Forr a growing number of countries in Africa the discovery and exploitation of natural resources is a great opportunity, but one accompanied by considerable risks. Countries dependent on oil, gas, and mining have tended to have weaker long-run growth, higher rates of poverty, and greater income inequality than less resource-abundant economies. For these resource producing economies relative prices make it more difficult to diversify into activities outside of the resource sector, limiting structural change. 

Highlights

• A new spatial pattern of soil organic carbon and soil pH for the cocoa districts and agroecological zones of Ghana.

• Unsuitably low cocoa soil organic and strong acidity.

• A loss of soil organic carbon in a pattern that reflects historic boom-bust cycle of cocoa hot and cold spots transitions.

• Homogeneity of soil organic carbon is moderate within a longer range than soil pH.

Abstract

Implications for Participatory Forest Management and Payments to Communities for Ecosystem Services

• Communities living near Kenya’s forests place a monetary value on conservation.
• Mountain forests are the source of rivers that provide water for agriculture and other “ecosystem services” such as flood control and water purification.
• It is possible for downstream communities that benefit from these ecosystem services to pay the upstream communities to conserve the forests.