Baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) processing and marketing is a promising non-timber forest product (NTFP)-based industry with immense socioeconomic value, and a demonstrable circular bioeconomy potential. However, the continuous realisation of these roles, performance and growth is beleaguered by high level of informality, and low productivity and innovation performance of the micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) engaged in its commercialisation. Addressing these challenges calls for context-specific investigation recognising that NTFPs-based MSMEs are heterogenous and thus require a n...

Modern humans, descendants of a founding population that separated from chimpanzees some five to eight million years ago, are today the only living representative of a branching group of African apes called hominins. Because of its extraordinary size and shape, the baobab (Adansonia digitata L.) has long been identified as the most striking tree of Africa’s mosaic savanna, the landscape generally regarded as the environment of hominin evolution. This book makes the case for identifying the baobab as the tree of life in the hunter-gatherer adaptation that was the economic foundation of hominin evolution. The argument is based on the significance of the baobab as a resource-rich environment for the Hadza of northeastern Tanzania, who continue to be successful hunter-gatherers of the African savanna.