculturalproduction, perhaps inspired a series of other studies that have confirmedthat a positive relationship can exist between population growth andenvironmental improvement. One such study is Tiffen et al.’s (1994)widely acclaimed analysis of Machakos District, Kenya. They showed thatwhile the population of Machakos rose from 250,000 in 1930 to justunder 1.5 million in 1990, the area under terracing also increased: from9% in 1948 to 46% in 1978 in some districts. Significant increases inoutput per head and output per unit of land were attained by the late1980s and their study concluded that there were positive influences ofpopulation density on both environmental conservation and productivity(Tiffen et al. 1994). Mortimore and Tiffen (1995, 86) did note the significanceof ‘market growth and a generally supportive economic environment’ increating positive environmental outcomes, and others have noted theimportance of infrastructure (Zaal and Oostendrop 2002). Studies such asthis have been critiqued for presenting aggregate level data that may hidea more complex dynamic. It has been shown that intensification anddegradation may occur simultaneously in a given area, even in differentfields belonging to the same household (e.g. because of different returnsto investment on diverse soil types) and it is important that a differentiatedanalysis be adopted to fully understand underlying processes (see Gray andKevane 2001; Jones 2000; Murton 1999).

Other significant studies examining the relationship between populationgrowth and land degradation include Mazzucato and Niemeijer’s (2002)study in Burkina Faso, where no evidence was found of widespread soildegradation or fertility decline in cereal cultivated fields under rising



population densities, in part because people adapted to growing resourcescarcity by spatial reorganisation and changes in local, informal institutions.The creation of bush camps away from the village centres enabled cultivationaway from villages without prohibitively increasing travel time. In Kigezi,Uganda, Carswell (2002a) has shown that increased population densitieshave been associated with increased length and frequency of fallowing (seealso Adams and Mortimore 1997). Gray and Kevane (2001), althoughhighlighting that in Burkina Faso farmers are intensifying production inresponse to land scarcity, do not produce an optimistic counter-narrativeas they explain that there are social costs to the process. They found thatas ‘intensification involves changing land rights, there is essentially a processthrough which wealthier farmers who have access to inputs strengthenrights while poorer farmers lose rights to land’ (Gray & Kevane 2001,575). Batterbury (2005) referring to earlier work with others, found thatin southwest Niger where population densities are relatively low, householdswithout much labour to invest in agriculture were busy elsewhere andthus suffered more erosion on their primary fields.14

In terms of poverty–degradation relationships, a key text (Our CommonFuture, World Commission on Environment and Development 1987) tostress the ‘vicious downwards spiral’ whereby the poor are forced tooveruse environmental resources for survival was published in the sameyear as Blaikie and Brookfield’s book.15 Since then, a number of studieshave challenged the idea that the poorest degrade the land the most. Forexample, Ravnborg (2002) in Honduras, found no evidence of a causalrelationship between poverty and degradation. Jones (2000) in Tanzaniafound that the poor may have to seek off-farm employment in order tosatisfy immediate demands for cash. As a result, their fields will benefitfrom fallowing or they may rent out their fields that then benefit fromnutrient applications that are necessary to obtain a viable yield. Moseley(2005) found that in Mali the soil quality measures practiced on the farmsof rich and poor households are not significantly different and that the wealthypursue more soil deleterious practices through cotton export-orientatedproduction. Gray (2005) found that in Burkina Faso, wealthier farmershave fewer trees and higher levels of animal traction that destroys soilscompared to poorer farmers, while poorer farmers tend to conserveenvironmental resources at the expense of their own well-being. Thesestudies tend to stress the adaptability and agency of the poor (Forsyth2003). While some of these studies highlight how land degradation–poverty(or population) relationships are mediated by other variables, they havetended not to adopt a political ecology approach, although Gray andMoseley (2005) have called for this recently.

The studies reviewed above debate the causes of land degradation.However, numerous studies, to which attention now turns, question theextent of degradation. These are part of and are strongly influenced bythe ‘challenging the narratives’ literature discussed in the earlier section.



