Inclusive Anti-poaching? Exploring the Potential and Challenges of Community-based Anti-Poaching

As it is acknowledged that the largely (para)militarised approach to anti-poaching has its limitations, alternative approaches to conservation law enforcement are being sought. One alternative, what we call inclusive anti-poaching, focuses on including people from local communities in antipoaching initiatives. Using a case study of a community programme from southern Mozambique, located adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger National Park, we examine the potential of a community ranger initiative to move towards a more inclusive and sustainable approach to anti-poaching and conservation. While highlighting its challenges and potential drawbacks, we argue that including local people in conservation law enforcement efforts can help address poaching and the problematic aspects of current anti-poaching measures. However, to be a genuine and sustainable alternative, community ranger programmes must be part of a broader shift towards developing local wildlife economies that benefit local communities, as opposed to supporting pre-existing antipoaching interventions

Enactment of ‘community’ in community based natural resources management in Zambezi Region, Namibia

This thesis is about community based natural resource management. This form of resource management is well known globally and locally through its acronym: CBNRM. It stands for the devolution from the state to local communities of rights to manage and reap the benefits from natural resources. One of CBNRM’s objectives is to empower rural communities through providing material and non-material incentives for assuming management responsibility over natural and wildlife resources. CBNRM initiatives have globally been triggered by substantial losses in biodiversity and marginalisation of rural communities. Enduring poverty in communities residing in communal areas bordering protected areas and non-involvement in management, decision-making and access to benefits are often seen as causing biodiversity losses to occur. For many academics, NGO-practitioners, rural people as well as national and regional policymakers, CBNRM has evolved to become an important model for conservation and rural development. The realisation and widespread failure of centralised, top-down approaches, also referred to as ‘fortress conservation’, combined with the belief that wildlife could be sustainably conserved if its management was partly transferred to the people who live with these resources, contributed to the growth and expansion of CBNRM projects and programmes across the globe. CBNRM - if well designed and implemented – is positioned and believed to be a model that potentially simultaneously conserves biodiversity and reduces poverty. This thesis explores a critical dimension of CBNRM: the community, and particularly the community in interactions with a range of actors operating at global and local levels. CBNRM stands analytically a multi-actor and multi-level project. CBNRM projects evolved to be the sites where global and local processes and projects interact and intersect creating in turn many interesting interfaces and learning moments for all that are involved in conservation. Such focus helps to understand what a conservancy actually is and how these were introduced and enacted in villages. The idea gradually developed that a conservancy evolves as an area where a diversity of actors socio-politically relate to each other and operate to satisfy their specific but different needs and interests in distributing the benefits of CBNRM and to attempt to access jobs and yield power in the process. I conceptualise the conservancy as an ‘arena’, as the social setting or site of enactment of conservation practices, social relations and processes and, simultaneously, the site where the struggle over control over conservancy resources and power takes place. This focus allows for a detailed analysis of a range of critical issues including socio-economic inequality, gender, traditional authority, benefits sharing, elite behaviour or capture, competition, transparency and accountability. The empirical setting of the thesis is three conservancies in the former Caprivi Province of Namibia: Wuparo, Sobbe and Kwandu. The author has worked with these conservancies for over 8 years, in many capacities: as researcher, as practitioner/consultant and as a more then interested bystander given his involvement with nature conservation from his high school years.</p

Automated Geodetic Deformation Monitoring System using GNSS: case study of the Kariba Dam

M.ENGGeodetic Deformation Monitoring (GDM) plays a vital role in project safety and management. Geodetic measurements on dams are done to monitor change and rate of change in order to ensure safety. Kariba Dam suffers normal stresses, and strains mainly from temperature and hydrostatic pressure seasonal changes. These loads deflect the dam upstream/downstream in summer and winter, respectively. The deflections are currently monitored using a traditional deformation monitoring system by Zambezi River Authority (ZRA). However, more unexpected factors which were not catered for at design stage have rendered the traditional methods obsolete. These unexpected factors are: Reservoir Induced Seismicity (RIS), plunge pool scouring, Alkali Aggregate Reaction (AAR), landslide and earth-work vibrations. Thus, in this study, the dam was assessed to have new deformation patterns: Clockwise (southward) horizontal rotation of the north abutment, tangential movements of the dam northwards, increased upstream/upward swelling of the dam crest, and southward vertical rotation of the south and north bank . Due to the above deflections, the Kariba Dam arch has lost its original shape, with the arch ends buckling more than the spillway section. Human-related errors may worsen these deformations. The vertical and horizontal rotational tendencies resulted from anchor cables and landslide moments of forces on the south bank. AAR effect was analyzed as being of less concern because past findings proved it’s subsiding. Poor geology destabilized the control points, thus rendering the classical monitoring system less accurate. To address the new deformations, a real-time, automated GNSS/LPS Online-based Control and Alarm System (GOCA) was designed for an early detection, alerting of landslide and its effects on the dam to classified users. This system applies GNSS and classical Local Positioning Sensors (LPS) such as Total Stations, and geotechnical instruments. It was recommended that prism array be installed urgently for use even under the classical methods for more deformation detection. This research has explained the puzzling new dam behaviour and substantiated the effects of the landslide which might have been worsened by earth work activities in the area with poor geology. Hence this research formed a basis for future studies and monitoring system improvements at the Kariba Dam through easy-to-understand analysis and visualizations of concepts and past deformation data presented mainly in form of tables by ZRA. The analysis included computations of rates of change of current deformations compared to the previous. The past and current deformation results were visualized in form of drawings and illustrations which helped link landslide forces to new dam deformations

