Journal articles on the topic 'Capital markets – Zambia'

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore enterprise diversification amongst wetland farmers in Zambia as a way of reducing poverty and improving sustainability. This paper identifies ways in which such entrepreneurial activities can be supported and applied more widely. Design/methodology/approach A qualitative study of Zambian farmers, based on a series of workshops and interviews held in Zambia with farmers and farm business advisers. Findings Despite adopting new technologies most farmers are restricted to the local market where their increased production holds down prices. However, a very small number of farmers are able to progress to production and marketing for markets in major urban centres hundreds of kilometres away, and considerably more are able to use the capital accumulated from wetland farming to diversify their household enterprises to reduce poverty and improve the sustainability and resilience of their livelihoods. Originality/value No work has previously been undertaken in diversification strategies of small-scale farmers in Zambia.

The purpose of this study was to explore the benefits and challenges of strategic alliances among higher education institutions in Zambia. Literature on alliances is explicit and highlights the benefits of alliances as well as the challenges. The study was qualitative in nature utilizing purposive sampling. It was a case study focusing on the existing strategic alliances among three universities situated in the capital of Zambia: University of Zambia, University of Africa and Cavendish University. Sixty participants, 20 from each participating university were purposively selected to represent a rich demographic mix in terms of gender, level of education and experience. These were selected based on their knowledge and experience working in universities as well as their strategic positions in their universities. Data were qualitatively analysed using thematic analysis. Three major themes namely benefits of strategic alliances to universities, challenges faced by strategic alliances among universities and mechanisms to manage such challenges were identified and discussed. It was concluded that strategic alliances among universities benefited the Zambian higher education market better than competition. Challenges identified such as lack of commitment to the strategic alliances could easily lead to their failure and therefore appropriate strategies such as ensuring that contracts offered to staff clearly stipulated the boundaries of staff rights are needed to mitigate such failure.

AbstractNon-timber forest products (NTFPs) support livelihoods in rural communities through provision of food, fuel, materials, medicines and income from sales. We estimated the contribution of NTFPs to rural household income in Zambia, and used a two-stage tobit alternative model to identify the factors associated with participation in NTFP markets. NTFPs accounted for 35 per cent of household income for participating households, second only to trading. Human capital variables and the value of assets were found to be significant determinants of both participation in business activities related to NTFPs and the associated household income, and the poor were more dependent on NTFPs than wealthier households. The effect of average rainfall underscores the role that NTFPs play in providing a safety net during periods of low crop yields. Rural development policies should recognize the role played by NTFPs in rural livelihoods and the need to balance welfare improvement and sustainable forest management.

Introduction:The first decade of 2000 was considered Africa’s decade of unprecedented growth as it was the fastest growing region in the world. This growth is believed to have largely been a benefit of the commodity super-cycle which is beginning to tail-off. Analysts perceive that growth in Africa is currently more threatened by global trends and region specific risks around agriculture and politics.Statement of the problem:It has been noted that African countries have experienced stagnant or declining agricultural productivity growth rates, increasing rural poverty, hunger and malnutrition coupled with low competitiveness in global markets over the decades.Methodology:Using the database on Distortions to Agricultural Incentives, the World Development Indicators and the Penn World Tables, the determinants of economic growth in Southern Africa and the impacts of a pro or anti agricultural policy regime on economic growth were investigated. In this study, three Southern Africa countries were investigated, that is, Mozambique, Zambia and Zimbabwe.Results:The Panel Data Analysis results suggest that 1% decrease in the degree of anti-agriculture policy bias results in a 0.1% increase in real per capita GDP. Further, 1% increase in the share of gross capital formation in GDP results in 0.04% increase in real per capita GDP.Conclusion:The study showed that reducing direct and indirect, implicit and explicit taxation to agriculture relative to non-agriculture sector would result in improved economic growth in the three Southern African countries of Zambia, Zimbabwe and Mozambique.

Dollarisation in emerging economies of Southern Africa like Zambia and Zimbabwe, led High-Income Earning Individuals (HIEI) to invest offshore as an investment diversification strategy. The turbulent past experiences influenced African HIEI behavior in relation to their wealth management approaches. HIEI started looking for ways to protect its financial assets against future political and economic volatilities. The purpose of this study was to equip academics and the wider commercial fraternity with practical and strategic knowledge of the emerging markets’ offshore wealth management services industry. This would assist emerging markets to regulate HIEI markets, boost capital flow, fight tax evasion to allow banks to assist, help governments protect pensions, promote transparency in investments and avoid negative effects of dollarisation. Data were collected from 81 participants including HIEIs with offshore investments, those individuals without, financial advisors, and the Securities Exchange Commission (the industry regulator). The study used a qualitative approach in its methodology using questionnaires, interviews, and a computer-aided system for data analysis. We found that HIEI feels their wealth is under attack and looks towards offshore investing as a refuge. We identified the desperate urge of African HIEIs to secure their wealth as the main influence driving the offshore investing phenomenon

