Geographical Record

American Geographical Society

Geographical RecordSource: Geographical Review, Vol. 53, No. 3 (Jul., 1963), pp. 449-464Published by: American Geographical SocietyStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/212593 .

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GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD

MIDDLE AMERICA

CENTRAL AMERICAN COMMON MARKET. The success ofthe European experiment has made much of Latin America "common market-conscious." This is reflected in Title III of the Declaration of Punta del Este, which calls for intensification of the economic "integration process" of the hemisphere, in the preliminary plans for a "Latin American Free Trade Association," and, above all, in the concrete beginnings of a program for the economic integration of Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Honduras, and Costa Rica. To judge from the spate of recent publications, the Central American venture is being ob- served with particular interest (see, for example, William R. Gigax: The Central American Common Market, Inter-Amer. Econ. Affairs, Vol. 16, No. 2, 1962, pp. 59-77; C. E. Staley: Central American Economic Integration, Southern Econ. Journ., Vol. 29, No. 2, 1962, pp. 88-95; "La integracion economica de Centro America," United Nations Publ. II.G.4/ECLA).

A receptive ambiente for a common market in Central America is logical in terms both of historical precedent and of economic necessity. The Central American countries (exclusive of Panama, which was Colombian territory until 1903) were all part of the captaincy general of Guatemala under Spain until 1821; after a brief annexation to Mexico they began independence as a Central American Federation, which lasted from 1823 to 1838. Since that time the idea of union has never completely died away, and several attempts to achieve integration of the five territories have been made, unsuccessfully, during the past century.

Economically there is even stronger impetus and justification for a Central American common market. The political fragmentation of 1838 set the stage for five national economies of questionable viability. It was apparent from the beginning that the units were too poor in resources and population, too deficient in capital, transport facilities, and other basic needs, to function effectively. Despite the potential advantages of union, the five countries persisted in remaining like "a group of islands separated by mountains, jungles and ideas, each facing outward with its back to the other, making commercial contact with the United States or Europe easier than with its neighbor." Under these conditions the struggle for economic survival during the past 125 years has been so bitter and unrewarding that even the most rabid "segregationists" have become receptive to the common-market possibilities.

The first hesitant step toward economic integration was taken in 1951 with the establishment of the Organization of Central American States. This was followed (1952) by the formation of a regional Economic Cooperation Committee under the auspices of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America, and by the organization of the Central American Research Institute for Industry (1956). The formal legal framework for the common market was created in 1958 with the signing of the Multilateral Treaty on Free Trade and Central American Economic Integration and the Agreement on the Regime for Central American Integration Industries.

The treaty on free trade provided for the immediate elimination of tariffs on twenty categories of commodities and for free internal trade and a common external tariff within ten years. The integration-industries agreement set up a joint committee for reciprocal allocation of new industries among the signatory nations so as to avoid inefficient overlap. The committee takes into account "availability and extent of raw materials, transportation



450 THE GEOGRAPHICAL REVIEW

facilities, and similar considerations" to select the location of optimum advantage. In this way each country is encouraged to undertake (or expand) the manufactures it is best equipped to develop, for sale throughout the common-market area.

In 1960 a new treaty was signed by all participating countries except Costa Rica. This treaty (effective in June, 1961) reduced to five years the transition period for achievement of free internal trade and a uniform external tariff, and increased the free-trade commodity list to include virtually all commodities except alcoholic beverages, coffee, sugar, and other agricultural products commonly produced in each of the five territories. To finance the integration plan, the participating countries established the Central American Bank for Economic Integration with a $26 million initial capital, of which $10 million was contributed by the United States.

Costa Rica finally signed the 1960 treaty, but it is significant that this country has been the most hesitant participant in the move toward a common market. In some respects Costa Rica's reluctance in regional cooperation is traditional, and has been a major stumbling block to union in Central America since the nineteenth century. It stems from Costa Rica's higher standard of living, greater political stability, and higher level of education in comparison with the other countries. There are those who think it may also stem from the racial pride of a predominantly white population in the midst of an Indian, mestizo, and Negro complex.

It is too early to determine whether the emerging common market in Central America will survive the test of the next decade and bring economic benefits to its participants, but it is already obvious that the obstacles to success are many. Apart from national jealousies, the monotonous similarity of production provides little basis for trade. Coffee and bananas account for about four-fifths of the exports. Since these and other farm products of the region have a small and largely inelastic demand, the five territories will be in competition for export markets.

The population of the region is increasing rapidly, but its present total is only about 11,000,000. More important from an economic point of view, the bulk of this population

is largely divorced from a "money economy," and its purchasing power is extremely low. Subsistence agriculture, which employs a high percentage of the labor force, is in general primitive. (Five out of six small farms in Honduras, for example, do not even possess a wooden plow.) The large Indian populations in Guatemala and elsewhere in the region pose a particularly knotty problem; they not only live outside the commercial economy but are culturally unassimilated. The old Hispanic attitude favoring limited competition, high prices, and a small turnover also looms as a barrier. In addition, the transportation network is poorly developed, the ratio of land utilization tends to be low except in El Salvador, and there are a multitude of other problems common to retarded areas, such as inadequate education, poor technical services, and low health standards.

Obviously, the emerging common market in Central America is not the solution for all these problems, but if permitted to survive, the union holds forth the promise of at least the following advantages: (i) it will infuse freer competition into the regional economy and stimulate greater efficiency in production; (2) it will strengthen the bargaining position of the five countries in external trade; (3) a larger market potential may aid in attracting new industry from abroad; (4) industrial development will be rationalized, each country will concentrate on the industry for which it is best suited, and production costs can be reduced;



GEOGRAPHICAL RECORD 451

and (5) an impetus will be created to improve transport facilities, especially with reference to a road system connecting the core areas of the five countries. Although not promising miracles, the common-market experiment if successful may do much to eliminate the evils of economic and political fragmentation.-JOHN P. AUGELLI

AGRICULTURAL COLONIZATION IN COSTA RICA. The downslope movement of agricultural colonists from the crowded tropical highlands of Central America and Andean South America into the empty, rainier lands of the tierra caliente is one of the more conspicuous of modemn migrations. This movement, largely intranational, involves hundreds of thousands of persons and often requires environmental adaptations as great as those faced by the participants in the Atlantic migrations of a former era. Burgeoning highland populations, the sanitary revolution, and the improved communications that link the frontier zones with the older settled areas have all contributed to these often spectacular new waves of settlement that are converting dense forests into fields and pastures at an unparalleled rate.

