Using the case of Eritrea, this article investigates why people's visual recollections and oral accounts of past landscapes can be an unreliable source of accurate information on environmental change. In Eritrea, a longstanding narrative exists that claims that forest cover throughout the country has decreased from 30% of land cover in the late nineteenth century t...

Kenya is the home of over 40 ethnic groups of different cultural backgrounds. In pre-colonial times each of these groups had its own belief system, incorporating natural sites to which they ascribed cultural significance. Many of these “natural sacred sites” have been destroyed or severely degraded over the last century, while others survive and continue to be pres...