Purpose To understand African small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) performance and its antecedents is essential, both from a strategic management and an industrial development perspective. While a substantial literature on African SMEs has emerged in recent years, studies of their performance specifically are few and inconclusive. The purpose of this paper is to address this lacuna in the literature by examining variations in performance of 210 East African SMEs. Design/methodology/approach The paper employs OLS and logistic regression and Classify k-means test to analyze performance variations in a unique data set of 210 food processing enterprises in Tanzania, Kenya and Zambia. Findings Three generic types of African SMEs are identified based on performance: laggards, followers and gazelles. The gazelles are typically medium-sized, skill-intensive companies selling relatively differentiated products in niche markets. The laggards are typically small, capital-intensive companies involved in grain milling that adopt a cost differentiation strategy. A key driver of variation in performance is found to be the quality of the external business environment (in particular the quality of intermediary markets), and also capability factors such as the strength of management. Strategy factors such as differentiation and political strategies explain performance variations. Practical implications Among the policy implications are that African industrial policy should focus on improving the functioning of intermediary markets, e.g. by reducing the transaction costs of inter-firm collaboration. Moreover, rather than focusing industrial policy on SMEs per se, policymakers should focus on those types of enterprises that are capable of generating high performance, e.g. skill-intensive enterprises with strong managerial capabilities, engaged in differentiation strategies. Originality/value The paper integrates the extant literature on African SME performance, develops an analytical framework for studying it and presents novel empirical insights based on one of the most detailed surveys of SME performance in the continent to date. The findings have important and tangible implications for literature, as well as for industrial policy.

This paper highlights the growth dynamics of public and private investment in Zambia from 1964 to 2011. The evolution of the two components of investment in Zambia has been a product of market intervention and market-based policies. Initially, after its independence in 1964, the perpetuated market economy limited public investment growth to the basic infrastructural provision – for the first three years. However, the 1967 Mulungushi and the 1968 Matero nationalisation programmes brought about rapid expansion in public investment, especially from the early 1970s to the late 1980s. The market-based reforms that have been implemented in Zambia from 1991 have promoted private investment leadership – thereby, allowing public investment growth in economic activities that have complemented the private sector growth. Although private investment has grown to a position of economic dominance in Zambia, like many developing countries, the country still faces some challenges. These include inadequate and poor infrastructure, the high cost of human capital, cumbersome administrative procedures, and the high cost of financial capital.

Twenty years ago Zambia was riding a wave of seemingly unstoppable prosperity. Income per capita was the highest amongst sub-Saharan African countries. The high copper prices on which Zambia's wealth was based enabled the government to pursue ambitious social welfare programmes. However since the second half of 1974 the bottom has fallen out of the copper market as a result of recession in most of the copper-consuming countries and technical advances in industry which have reduced the need for copper. In the decade since then Zambia's economy has deteriorated progressively as can be gleaned from these statistics: GDP per capita in constant (1970) prices declined by about 25 per cent, between 1974 and 1983; per capita incomes fell by 44 per cent, during 1974—85 period; the level of real imports in 1984 was only 40 per cent, of the average level in the early 1970s; scarcity of foreign exchange has reduced capacity utilisation to low levels (in the last quarter of 1985 it was estimated that the industrial sector was operating only at about 30 per cent, of capacity and in some individual companies the situation was so serious that some once-thriving factories had had to close down for lack of essential spares and raw materials) and the investment rate fell from 41 per cent, in 1975 to about 12 per cent, in 1984. The expenditure in the public sector for operation and maintenance is underfunded, resulting in marked deterioriation of standards in public services, especially health and education.

Public sector reform (PSR) is believed to improve the performance of the public sector in particular and the economy in general by introducing market competition in service delivery. However, this paper shows that PSR uses a three-stage process to introduce neoliberal capitalism in African socialist states. The first stage dismantles the socialist state through strategies such as downsizing, decentralization, and privatization. The second stage introduces neoliberal capitalism in the former socialist state by removing government controls and allowing private sector actors to participate in economic activities. The third stage reconfigures the former socialist state into an agent of neoliberal capitalism. Ultimately, ordinary citizens are exploited and impoverished while private investors accumulate capital. JEL Classification: D73, P16, P33

The Nchanga Division of Zambia Consolidated Copper Mines Limited (ZCCM), the largest producing copper mine in the Commonwealth, has recently commissioned a new plant for reprocessing copper rich tailings. The tailings, some 140 million tonnes in total, are stored in large paddock dams. This paper records the problems and successes involved in completing the design, procurement and construction of the project, on time and ten per cent below budget. Design and project management was by Zambia Engineering Services Limited in Ashford, Kent, a subsidiary of ZCCM, and project funding was from a consortium of international hanks, export credit agencies and development organizations. The subjects dealt with include process design, project capital and funding, management, design and the use of models, estimating and cost control, planning, purchasing and procurement, construction and commissioning. The paper also highlights the problems associated with funding a new project of this type in the Third World in a depressed metals market, and the role of engineering in overcoming financial delays and transport problems. Commissioning started in April 1986 and the plant is now coming up to full production with a few, but not unexpected, problems bearing in mind the size and complexity of the plant. With the addition of stage 3 to the tailings leach plant at Nchanga throughput of ore is increased from 850 000 tonnes/month to 1500 000 tonnes/month and copper output by 40 000 tonnes/annum for a total cost of $250 M.