One of the highest rates of natural increase in the world in recent years has been in Costa Rica, which also claims the most comfortable standard of living, the highest literacy rate, and the largest proportion of European blood in its population among the countries of tropical America. As rural settlement has reached saturation in the nuclear coffee-growing regions of the Meseta Central, the overflow of surplus populations has accelerated, especially onto the empty, forested lands of the Pacific drainage, where a dry season in the first months of the year provides an interruption in growth that is largely lacking on the rain-drenched Caribbean littoral.

The clearing and colonization of new lands in Costa Rica have been completely spon- taneous and unordered, without planning or government assistance. In a remarkable series of recent publications, the by-product of a year of intensive fieldwork, a young University of Kiel geographer who spent most of his youth in Guatemala, Gerhard Sandner, has written of this outpouring of colonists, squatters, and speculators. Two of these publications, regional case studies in depth, have been published in translation as monographs by the Instituto Geografico de Costa Rica (Turrubares: Estudio de geografia regional: Problemas sociales y economicos de la expansion agricola en Costa Rica [San Jose, 1960]; Aspectos geograficos de la colonizacion agricola en el Valle del General [SanJose, 1961]), and a revised version of one has recently appeared in German (Das Valle General: Landeskundliche Skizze eines jungen Rodungsgebietes in Costa Rica, in Beitrage zur Geographie der Neuen Welt [edited by Wilhelm Lauer], Schriften Geogr. Inst. der Univ. Kiel, Vol. 20, 1961, pp. 125-165). In these studies Sandner has detailed in text, maps, and photographs the migratory currents, the systems of land occupance, and the relationship between group social structure, physical environment, and economic well-being in two areas of intense settlement activity south of the Meseta Central.

Turrubares is a rugged hill zone of some 1400 square kilometers between the Meseta Central and the Pacific coast. Although its core is scarcely 50 kilometers from San Jose as the crow flies, it is terra incognita to all but the people who have cleared and settled its slopes within the past half century. Santiago de Puriscal, the market center and principal jumping- off point for colonists, lies on the southern flank of the Meseta Central, linked to San Jose by a 30-kilometer surfaced road. Beyond it, to the south, is the settlement area, a tangle of hills and narrow valleys served by poor transport facilities. There are a few cow-pasture




airfields, but most of the roads and trails are intransitable for half of the year, even by the creaking two-wheeled Costa Rican carretas. Much of the settlement has been ephemeral; the population does not exceed 3 5,000. Most of the immigrants from the first big wave of settlement (1930-1943) have moved on to other areas, especially the Valle del General and the northern lowlands, as a result of the impoverishment of the erosive clay soils through destruc- tive methods of cultivation. In these areas planted pastures have largely replaced crops. Farther south in the hills the forest is still being cleared by subsistence farmers living in dispersed ranchos and producing small surpluses of maize, beans, and tobacco. Here, as in the other frontier zones of Costa Rica, coffee plays a relatively inconspicuous role. Most of the slopes and valleys being cleared lie below 1000 meters, within the tierra caliente, but with more refreshing breezes and somewhat cooler nights than are usually associated with tropical lowlands.

The Valle del General, which lies south and east of Turrubares between the towering Cordillera de Talamanca and the Pacific Ocean, is one of the most explosively active zones of colonization in all Latin America. Before 1936, when the Pan American Highway ex- tending southward from Cartago reached the upper part of the valley at San Isidro, it was largely a forested wilderness. Laterized alluvial fans with more or less sterile clay soils tend to displace the drainage toward the coast-range hills; they are dissected by steep-sided valleys floored with recent gravelly alluvium of high productivity, and here the new agriculture has become especially intensive and stabilized. The surrounding hill slopes have soils of varying fertility that support a more extensive shifting cultivation and, increasingly, artificial pasture. Total annual rainfall at San Isidro is in excess of 3000 millimeters (120

inches), probably somewhat more than in the Turrubares district, for which no observa- tions exist. In each there is a dry season fromjanuary to April when land can be cleared and improved under generally favorable conditions.

The population of the Valle del General and its tributary areas was 4800 in 1927; by 1959 it exceeded 5o,ooo. An estimated 20,000 immigrants have arrived in the past decade. Although the majority have come from the Meseta Central by the Pan American Highway, there has been increasing movement from the coast and from the Panamanian province of Chiriqui. San Isidro (population 4300), a town of unpainted wooden houses with a bustling frontier atmosphere, is the market center for most of the region. Buenos Aires and Volcan, to the south, showed a sharp increase in vitality with the completion of the highway into Panama in 1962. Empirical data suggest that the population of the hinterland of these Costa Rican market towns can be estimated rather closely from the total number of their commercial establishments. The ratio seems to be approximately one establishment for each 5oo persons; thus San Isidro, with 86 such establishments, has an estimated 45,000 persons in its hinterland.

A penetrating analysis of the nature and consequences of land colonization in the Costa Rican lowlands, supported by numerous detailed case studies, is to be found in an exhaustive and finely illustrated Habilitationsschrift by Dr. Sandner (Agrarkolonisation in Costa Rica: Siedlung, Wirtschaft und Sozialgefiige an der Pioniergrenze, Schriften Geogr. Inst. der Univ. Kiel, Vol. 19, No. 3, 1961). In these peripheral areas of frontier settlement population showed an increase of 63 per cent between 1950 and 1959, from 177,000 to 288,ooo, three times the rate of increase for the rest of the country. With one-fourth of Costa Rica's population, these areas produce more than half the country's maize and beans and nearly half its rice.




