356 W. H. PEARSALL 



The general problem is that these regions are ecological tension zones and 

 it is virtually impossible to define good land uses for them. This has been 

 tried and failed in such zones all over the world. The Scottish Highlands, a 

 similar low productivity zone have been wrecked in a comparable manner. 



E. M. Nicholson: I would like to confirm the dangers inherent in 

 wishful thinking. We have seen two examples of this in East Africa. Attempts 

 to grow wheat during the war failed so disastrously that two grain ships 

 had to be sent to avert a famine among the grain growers. The ground-nut 

 scheme lost -[^$0 million, which would have fmanced scientific surveys of 

 Africa sufficient to put us half a century ahead of our present position. 



Can we fix 'danger limits' — critical population density levels — for soils 

 of this type ? Can we set up controlled experiments now on other possible 

 land use methods ? Is anyone trying to eliminate cattle and go back to game ? 

 These are the kind of immediate points which need attention. 



J. B. Cragg: I wonder whether Dr Jordan can inform us how many 

 people in the whole of Africa are working on tsetse control ? I suspect it is 

 below a hundred. 



A. M. Jordan: That is certainly true for the research side. There are 

 more involved in practical tsetse control measures in the various veterinary 

 and medical departments. 



M. E. Solomon: Where in the world have these 'ecological tension 

 zones' been properly used ? 



W. H. Pearsall: Probably nowhere. 



V. Valdez: In Angola we have used sheep very successfully to obtain 

 valuable skins and good protein yields from semi-desert areas. We have run 

 Astrakan/ Angola and Persian/ Angola hybrid sheep for ten years and what 

 was once an uninhabited hunting ground with no sanitary control now has 

 many farmers. The same has been done in South- West Africa, Pakistan and 

 near the Aral Sea. 



D. Jenkins: The expression 'protein crop', as applied to wild game is 

 not altogether satisfactory. In what practical way can this game be harvested? 

 The locals may not eat the meat. In Scotland it would be easy enough to 

 kill the game at an economical crop rate: the difficulties begin when you 

 try to get it down from the hill to the main population centres and to sell it. 



W. H. Pearsall : This cropping is none the less being done throughout 

 these areas. Africans, now living on poor food, take aU the game they can 

 get. On the margins of the Serengeti, more poached wild game is probably 

 being eaten by natives than all the other protein that is going into the Masai. 

 Cropping is not very difficult. In Southern Rhodesia two farmers are 