An improved fallow is a soil fertility agroforestry technique that has commonly been used in the staple maize production systems of Zambia and sub-Saharan Africa. Several studies have assessed the adoption and impact of the improved fallow on maize production. Generally, it has been observed that though the improved fallow does increase maize yields, its efficacy on welfare in terms of increased income is low. The use of the technique on cash crops that could significantly contribute to household welfare has rarely been investigated. This study assessed the factors affecting the adoption and impact of improved fallows on a commonly grown cash crop, cotton, in the cotton growing provinces of Zambia. The study used a sub sample (N=1206) of the nationally representative 2014/15 Rural Agricultural Livelihoods Survey (RALS) data which was randomly collected by the Indaba Agricultural Policy Research Institute (IAPRI) and Central Statistical Office (CSO) of Zambia. The determinants of improved fallow adoption among the cotton farmers were examined through the use of the probit model while the impact of the technique on cotton production and income was evaluated by using the propensity score matching and the endogenous switching regression models. Among the socioeconomic factors significantly increasing the probability of improved fallow adoption included: increases in age, education level, and per capita productive assets of the farmer, in addition to the area under cotton production and the distance of the homestead to the market. Institutional factors found to increase the farmer’s likelihood of adopting the improved fallow in the cotton production systems included; farmer membership to a cooperative, receiving improved fallow seedlings from the government projects and having information on agroforestry tree species. On the other hand, an increase in land size per capita was found to negatively affect the likelihood of improved tree fallow adoption. Impact estimates showed significant cotton yield and income increases as a result of adopting the technique. The continuous provision of information on relatively new techniques such as the improved fallows preferably in farmer organized groups, and support towards the provision of the technique’s planting materials are some of the areas requiring government and NGOs attention. In addition, the study recommends that the farmers’ formal education level should be enhanced and that improved tree fallows should also be explicitly promoted on cash crops that have similar agronomic requirements to maize such as cotton.

The process of disinvestment is going on not only in India but also in China, Russia, Brazil, Taiwan, Hungary, Thailand, Philippines, Korea, Turkey, Poland, West Asia, Zambia and Vietnam . Object of disinvestment is to reduce the financial burden on the government, improve public finances, introduce competition and market discipline, funds growth, encourage wider share of ownership and depoliticize non-essential services. Disinvestment improves corporate governance, develops and deepens the capital market through spread of equity culture, enhances corporate governance with the induction of independent directors developing and deepening of capital market, developing infrastructure, defence, education, healthcare and law and order. Private sector involves in PSUs by disinvestments. There are a lot of merits in private sector. In private sector, the decision-making process is quick, decisions are liked with the competitive markets changes. In private sector, better corporate governances, exposure, competitive corporate responsibility and transparency are found. The loss making PSUs can be successfully revived by asking the strategic partners to infuse fresh capital and exercising excellent management control over sick PSUs.

Subject area of the teaching case The subject area is international business and strategy. The case allows scope for the following areas: internationalisation, market strategy, emerging market multinational companies, and doing business in Africa. Student level The primary target audience for this teaching case is postgraduate business students such as Master of Business Administration (MBA), or postgraduate management programmes. The case is primarily designed for use in courses that cover strategy or international business. Brief overview of the teaching case This case centres on the international growth strategy of FMBcapital Holdings Group (FMB), the Malawian commercial banking firm. The case finds the founder and current group chairman, Hitesh Anadkat, in 2016, as he and the FMB board are about to decide on the next move in their Southern African strategy. Since opening the first FMB branch in Malawi and becoming the country's first commercial banker in 1995, Anadkat and his team have ridden a wave of financial deregulation across the region to successfully expand into neighbouring Botswana, Zambia, and Mozambique. Now, an opportunity to gain a foothold in Zimbabwe means the leaders must decide (1) whether they want to continue to grow the FMB footprint across the region, or focus on their integration and expansion efforts within existing markets; and (2) how they will realise this strategy. Expected learning outcomes International expansion – identifying the need to expand into new markets; identifying the combination of internal strengths and external conditions that make international expansion viable; and identifying and analysing each possible new market(s) and the decision-making process involved. Political, social and economic factors in Africa – understanding how these external institutional factors present constraints, risks and opportunities for internationalisation and hence shape strategy; understanding that these factors may vary significantly across countries on the continent (in spite of their geographic proximity) and in some cases, within a single country; and understanding that by selecting markets with extreme socially and politically volatile contexts, the risk of a worst-case scenario transpiring (in which institutional forces trump business strategy) is appreciable. Combination of resource- and institutional-based approaches – recognising that successful internationalisation requires capitalising upon both internal resources and institutional mastery. Choosing expansion strategies – assessing the type of new market entry (e.g. greenfield or acquisition of existing operations) and its adequacy for penetrating a new market. Using networks and local partners – to substitute and enhance the benefits that originally flow from a small (and sometime family-established) business, with an emphasis on acquisition of skills and networks in foreign countries. Regional integration – optimising business operations through a sharing or pooling of resources and improved capital flow between subsidiaries, in some instances by taking advantage of economies of scale (this extends to enhancing the reputation and awareness of a brand across a wider region). Family businesses – identifying the value that can be gained through establishing a family business with the support of many “close” stakeholders while also noting the limitation that exist as expansion and growth is required.

