ABSTRACT
In recent years, the world’s attention has been drawn time and again to the Third World nations of Africa, by the plight of millions of people who are unable to provide themselves with food, water and the other necessities of life. The immediacy of television, with its disturbing images of dulleyed, pot-bellied, malnourished children, skeletons of cattle in dried-up water courses, and desert sands relentlessly encroaching upon once productive land, raised public awareness to unexpected heights, culminating in the magnanimous response to the Live Aid concerts of 1985. Not unexpectedly, given the requirements of modern popular journalism and broadcasting, coverage of the situation has often
been narrow, highly focused and shallow, lacking the broader, deeper investigation necessary to place the events in a geographical or environmental framework. For example, the present problems are often treated as a modern phenomenon, when, in fact, they are in many ways indigenous to the areas involved. The inhabitants of sub-Saharan Africa have suffered the effects of drought and famine for hundreds of years (see Table 3.1). It is part of the price that has to be paid for living in a potentially unstable environment.
