Environmental Change, Control and Management in Africa

African environments have been studied across many disciplines in the natural sciences, social sciences and humanities. This study draws on economic and environmental historical approaches to explore the consumption-conservation nexus in the use of African natural resources. It explores environmental changes resulting from a range of interactive factors, including climate, population, disease, vegetation and technology. Ecological issues are important in the synopsis, but this work does not develop a detailed record of Africa’s environmental changes. Instead, it explores the role and impact of the state, whether exploitative or conservationist, from pre-colonial times to the present. The relationship between economic development, nature and conservation is central, given that the main axiom of world conservation strategy is that development depends upon conservation, and lasting development is impossible without conservation.