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New Institutional Economics has revived the important role of institutions on economic growth. North (1990) was a pioneering work. Institutions are defined as ‘the humanly devised constraints that structure human interaction. They are made up of formal constraints (for example, rules, laws, constitutions), informal constraints (for example, norms of behaviour, conventions, self-imposed codes of conduct), and their enforcement characteristics’ (North 1994, p. 360). Formal institutions are constraints sanctioned by state power if individuals violate them, while informal institutions are self-imposing constraints. According to North, of primary importance to economic performance is the economic institutions that determine transaction costs and influence the incentive structure in society such as the structure of property rights and the presence and perfection of markets. There are now various empirical studies on the effect of institutions on economic growth. Most studies used crosscountry regressions to determine the effect of institutional quality on economic growth. Knack and Keefer (1995) was a pioneering work. Four important institutional variables were proposed by Knack and Keefer (1995): protection of property rights, rule of law, corruption and bureaucratic quality. Such data were compiled from International Country Risk Guide (ICRG) data, published by the U.S.-based Political Risk Services Group, and from Business Environment Risk Intelligence (BERI), based in Switzerland. The ICRG index includes protection of property rights (expropriation risk and repudiation of contracts by government), rule of law, corruption, and bureaucratic quality. The BERI index includes contract enforceability, nationalisation potential, bureaucratic delays and infrastructure quality. Knack and Keefer run a regression vfor 97 countries in the period 1974-89. The explanatory variables include institutional quality (ICRG or BERI), initial per capita GDP, initial human capital, average annual government consumption share/GDP, distortion index (absolute value of deviation of investment price level), the number of revolutions and coups per year and the number of political assassinations per year per million population in the period 1974-89. To avoid possible simultaneity between growth and institutional quality, the authors chose the initial value of the institutional indices rather than the average for the whole period. The earliest release of BERI was 1974 and that of ICRG 1982. The scale for BERI was from 0 to 4 and for ICRG from 0 to 10 (the higher the better). The findings indicated that the ICRG index was positive and highly significant across the specifications. The BERI index was positive and significant for most specifications. Mauro (1995) used a different dataset of institutions from Business International (later incorporated into the Economist Intelligence Unit). His institutional variables included corruption and bureaucratic efficiency (including corruption, efficiency of the judiciary system, and bureaucratic red tape). The data were collected for the period 1980-83. The dependent variable was average per capita GDP growth during 1960-85. The explanatory variables included initial per capita income in 1960, population growth, primary education in 1960, government expenditure share, revolutions and coups, assassinations, political instability, two distortion indices (absolute value of deviation of investment price level and its standard deviation), dummies for regions, and Mauro’s corruption index or bureaucratic efficiency index. The finding was that both low bureaucratic efficiency and high corruption exerted strong and negative effects on growth. Their effects were statistically significant. Other significant studies include Sachs and Warner (1997a, 1997b), Barro (1998), Brunetti et al. (1997), Kaufman et al. (1999b), Aron (2000). Their findings in general indicate positive effects of institutional quality on economic growth. This paper is aimed to explore a different but relevant relationship, i.e., the question is how institutions affect on efficiency of investment. The efficiency of investment is defined as the incremental capital-output ratio (ICOR). The ICOR measures the additional amount of capital required to produce an additional unit of output. The reciprocal of ICOR measures the productivity of additional capital (Gillis et al. 1992). The efficiency of investment is vital to growth because the level of investment alone cannot fully explain growth performance across countries. It is noteworthy that some countries can achieve a fairly high investment rate, but only slow growth. For example, during the period 1961-85, Argentina, Jamaica and Zambia achieved an investment/GDP rate as high as that of Taiwan, Malaysia and Thailand, but could only achieve a growth rate less than a third of the latter group. The main hypothesis of this paper is that quality of institutions has positive effect on investment efficiency.

There has been lots of questions on why there is continued escalating poverty levels in Zambia despite the presence of the commercial activities from the mining global value chain. These commercial activities would be helpful in linking small & medium enterprises (SMEs) to participate in the high grade market and supply for sustainable income. Unfortunately, there are barriers of entry that limit supplier entry and participation. The Zambian mines are marred with such barriers as tax compliance, registration processes, licensing requirements, technology upgrade, standards requirements, capacity requirements, managerial competencies, competition barriers and financial constraints. The main objective of the study was to perform a regression analysis and establish the predictor barriers to supplier participation. A survey questionnaire with 350 respondents showed a Cronbach reliability test of 0.812 indicating a good internal consistence. Further Statistics from the SPSS output show the following p-values; tax (0.036), standards (0.033), individual capacity (0.01), financial capital (0.00) as predictors of supplier participation to the mines while registration (0.524), licensing (.267), technology upgrade (.079), managerial skills (.853) and competition (.383) showing that they are not predictors of suppliers’ participation to the mines. This means that tax, standards, individual capacity and financial capital sit statistically significant and influence the functioning of the mining value chain

