%0 Journal Article
%T Decline of Indigenous Crop Diversity in Colonial and Postcolonial Rwanda
%A Jean Leonard Seburanga
%J International Journal of Biodiversity
%D 2013
%I Hindawi Publishing Corporation
%R 10.1155/2013/401938
%X Global influence of the wealthiest countries drives trends in crop diversity in the developing countries. In many countries, European colonization resulted in cultural disintegration and erosion of indigenous knowledge that made citizens lose interest in their own cultural heritage and adopt imperial know-how. During the same time, native biodiversity that was once maintained by the tradition it shaped declined. Alien crops prospered and finally dominated landscapes. In this paper, I looked at the apparent decline of indigenous crop diversity in Rwanda in the light of the ¡°cultural disturbance¡± that occurred in the shadow of the European colonization. An integrated research methodology that combined desk-based, socioeconomic, and vegetation surveys was used. Indigenous crops now on the fringe of extinction and, thus, requiring immediate attention from conservation policy makers and managers were identified. These include Vigna unguiculata (L.) Walp. ¡°inkoli¡± (Leguminosae), Coleus dysentericus Bak. ¡°impombo¡± (Labiatae), Dioscorea alata Linn. ¡°ibikoro¡± (Araceae), a sweet cultivar of Lagenaria siceraria (Mol.) Standl. ¡°bunure¡± (Cucurbitaceae), white cultivar of Sorghum bicolor (Linn.) Moench ¡°nyiragikori¡± (Gramineae), Amaranthus graecizans Linn. ¡°inyabutongo¡± (Amaranthaceae), Eleusine coracana (Linn.) Gaertn. ¡°uburo¡± (Gramineae), and traditional cultivars of Zea mays Linn. ¡°nyakagori¡± (Gramineae) and Solanum tuberosum Linn. ¡°kandore¡± (Solanaceae). 1. Introduction The world¡¯s biological diversity is distributed in inverse proportion to scientific and technological capacity [1], with a full of 83% of known diversity and remaining in situ knowledge held in Africa, Asia, and Latin America [2]. This may have partly been due to indirect effects of the European colonization as a global sociopolitical institution that resulted in cultural disintegration, making citizens of developing countries disdain their own cultural heritage and adopt imperial know-how (Ling 1996). One of the many side effects of this cultural invasion is the decline of native plant diversity once maintained by the tradition they shaped. Soon after the arrival of colonizers, local communities started to pay more attention to the hegemonic ¡°portmanteau biota¡± and adopted imperial ideologies [3]. As a result, despite rich indigenous biological diversity, 70% of developing countries depend on species domesticated elsewhere for more than half of their crops, and it is estimated that sub-Saharan Africa borrows about 87% of its domesticated crops from other regions [4]. In Rwanda, since the European
%U http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ijbd/2013/401938/