Like much of the globe, the African continent is in the midst of navigating numerous, interwoven environmental challenges. From climate-related risks such as crop failure and famine to longer-term concerns about sustainable urbanization, environmental justice, and biodiversity conservation, African states are charged with addressing a complex range of issues. As this book demonstrates, they are doing so with innovations such as community-based conservation programs and transnational parks, rural development schemes and environmental education initiatives, carbon taxes and pricing for ecosystem ... More

Like much of the globe, the African continent is in the midst of navigating numerous, interwoven environmental challenges. From climate-related risks such as crop failure and famine to longer-term concerns about sustainable urbanization, environmental justice, and biodiversity conservation, African states are charged with addressing a complex range of issues. As this book demonstrates, they are doing so with innovations such as community-based conservation programs and transnational parks, rural development schemes and environmental education initiatives, carbon taxes and pricing for ecosystem services, and significant investments into hydropower, solar, and wind energy. It deploys a theoretical framework for analysing green states in Africa inspired by Michel Foucault and postcolonial theory, which focuses attention on the governance and contestation of land and territory, populations and biopolitics, economies and international relations. Although much of the literature on “green states” has focused on highly developed areas in Europe and North America, this book reveals how central African environmental politics are to the transformation of African states, challenges current understandings of green politics, and explores the ramifications for the rest of the global south.