After the Valle del General, most rapid rates of population increase in recent years have been in the San Carlos district (north of Volcan Poas, toward the Nicaraguan border) and in parts of the Nicoya Peninsula.

There is no uniform pattern of development. Each of the colonization zones has its own distinctive characteristics, a reflection of the interaction of physical, historical, and transportation factors as well as of the cultural background of the settlers. Isolation, lack of social contacts, land speculation, poor diet, disease, and deficient education all tend to inhibit the development of healthy, stable rural economies and the spread of improved techniques and higher levels of living. High rates of natural increase coupled with a high rate of immigration are intensifying pressure on the outer pioneer fringe. According to the 1950 census, more than half of the inhabitants of most of the colonization zones had immigrated from other areas. Fortunately for Costa Rica, a curiously slow rate of economic growth during the colonial period and through much of the nineteenth century has left a land reserve of more than average fertility that should be able to absorb the increasing numbers for some years to come. Interestingly, there is overwhelming archeological evidence that many of these new lands supported large pre-Columbian populations.

The primary stage of agricultural colonization may be settlement by organized groups or by unorganized groups; it may be unorganized individual settlement, settlement under the aegis of large landowners, or settlement organized by foreign companies. Each type has its distinctive structural characteristics, its visual manifestations, and its causal factors. Un- organized individual settlement in isolated ranchos predominates. These migrants are "a con- glomeration of speculators and small merchants, of peones hopeful through some miracle of becoming patrones by virtue of the occupance of land, of farmers and all types of poor folk, driven by the hope and desire of improving in some way their social and also their economic position...." After a time they tend either to concentrate in the better or more favorably located areas or to move on to greener pastures. In either case they leave behind them ruined and worn-out lands covered by a degraded secondary vegetation.

Sandner holds that this type of settlement represents little gain to the nation because it is based on a subsistence economy producing only small surpluses for sale. Moreover, it does not improve the level of living of those who practice it. Yet these new lands seem to hold out as much lure for the landless as the bright lights of San Jose or the slightly dimmer ones of Cartago, Alajuela, and Heredia, a value judgment that seems sufficiently in contrast to that of many other Latin-American societies to warrant further investigation. Gradually the dispersed population becomes concentrated, land titles are redistributed, and village clusters form as small administrative and cultural centers, grouped around the church, school, and store. The initial stage of settlement is usually followed by a secondary colonization, in which later arrivals occupy zones already partly deforested and settled. These zones of concentrating settlement and repeated changes of land title are of even more interest and significance than the frontier itself, for here the nature of the evolving social structure is being determined. Paradoxically, the continuing redistribution of landholdings often tends to reproduce the same stratified society that prevailed at the source of the immnigra- tion, with large landowners at one end of the scale and landless peones at the other. The present system will change, Sandner believes, only after a considerable increase in the population in the more favored zones has made possible specialized producers and consumers, subdivided into economically related groups. Nucleation will produce urban centers that




will serve as local markets, provide accessory services, and become locales of secondary

industry. He emphasizes that physical factors of the environment exercise relatively little

influence in the earlier stages of agricultural penetration. Although different techniques may

be required to deal with different types of land, this does not affect the agricultural systems

and social structure or the way of life of the settlers. Sandner's work seems an outstanding example of thorough and constructively critical

geographical research, and it surely deserves a place on our small shelf of regional classics.

By example he has demonstrated, as no methodological treatise ever has, the importance

and potential of sound fieldwork, intelligently focused, in the understanding of the forces

that are at work today in remaking the landscape and social order of much of the tropical

world. As a result of his studies we know more about rural settlement and migration in

Costa Rica and the nature and intensity of man's transformation of the landscape in these

pioneer zones than we know of almost any other area in tropical America. One is tempted

to make the comparison with Pelzer's earlier work in Southeast Asia. The truth is that

ignorance of the local environments in most of the so-called "developing economies" re-

mains abysmal. With a promised Spanish-language edition, this masterful analysis of agri-

cultural colonization may well have repercussions far beyond the bounds of Costa Rica.

-JAMES J. PARSONS

EUROPE

POPULATION CHANGES IN THE SOUTH TIROL. The influx of Italian-speaking

residents into the South Tirol has been of increasing concern to the German ethnic group

there. The north-Bolzano (Bozen) Province of the Trentino-Alto Adige Autonomous

Region-was almost completely German before World War I. Immigration from the

south began between the two World Wars with the political and economic expansion of

Italy into the area. Italian settlement during that period was concentrated in relatively few

places, such as the city of Bolzano and other large urban centers. Since 1945, however, im-

migration from "Old Italy" has increased and has spread out into all parts of the province.

The population structure of the South Tirol has been the subject of investigation by a

team of German geographers, Christoph Jentsch and Wilhelm Lutz, who have published

some results in a recent issue of the Schlern-Schriften ("Geographische Studien fiber Mensch

und Siedlung in Siidtirol," No. 217, 1961) dedicated to Professor Hans Kinzl on his sixtieth

birthday. The greatest demographic changes have taken place in nonfarming communities

in readily accessible valleys. Not only has the percentage of the Italian-speaking population

increased, but the indigenous German inhabitants have shown much greater mobility within

the South Tirol. Two examples of municipalities having both high internal mobility and a considerable

influx of Italians from outside the province are Ponte Gardena (Waidbruck) and Dobbiaco

(Toblach). Each is a focus of transportation routes and a point of entry into the region of the

rugged Dolomites. Ponte Gardena is on the Brenner line in the valley of the Isarco (Eisack) at a point where a highway branches off eastward into the Ladin Val Gardena (Gr6dner

Valley). Dobbiaco lies in the upper Val Pusteria (Puster Valley), the natural trough that

serves as a shortcut between the Austrian Tirol on the one hand and the East Tirol and

Carinthia on the other. Not only is it near the Austro-Italian boundary, but it is also the

terminus for road and railroad southward into the scenic Dolomites.




