Geo 201

Review for final

Cultural Geography
Dr. Pia Anderson Fall 2023
Please remember that the final is cumulative so you should know the general concepts from the whole semester, including
those on the previous review sheets. This list refers to chapters 10, 14 and 16. Also make sure to go over your lecture
notes and lecture slides and the main themes from documentaries shown in class.
- Bee video, palm oil video, pollinators (bees, insects, birds) important in ecosystem, climate change documentary
= 1st and 2nd, oceans = 1st, invasive species = 1st
- Rwanda: deforestation, ethnic fighting, land locked by borders, all of the land was used, deforested all land,
farmed all the land, people have nowhere to go, people are starving, farming couldn’t be sustained, hutu and tutsi
fought against each other because of the poverty and starvation, Kanama read chapter, demographers (describe
population statistically) in late 80s and early 90s – very few women could leave the house and couldn’t get
married because they couldn’t have own farm and own land because all land was used up, year before genocide
100% of men in Kanama cant go anywhere so cant go get married or women could leave by being second wives
or going to the city and becoming maids, sons inherited parents land, 1 tutsi woman got killed, hutu kill each
other, poor were killing the poor and rich
- Use the first 2 review sheets for examples,
- Get into wild flower roots, kill ecosystem, get into water and run off water,

Deforestation 
Population growth
Renewable vs non-renewable resources
Rwanda  got bad treatment, some got massacred
DRC
Zaire
Uganda  important, British colony, where tutsi refugees went to, spoke English and French, played an important part
because tutsi refugees went to Uganda from Rwanda, pushed into Uganda as refugees by hutu, weaker, rise up the ranks,
learn English, join army, become successful, get citizenship, Ugandans get jealous so citizenship taken away, go back to
Rwanda but genocide starts, where RPF begins – Tutsi refugees who fight against Hutu extremists
Burundi  around DRC, south of Rwanda, also has hutu and tutsi, didn’t have genocide
Africa’s population growth
Hutu
Tutsi
Twa
President Habyarimana  killed off Burundi president by accident
RPF  Rwandan patriotic front – tutsi refugees and moderate hutus who didn’t want division, run by Paul Kagame, head
of RPF became president of Rwanda, begged world to save his people, invaded hutus and pushed them to DRC,
extremists are thrown away, made everyone Rwandan, no more hutus and tutsis, French wanted French to stay French,
Paul grew up in Uganda a British colony, made everyone speak English, hated French for supporting Hutus, no more
French speaking, same religion, Belgians separated the classes into Hutus and tutsis, went to how it was before, win
against extremists
Colonial History of Rwanda
Identity cards
Hutu extremists
Interahamwe  hutu extremists who were doing all the killing, pushed people into killing tutsi, killed other hutus
Role of the UN forces  they left
Role of the French Forces  helped hutu escape into DRC – was known as Belgian Congo then Zaire then to Democratic
republic of Congo
Response of the UN
Response of the world
Role of land degradation
Geographical factors behind genocide  important, everyone was starving, high population density, deforestation, soil
erosion, rivers dried up, irregular rainfall
Kanama  inhabited by hutus, very densely populated, small farms, all land was already occupied, people couldn’t leave
home, get married, acquire a farm, set up own house, people didn’t get married and stayed at home, low caloric intake,
small land so not enough food, people were impoverished hungry desperate, led to conflicts, starvation led to more crime,
killed off hutus
River flow cessation  forests deforested, water isn’t absorbed by forests, flooding, rivers stop flowing, Dominican
republic and Haiti, in DR had forests and roots soak up water, Haiti doesn’t have forests so no roots to absorb water,
Climate Change
Oceans
Old Growth Forests  really old forests that have complex ecosystems
Monoforest  one type of tree is grown, doesn’t have biodiversity
insecticides  big threat to bees, can’t replace bees, certain types of bees fertilize different plants
Palm oil  Indonesia, Thailand, cut down old growth forests to create palm oil, used in cosmetics, orangutans are killed
off
Sustainability  want to continue using goods for a long term
Pollinators
Food supply
Ecosystems
Habitat loss
Pollution problems & Social conflicts
Economic Growth
Health problems
Pesticides
Biodiversity losses
Cropland losses
Human induced natural disasters
Types of pollution
Resource shortages
Renewable resources
Non-renewable resources
Invasive species  species that ruin new environments that they’re introduced to, not controlled
Short term thinking  use up money really quickly (Nauru), corruption
Long term planning  sustainable, Dominican Republic, protect environment, reinvest in people
Urbanization
Overfishing
Core values
Imported values
Applying five point framework to examples  Tikopia,
Tragedy of the Commons
Biggest threats to world today
Failure to anticipate  have no prior experience, not sensitized to possibility, failure for Britain colonists to perceive
issue of introducing foxes and rabbits, common in illiterate societies who have no written records of problems they
experienced in the past
Failure to perceive  have distant managers, managers don’t know issues going on in fields, issue cant be seen with the
naked eye, many fluctuations so cant see steady change,
Rational bad behavior  good for me, bad for everyone else, selfish, in Montana companies declared bankruptcy before
Disastrous values  ethnocentrism, consumerist capitalism, prioritize short term gratification, crowd psychology, denial,
incapable to fix current issue
Other irrational failures  don’t like those speaking up about the issues
The World as Polder  different fields in the Netherlands/holland/ low countries, fields next to each other, if A fights
with C block water from B and C then A floods, have to get along with each other and cooperate or all will suffer, comes
back to us
Creeping normalcy  something happens slowly that you don’t realize its changing, Dubai - think of it as big city not
desert like before, climate change, slow change
Landscape amnesia  subset of creeping normalcy, when the landscape is changing, some species are extinct now, don’t
miss what we don’t know, don’t know animals and landscapes that existed before, don’t notice that the landscape has
changed
The most serious environmental problems  list 12, look at 4 in detail, lead to economic and political problems
Use of wild food – non farmed foods, fish, use up faster than ever before, fish non sustainably, sweep them up, suck up all
fish then throw away what they want, make up large protein supply in the world
Destruction of natural habitats
Deforestation
Biodiversity loss
Soil loss
Loss of freshwater
Use of non-renewable resources
Toxic chemicals
Overpopulation
Growth in per-capita impact
Exponential change
Photosynthetic ceiling  number 7 of big problems, plants photosynthesize and animals and humans need plants and live
off them, some areas have more photosynthesize, dark places have low photosynthesis, desert has no , tropic zones have
most photosynthesis but are most populated areas, deforest plants to create infrastructure and human purposes, limit to
how much photosynthesis can be done because the areas where photosynthesis are best have a high demand of humans
who want to use land, not sustainable, crop land competes with malls and our needs
Environmental and political trouble spots
One-liner objections  how do you argue against this one liner objection…, tech saves all our problem, balance against
economy
Ecosystem
Ecological imperialism change environment to make it look like your environment, new Zealand, looks like England,
native environment dies off, used to look differently, natives used to eat buffalo and live off them, killed off buffalos to
make their own farms, replaced native land, natives starved
Nurdles  go into ocean if don’t disappear, tiny bits of plastic that aren’t biodegradable
Gyres  big currents that gather garbage together into patches
Great Pacific Garbage Patch  garbage patch in the deep ocean, tragedy of the commons, we get food from the ocean,
fish die when there isn’t any sunlight, leads to raise food prices, everyone wants to use the ocean but no one wants to
clean it
Why do some societies collapse  Failure to anticipate, failure to perceive, rational bad behavior, disastrous values,
irrational failures, 5 is good, describe them well
Why do some societies succeed = educate people, proactive, Dominican republic, Tikopia, Dubai, long term decisions,
reinvest in own country
Photodegradable  what plastic does, sun breaks it down to small part
Biodegradable  decays over time, breaks down into natural components
Great Barrier Reef
1492
Columbus
Columbian exchange
Role of technology
Infectious diseases
Ecosystems varied plants and animals
Biosphere all ecosystems together
Haiti  thought banks steal money so put money abroad, corrupt, poorest country in West, environment is degraded, cant
create renewable energy, droughts, flooding, burn trees for charcoal for income, no electricity, no income,
DR = reinvest in own country