Abstract The financialization debate has not paid enough attention to the African continent. The continent’s populations and governments have found creative ways of dealing with the capitalist world market and political power relations since decolonization in the late 1950s. However, several forms of structural dependence and subordination persist. We ask in this article how the global process of financialization has unfolded across the continent and what it means for relations of dependence. We understand financialization as the global expansion of financial practices, and, in particular, the financial sector, that followed the end of the Bretton Woods era. We consider to what extent it has occurred at all in the four case study countries of Mauritius, Nigeria, Zambia, and South Africa. The empirical analysis of aggregate country data shows that financialization is, at best, an uneven and patchy process on the continent, not a general structural shift in the way capital accumulation is organized. Rather, where financialization occurred, it appears to have diversified the relations of dependence that states, corporations, and populations have found themselves in.

Special Care Notice This article contains images of deceased people that might cause sadness or distress to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers. Introduction Like many cities, Perth was founded on wetlands that have been integral to its history and culture (Seddon 226–32). However, in order to promote a settlement agenda, early mapmakers sought to erase the city’s wetlands from cartographic depictions (Giblett, Cities). Since the colonial era, inner-Perth’s swamps and lakes have been drained, filled, significantly reduced in size, or otherwise reclaimed for urban expansion (Bekle). Not only have the swamps and lakes physically disappeared, the memories of their presence and influence on the city’s development over time are also largely forgotten. What was the site of Perth, specifically its wetlands, like before British settlement? In 2014, an interdisciplinary team at Edith Cowan University developed a digital visualisation process to re-imagine Perth prior to colonisation. This was based on early maps of the Swan River Colony and a range of archival information. The images depicted the city’s topography, hydrology, and vegetation and became the centerpiece of a physical exhibition entitled Re-imagining Perth’s Lost Wetlands and a virtual exhibition hosted by the Western Australian Museum. Alongside historic maps, paintings, photographs, and writings, the visual reconstruction of Perth aimed to foster appreciation of the pre-settlement environment—the homeland of the Whadjuck Nyoongar, or Bibbulmun, people (Carter and Nutter). The exhibition included the narrative of Fanny Balbuk, a Nyoongar woman who voiced her indignation over the “usurping of her beloved home ground” (Bates, The Passing 69) by flouting property lines and walking through private residences to reach places of cultural significance. Beginning with Balbuk’s story and the digital tracing of her walking route through colonial Perth, this article discusses the project in the context of contemporary pressures on the city’s extant wetlands. The re-imagining of Perth through historically, culturally, and geographically-grounded digital visualisation approaches can inspire the conservation of its wetlands heritage. Balbuk’s Walk through the City For many who grew up in Perth, Fanny Balbuk’s perambulations have achieved legendary status in the collective cultural imagination. In his memoir, David Whish-Wilson mentions Balbuk’s defiant walks and the lighting up of the city for astronaut John Glenn in 1962 as the two stories that had the most impact on his Perth childhood. From Gordon Stephenson House, Whish-Wilson visualises her journey in his mind’s eye, past Government House on St Georges Terrace (the main thoroughfare through the city centre), then north on Barrack Street towards the railway station, the site of Lake Kingsford where Balbuk once gathered bush tucker (4). He considers the footpaths “beneath the geometric frame of the modern city […] worn smooth over millennia that snake up through the sheoak and marri woodland and into the city’s heart” (Whish-Wilson 4). Balbuk’s story embodies the intertwined culture and nature of Perth—a city of wetlands. Born in 1840 on Heirisson Island, Balbuk (also known as Yooreel) (Figure 1) had ancestral bonds to the urban landscape. According to Daisy Bates, writing in the early 1900s, the Nyoongar term Matagarup, or “leg deep,” denotes the passage of shallow water near Heirisson Island where Balbuk would have forded the Swan River (“Oldest” 16). Yoonderup was recorded as the Nyoongar name for Heirisson Island (Bates, “Oldest” 16) and the birthplace of Balbuk’s mother (Bates, “Aboriginal”). In the suburb of Shenton Park near present-day Lake Jualbup, her father bequeathed to her a red ochre (or wilgi) pit that she guarded fervently throughout her life (Bates, “Aboriginal”).Figure 1. Group of Aboriginal Women at Perth, including Fanny Balbuk (far right) (c. 1900). Image Credit: State Library of Western Australia (Image Number: 44c). Balbuk’s grandparents were culturally linked to the site. At his favourite camp beside the freshwater spring near Kings Park on Mounts Bay Road, her grandfather witnessed the arrival of Lieutenant-Colonel Frederick Irwin, cousin of James Stirling (Bates, “Fanny”). In 1879, colonial entrepreneurs established the Swan Brewery at this significant locale (Welborn). Her grandmother’s gravesite later became Government House (Bates, “Fanny”) and she protested vociferously outside “the stone gates guarded by a sentry [that] enclosed her grandmother’s burial ground” (Bates, The Passing 70). Balbuk’s other grandmother was buried beneath Bishop’s Grove, the residence of the city’s first archibishop, now Terrace Hotel (Bates, “Aboriginal”). Historian Bob Reece observes that Balbuk was “the last full-descent woman of Kar’gatta (Karrakatta), the Bibbulmun name for the Mount Eliza [Kings Park] area of Perth” (134). According to accounts drawn from Bates, her home ground traversed the area between Heirisson Island and Perth’s north-western limits. In Kings Park, one of her relatives was buried near a large, hollow tree used by Nyoongar people like a cistern to capture water and which later became the site of the Queen Victoria Statue (Bates, “Aboriginal”). On the slopes of Mount Eliza, the highest point of Kings Park, at the western end of St Georges Terrace, she harvested plant foods, including zamia fruits (Macrozamia riedlei) (Bates, “Fanny”). Fanny Balbuk’s knowledge contributed to the native title claim lodged by Nyoongar people in 2006 as Bennell v. State of Western Australia—the first of its kind to acknowledge Aboriginal land rights in a capital city and part of the larger Single Nyoongar Claim (South West Aboriginal Land and Sea Council et al.). Perth’s colonial administration perceived the city’s wetlands as impediments to progress and as insalubrious environments to be eradicated through reclamation practices. For Balbuk and other Nyoongar people, however, wetlands were “nourishing terrains” (Rose) that afforded sustenance seasonally and meaning perpetually (O’Connor, Quartermaine, and Bodney). Mary Graham, a Kombu-merri elder from Queensland, articulates the connection between land and culture, “because land is sacred and must be looked after, the relation between people and land becomes the template for society and social relations. Therefore all meaning comes from land.” Traditional, embodied reliance on Perth’s wetlands is evident in Bates’ documentation. For instance, Boojoormeup was a “big swamp full of all kinds of food, now turned into Palmerston and Lake streets” (Bates, “Aboriginal”). Considering her cultural values, Balbuk’s determination to maintain pathways through the increasingly colonial Perth environment is unsurprising (Figure 2). From Heirisson Island: a straight track had led to the place where once she had gathered jilgies [crayfish] and vegetable food with the women, in the swamp where Perth railway station now stands. Through fences and over them, Balbuk took the straight track to the end. When a house was built in the way, she broke its fence-palings with her digging stick and charged up the steps and through the rooms. (Bates, The Passing 70) One obstacle was Hooper’s Fence, which Balbuk broke repeatedly on her trips to areas between Kings Park and the railway station (Bates, “Hooper’s”). Her tenacious commitment to walking ancestral routes signifies the friction between settlement infrastructure and traditional Nyoongar livelihood during an era of rapid change. Figure 2. Determination of Fanny Balbuk’s Journey between Yoonderup (Heirisson Island) and Lake Kingsford, traversing what is now the central business district of Perth on the Swan River (2014). Image background prepared by Dimitri Fotev. Track interpolation by Jeff Murray. Project Background and Approach Inspired by Fanny Balbuk’s story, Re-imagining Perth’s Lost Wetlands began as an Australian response to the Mannahatta Project. Founded in 1999, that project used spatial analysis techniques and mapping software to visualise New York’s urbanised Manhattan Island—or Mannahatta as it was called by indigenous people—in the early 1600s (Sanderson). Based on research into the island’s original biogeography and the ecological practices of Native Americans, Mannahatta enabled the public to “peel back” the city’s strata, revealing the original composition of the New York site. The layers of visuals included rich details about the island’s landforms, water systems, and vegetation. Mannahatta compelled Rod Giblett, a cultural researcher at Edith Cowan University, to develop an analogous model for visualising Perth circa 1829. The idea attracted support from the City of Perth, Landgate, and the University. Using stories, artefacts, and maps, the team—comprising a cartographer, designer, three-dimensional modelling expert, and historical researchers—set out to generate visualisations of the landscape at the time of British colonisation. Nyoongar elder Noel Nannup approved culturally sensitive material and contributed his perspective on Aboriginal content to include in the exhibition. The initiative’s context remains pressing. In many ways, Perth has become a template for development in the metropolitan area (Weller). While not unusual for a capital, the rate of transformation is perhaps unexpected in a city less than 200 years old (Forster). There also remains a persistent view of existing wetlands as obstructions to progress that, once removed, are soon forgotten (Urban Bushland Council). Digital visualisation can contribute to appreciating environments prior to colonisation but also to re-imagining possibilities for future human interactions with land, water, and space. Despite the rapid pace of change, many Perth area residents have memories of wetlands lost during their lifetimes (for example, Giblett, Forrestdale). However, as the clearing and drainage of the inner city occurred early in settlement, recollections of urban wetlands exist exclusively in historical records. In 1935, a local correspondent using the name “Sandgroper” reminisced about swamps, connecting them to Perth’s colonial heritage: But the Swamps were very real in fact, and in name in the [eighteen-] Nineties, and the Perth of my youth cannot be visualised without them. They were, of course, drying up apace, but they were swamps for all that, and they linked us directly with the earliest days of the Colony when our great-grandparents had founded this City of Perth on a sort of hog's-back, of which Hay-street was the ridge, and from which a succession of streamlets ran down its southern slope to the river, while land locked to the north of it lay a series of lakes which have long since been filled to and built over