It is noted that while many of the studies examining the causal relationshipsand processes between population, poverty and environmental changeexplicitly refer to land degradation, it is unusual to see ‘land degradation’referred to in the ‘narratives literature’. Instead, land degradation tends tohave been compartmentalised into desertification, rangeland degradation,soil fertility decline and Himalayan environmental degradation for example.These are discussed below.

Land Degradation Narratives Questioned

SOIL FERTILITY AND DEGRADATION

While concerns about land degradation in the colonial period tendedfocus on erosion rates and soil loss, (a concern that may have emanatedfrom the American Dustbowl experience, see Anderson 1984) and led toa number of failed land use schemes ( Jones 1996a; Stocking 1987),16 overthe last couple of decades concern seems to have shifted to fertilitydecline. Muchena et al. (2005) note that it has been postulated that, landdegradation, especially due to soil fertility decline, is a fundamentalbiophysical cause of declining per capita food production in sub-SaharanAfrica (citing Lynam et al. 1998; Sanchez et al. 1997). The process ischiefly attributed to misuse of the land by farmers and livestock keepersand is linked with population increase (Scoones 2001). For example, theFAO (1996) write, ‘the factor which impedes agricultural growth themost fundamentally is the continuous mining of soil nutrients throughoutAfrica . . . Without restoration of soil fertility, Africa faces the prospectsof serious food imbalances and widespread malnutrition and eventual likelihoodof famine’ (cited by Scoones 2001). A number of studies have publishedestimates of rates of depletion of key soil nutrients or ‘nutrient balances’which have often been undertaken on a continent level (e.g. Stoorvogeland Smaling 1999; Sanchez et al. 1997 cited by Scoones 2001). Findingshave suggested, for example, that ‘the magnitude of mining is huge. Weestimate that the net per hectare loss during the last 30 years to be 700 kgof N, 100 kg of P and 450 kg of K in about 100 million hectares of land’(Sanchez et al. 1997 cited by Scoones 2001). These estimates have reinforcedthe use of externally imposed top-down interventions by internationalorganisations or donor-led institutions (Mortimore and Harris 2005).

However, such estimates are prone to error, rely on assumptions andcannot easily be extrapolated to different levels. Scoones (2001) suggeststhat they may not be ‘wrong’ or ‘inaccurate’ but may be ‘partial’ and‘limited’. Diversity makes generalisation about Africa’s soils highly problematic(Scoones 2001) as variation exists due to local geological variability,hydrology and geomorphology. According to Scoones (2001), the managementof such heterogeneity is at the heart of farmers’ own practices (e.g. valleybottoms may play a vital role in semi-arid farming systems due to higher



levels of clay, soil nutrients and moisture providing important sites forhigher-intensity farming and investments such as manuring). Similarly,‘homefields’ and ‘outfields’ may vary considerably as intensive styles ofmanagement are concentrated within easy reach of the homestead. Assuch aggregate measures mask a more complex picture and resultant measures(such as fertilizer prescriptions) may undermine the agency of farmers asthey intentionally move nutrients around the farming system (see alsoJones 1996b). Scoones (2001) argues that ‘agricultural landscapes are madeup of a mosaic of high and low fertility sites, each with distinct, dynamichistories . . . The result is the need for site-specific approaches to soil fer-tility management, that . . . builds on the adaptive and responsive “per-formance” of farmers’ own strategies.’

Furthermore, Mortimore and Harris (2005) argue that the dominantnarrative of soil degradation in Africa, fails as a predictor of agriculturalperformance over the long term. For example, Scoones and Toulmin(1998) found that yields of major food crops in East Africa have beenincreasing between 1961 and 1997, despite reports of severe soil degradationdue to negative nutrient balances. Fairhead and Scoones (2005) contributefurther to this argument. They critique the view that nutrient balancespresent a more ‘objective’ view and that soil fertility is somehow separatefrom the social, economic and moral systems in which soils are used.They observe that treating soil fertility as a capital reserve or commodityis compatible with neoliberal ideas (e.g. that inorganic inputs are tradeable;that investments are made in land management; and that we can ascertainsoil nutrient budgets).17 This particular narrative of soil degradation tendsto overlook African management of soil nutrients as purposeful strategiesthat are consistent with wider livelihood objectives. In this instance, it isnot that the scientific basis of the dominant narrative is being challenged.Rather, they suggest that the specific worldview that its proponents adoptis not necessarily useful. Similarly, Mortimore and Harris (2005) explainthat the concept of soil fertility needs to be broader than implied in thenutrient depletion scenarios – soil management needs to be understoodas part of rural livelihoods. Policies that enable investment in rural livelihoodsgenerally are the best strategy for promoting investment in better landhusbandry, including sustainable fertility management (Mortimore andHarris 2005).

