Population Growth and the Environment in Africa: Local Informal Institutions, the Missing Link*
认为非洲人口与环境的关系中，人们如何适应人口增长比人口数量更重要，并基于1995-1998年实地调查和20世纪上半叶殖民档案，研究了土地制度等地方非正式制度在调节人地关系中的作用。
Abstract: Population and environment debates regarding Africa, whether Malthusian or Boserupian in nature, focus on population levels as the driving force behind the relationship between environment and society. This article argues, instead, that how people adjust to their rise in numbers is more important than are population levels. It focuses on the role of local informal institutions, such as land tenure systems, but also on customs, norms, and networks, and their change over time in mediating the relationship between people and the environment. The article is based on fieldwork conducted between 1995 and 1998 in the Sahelian and Sudano‐Sahelian zones of Africa, as well as on a review of colonial documents pertaining to the area written in the first half of the twentieth century. The article concludes that adaptations made to local, informal institutions within the past century have enabled an environmentally sustainable land use within the context of a rising population and growing scarcity of natural resources.