Historical perspectives on contemporary human-environment dynamics in southeast Africa.

The human communities and ecosystems of island and coastal southeast Africa face significant and linked ecological threats. Socio-ecological conditions of concern to communities, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGO's), and researchers include declining agricultural productivity, deforestation, introductions of exotic flora and fauna, coastal erosion and sedimentation, damage to marine habitats, illegal fishing and overfishing, waste pollution, salinization of fresh water supplies and rising energy demands, among others. Human-environment challenges are connected to longer, often ignored, histories of social and ecological dynamics in the region. We argue that these challenges are more effectively understood and addressed within a longer-term historical ecological framework. We review cases from Madagascar, coastal Kenya and the Zanzibar Archipelago grouped under the themes of fisheries, forests and waste to encourage increased engagement between historical ecologists, conservation scientists and policy makers.