NEW ECOLOGY AND NON-EQUILIBRIUM ENVIRONMENTS

It is within the field of vegetation and ecological degradation rather thansimply soil degradation, that the most dramatic challenges to the domi-nant narrative have been witnessed in what has been termed the ‘newecology’ (Zimmerer 1994). This challenge had relevance to the extent ofassumed degradation in the drylands and rangelands in particular and thesewritings illustrate a more nuanced attention to ecology sometimes called



for in the political ecology literature. Ideas about ecological equilibrium,carrying capacity and the notion of ‘climax’ vegetation have in particularbeen attacked (Behnke and Scoones 1993) to the extent that it has beensuggested that there has been a paradigm shift (Warren 1995). This paradigmshift amounts to a move away from the view of the environment as largelyin equilibrium until disturbed by degrading practices (such as overgrazing),to the recognition of the existence of multiple equilibriums betweenwhich there may be non-linear (chaotic) fluctuations triggered by abioticshifts (such as droughts and fire). The volatility and spatial and temporalheterogeneity of the environment is stressed, over the tendency to regardnature stable and homeostatic.18 In this view, what might previously havebeen regarded as land degradation is now merely a non-equilibrial phase.

DESERTIFICATION

The desertification or dryland degradation narrative has witnessed a sig-nificant attack over the last 10 years. The desertification narrative is long-standing, having its origins in the colonial period. Colonial foresters andadministrators noted clear signs of indigenous environmental mismanage-ment and subsequent desert advance (Adger et al. 2001). There was concernover desiccation, shifting sand dunes and population increase (Swift 1996).Stebbing’s (1935) dramatised account or ‘crisis narrative’ likened the desertto a volcano with ‘silent’ yet ‘incalculable power’, with ‘total annihilation’being an inevitable result. Various measures were proposed to halt deser-tification, such as forest belts, the regulation of farming, prohibition of firingand protection of all forest areas. Although counter-claims were advancedAnglo-French Forestry Commission throughout this period (Mortimore1998; Swift 1996), the discourse of desertification was not dispelled.

Desertification received very little attention during the 1950s, whichwas a decade of high rainfall. However, concern about desertification wasrenewed in the 1970s following the Sahelian droughts. Lamprey (1975,cited by Adger et al. 2001), for example, concluded (following 3 weekswork and the use of a light aircraft and a vegetation map for the very wetyear of 1958) that that the Sahara had moved 90–100 km south between1958 and 1975; Mabutt (1984, cited by Adams 1990) argued that 4.5billion hectares were at risk from desertification, 75% of which wasalready moderately desertified and 30% of which was severely desertified;and Ibrahim (1984, cited by Swift 1996) suggested that about 5 millionhectares of land are lost each year to desertification and that a fifth of theland area of our planet is threatened by the spread of deserts or had alreadybeen affected. Ibrahim proposed a new mechanism for desertification – ratherthan by desiccation and wind-blown sands he attributed desertification tothe expansion of existing vegetation-stripped villages and water holeperimeters generated through overgrazing and fuelwood cutting aroundcentres of population.



