The effects of rationalization and bureaucratization on the landscape are myriad and contradictory. The unforeseen environmental consequences resulting from modern planning create new geographies far beyond those of the planner’s design. This article explores the land-cover effects of state-sponsored modernization efforts in the semiarid Godwar region of Rajasthan, India. Using satellite imagery, historical data, household production information, and the discourse of state planners, the research described here explores the land covers that result from agricultural intensification, biodiversity preservation, and resource conservation in postindependence development. The study demonstrates that through these efforts, state planners have attempted to physically partition those land uses seen as “social” from those seen as “natural” and thereby enforce a modernist purification of land covers. Despite these efforts—indeed, because of them—hybrid and “impure” land covers, which mix social and natural characteri...

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Tracking Invasive Land Covers in India or Why Our Landscapes Have Never Been Modern

In this paper I explore both the causes and the effects of defining land-cover categories for the mapping of landscapes. Utilizing a participatory remote sensing technique in a case example from Rajasthan, India, I demonstrate that local and expert characterizations of the environment are qualitatively and quantitatively divergent. Satellite imagery, I therefore conclude, is not an impartial tool for the settlement of debates about land cover but is instead the result of prior debates about the character of nature. Moreover, such imagery acts as a force in the transformation of the environment; by fixing certain interpretations of the environment and forcing certain forms of management, technology changes on the land through a process of reverse adaptation. I conclude, therefore, that bureaucratic efforts at mechanical objectivity serve to institutionalize and therefore create measurable, quantifiable, and aggressive land covers through the practice of ecological modernization.

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Fixed categories in a portable landscape: the causes and consequences of land-cover categorization

Under what cultural and political conditions do certain species become successful invaders? What impact does species invasion have on human culture and politics? The work assembled in this special ...

Comparing invasive networks: cultural and political biographies of invasive species*

The effects of the invasive exotic Prosopis juliflora shrubs on the natural plant communities and soil chemical characters were assessed in two regions of the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Five sites were selected subjectively: three in Sharja with 73 stands and two in Ras Al-Khima with 37 stands. Stands were located randomly within each site to cover density variation in Sharja and size variation in Ras Al-Khima. Density, frequency, richness and evenness of the associated annual and perennial species were studied in nine quadrats distributed under, at the margin and outside the canopy of a P. juliflora shrub located in the center of each stand. The results indicated that the effect of P. juliflora on the associated flora depends significantly on the density and size of the canopy. Larger individuals and greater densities have significantly greater negative impacts on the associated plants. All the studied community attributes were significantly lower under P. juliflora canopies than outside. Annuals were inhibited more than perennials. The number of annuals with significant reductions in density and/or frequency under P. juliflora canopies was significantly greater than the number of perennials. Density of more than 50% of the associated annuals was significantly inhibited under P. juliflora canopies. Density of P. juliflora seedlings was greater underneath the canopy of the same species than away from them, indicating little or no self allelopathic effect (auto-inhibition) under field conditions. P. juliflora ameliorated some soil characters, through significant pH reduction and increase in K, N and P and organic matters. Hence, plant diversity might be enhanced following eradication of P. juliflora.

Impacts of the invasive exotic Prosopis juliflora (Sw.) D.C. on the native flora and soils of the UAE

We coordinated biogeographical comparisons of the impacts of an exotic invasive tree in its native and non-native ranges with a congeneric comparison in the non-native range Prosopis juliflora is taxonomically complicated and with P pallida forms the P juliflora complex Thus we sampled P juliflora in its native Venezuela, and also located two field sites in Peru, the native range of Prosopis pallida Canopies of Prosopis juliflora, a native of the New World but an invader in many other regions, had facilitative effects on the diversity of other species in its native Venezuela, and P pallida had both negative and positive effects depending on the year, (overall neutral effects) in its native Peru However, in India and Hawaii, USA, where P juliflora is an aggressive invader, canopy effects were consistently and strongly negative on species richness Prosopis cineraria, a native to India, had much weaker effects on species richness in India than P juliflora We carried out multiple congeneric comparisons between P juliflora and P cineraria, and found that soil from the rhizosphere of P juliflora had higher extractable phosphorus, soluble salts and total phenolics than P cineraria rhizosphere soils Experimentally applied P juliflora litter caused far greater mortality of native Indian species than litter from P cineraria Prosopis juliflora leaf leachate had neutral to negative effects on root growth of three common crop species of north-west India whereas P cineraria leaf leachate had positive effects Prosopis juliflora leaf leachate also had higher concentrations of total phenolics and L-tryptophan than P cineraria, suggesting a potential allelopathic mechanism for the congeneric differences Our results also suggest the possibility of regional evolutionary trajectories among competitors and that recent mixing of species from different trajectories has the potential to disrupt evolved interactions among native species

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A.I. Al-Humaid

Papers

Allelopathic effects of mesquite (Prosopis juliflora) foliage on seed germination and seedling growth of bermudagrass (Cynodon dactylon)