Ponte Gardena is the smaller of the two but has more Italian-speaking residents-some 42 per cent in 1958. This emphasizes the nonrural aspects of the municipality; for nearly half of the employed Italian men work for the railroad administration, and the remainder in nearby sawmills and power plants. In Dobbiaco more than one-fifth of the population was Italian-speaking in 1958. The majority live near the railroad yards, apart from the Ger- man ethnic group, forming an Italian-speaking island that has been given the name of Dobbiaco Nuovo. As in Ponte Gardena, employment is chiefly in transport and in the sawmill industry, or in nearby military establishments. There are also an increasing number of Italian-speaking merchants and craftsmen. As in most other South Tirolean communities, no Italians from outside the province have chosen farming as a means of livelihood.

Both municipalities have also experienced intemal migration. In 1958 more than 55 per cent of the German-speaking population in Ponte Gardena, and 25 per cent in Dobbiaco, had been bom elsewhere. Migration has been local, with the bulk of the migrants coming from nearby farm settlements.

The more secluded valleys display a greater stability in population origin and rural tradition, but even they have been gradually changing. The Val Badia (Gader Valley), for example, which leads from Brunico (Bruneck) in the Val Pusteria southward into the area of Ladin settlement, is primarily agricultural, and 96 per cent of the inhabitants were bom in the valley. Nevertheless, intemal migration has become important, especially since World War II, with a sharp increase in tourist trade; and scores of men and women have moved to Brunico, the main administrative center. Here, too, Italians have settled mostly since World War II. As yet, they represent only 1.5 per cent of the total population. Although people from the German group who have moved into the valley have rapidly become Ladinized, the Italians live apart in the villages along the main highway. As elsewhere, they pursue nonfarming activities, chiefly in local administration and as craftsmen and laborers.

Immigrants from the south have come either from adjacent provinces-Belluno and Trento-or from the eastern section of the Po Plain. Italy south of the Po Plain has been a meager source.

Apprehension among the German ethnic group conceming the changing population structure in the South Tirol is well founded. In general, immigrants from "Old Italy" are penetrating all parts of the region, and in several centers such as Bolzano they form a majority. Most Italians have nonfarm occupations, and many have positions in local administration, postal services, railroads, and other govemmental activities, even where they represent only a small fraction of the total population. This has been a bone of contention among the German majority, who feel that local administration should be largely in their hands rather than in the hands of "outsiders." The immigrants are young, marry at an earlier age than the German group, and therefore have a potentially higher fertility rate. Thus, through continued migration and high natural increase, the change in the composition of ethnic groups in the South Tirol is likely to continue.-GUIDo G. WEIGEND

MIGRATION OF WORKERS IN THE COMMON MARKET COUNTRIES. The Treaty of Rome provides for the free movement of workers across the frontiers of each country in the Common Market. A first step in this direction was taken in June, 1961, and the process will doubtless continue through the sixties. It is important to recognize the change in the labor situation in the Common Market countries in recent years and its possible impact




on this policy, and an enlightening article, which exanmines the data of labor movements in these countries for the period 1954 to 1960, has appeared in the quarterly of the Institut Na- tional d'iEtudes Demographiques (Xavier Lannes: Les migrations de travailleurs entre les pays du Marche Commun, Population, Vol. 17, 1962, pp. 29-50).

West Germany, the largest importer of labor, has drawn refugees from East Germany and from the old eastern territories of Germany, a net immigration of 1.9 million people between 1954 and 1960, or more than 1.1 million in the labor force. Immigration of workers from other countries increased slowly in the late fifties but jumped remarkably in 1960,

when total work permits reached 245,600, as compared with 87,600 in 1959. The number of foreign workers in West Germany increased from 70,000 in mid-19S4 to 3 5o,000 at the end of 1960, and probably increased by a further 280,000 in 1961. Emigration to the United

States and Canada reached 430,000 from 1954 to 1959, which meant a loss of about 200,000

workers. All told, West Germany had a net gain of about 1.2 million workers in the period 1954-1960. Belgium, on the other hand, has ceased to import foreign labor in large numbers; over the 1954-1960 period the net immigration was only 17,000, mainly workers from southern Europe. The number of seasonal workers from Belgium in northern France fell from 12,000 in 1954 to 6700 in 1960. Some 40,000 workers (frontaliers) move daily across the border into northern France, whereas only about iooo travel in the reverse direction. The daily movements between Belgium and the Netherlands were equal in 1954, but in 1959 some gooo moved from Belgium and 4000 from the Netherlands.

France has had an immigration of about goo,ooo persons, including repatriated French from North Africa, Algerians, and nationals from other countries. The impact ofthis immigration on the labor force is difficult to estimate, but France probably had a net gain of 450,000

immigrant workers (including 250,0oo from foreign countries, mainly Italy, and 85,ooo

from Algeria). There was also an increase of seasonal immigrants from 30,000 to 1 10,000.

Italy, the main source of emigration, had a net loss of more than a million persons in the

1954-1960 period (almost equally to Europe and to the rest of the world) and a net emigration of 700,000 workers, or about ioo,ooo a year. To this should be added the seasonal emigration of 250,000 in 1960 (30,000 to France, 6o,ooo to Germany, and more than 140,000 to Switzer-

land). Luxembourg has a large immigration relative to its small population. Immigrant workers are either seasonal (almost all Italian) orfrontaliers (Belgian, French, and German). Permits were issued to 12,300 immigrant workers in 1960. The Netherlands had an excess

of emigrant workers; the net loss in 1960 was 2500 to the other countries of the EEC and

about 1o,ooo to the rest of the world. During the 1954-1960 period movements of workers

across the Netherlands frontiers, from Belgium and to Germany, grew considerably. These movements have had an impact on economic development in each country.

The gain in Germany represents two-thirds of the increase of the labor force and has been one of the main factors in economic growth. The bulk of this is German and therefore easy to absorb. However, the low birth rate and the decrease in immigration from the east have

curtailed the availability of German labor and have provided opportunities for immigrant labor, notably from Italy, on which the further economic development of Germany will

depend. Recently increasing numbers of Italian workers have been attracted to Germany by the high wages. But Italian labor is generally unskilled, and the supply is likely to diminish. These conditions present a major problem of growth and adjustment for Germany in the

sixties. Foreign labor in France is mainly unskilled, whereas the country needs increasing




numbers of skilled workers in industry and service. In Italy emigration has relieved demographic pressure, but it has had no effect on the structural disequilibrium between north and south. The average monthly figure of unemployment fell from 1.96 million in 1954 to 1.5 million in 1960. It is the younger and more able, though largely unskilled, element that emigrates, especially from the south.