New research has undermined the idea of human-induced desertification.It suggests that the drylands are resilient and variable and that localpastoralist strategies are highly flexible to cope with an unstable anddisequilibrial environment (Adger et al. 2001). Dregne and Tucker (1988)analysed satellite imagery for the 1980–1990 period in terms of north–southoscillations and found interannual variations of 50–250 km/year. Whatthey found was a ‘normal phenomena that can be related to the normalvariability of rainfall in the Sahel’ (Hellden 1991). Furthermore, Hellden(1991, 379) following very detailed research of the Sudan, including analysisof a range of remotely sensed data, reports that there was no trend towardsthe growth of desert patches around 103 villages and water holes examinedover the period of 1961–1983; no major shifts in the northern cultivationlimit; no major sand dune formations or Sahara desert encroachment andno major changes in vegetation cover and crop productivity that couldnot be explained by rainfall characteristics. Similar findings have beenreported by Sullivan (2000) from Namibia and Rasmussen et al. (2001)from Burkina Faso. Furthermore, a recent ‘greening’ of the Sahel has beenobserved by Olsson et al. (2005) and Herrmann et al. (2005). Higherlevels of rainfall account for this apparent reversal, indicating a strongrelationship between rainfall and vegetation cover and indicating a minimalrole for human management in causing desertification (Herrmann et al.2005 uncover both positive and negative residuals to this pattern, whichillustrate the mediating effect of human action).19 Despite this evidence tothe contrary, the rhetoric of desertification continues to be espoused inthe ‘popular science’ literature and by environmental organisations. Swift(1996, 73) notes that ‘[D]esertification is perhaps the best example of aset of ideas about the environment that emerge in a situation of scientificuncertainty and then prove persistent in the face of gradually accumulatingevidence that they are not well-founded.’

LAND DEGRADATION IN THE HIMALAYAS

Another land degradation narrative to have been questioned has a specificregional focus rather than being a type of degradation and has beenreferred to as the ‘Theory of Himalayan Environmental Degradation’(THED). Forsyth (1996, 2007a) and Blaikie and Muldavin (2004) high-light the familiar neo-Malthusian explanation for Himalayan degradation:population increase leads to land shortage, so farmers expand agricultureonto steep slopes and cut down trees for agriculture and firewood, thusleading to soil erosion. In the more extreme versions of the narrative, thiscauses flooding and siltation of the Ganges and Brahmaputra plains, evenextending the delta area and causing the formation of islands in the Bayof Bengal. Here, upland shifting cultivators in particular are blamedfor environmental problems such as deforestation, water shortages andsedimentation.



The narrative first came into question around the time of Blaikie andBrookfield’s work through the publication of texts by Thompson et al.(1986) and Ives and Messerli (1989) [and more recently Forsyth (1996, 2007a)has examined the relevance of THED to Thailand]. Their counter-narrativeis founded on both natural and human factors, but overall suggests thatanthropogenic causes of erosion have been grossly overplayed and aredwarfed by natural causes (Blaikie and Muldavin 2004). Ives and Messerlinoted that the Himalayan region is highly active tectonically and rates oferosion are naturally very high in such landscapes and as such landslidesare a common occurrence even on vegetated slopes; glacial melt causeshigh levels of siltation and bedrock weathers rapidly and can withstandhigh rates of soil loss. In terms of human management, a range of pointshas been made to challenge received wisdom in Nepal (Ives and Messerli1989) and Thailand (Forsyth 1996, 2007a). For example, rather thanmaking the land less stable, terraces stabilise soils and reduce runoff anderosion rates; people actually induce landsliding to bring ‘new soil’ andincrease the ease of terrace construction on unterraced slopes; landslidescars are rehabilitated very rapidly; road construction is a much moresignificant factor triggering landslides than local agricultural practices;local fuelwood supplies consisted mostly of dead twigs and shrubs and notcut wood and finally under population pressure, rather than farmerscultivating increasingly steep slopes they prefer to increase the frequencywith which they cultivated flatter slopes. On the plains, it has been notedthat the population of north-east India and Bangladesh has grown consid-erably, which has led to people populating areas that probably have alwaysbeen susceptible to flooding, giving the impression of an increasedfrequency of flooding. In addition, hydro-technical modifications to themain river channels of the north Indian plains have themselves played animportant role in changing the downstream sediment-water ratio and haveled to local downstream increases in the level of the river bed.

