Butana

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Most of the state of al-Qadarif is in the Butana region
The north of the Butana is without agricultural use. Sheep and camels occasionally find food in depressions during the dry season.

Butana ( Arabic البطانة) is a steppe region east of the Nile in Sudan .

geography

Butana is bounded by the main stream of the Nile in the north and the two tributaries, Atbara in the east and the Blue Nile in the west, which come from the Ethiopian highlands . The region, which is almost enclosed by the rivers mentioned, is also called the "Island of Meroe".

In the western part the rock base is covered by layers of sandstone and in places by rock remnants of old river deposits . Further to the east, a sandstone plinth with ragged edges forms layered steps and island mountains . The wadi runs, which are briefly filled during the rainy season, do not reach the Nile anywhere; However, numerous water points remain until the winter dry season and serve as cattle troughs. Rain-watered millet cultivation is particularly possible in the southern part of the Butana. There, large areas of cultivation border the Gezira plain in the west and the equally fertile area around Kassala in the east .

In the Butana are the ancient sites of Meroe , Wad ban Naqa , Naqa and Musawwarat es Sufra of the kingdom of Meroe. Until the turn of the ages, the Butana was a partially wooded savannah landscape, there was cattle breeding and irrigation farming. Today the area consists of acacia bush and partly desert. It can only be used by nomads during the rainy season in the summer months as grazing land for camels, which serve as meat suppliers. As dairy is of two different nomadic peoples the Butana- beef, a brown Zeburind grown. Most of the rain falls in the months of July to September. The annual precipitation averages 100 millimeters in the north near Atbara , further south it increases to 400 millimeters. The land is too high for irrigation from the Nile.

Grazing

Dry area in the otherwise fertile south. About 50 kilometers west of Gedaref . Water has to be brought in over long distances. The round houses (Tukul) are located on the northern edge of the black African settlement area.

For most of the Butana area, a combination of semi-nomadic livestock and agriculture is typical. The Juhayna nomads include the Shukriya who once dominated the Butana . In their self-image they are still nomads, differentiate themselves from farmers and farm workers, but today they also practice arable farming. After the winter dry season, there are usually only limited pastures left in April , the cattle troughs at the traditional water collection points ( Hafir ) are exhausted, but at the same time the harvest in the irrigated fields is over, so that the herds of cattle are on harvested cotton, peanut and Millet fields can graze. In 1968 a project was started to settle Shukriya in the Kashm el-Girba area (between Kassala and Gedaref ). Another incentive to cultivate peanuts was the rise in the market price after 1970.

Ownership of pastureland has changed since the 19th century. The Shukriya had within their area of ​​influence (Arabic: dâr ) the rights to pasture, water supplies and agriculture in the wadis . Natural pastures were jointly owned; only an elite of the Shukriya families also owned private property. The principle of community ownership was secured by a system of authority, the adaptation of the areas to the environmental conditions and conflict resolution was carried out by an elder ( Sheikh ). The British colonial power recognized this system in principle in the 1925 Native Administration Act . In contrast, a Land Settlement and Registration Act the following year declared a retention of title to the common land by the colonial state.

Changes to the law (Open Access System) passed in 1971 under the initially socialist government of Numairi also gave other ethnic groups free access to pasture resources. To regulate the land distribution would now have been the task of the state, which, however, did not care. In order to secure the preservation of their own livestock, which was privatized in the meantime due to general demand, the free pasture land was grazed for individual use, which accelerated the destruction of the pasture areas ( degradation ). The traditional authorities no longer had any influence on the question of land distribution. At the same time, the introduction of mechanized agriculture after the Second World War in the south of the Butana around Gedaref expanded millet cultivation and restricted the nomads' scope of action. The strip of land, which is suitable for pasture, borders the rain-fed farming areas to the north and is a maximum of 70 kilometers wide in dry years. In general, a decline in perennial species has been observed in the Butana , the annual grasses growing further north in rainy years quickly lose their nutritional value due to drying out.

The resettlement of the residents resettled from Wadi Halfa to New Halfa in the middle of the Butana, where the cultivation of peanuts, cotton and wheat on irrigated land began in 1960, deprived the nomads of further pasture land. In New Halfa were in 1964 about 7,000 families that the increasing Nubia Lake , had to yield settled with 20,000 families in the area and provided with land that channels water of by the Khashm el-Girba dam dammed Atbara was supplied .

The Rahad flows into the Blue Nile below Wad Madani . The Rahad project for field irrigation was carried out from around 1960 to 1983. For the first time it allows a systematic combination of agriculture and animal husbandry. The destruction of the tried and tested principle of community ownership was recognized as a disadvantage and attempts were made in some places to replace it with other decentralized administrative structures. This does not stop the progressive soil depletion.

literature

  • Farouk D. Ahmed, Mohamend D. Abu Sin: Water Supply Problems in the Butana Region-Central Sudan with Special Emphasis on Jebel Qeili Area: A Study in Semi-Arid Resource Use. In: GeoJournal, Vol. 6, No. 1: The Nile Countries, 1982, pp. 15-18.
  • Mariam Akhtar: Degradation processes and desertification in the marginal tropical and semi-arid area of ​​the Butana (Rep. Sudan). Erich Goltze publishing house, Göttingen 1995.
  • Mariam Akhtar, Horst Georg Mensching: Desertification in the Butana. In: GeoJournal , Vol. 31, No. 1: Desertification after the UNCED, Rio 1992. September 1993, pp. 41-50.
  • Farouk D. Ahmed, Mohamend D. Abu Sin: Water supply problems in the Butana region-central Sudan with special emphasis on Jebel Qeili area. In: GeoJournal , 6.1, 1982, pp. 15-18.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mustafa Mohamed Khogali: Nomads and their sedentarization in the Sudan. University of Khartoum
  2. ↑ M. Akhtar: Resource availability and desertification in the Eastern Sahel (Rep. Sudan). ( Memento of July 8, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 208 kB) University of Hohenheim, Tropentag 1997 p. 288.
  3. ^ Bret Wallach: Irrigation in Sudan since Independence. In: Geographical Review , April 1984, pp. 127–144 Irrigation in Sudan Since Independence ( Memento of June 19, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
  4. ↑ Michael Kirk: Animal husbandry in East Sudan today. In: Siegrid Faath, Hanspeter Mattes: Wuquf. Contributions to the development of the state and society in North Africa. Hamburg 1993, pp. 447-459