so that the only evidence that they have ever existed lies in the original street plans of Perth prepared by Roe and Hillman in the early eighteen-thirties. A salient consequence of the loss of ecological memory is the tendency to repeat the miscues of the past, especially the blatant disregard for natural and cultural heritage, as suburbanisation engulfs the area. While the swamps of inner Perth remain only in the names of streets, existing wetlands in the metropolitan area are still being threatened, as the Roe Highway (Roe 8) Campaign demonstrates. To re-imagine Perth’s lost landscape, we used several colonial survey maps to plot the location of the original lakes and swamps. At this time, a series of interconnecting waterbodies, known as the Perth Great Lakes, spread across the north of the city (Bekle and Gentilli). This phase required the earliest cartographic sources (Figure 3) because, by 1855, city maps no longer depicted wetlands. We synthesised contextual information, such as well depths, geological and botanical maps, settlers’ accounts, Nyoongar oral histories, and colonial-era artists’ impressions, to produce renderings of Perth. This diverse collection of primary and secondary materials served as the basis for creating new images of the city. Team member Jeff Murray interpolated Balbuk’s route using historical mappings and accounts, topographical data, court records, and cartographic common sense. He determined that Balbuk would have camped on the high ground of the southern part of Lake Kingsford rather than the more inundated northern part (Figure 2). Furthermore, she would have followed a reasonably direct course north of St Georges Terrace (contrary to David Whish-Wilson’s imaginings) because she was barred from Government House for protesting. This easier route would have also avoided the springs and gullies that appear on early maps of Perth. Figure 3. Townsite of Perth in Western Australia by Colonial Draftsman A. Hillman and John Septimus Roe (1838). This map of Perth depicts the wetlands that existed overlaid by the geomentric grid of the new city. Image Credit: State Library of Western Australia (Image Number: BA1961/14). Additionally, we produced an animated display based on aerial photographs to show the historical extent of change. Prompted by the build up to World War II, the earliest aerial photography of Perth dates from the late 1930s (Dixon 148–54). As “Sandgroper” noted, by this time, most of the urban wetlands had been drained or substantially modified. The animation revealed considerable alterations to the formerly swampy Swan River shoreline. Most prominent was the transformation of the Matagarup shallows across the Swan River, originally consisting of small islands. Now traversed by a causeway, this area was transformed into a single island, Heirisson—the general site of Balbuk’s birth. The animation and accompanying materials (maps, images, and writings) enabled viewers to apprehend the changes in real time and to imagine what the city was once like. Re-imagining Perth’s Urban Heart The physical environment of inner Perth includes virtually no trace of its wetland origins. Consequently, we considered whether a representation of Perth, as it existed previously, could enhance public understanding of natural heritage and thereby increase its value. For this reason, interpretive materials were exhibited centrally at Perth Town Hall. Built partly by convicts between 1867 and 1870, the venue is close to the site of the 1829 Foundation of Perth, depicted in George Pitt Morrison’s painting. Balbuk’s grandfather “camped somewhere in the city of Perth, not far from the Town Hall” (Bates, “Fanny”). The building lies one block from the site of the railway station on the site of Lake Kingsford, the subsistence grounds of Balbuk and her forebears: The old swamp which is now the Perth railway yards had been a favourite jilgi ground; a spring near the Town Hall had been a camping place of Maiago […] and others of her fathers' folk; and all around and about city and suburbs she had gathered roots and fished for crayfish in the days gone by. (Bates, “Derelicts” 55) Beginning in 1848, the draining of Lake Kingsford reached completion during the construction of the Town Hall. While the swamps of the city were not appreciated by many residents, some organisations, such as the Perth Town Trust, vigorously opposed the reclamation of the lake, alluding to its hydrological role: That, the soil being sand, it is not to be supposed that Lake Kingsford has in itself any material effect on the wells of Perth; but that, from this same reason of the sandy soil, it would be impossible to keep the lake dry without, by so doing, withdrawing the water from at least the adjacent parts of the townsite to the same depth. (Independent Journal of Politics and News 3) At the time of our exhibition, the Lake Kingsford site was again being reworked to sink the railway line and build Yagan Square, a public space named after a colonial-era Nyoongar leader. The project required specialised construction techniques due to the high water table—the remnants of the lake. People travelling to the exhibition by train in October 2014 could have seen the lake reasserting itself in partly-filled depressions, flush with winter rain (Figure 4).Figure 4. Rise of the Repressed (2014). Water Rising in the former site of Lake Kingsford/Irwin during construction, corner of Roe and Fitzgerald Streets, Northbridge, WA. Image Credit: Nandi Chinna (2014). The exhibition was situated in the Town Hall’s enclosed undercroft designed for markets and more recently for shops. While some visited after peering curiously through the glass walls of the undercroft, others hailed from local and state government organisations. Guest comments applauded the alternative view of Perth we presented. The content invited the public to re-imagine Perth as a city of wetlands that were both environmentally and culturally important. A