Man, Land and Water in East Africa

Abstract

The agricultural and pastoral occupation and exploitation of the land by man is a complicated function of a number of variables. These are based primarily on the structure and configuration of the earth's crust, comparatively stable if measured in terms of human life, and on the much less stable atmosphere, the daily, seasonal and longer period fluctuations of which we try to grasp by the study of climate and its variations in space and time. The interaction of these two prime movers, structure and climate, creates that fascinating pattern of soil, water, life and markets which likewise changes not only from place to place, usually gradually but in certain localities with almost awe – inspiring abruptness, but also, though perhaps less conspicuously, with time. For the earth's surface slowly readjusts itself to the great heavings of the crust and, probably largely caused by periodic or non-periodic alterations in the quantity and quality of forces that pour on to our little globe from the vast expanses of our own solar system and of the cosmos beyond, great and small climatic changes creep backward and forward over land and sea. It is therefore good if homo sapiens, who uses this pattern to fill his belly and improve his mind and soul, pauses every now and then to ponder on the constant flux which is the main attempt!, if not to solve her laws, at least to grasp their tremendous complexity and to adapt himself, as well as his indomitable will permits him to do, to the exigencies of his very unstable environment.