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Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:Land, the elephant, and the environment: the pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial situation
Authors:Kwarteng, Kwame Osei
Duncan, Beatrice AkuaISNI
Year:2009
Periodical:Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana (ISSN 0855-191X)
Issue:12
Pages:57-67
Language:English
Geographic term:Ghana
Subjects:elephants
ecology
cocoa
environmental degradation
forests
External link:https://www.jstor.org/stable/41406754
Abstract:Despite several centuries of elephant hunting, elephants were still well distributed in Ghana's forest belt by the beginning of the 20th century. However, following the adoption of commercial agriculture by Ghanaian farmers after the introduction of cocoa in the country in 1878, many farmers migrated to the forest region to acquire forest lands to grow cocoa, the new cash crop. The forest elephants' loss of range and habitat to the expanding cocoa industry provoked human-elephant conflicts. Elephants destroyed settlements and terrified and sometimes even killed farmers. This led to the shooting and killing of elephants. In the 1960s, a plan to constitute a National Park in the Mim area for the promotion of ecotourism failed. The killing of elephants went on during the following decades, resulting in a serious decline in their numbers. Being a keystone species in the forest belt, the elephants' decimation in this area also had serious ecological implications. Bibliogr., note, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract]
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