For Thailand, Forsyth (2007a) notes that water scarcity on the plainshas been blamed on upland land management practices (while the role ofwater demand in the lowlands, which has grown substantially as Thailandhas become one of the world’s largest exporters of irrigated rice, has beendisregarded). Such generalisations overlook the local environmental strategiesadopted by upland farmers that protect the soil. He suggests that weshould ask how far such generalisations reflect or legitimise the objectivesof dominant actors (such as relocating upland minority groups, restrictingcitizenship and justifying plantation forestry).

Valuable insights and themes emerge from this literature, such as theimportance of locally grounded and empirically informed studies; thenecessity of avoiding overgeneralisations and extrapolations; a recognitionof the agency and adaptability of farmers and the diversity of ecologies.In some cases, it is suggested that land degradation has been exaggerated(e.g. in the desertification debate), but in other cases authors do not deny



that environmental problems exist (e.g. Himalayan environmental degradation).Most of this literature does suggest that blaming indigenous producers andsmall-scale farmers and high rates of population growth is primarily ismisplaced.20

Concluding Remarks: What Has Happened to the Political Ecology of Land Degradation and What Might a Revived Political Economy of Land Degradation Look Like?

This brief literature review has revealed that few studies because Blaikieand Brookfield’s Land Degradation and Society have adopted an explicitpolitical ecology approach to explore the causes of land degradation.21 Itseems that Peet and Watts’s (1996) comment that there was too muchfocus on land has been heeded and a new focus on power struggles, bothmaterial and discursive has emerged, in the context of conservation, forestsand wider environmental resources. It is also the case that being confidentabout the existence of land degradation is a pre-requisite for exploring itscauses (Fairhead and Scoones 2005), a confidence that has been destabi-lised by so many studies that have adopted a ‘challenging the narratives’approach to question the existence of degradation. While the explorationof single causal relationships (between land degradation and poverty orpopulation for example) seems to have been favoured over ‘chains ofexplanation’ and may provide a richer analysis of complex processes,Rocheleau (2007, 9) believes that ‘the centre of gravity is moving fromlinear or simple vertical hierarchies to complex assemblages, webs of relationand rooted networks . . . to embrace complexity without losing the explanatorypower of structural relationships’ (see also Gardner 2003).

Furthermore, it seems that in the attention which has been given topopulation and poverty–environment relationships, the political economyhas become somewhat marginalised. Koning and Smaling (2005) assertthat the dynamics of world markets play a vital role in causing soildegradation in Africa (the seriousness of which has been underplayed bycritical authors, they argue) and propose that future studies shouldcarefully consider the role of international prices, and thus call for a returnto political economy. Such studies may be less common due to the factthat linkages are regarded to get weaker and more tenuous the more‘distant’ they become. Blaikie himself noted the ‘formidable problemswhen attempting to make causal connections between social and environmentalprocesses’ (cited by Forsyth 2007b). But wider scale changes still aregrounded in everyday livelihoods and perhaps Simon’s (2007) suggestionthat political ecology approaches can fruitfully engage with sustainablelivelihoods approaches22 is a way of reintegrating political economy intoland degradation studies. Political ecology, Simon (2007) argues, canprovide the missing political, economic and environmental dimensions tosustainable livelihoods analyses while sustainable livelihoods analysis can



lend political ecology a finer texture and an enhanced socio-culturaldimension, thereby helping to integrate different scales of analysis moreefficiently. He notes that political ecology may enable an element ofpolitical economy to be brought back into development studies wheresimplistic notions of nature as socially constructed have gained purchase.23

Key processes influenced by the wider political economy context, withpotential environmental implications, that could be analysed from of‘political ecology of livelihoods’ approach include rural diversification anddeagrarianisation. The significance of these processes has been asserted bya number of authors recently (e.g. Rigg and Nattapoolwat 2001 in Thailandand Bryceson 2000 in sub-Saharan Africa).24 Such processes may haveimportant implications for land management and are only just beginningto be examined (e.g. Lestrelin and Giordano 2007, see also Batterbury2001).

