An Uncomfortable Fit?: Transfrontier Parks as MegaProjects

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Megadevelopment projects are no stranger to Sub-Saharan Africa. The colonial period was marked by massive projects ranging from those aimed at the extraction of natural resources, to large scale agricultural schemes and megadams. With the fall of colonial rule, independent governments took over and expanded many of these projects and invested in other large scale development initiatives to help move beyond colonial legacies of exploitation, to build modern nation-states and economies, and to display to their citizens and the world their power as the newly independent states behind these projects. Today many African governments, routinely backed by international donors, have continued to "think big" as a way of promoting economic development and ensuring that African economies do not fall further behind in the world economy. The largest of these new megadevelopment projects in terms of geographical size is not the megamining projects like Botswana's Jwaneng diamond mine, nor the megadams like Kariba, Cahora Bassa, or Congo's Inga project, set to produce twice as much energy as China's Three Gorges Dam. Rather, it is the continent's national parks and protected areas. And given recent trends in global conservation toward conservation projects that span international borders, these spaces are growing ever larger as many existing national parks, reserves, and other protected areas are united with one another and with newly created conservation spaces to form transfrontier parks, that is cross-border megaparks.
Original languageAmerican English
Title of host publicationEngineering Earth: The Impacts of Megaengineering Projects
DOIs
StatePublished - 2011
Externally publishedYes

EGS Disciplines

  • Environmental Studies

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