The removal of restrictions on the movement of workers from one country to another is not likely greatly to increase the total volume. This opinion is based on two current trends. The main areas of attraction (including north Italy) are already suffering from an acute shortage of skilled labor. Each country is seeking to develop its less-developed areas and thus to increase the number of jobs for the local labor forces. These conditions will dinminish the stream of workers across the frontiers and will increase the stream within each state from the less-developed areas to the main areas of attraction. This is particularly the case in Italy, where labor is in increasing demand in both north and south. Emigrants are mainly unskilled, whereas there is an increasing demand for, but a shortage of, skilled workers in industry and the tertiary occupations. Prospective workers need preliminary training before leaving the home country. The Treaty of Rome makes provision for this situation, and programs are being established, as in south Italy. Education and training will become major labor problems in the sixties.-ROBERT E. DICKINSON

AFRICA

THE KENYA COASTAL STRIP. The Kenya Coastal Strip extends ten nautical miles inland from the high-water mark on the shore of the Indian Ocean between the border of Tanganyika and the Tana River. It includes the island port of Mombasa and other coastal islands, the township of Kipini, at the mouth of the Tana, and Lamu Island, north of the river. The Sultan of Zanzibar is the sovereign, but its administration was transferred to Great Britain in 1895, and currently it is administered by Great Britain as part of Kenya Colony. The forthconiing independence of Kenya leaves the political future of the strip in doubt, since Great Britain promised not to cede it to another state without the consent of Zanzibar. The resulting dispute, between those who advocate inclusion ofthe strip within the independent state of Kenya and those who want a partial or complete separation, demon- strates some geographical repercussions of economic development on political status.

Before the beginning of British administration the well-watered coastal area (annual rainfall 30-50 inches) was effectively insulated from the interior highlands by a stretch of desert with few water holes. Slave caravans from the interior ended their land journeys on the coast of Tanganyika. The desert also protected from attack by warrior tribes of the interior the many immigrants and traders from Arabia, Persia, and India, who had come to the coast during the last two thousand years, and the Portuguese, who came in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Isolation from the interior permitted Muslim law and institutions to prevail in the strip from about the seventh century on; and here too the Swahili language evolved out of a mixture of Arabic and other immigrant languages and the tongues of local African tribes. Although it is probable that the local African tribesmen outnumbered the inunigrants and their descendants, the ruling groups were always of foreign origin. Upon the expulsion of the Portuguese in 1698 the Sultans of Oman became rulers of the coast and of Zanzibar. Their rule persisted until i861, when Zanzibar, together with the coast, was separated from Oman after British arbitration. In 1886 Great Britain and Germany agreed




to recognize a line ten nautical miles from the coast as the inland boundary of the territory of Zanzibar. This arbitrary line does not include the whole of the well-watered coastal area. Cultivation of com, sesame, and cassava extends twenty to thirty miles inland, where

it gradually gives way to desert grazing. However, cotton and coconuts, the main com-

mercial crops today, are generally grown only within the first seven miles. Although most villages are located within ten miles from the shore, a few are also found in the cultivated area farther inland. Owing to the extent of cultivation and settlement beyond the ten-mile strip and to difficulties in the detailed definition of a line ten nautical miles from many narrow, winding coastal creeks and inlets, the boundary was never demarcated on the ground. It is not even shown in the official "Atlas of Kenya" (Survey of Kenya, Nairobi, 1959).

The construction of a railroad and, later, roads through the desert to the interior ended the isolation of the coast. Mombasa, which was connected by a causeway to the mainland, developed into the ocean port of Kenya. It also handles most of the ocean traffic of Uganda, and some from the other neighboring states. Industries (oil refining, cement, chemicals, and so on) relying on overseas imports of raw materials, and supplying all of Kenya and lands beyond its borders, located in Mombasa, whose population has grown from an estimated 5000 people in the middle of the nineteenth century to about a fifth of a million today. Water supplies within the strip became insufficient for the town and the ships using the port, and since 1956 water has been imported by pipeline from Mzima Springs, about 15o miles away in the interior. Food for the some 400,000 inhabitants of the strip also has to be im-

ported from the interior and from overseas. The administration of the strip costs today an estimated ?955,500 more a year than its revenues bring in, and this deficit is made up by the Kenya administration. Because of these many close economic links between the strip and the interior, some residents migrated inland, and even larger numbers of Africans from the interior moved to the strip, and some to the coastal area beyond the strip. Similarly, tribesmen from the adjoining coastal area migrated to the strip.

For all these reasons the dispute between the advocates of union of the strip to an in-

dependent Kenya and the advocates of separate status has moved beyond the scope of the

1895 agreement. "To report ... on the changes which are considered to be advisable in the

1895 Agreement," the British government and the Sultan of Zanzibar appointed a one-man commission of inquiry (James W. Robertson: The Kenya Coastal Strip: Report of the Com- missioner, [Parliamentary Command Paper] Cmnd. 1585, London, 1961). The commissioner does not recommend a plebiscite. The mostly illiterate voters would only be confused by the many altematives-union, federation, autonomy with or within Kenya or Zanzibar, or

complete separation from both of the strip, or the whole coastal area, or the coastal area

together with adjacent parts of the desert now administered together as the Coast Province, or of only the city of Mombasa and its vicinity. The absence of a demarcated boundary and the varying interpretation of the length of residence in the strip required for voting in the

plebiscite would make the establishment of voting lists difficult. However, after participating in a series of public and private hearings, the commissioner concluded that the 240,000 African tribesmen resident in the strip, together with about 6o,ooo immigrants from the interior, prefer union with Kenya. The 37,000 Arabs, Swahilis, and Bajunis favor some form of autonomy within Kenya or Zanzibar or a separate state. The 48,ooo Asians (largely of Indian origin) and the 7000 Europeans (mainly British, of whom only about iooo are per- manent residents) are divided. However, both Asians and Europeans almost universally




support Arab and Swahili claims for local control of landownership, education, language, and religion and the maintenance of local Muslim legal administration.