While concern has been noted in this article about the implications ofpost-structuralism for political ecology, in terms of creating a ‘vacuum ofresponsibility’ in a field which for some is about contributing to soundenvironmental management and the empowerment of disadvantaged socialgroups (Zimmerer 2000, cited by Paulson et al. 2003), Neumann (2007)concludes that ‘empirical methods recognised by natural scientists can becombined with post-structural social theory to produce findings that havedirect policy relevance’. Nygren (2004, 191) also notes that a revampedpolitical ecology can be ‘sensitive to the power struggles that mediate thesocial relations of natural resource utilisation and the ebb and flow ofcompeting environmental images. At the same time, it [can emphasise] theimportance of studying particular people and particular places to gainfuller insight into the wider issues that link local economies and culturesto global economic and political systems’. As post-structural insights then,can be valuably combined with materially grounded and empiricallyinformed analyses, it is not necessary to abandon Blaikie’s (1999) visionof privileging constructions of the world that promote a just, accountable,egalitarian and democratic environmental future (cited by Dove andHudayana 2007) in a resilient and revived political ecology of land degradation.

Short Biography

Samantha Jones is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Management atNorthumbria University, where she teaches Sustainable Development onthe Geography and Environmental Management undergraduate programmesand the MSc in Disaster Management and Sustainable Development. HerPhD, from the University of East Anglia, was on land degradation andsocial change in the Uluguru Mountains of Tanzania, supervised by PiersBlaikie. Since then she has researched a range of environment, developmentand natural resource issues in Africa and Asia. In addition to her PhDresearch, she has published articles on community forestry and governance



in Nepal; social capital and ecotourism in the Gambia; soil conservationin Thailand and resettlement and sustainability in Zambia, and has anedited book with Grace Carswell called The Earthscan Reader in Environment,Development and Rural Livelihoods. Her current research is around issues ofgovernance, institutional resilience and community-level risk and resiliencein Asia.

Notes

* Correspondence address: Samantha Jones, Division of Environmental Management,School of Applied Sciences, Ellison Building, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 8ST, UK. E-mail:[email protected].

1 Cultural ecology has been described as ‘ethnographically rich “systems thinking” about humanadaptation to the environment’ wherein culture is seen to regulate environmental stability muchlike the self-correcting properties of closed living systems (Peet and Watts 1996, 4).2 There have been other debates and critiques that are not considered here as they have perhapshad a less significant impact on studies of land degradation. For example, Brown and Purcell(2005) critique the emphasis that has been placed on the local scale – calling it the ‘local trap’while in contrast, Warren et al. (2001a) and Lestrelin and Giordano (2007) advocate a ‘localpolitical ecology’. Brown and Purcell (2005) also point out that political economy is notinherently ‘wider’ and culture and ecology are not inherently ‘local’ as they have tended to havebeen treated in political ecology studies. Neither should, it may be added, political economy betreated as ‘structure’ and culture as ‘agency’ as Chowdury and Turner (2006) seem to have simplis-tically categorised (see Giddens 1984; Jones 1999, 2000, 2002a for a fuller account of ‘agency’).3 While Escobar considers that political ecology gives attention to power and post-structuralpolitical ecology in addition gives attention to discourse, Gezon and Paulson (2005) write thatmany political ecologists have drawn from post-structuralism ‘to approach politics more broadlyas power relations that shape and pervade all human interactions, characterized by challenge andnegotiation and infused with symbolic and discursive meaning’ suggesting that studies examiningconflicts over resource use might fall into the category of poststructuralist political ecology. Dove(2005) perhaps clarifies this in suggesting that older approaches to power have been supplantedby post-structural approaches. Sletto (2002) includes Bryant, Moore, Mitchell, Neumann andRoutledge as post-structural political ecologists.4 Blaikie (1997) noted that the intellectual repertoire that he had at the time was drawn fromstructural Marxism.5 These ‘liberation ecologies’ Rocheleau (2007) locates within the structural political ecologyparadigm as they emphasise structural analyses of progressive movements that include resistance toenvironmental degradation and displacement.6 Some authors clearly believe that this body of work is part of political ecology. For example,Forsyth (2007b) notes that much research within political ecology since the 1980s has focusedon ‘how and why institutionalised beliefs about environmental change come into being’. Similarly,Neumann (2007) writes that ‘new ideas of environmental narratives and discursive practices,which challenged the positivist foundation of science had entered the lexicon of political ecology.’7 For example, Homewood and Rodgers (1987) note that the argument that pastoralists overstock,overgraze and damage their range (in contrast to wildlife which are seen to exist in harmonywith their surroundings) has been used to justify the expropriation of land for wildlife conser-vation. This discrediting of pastoralist management dates back to the colonial period, whencompetition between African and European producers provided an incentive to portray pastoralistmanagement as inefficient and damaging the environment (see also Anderson 1984).8 Stocking (1987) essentially questions the narrative of soil erosion, although it was not framedin such terminology. For example, he shows three maps of Africa illustrating suspended sedimentyields in t/km2/year, which vary by a factor of 50 despite apparently consistent data bases beingused. Thus, he begins to question the scientific basis for erosion measurements. He identified two