Biggest problems

1. Destroying natural habitats. Deforestation, forests have been converted into malls. Forests needed for raw
materials, timber, protect soil, generate rainfall, protect animals, protects water sources. Led to Vikings collapse,
easter island collapse. Convert nature to human made habitats. Coral reefs are damaged, overgrowth of algae, use
of dynamite in fishing, fish out foods needed to maintain ecosystem, pollutants, coral bleaching.
2. Soil erosion. Soil is carried out to water faster than it can form. Salinization removes nutrients from soil making it
infertile by weathering the rocks. Soil is also becoming more acidic, given global warming making acid sulphuric
rain. Estimated 20-80% damage. Led to collapse of Vikings and easter island.
3. Natural energy sources are depleting. Even though supplies of coal, oil and natural gas are abundant currently. It
is clearly evident that these resources are dwindling and will eventually disappear. Reserves of oil and natural gas
will run out one day. In the future it’ll be harder to extract the resources, dirtier, become more expensive, higher
environmental costs,
4. Invasive species. Intentionally transfer animals from native land to new land. Devastate ecosystem they’re
introduced to by preying on other species, giving them parasites, infecting them, outcompeting with them. Don’t
have limiting factors. New ecosystem has no experience with them, haven’t evolutionized to resist them.
Australian rabbits and foxes then parasites. Agricultural weeds. Rats in easter island ate all eggs and chicks so no
protein.
5. Global warming
6. Per capita impact is higher
7. Population growth