Since a great majority of the residents of the strip evidently favor union with Kenya, the commissioner recommends that the 1895 agreement be terminated by the payment to the government of Zanzibar of ?425,000 by the British government (mainly for refund of loans) and ?250,000 by Kenya, and of ?ioo,ooo by independent Kenya to the Sultan per- sonally should he be asked to renounce his sovereignty, provided a code of human rights is included in the constitution of Kenya. This code, similar to provisions in the constitutions of India and Nigeria protecting civil and minority rights, could be altered only by an overwhelming majority vote (to be defined in the constitution) in the legislature of independent Kenya. The continuing use of Muslim judges is recommended, together with the appoint- ment of special local councils to safeguard property rights in land and to provide education. To protect the transit rights of Uganda and other neighboring states, the commissioner suggests that Kenya accede to the international Barcelona Convention on Freedom of Com- munications and Transit (see Alexander Melamid: Middle East Pipelines and Freedom of Transit, Geogr. Rev., Vol. 43, 1953, pp. 568-570). If all these arrangements can be made, Kenya, including the incorporated strip, can expect to become independent by 1964. How- ever, the commissioner also advises that in the event of the creation of a federation of East African states, Mombasa or the coastal area should become the federal capital district, similar to the status of Lagos within Nigeria.

A subsequent report by the Kenya Regional Boundaries Commission ([Parliamentary Command Paper] Cmnd. 1899, London, 1962) suggests combining the strip and the Coast Province with the eastem part of the Northem Frontier District (from the Tana River to the Kenya-Ethiopia boundary about seventeen miles east of Moyale) to form a single territorial unit to be called the Coast Region. This suggestion, however, is opposed by Somalis, who predominate by large majorities in the easternmost part of the Northem Frontier District and who desire to join the neighboring Somali Republic (Kenya: Report of the Northern Frontier District Commission, ibid., Cmnd. 1900, 1962). Thus this regional plan that would join the Muslims of the strip with the Muslim Somalis of the Northern Frontier District may fail.-ALEXANDER MELAMID

ECONOMIC GEOGRAPHY

PUBLIC RELATIONS PROGRAMS AND FOREST LAND USE. Public relations programs have had important effects on the pattern of forest land use, and they will probably play a crucial role in determining its future pattern, especially in view of the increasing competition between recreational and industrial users. The concept of "multiple use" will have a central part in public relations programs relating to the recreational use of forest land.

The forest industries virtually won one major policy battle with the United States Forest Service by the use of public relations. They defeated proposals by the Forest Service to increase greatly the area of publicly owned forest land and to institute public regulation of forest management on private land. Public regulation was first officially proposed by the Forest Service in the Capper Report of 1920. A bill was introduced by Senator Capper incorporating these public regulation proposals, but it was defeated. While William B. Greeley was chief of the Forest Service, 1920-1928, the emphasis was on cooperation, not regulation. Public regulation was again proposed by the Forest Service in 1933 in the Copeland Report,




and it remained Forest Service policy until 1952, when it was quietly discontinued by Richard E. McArdle when he became chief. Between 1933 and 1942 a number of efforts were made to achieve federal regulation. The closest approach was the Lumber Code, set up under the National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) of 1933. Article X of the code included what amounted to federal regulation, to be administered through industrial associations.

The NIRA was declared unconstitutional in 1935, but its near success alarmed the forest industries. Under the leadership of William B. Greeley, they launched a massive public relations campaign to convince the general public, government officials, educators, and foresters that public regulation was not needed. The Tree Farm movement, the "Keep Green" programs, and industrial tree nurseries were at least in part the outgrowth of this program. Industry supported laws incorporating mild forms of public regulation in a number of states, including Oregon, Mississippi, and Washington. The public relations program was successful, and today public regulation is almost a dead issue. All this is, of course, an over- simplification of what happened, but an effective program of public relations by the forest industries undoubtedly played a major role. This has great geographic significance, because the pattern of forest land use today is much different from what it would have been under the program of public regulation and increased public ownership advocated by the Forest Service in the Copeland Report of 1933. The Forest Service also engaged in public relations activities in favor of their program, but their efforts were comparatively ineffective. Their resources were limited, and not the least of their problems was the unpopularity of the drastic program they recommended.

A new battle looms both for the forest industries and for the Forest Service because of the increasing competition between recreational and industrial users of forest land. The forest industries fear that increasing demands for outdoor recreation may result in the dedication of much public and private commercial forest land to recreational use exclusively. This could result in decreased supplies of wood and increased raw-material costs. In the West it could also mean withdrawal from use of large areas containing high-quality old-growth timber. The Forest Service has always been more interested in wood production than in recreation, and it has lately concentrated its efforts on increasing wood production from the national forests. In this case, the Forest Service and the forest industries seem to be in agreement on the desirability of limiting withdrawals of forest land for recreation.

"Multiple use" was made the official policy of the Forest Service by law in 1960 (Public Law 86-517, June 12, 1960), replacing the earlier policy statement, which had been written by Gifford Pinchot, first head of the Forest Service. The term is now used so frequently that it seems likely to become as familiar as "sustained yield." And like the latter, it is not well understood. However, the probable effect of its interpretation, whether correct or incorrect, will be to limit single-use withdrawals of forest land for recreation.