problems with respect to the measurement of land degradation: the frequency/magnitudeproblem that refers to the problem of reconciling the vast difference between the slow, continualchanges (e.g. sheet erosion) and the rapid, large-scale, infrequent changes (e.g. land slips) whereinterval periods may be very difficult to determine; and the scale problem that refers toextrapolations across scales such as from the laboratory or field results to watersheds or continents.Stocking notes, for example, that erosion plots tend to vastly overestimate erosion losses because‘as much as 90–95% of eroded soil is redeposited elsewhere within the catchment’ (althoughthis is disputed as ‘naive’ by Koning and Smaling 2005). Stocking (1996, 2000) continues tohighlight problems for erosion measurement elsewhere, but few have built on his ideas (Warrenet al. 2001a make some similar points).9 Blaikie (1999 cited by Forsyth 2007b) too argues that much of the deconstruction of colonialscience ‘owes much more to modernist and realist science than to any post-modern deconstruction’.10 Escobar (1999) stresses that it is not that there is no real nature out there; Bryant explainsthat it is not that the biophysical environment does not exist; and Robbins stresses that hisapproach ‘takes seriously the biophysical characteristics of earth processes’.11 Other terms have included ‘contextual’ or ‘moderate’ constructivism (Jones 2002b).12 In a sense, Blaikie’s (1985) own work could be seen to have challenged a prevailing wisdom– that land degradation and soil erosion resulted from population growth and inadequatetechnical knowledge. Bryant and Goodman (2007) explain that Land Degradation and Society andThe Political Economy of Soil Erosion stand as landmarks in the critique of natural science as askewed model for managing and understanding the environment as he noted the partial natureof science and the overly technical orientation of solutions. The plurality of perceptions,definitions and rationalities are referred to in these works, although Blaikie did not engage withsocial constructionism until later. In this sense, most subsequent work can be seen to have builton these ideas rather than rejecting them for an alternative epistemology. Watts (1997) also notesthat Blaikie’s (1985) work is not unconnected to or incompatible with the post-structural turnbut he couched his observations in terms of uncertainty and perception. Subsequent workextended his ideas. Robbins and Bishop (2007) argue that even though Blaikie might havebeen a forerunner to the constructivist approaches, his work was too realist for the changingepistemological tide.13 In terms of locating Blaikie’s (1985) and Blaikie and Brookfield’s (1987) work within thisliterature, the critique of neo-Malthusian explanations can be seen as a development of theirargument, whereas the critiques of the role of poverty in causing environmental degradationchallenge the neo-Marxist orientation of their work.14 In relation to trees, a number of studies have found that increased population density isassociated with higher woody biomass (see, for example, Cline Cole et al. 1990; Fairhead andLeach 1996, 2000; Holmgren et al. 1994; McCann 1997). Deforestation may not be a responseto rising population if: dead wood is sources as in Mali (Benjaminsen 1997); branches arelopped as in Nepal (Ives and Messerli 1989); alternative fuel sources are sought; and largerhouseholds share the same cooking source, or purchase cooked food as in Nigeria (Cline Coleet al. 1990). Cline Cole et al.’s (1990) detailed study around Kano in northern Nigeria demonstratedtree densities were highest where population density was highest, due to planting, coppicing andprotection of spontaneous seedlings. Fairhead and Leach (1996) demonstrated that the forestsaround villages in the savannah of Guinea Bissau that had assumed since the colonial period tobe relic of a once widespread forest belt, were actually islands of forests planted by villagers inthe savannah.15 However, Our Common Future (World Commission on Environment and Development 1987)that popularised the term ‘sustainable development’ in contrast with Blaikie and Brookfield’swork, stressed growth as a means to eliminate poverty rather than its cause (Escobar 1996). Theold enemies of growth and the environment are reconciled with only minor corrections to themarket system (Escobar 1996).16 It has since been acknowledged that the role of runoff in causing erosion has been overestimated(favouring slope angle change) as rainsplash erosion is more significant in tropical environments(better addressed with vegetation cover). Erosion control is not a priority for farmers – unlessit impacts on fertility or yields. Weeds may pose a more fundamental threat to yields and somesoil conservation measures can prevent weed growth (mulching) making them more attractiveto farmers.



