Readings and other resources

Episode 1

Readings mentioned in the podcast:

• Grill, G., Lehner, B., Thieme, M. et al. (2019) Mapping the world’s free-flowing rivers. Nature 569, 215–221.
• Rob Nixon (2013). Chapter 5 - Unimagined Communities: Megadams, Monumental Modernity, and Developmental Refugees. In: Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Harvard University Press.

Other resources

The Environmental Investigative Agency reviewed the impacts of the Julius Nyerere Hydropower plant on local people and wildlife in July 2021: World Heritage Dammed. The dam is situated within the Selous Game Reserve, the largest protected game reserve in Africa, and a key habitat for endangered elephant populations. Construction has already led to deforestation within the reserve and there are fears that the new roads and construction crews will increase poaching rates.

As a result, UNESCO has threatened to strip the Selous Game Reserve—in which the Nyerere dam is being built—of its World Heritage Site status. 

Downstream from the Selous, the Rufiji River supports the largest mangrove forest in East Africa, and changes to the river flow will affect these forests, as well as offshore seagrass beds and coral reefs. Changing water regimes will also destabilise the linked fishing and farming system that support rural communities living on the river and at the coast, and threaten people’s way of life.

Read more about the impacts of the dam here

Although not active in Rufiji, the NGO International Rivers works to protect rivers and defend the rights of communities that depend on them worldwide.

Episode 2

Additional readings:

In the episode, Olivia and Nathalie discuss ideas related to ‘isomorphic mimicry’, a concept put forward in this paper: 

• Mdee, Anna and Elizabeth Harrison. (2019). Critical governance problems for farmer-led irrigation: Isomorphic mimicry and capability traps. Water Alternatives, 12(1), 30-45.) 

And which Nathalie applied in one of her recent publications: 

• Richards, Nathalie (2019). Water users associations in Tanzania: local governance for whom?. Water, 11(10), 2178. 
   

Episode 3

Other resources

Natural Justice is an NGO specialising in human rights and environmental law in Africa. Eva spoke about their African Environmental Defenders Initiative which advocates and secures the human rights of those fighting to protect their lands and ecosystems from unsustainable development projects.

Global Witness report on land and environmental activism worldwide, including keeping a record of people killed while trying to protect the planet.

Save Lamu – This group works to engage communities and stakeholders in participatory decision-making to achieve sustainable and responsible development. The group was instrumental in halting construction of the Lamu Coal Power Station.

East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP) – As Eva and Hein Aung Htet discuss, the EACOP will displace thousands of families living along its path, cut through nature reserves, and add to fossil fuel emissions. It is widely viewed as an environmental and social catastrophe in the making with campaigns underway to stop it.