In 1961 the American Forest Products Industries, Inc., sponsored a Forest Land Use Conference. This conference appears to have been part of a long-range public relations program by the wood-processing industries to get widespread acceptance of the doctrine of multiple use as a basic principle of forest land use. The conference focused on the problems of allocating forest land to meet all the needs of the American people (Proc. Forest Land Use Conference, Washington, D. C., 1961, American Forest Products Industries, Inc., Washington, D. C. [1961?]). Most of the governmental and private agencies concerned with land use and conservation were represented, and the meeting was chaired by Bernard L. Orell, vice- president of the Weyerhaeuser Company, who is probably the most effective public repre-




sentative of the forest industries today. Many of the policy makers and thought leaders in the field of forest land use spoke during the two days. Thus the Proceedings of the conference contains policy statements by nearly all the major agencies concerned with conservation. There are also a number of good interpretations of trends, but there is little new factual information about forest land use or about forest industries.

Many who are interested in the recreational use of forest land feel that the acceptance of an oversimplified version of the concept of multiple use will inhibit a desirable development of recreational opportunities on forested lands (see, for example, Ernest Swift: Wilder- ness and the Multiple-Use Land Concept, Conservation News, September 1, 1959, pp. 1-4). This will occur only if multiple use is interpreted simply as the opposite of single use. The wording of the Multiple Use Act of 1960 recognizes the complexity of the concept in application. It states that the concept is meaningful only when applied to areas "large enough to provide sufficient latitude for periodic adjustments in use to conform to changing needs and conditions." It also states that not all small areas need be used for more than one purpose, and that the combination of uses to be chosen need not be that which "will give the greatest dollar return or the greatest unit output." Multiple use is a concept of area, and it is correct only when applied to comparatively large areas. If applied mechanically to every acre of forest land it would result in a travesty of good forest management. For example, many large areas of primary value for recreation or water production can admit no grazing or logging. Only the correct interpretation of the concept is likely to give such uses proper consideration.

The public relations people working for the forest industries are in an enviable position. They will achieve the maximum results by obtaining "name identification" of the concept of multiple use but less than complete understanding of its meaning. At the same time they will also satisfy the main interests ofthe Forest Service and ofthe forestry profession generally, whose primary objective appears to be the maximum production of wood through the widespread practice of intensive forest management.

The question naturally arises, Is multiple use a "good" concept? More specifically, is it a better guide than Pinchot's injunction to decide all questions about the management of the national forests "from the standpoint of the greatest good of the greatest number in the long run?" An examination of the Multiple Use Act of 1960, and of the many administrative decisions required to carry it out, suggests that the seemingly more "objective" concept of multiple use is operationally the same as the older, more "subjective" concept of the greatest good. The concept of multiple use has, however, the serious disadvantage that it almost invites misunderstanding and distortion. Its meaning appears self-evident, and the hard work of learning its ramifications seems unnecessary. But in the context in which it is actually, used there seem to be valid grounds for questioning its "goodness."

The earlier public relations program of industry was designed mainly to build a good image of industry. The present program is designed to gain widespread acceptance of a concept. In the earlier case industry was opposed, though rather ineffectively, by the Forest Service. In the present case both the Forest Service and industry are in agreement. In addition, the concept of multiple use is comparatively easy to popularize. We may expect it to gain widespread acceptance, accompanied by less than complete understanding of its meaning. The probable effect will be to limit single-use withdrawals of commercial forest land for recreation. For these reasons, a long-term program of public relations, based on the concept of multiple use, is likely to have important effects on the future allocation of forest land to recreation, water production, grazing, and timber production.-Louis HAMILL




ASPECTS OF FLOOD PROBLEMS. Some years ago Gilbert F. White suggested that human beings adjust to floods in more than one way (Gilbert Fowler White: Human Ad-

justment to Floods, Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of Geogr., Research Paper No. 29, 1945). This proposition, self-evident today, was rather novel at the time he wrote, since for many years

the people of the United States had been making a frontal assault on the problem of control-

ling floods and flood losses primarily by structural programs designed to reduce the magni- tude of flood flows. In returning to the fundamental relation between man and his environment, Dr. White set the stage for a reevaluation of methods of controlling flood losses. This

reevaluation is still in progress. More significantly, it has in turn set the stage for active programs designed to consider alternatives and to include them in planning. Certainly, a good measure of credit for these advances lies in the persistent efforts of White and his group at Chicago. Later studies have shown some of the economic consequences of failure to con-

sider alternative means of reducing flood damage as well as specific techniques and problems. In seeking solutions to problems in resource development, it may well be that the major

difficulties encountered in the attempt to reconcile conflicting interests are social and political. Nevertheless, it is significant that every specific inquiry turns up a variety of fundamental questions in diverse disciplines. For example, in the matter of flood control the disciplines

range from hydrology to psychology. Precisely what is the recurrence interval of an un- usually large flood in a short record? Can the physiography of the valley indicate lands subject in varying degree to floods? How rational are the decisions of people living in areas known to be subject to periodic devastation? Then, of course, there are the basic questions common to all planning ventures in a democratic society. What is the public interest? Where and when does it transcend private interest? How is it defined?

The growing interest in land-use planning as a means of lessening flood losses is reflected

in a salutary effort to consider more than one or two approaches to flood control. Some researchers have suggested that perhaps the market place can serve more efficiently and more

equitably some of the ends of planning in balancing conflicting interests and objectives

than is always admitted (see, for example, Jack Hirshleifer, James C. De Haven, and Jerome W. Milliman: Water Supply: Economics, Technology, and Policy [Chicago, 1960]; I. K.

Fox and L. E. Craine: Organizational Arrangements for Water Development, Natural Re-

sourcesJourn., Vol. 2, 1962, pp. 2-44). Whether the decisions are made by individuals alone or

by individuals in concert with government, it is universally recognized that better under-

standing of the behavior of both people and resources becomes more necessary as the de-

mands on resources increase. It is surprising how slight this understanding is in many critical

areas. The initial studies published by the Chicago Department of Geography focused on the

broad problems of floods and flood damages. Later studies have drawn attention to specific aspects (see, for example, Ian Burton: Types of Agricultural Occupance of Flood Plains in

the United States, Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of Geogr., Research Paper No. 75, 1962) and to alter-

native means of reducing damages-reservoirs, local protection works, regulation of flood-

plain use, flood warning systems, and the like. Emphasis has been on nonengineering approaches, an orientation stressing alternative uses of the land and justified by the voluminous

treatment the engineering aspects have received elsewhere. Because the floodplain is an ideal

locality in which to consider man and his environment, these studies deal with a number of

fundamental issues. A series of essays, "Papers on Flood Problems" (edited by Gilbert F.