17 See also Warren et al.’s (2001b) work on the application of ‘the capitals’ to soil sustainability.They note that the neoclassical economics welfare position allows the substitution of naturalcapital for human capital.18 New ecology has been applied to question rangeland management and policies for pastoralists.Thus, under the ‘old’ paradigm the ‘ranch model’ prevailed, characterised by fenced, fixed paddocksand range improvement for stability. Yet, policies that reduce the area available or that confinepastoralists are ‘an invitation to disaster’ (Ellis and Swift 1988, 458). Warren (1995) contendsthat many indigenous pastoral strategies are carefully adapted to the characteristics of drylandecosystems. These strategies are characterised by the exploitation of environmental instabilityand contingent events as ‘opportunistic management’ (Behnke et al. 1993, 28) or tracking andinvolves the flexible mobility of herds to cope with spatial and temporal heterogeneity of grasslandproductivity19 It is possible that this effect may be erased under global warming.20 Forsyth (1996) warns of the dangers of romanticising local knowledge as it may have its ownelement of ‘mythology’ as a result of being developed for specific time and space scales (p. 387;see also Murdoch and Clark 1994; Sillitoe 1998).21 To substantiate this assertion a Web of Science literature search of the abstract, titles and keywords in academic articles combing political ecology with land degradation, soil erosion anddesertification generated only 31, 18 and 7 hits, respectively, whereas conflict, resources, forestand conservation generated 74, 158, 128 and 145, respectively. Three key texts on politicalecology (Biersack and Greenberg 2006; Neumann 2005; Paulson and Gezon 2005) do not include‘land degradation’ in the index. Few articles refer directly to post-structuralist political ecology(7) although 20 refer to narratives and 97 mention power.22 The sustainable livelihoods framework was developed by the Institute of Development Studiesteam at the University of Sussex, adapted by Judith Carney and adopted by international donorsand institutions as a way of thinking about the objectives, scope and priorities for developmentin order to enhance progress in poverty elimination (Carswell and Jones 2004). Emphasis isgiven to what people have (assets and capitals) and what people do (livelihood activities)thereby focusing on strengths rather than problems.23 Some tension is evident in the literature between those who urge a stronger focus onstruggles over the social construction of environmental knowledge over material struggles (suchas Bryant 2000, cited by Dove 2005), and those who critique the overemphasis the socialconstruction of nature at the expense of attention to the material environment, and manifestationsof the social relations of production (e.g. Chowdury and Turner 2006).24 Francis (2000) and Scoones and Woolmer (2003) suggest that multiple livelihoods and diver-sification are longstanding practices in Africa and Carswell (2002b) suggests that women’strading and labouring may have merely become more visible rather than more prevalentrecently. This literature then, questions the rate of deagrarianisation in Africa asserted byBryceson (2000).

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Political Ecology and Land Degradation: How Does the Land Lie 21 Years after Blaikie and Brookfield's Land Degradation and Society?