Challenges & Issues in African Nature Conservation and Sustainable Development

UVM Summer Course (3 credits)

Syllabus [Draft]

This interdisciplinary course examines the interface between nature conservation, resource exploitation, and sustainable, or community development approaches in Africa. We will discuss past and present biocentric and anthropocentric approaches to conservation and their successes and failures in Africa and the divergence between the objectives of large international conservation organizations and local needs. What does it means to protect nature for people who are under constant economic and educational constraints, or live in outright poverty?  There will be at least one guest speaker from a conservation or development project in Africa.

Course Codes:             BIOL 195 (60966), ANTH 196 (61038)

Credit Hours:                 3

Day(s)/Time:                  MTWR / 9:00 a.m. - 11:30 a.m.

Start/End Dates:           18 May - 12 June 2009

Location: 67 Votey Bldg  

Instructor:                       Jan Decher PhD, Department of Biology, University of Vermont, 302 Marsh Life Sciences
phone: 802 656 0705, e-mail: Jan.Decher@uvm.edu

Office Hours:                 Monday, Wednesday, Friday 2:30-4:30 PM

Suggested Prerequisites for UVM students:

BIOL 002 - Principles of Biology, or BIOL 006 - Evolutionary Biology

or: GEOG 002 - World Natural Environments, or GEOG 051 - Africa

or: ENVS 002 - International Environmental Studies, or ENVS 174 – Natural

Areas Conservation & Stewardship

or: ANTH 179 - Environmental Anthropology, or ANTH 162 - Cultures of Africa.

Course Website: UVM Blackboard. Access: mid-May 2009

Student Work Load: Student will be expected to read 3-4 online articles or book chapters for each Unit, take online reading quizzes, and prepare a concise research paper/presentation.

Grading (300 Pts.): Grades will be based on in-class and online course participation (60 pts), 12 online reading quizzes (120 pts), a paper/presentation proposal (25 pts) and completed final paper/presentation relating to, or expanding one of the topics covered in the course (75 pts), and a hands-on biodiversity exercise (20 pts).

Tentative Outline:

Unit 1 – The Preservationist Approach in Africa

Audiovisual: Serengeti shall not die (B. & M. Grzimek, 1960)

Unit 2 – The Anthropocentric Approach. IUCN/UNEP/WWF’s  World Conservation Strategy (1980) and                     Caring for the Earth (1991).

Unit 3 – Making Wildlife pay for itself – game ranching, game tourism etc.

Audiovisual: Nazinga Game Reserve (Burkina Faso).

Unit 4 – The Bushmeat Crisis - Hunter's luxury or important Protein Source

Audiovisual: Say no to Bushmeat (Cons. Intern. 2002)

Unit 5 – Myth and Reality in the Rain Forest

Audiovisual: Liberia (5 min, CI), Gabon- The Last Eden (NGS 2007)

Unit 6 – Mining and Conservation in Africa

Audiovisuals: Simandou (RioTinto) and: When Silence is Golden

Unit 7 – “Misreading the African landscape” - Indigenous Conservation Practices.
                Audio-Visual: Second Nature

Unit 8 – Sacred Groves - Traditional Forest Conservation and its future

Unit 9 – Faith-based Conservation & Development

Audiovisual: Introducing A Rocha  (7 min).

Unit 10 – Conservation and Globalization

Audiovisual: A Kalahari Family. Part 5: Death by Myth (J. Marshall)

Unit 11—Ecotourism in Africa.

Unit 12 – Climate Change and Conservation in Africa

Unit 13 – Conservation and Economics in Africa
                (Guest lecture: Michel Masozera, WCS Rwanda & UVM Gund Institute)

Unit 14  – Biodiversity Monitoring in Africa – Simulated “Field” Exercise.

Recommended Book: J. Igoe, Conservation and Globalization (UVM Bookstore)

Instructor’s Bio
Jan Decher is a German research associate at the University of Vermont’s Department of Biology.  His research specialty is the zoogeography, ecology, and conservation of West African small mammals.  He spent part of his childhood (1970-73) in Ghana.  In 1990 he returned to Ghana for his dissertation research on small mammal ecology and conservation on the Accra Plains, working in a Game Reserve and two sacred groves.  At that time he developed a special interest in traditionally and religiously motivated conservation.
More recently he has worked in West Africa as a small mammal survey consultant for Conservation International (Washington D.C.), and the environmental firms Nippon Koei UK, and SNC Lavalin (Montreal) where he gained insights into the challenges of timber exploitation and forest protection in Côte d'Ivoire, the involvement of farming and cocoa producing villages inside forest reserves designated "Globally Significant Biodiversity Areas" in Ghana, the social and environmental impact of a large hydroelectric power project in Sierra Leone, and the conflict between international mining corporations and the protection of unique montane habitats in Guinea.