54 the sudan handbookNatural ResourcesAway from the river and the grand projects, Sudan has other kinds of
natural wealth. One of the least visible, but most consistently important,
is gum arabic, which is an important source of income for the inhabit-
ants of a wide belt across the savannah zone between the Tenth Parallel
and the Fourteenth Parallel. An edible glue which exudes from the bark
of an acacia tree, Acacia senegalensis or Acacia Seyal, gum arabic is used in
producing pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, paints and foodstuffs, including
most soft drinks. Sudan presently produces around 25,000 tonnes a
year, or half of the world’s annual production; most of it coming from
Kordofan, where gum gardens do well in dry and sandy conditions. There
is little cultivation involved; gum arabic collection is generally a seasonal
occupation of poor farmers. At present, a government monopoly over the
export trade limits the returns to these farmers, and provides significant
revenue to the state. The shea or lulu tree (Butyrospermum parkii), source
of the shea butter used in cosmetics, occurs in a swathe across Sudan,
south of the gum arabic belt. Lulu is a cash crop whose potential has yet
to be fully exploited. Elsewhere in Sudan, timber is a potential export
commodity. In the south, in particular, there are significant resources of
hardwood, growing on the ironstone; during the war, much was felled by
army officers in the government garrison at Wau and exported by train
and aircraft to the north.
Wildlife remains a threatened and undermanaged resource in Sudan.
The Sudd, in particular, is one of Africa’s great conservation challenges.
The fish and game of the Sudd and other areas of the south helped sustain
its inhabitants through two civil wars, but conservation organizations are
only now beginning to do surveys to determine what is left of the once-
plentiful wildlife. Southern Sudan is home to two of Africa’s three main
mammal migrations, that of the white-eared kob (Kobus kobus leucotis) and
that of the tiang (Damaliscus korrigum lunatus). These seasonal movements
rival the migration of the wildebeest of the Serengeti in scale and extent.
Kob and tiang migrate north and south on the plains east of the Nile,
the kob from the Guom Swamps past the Boma plateau and back, the
The Sudan Handbook, edited by John Ryle, Justin Willis, Suliman Baldo and Jok Madut Jok. © 2011 Rift Valley Institute and contributors
(www.riftvalley.net).