White, Univ. of Chicago, Dept. of Geogr., Research Paper No. 70, 1961), provides some val- uable insights.

Men settle or work on floodplains because they provide expanses of flat land and favorable locations for arteries of transportation. Although recognizing this, every geographer also recognizes that the channel and floodplain belong to the river. Clearly there is risk in using such land, yet ever-increasing numbers of people and activities gravitate toward the floodplain. Presumably this apparent or real paradox is explainable in one of three ways: (1) users of the floodplain are unaware of the peril and its cost; (2) they are aware of the cost but are willing to pay it; or (3) they are aware of the cost and willing to have others pay it. The evidence indicates that the three conditions apply collectively in some localities and with different relative weight in others. Because condition three is either a policy of government or a result of government policy, many are now concerned with evaluating the costs of floodplain occupance.

Damages are directly related to location, size of urban center, and physical characteristics of the floodplain. At the same time, it is the decisions of various members of society that provide the exposure to damages. And, finally, economics enters into these decisions and into the evaluation of the damages. Repeatedly, decisions regarding location on the floodplain are made by a host of individuals, including not only those who occupy the land but financial institutions, builders, and planning agencies. Often losses from floods are not borne by those who decided on the floodplain location. Several of the analyses indicate that although enlightened members of the community use all available information in making such decisions, others use only their own experience, which they evaluate in diverse ways. There are indeed a variety of both rational and irrational reasons why people live or work on the floodplain. Citing the perils of their position may not induce them to move out, and if it does, others may move in. The mode of providing information is extremely important; it may reach only those who already know, or it may be beyond the understanding of those for whom it is intended.

Great strides have been made in some states and, in particular, by the TVA toward providing communities with adequate hydrologic and hydraulic information to aid them in planning the use of areas subject to flooding. The TVA program is particularly interesting, since it outlines not only the hydrologic and hydraulic procedures adopted but also the approaches various communities have used in formulating plans for controlling flood losses. On the national scale a major change in policy was initiated in 1960 when Congress author- ized the Corps of Engineers to undertake studies specifically designed to provide communities with hydrologic, hydraulic, and geographic information for use in determining land use in flood areas. Comprehensive planning is becoming a reality as cooperation between federal, state, and local governments has developed in some cities and towns.

Because economic analyses are essential to comprehensive planning and to evaluation of alternatives, the way in which the effects of natural events and the characteristics of natural resources are translated into economic terms is particularly important. Edward F. Renshaw points out that from an economic point of view it makes sense to look on flooding as a kind of tax exacted by Nature on the occupants of floodplains (The Relationship between Flood Losses and Flood-Control Benefits, in Papers on Flood Problems, op. cit., pp. 21-45).

The benefits derived from control of floods presumably help make investment in the floodplain profitable. Many have noted that it might be appropriate for those who benefit




to pay accordingly. Although this may be virtually impossible for the individual, in many instances the pendulum has swung in the opposite direction, and occupiers of flood-prone lands have been stimulated to overinvestment in the floodplain through being bailed out by relief and credit or have been encouraged to settle on a floodplain by protection works provided by the federal government or other institutions.

Overinvestment in the floodplain can lead to overestimation of benefits to be derived from control of floods. Flood losses "need not correspond at all to the benefits that may be obtained from flood protection." Benefits may be overestimated or underestimated unless they are properly related both to losses and to enhancement of land values. Severe limitations on the use of the resource may in fact lead to its being underused. Renshaw concludes that there is a pressing need for more rational procedures in evaluating benefits from flood control. "While it is not clear . .. why there should exist a special justification for subsidizing occupants of flood plains and in particular the owners of flood-plain property, it is clear that there exist better ways to extend the subsidy than to shoulder flood losses and to provide free flood protection." The subsidies, he proposes, should be related to the area's potential for wise economic development and should be independent of specific flood-prevention measures, so that an optimum combination of such measures is permitted.

Central though it is to economic analysis and to comprehensive planning, the problem of the proper estimation of benefits still remains. In view of this, it is difficult to evaluate Hertzler's observation that the total sum expended on works to reduce flood damages in the United States since 1918 is about $5.1 billion and that although estimates of benefits are not nearly so accurate as those of costs, benefits exceed costs by about 1.33 to 1.0 (R. A. Hertzler: Corps of Engineers' Experience Relating to Flood-Plain Regulation, in Papers on Flood Problems, op. cit., pp. 181-202; reference on p. 189). What degree of success this ratio represents depends primarily on an evaluation ofthe nature of the benefits. Although a similar problem is encountered in evaluation of benefits from other programs, such as those in agricultural land use, forestry, and recreation, it is evident that because of their critical

importance considerable effort is now being devoted to improving techniques of estimating benefits. This is particularly desirable in less-developed areas, where the alternatives in re-

source development often concern all aspects of the national economy.-M. GORDON

WOLMAN

OBITUARY

MAXIMILIEN SORR-E. The death of Maximilien Sorre removes from the geographical

profession a teacher and scholar who animated the professional scene in France for half a

century. Sorre came to geography somewhat later in his career than most of the other

French geographers in his generation. His early vocation was pedagogy, and he started by

teaching at teachers colleges in several parts of France, chiefly at Montpellier (1903-1914). He had, however, been attracted to geography by such professors as Emmanuel de Martonne

at the University of Rennes, and later Vidal de La Blache at Paris. In Montpellier he was in-

fluenced also by the botanist Flahault, and by another geographer, Jules Sion. Here Sorre

wrote his doctoral dissertation, "Les Pyrenees mediterraneennes: Etude de geographie

biologique" (1913). This first research oriented his scientific outlook for the rest of his life:

he always remained deeply interested in the biological factors of the geographical environ-

ment, a trend that later developed in studies of relations between geography and medicine.



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