WKU Department Head Returns From West Africa Expedition

November 12, 2007

Bowling Green, Ky. - Dr. David Keeling, head of the Department of Geography and Geology at Western Kentucky University, recently returned from an American Geographical Society educational expedition to Western Africa, spanning the continent north to south from Casablanca, Morocco, to Cape Town, South Africa.

The AGS-sponsored tour departed from Casablanca and visited four of the five major ecological regions of Africa -- the Sahara, the Sahel, the Congo Basin and the temperate south. The expedition provided participants with a broad overview of Africa’s most pressing challenges, including climate change, resource use, population growth and political instability.

After beginning in Morocco, the program visited Mali and explored historic locations like Timbuktu, Mopti, Djenne and the Dogon region. Highlights in Burkina Faso and Cameroon included visits to local communities like Tiebele and Foumbon, where the challenges presented by globalization were clearly evident. National parks in the Central African Republic and Gabon provided a dramatic backdrop for discussions about resource use, species extinction, and ecotourism. 

The expedition concluded with a tour of Etosha National Park and Walvis Bay in northern Namibia, with the last night spent in one of the southern hemisphere’s most visually appealing cities, Cape Town.

Dr. Keeling serves on the Board of Councilors of the American Geographical Society, North America’s oldest geographic society founded in 1851, and has lectured for the AGS on educational tours to such locations as Turkey, Azerbaijan, the Maldives, northern Africa, Easter Island, Angkor Wat, Papua New Guinea, the Arctic region, Dubai and the Falkland Islands.

The primary mission of the American Geographical Society’s educational travel programs is to focus attention on some of the planet’s most pressing problems, such as the resource implications of oil extraction for western Africa, global climate change impacts on the Congo Basin, and the historical geography of Africa’s exploration and the legacy of the 1884 Conference of Berlin, when European colonial powers set the modern boundaries of Africa.  A secondary mission is to demonstrate how geographers address these issues and to promote a broader geographic perspective on sustainable development issues.

“Learning about climate change first-hand by examining rainforest ecosystems and changing animal populations up close really helps people to understand the issues of sustainability and global change and puts the challenges we face as a global society into sharper focus,” Dr. Keeling said.

One of the benefits for WKU, Dr. Keeling said, is that the university’s growing international reputation is further enhanced through his participation in these educational tours. Students also benefit from the knowledge gained from these experiences and subsequently shared in the classroom and through research projects and study abroad programs.

For information about the AGS and its educational tours, visit www.amergeog.org.
               
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For information, contact David Keeling at (270) 745-4555.