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Heart of Dryness: Botswana’s Bushmen Fight for Human, Water Rights

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The fifth installment of Workman's book details the Bushmen's painful legal battle for water access against the Botswana government, which had begun to use "intentional, compulsory thirst" on the indigenous community. Left little choice, the Bushmen pursued court action to make access to water a fundamental human right.

Heart of Dryness: The Rule of Water for Botswana’s Bushmen

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In the fourth installment of Heart of Dryness, author James G. Workman explains the historic transformation of water across Botswana's Kalahari. Workman continues to follow Qoroxloo, showing how the Bushmen have adapted to water scarcity and fluctuating hydrology.

Heart of Dryness: Water Infrastructure and Climate Change

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In the third installment of Climate Change Coping Strategies excerpts from James G. Workman's Heart of Dryness we reveal the struggle to develop effective infrastructure in the face of climate change.

Heart of Dryness: Water, Climate, and Energy

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The second installment Climate Change Coping Strategies of excerpts from James G. Workman's Heart of Dryness

Heart of Dryness: Climate Change Coping Strategies

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Since the dawn of Homo sapiens in arid Africa, nine tenths of our evolution has unfolded as foragers. Only relatively recently did our species embark on agriculture, and recent events suggest certain limits to that extraordinary experiment. Exponential population growth has combined with unprecedented climate change until half the planet’s land surface can now be classified as drylands—arid landscapes inhabited by a third of humankind.