display panel described how the city’s infrastructure presented a hindrance for Balbuk as she attempted to negotiate the once-familiar route between Yoonderup and Lake Kingsford (Figure 2). Perth’s growth “restricted Balbuk’s wanderings; towns, trains, and farms came through her ‘line of march’; old landmarks were thus swept away, and year after year saw her less confident of the locality of one-time familiar spots” (Bates, “Fanny”). Conserving Wetlands: From Re-Claiming to Re-Valuing? Imagination, for philosopher Roger Scruton, involves “thinking of, and attending to, a present object (by thinking of it, or perceiving it, in terms of something absent)” (155). According to Scruton, the feelings aroused through imagination can prompt creative, transformative experiences. While environmental conservation tends to rely on data-driven empirical approaches, it appeals to imagination less commonly. We have found, however, that attending to the present object (the city) in terms of something absent (its wetlands) through evocative visual material can complement traditional conservation agendas focused on habitats and species. The actual extent of wetlands loss in the Swan Coastal Plain—the flat and sandy region extending from Jurien Bay south to Cape Naturaliste, including Perth—is contested. However, estimates suggest that 80 per cent of wetlands have been lost, with remaining habitats threatened by climate change, suburban development, agriculture, and industry (Department of Environment and Conservation). As with the swamps and lakes of the inner city, many regional wetlands were cleared, drained, or filled before they could be properly documented. Additionally, the seasonal fluctuations of swampy places have never been easily translatable to two-dimensional records. As Giblett notes, the creation of cartographic representations and the assignment of English names were attempts to fix the dynamic boundaries of wetlands, at least in the minds of settlers and administrators (Postmodern 72–73). Moreover, European colonists found the Western Australian landscape, including its wetlands, generally discomfiting. In a letter from 1833, metaphors failed George Fletcher Moore, the effusive colonial commentator, “I cannot compare these swamps to any marshes with which you are familiar” (220). The intermediate nature of wetlands—as neither land nor lake—is perhaps one reason for their cultural marginalisation (Giblett, Postmodern 39). The conviction that unsanitary, miasmic wetlands should be converted to more useful purposes largely prevailed (Giblett, Black 105–22). Felicity Morel-EdnieBrown’s research into land ownership records in colonial Perth demonstrated that town lots on swampland were often preferred. By layering records using geographic information systems (GIS), she revealed modifications to town plans to accommodate swampland frontages. The decline of wetlands in the region appears to have been driven initially by their exploitation for water and later for fertile soil. Northern market gardens supplied the needs of the early city. It is likely that the depletion of Nyoongar bush foods predated the flourishing of these gardens (Carter and Nutter). Engaging with the history of Perth’s swamps raises questions about the appreciation of wetlands today. In an era where numerous conservation strategies and alternatives have been developed (for example, Bobbink et al. 93–220), the exploitation of wetlands in service to population growth persists. On Perth’s north side, wetlands have long been subdued by controlling their water levels and landscaping their boundaries, as the suburban examples of Lake Monger and Hyde Park (formerly Third Swamp Reserve) reveal. Largely unmodified wetlands, such as Forrestdale Lake, exist south of Perth, but they too are in danger (Giblett, Black Swan). The Beeliar Wetlands near the suburb of Bibra Lake comprise an interconnected series of lakes and swamps that are vulnerable to a highway extension project first proposed in the 1950s. Just as the Perth Town Trust debated Lake Kingsford’s draining, local councils and the public are fiercely contesting the construction of the Roe Highway, which will bisect Beeliar Wetlands, destroying Roe Swamp (Chinna). The conservation value of wetlands still struggles to compete with traffic planning underpinned by a modernist ideology that associates cars and freeways with progress (Gregory). Outside of archives, the debate about Lake Kingsford is almost entirely forgotten and its physical presence has been erased. Despite the magnitude of loss, re-imagining the city’s swamplands, in the way that we have, calls attention to past indiscretions while invigorating future possibilities. We hope that the re-imagining of Perth’s wetlands stimulates public respect for ancestral tracks and songlines like Balbuk’s. Despite the accretions of settler history and colonial discourse, songlines endure as a fundamental cultural heritage. Nyoongar elder Noel Nannup states, “as people, if we can get out there on our songlines, even though there may be farms or roads overlaying them, fences, whatever it is that might impede us from travelling directly upon them, if we can get close proximity, we can still keep our culture alive. That is why it is so important for us to have our songlines.” Just as Fanny Balbuk plied her songlines between Yoonderup and Lake Kingsford, the traditional custodians of Beeliar and other wetlands around Perth walk the landscape as an act of resistance and solidarity, keeping the stories of place alive. Acknowledgments The authors wish to acknowledge Rod Giblett (ECU), Nandi Chinna (ECU), Susanna Iuliano (ECU), Jeff Murray (Kareff Consulting), Dimitri Fotev (City of Perth), and Brendan McAtee (Landgate) for their contributions to this project. The authors also acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands upon which this paper was researched and written. 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