FALSE FOREST HISTORY, COMPLICIT SOCIAL ANALYSIS - RETHINKING SOME WEST-AFRICAN ENVIRONMENTAL NARRATIVES

Social science analysis has helped to explain the rapid and recent deforestation supposed to have occurred in Guinea, West Africa. A narrative concerning population growth and the breakdown of past authority and community organization which once maintained ''original'' forest vegetation guides policy. In two cases, vegetation history sharply contradicts the deforestation analysis and thus exposes the assumptions in its supporting social narrative; assumptions stabilized within regional narratives based more on Western imagination than African realities. For each case and then at the regional level, more appropriate assumptions are forwarded which better explain demonstrable vegetation change and provide more appropriate policy guidelines.