The Principal Functions of Institutions in Shaping the Civil Society and Southern African Rural Organisations

The influence of political interests on resource discourse is well-documented, with ordinary citizens often portrayed as both victims and potential solutions if governments were more accountable. Institutions play crucial roles in shaping societal norms, behaviors and politico-economic interactions, yet the specific functions of different institutions and their impact on Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), especially Community-Based Organizations (CBOs), in rural contexts remain unclear. This paper explores how formal and informal institutions influence the activities, operational strategies and effectiveness of CSOs. Drawing upon recent developments in conservation, this understanding is particularly important in light of the evolving challenges faced by rural societies and the need for CBOs to navigate complex institutional landscapes to achieve their goals. Using the North, Wallis, and Weingast (NWW) theoretical framework, the paper distinguishes between 'limited access orders' and 'open access orders' to understand CBOs' operational contexts. In 'limited access orders', where power is concentrated among a few, formal institutions maintain the status quo, limiting CBO actions. The hypothesis posits that formal institutions, through regulatory frameworks, can either enable or constrain CBO activities, while informal institutions, through cultural norms, influence social acceptance, community support and resource mobilization for CBO initiatives. 'Open access orders' provide a conducive environment for mass opinions and collective actions led by CBOs on resource ownership. Understanding these dynamics is crucial for developing strategies that enhance government accountability and support CBOs' roles in advocacy, biodiversity preservation, natural resource management, and rural development

Threats posed to conservation by media misinformation

Media coverage of trophy hunting highlights the potential for misinformation to enter public and political debates on conservation issues. We argue that misinformation should be a major concern for all involved in conservation

‘Local hunting’ and community-based natural resource management: contestations and livelihoods

The argument in this paper is not commonly made in the conservation literature. We argue that ‘poaching’ and ‘illegal hunting’ are inadequate concepts for understanding why local forms of hunting persist despite their being banned and criminalised. A ‘poacher’ ‘poaches’ because a set of institutionalised rules recognises and identifies him or her as such. Instead, we propose to use the concept ‘local hunting’ and ‘local hunters’. We also argue that conservation policies and specifically the creation of environmental subjects, conservancy's distributional politics and a contrasting ontological foundation of community-based conservation play keys role in explaining the continuity of ‘local hunting’. More space is needed to situate local hunters and their hunting practices and motivations in the broader conservation discourse and policies

Navigating community conservancies and institutional complexities in Namibia

Since the mid-1990s, communal conservancies have been promoted by the state and non-state agencies in Namibia as an alternative land use that simultaneously ensures wildlife conservation and provides livelihoods opportunities for rural communities. Members of local communities are given usufruct rights over wildlife and other natural resources. Eco-tourism and trophy hunting became important activities that can provide resources for community projects. Furthermore, the management of the conservancies is expected to be participatory. The new forms and modes of participating in decision-making and sharing of the monetary benefits of nature, however, have generated a series of interfaces and contestations with the pre-existing so-called traditional modes and forms of organising the use and access to natural resources. By focussing on two questions, this chapter sheds light on the interfaces and contestations that unfold in and during the conservancy formation process. First, we zoom in on the institutional complexities the communal conservancy programme became enmeshed in and how the “modern” and “traditional” forms of organisations configure each other. Secondly, we explore what this entanglement implies for the members of the conservancy. We draw from long-term fieldwork in two conservancies: ǂKhoadi ǁHôas and Wuparo in northwest and northeast Namibia respectively. The central argument we develop is that the organisation of conservancies has, by design, become entangled in a social field of multi-scalar institutions serving multiple and often conflicting interests. This is only partly due to the fact that the model has been parachuted into Namibia as part of a global conservation project. By singling out the management of, for instance, wildlife and consolidating it under communal conservancy conditions, it ignored and simplified the existing socio-political inequalities of the society that now constitute a conservancy, one which is expected to perform as a community to be labelled as successfully achieving its aims (i.e. poverty reduction and sustainable resource management). The control over wildlife and tourism benefits affects and is affected by rights and access to land that is controlled by local traditional authorities. At the same time, various other processes (i.e. migration) has produced new elites whose influence in controlling tourism benefits and land allocation affects the operation of the conservancies. Moreover, though the conservancy programme has made the communities to be producers of wildlife, the ownership of wildlife and the determination of its economic use remain with the state, global conservation community and international tourism market. The conservancy programme has created a fertile socio-political ground for these different nodes of power and authority to sprout, which together lead to a struggle over who is in charge and how the benefits are distributed. The imbalances and counter imbalances that stem from these struggles and power asymmetries result in enduring and intensified conflicts and contestations about the conservancy model. Amongst the unintended consequences of the conservancy formation process is that, over time, certain actor groups who rarely share in the conservancy benefits withdraw or engage in defiant behaviours

Application of GOCE Satellite Gravimetric Data For Mineral Exploration

Gravity is directly proportional to density thereby making possible the use of measurable gravity in mapping the density variations in the earth’s interior. The use of density as a means of mineral exploration is cost-effective for wider area coverage. GOCE gravity data, collected by ESA’s GOCE satellite at 255km altitude and 10km intervals leading to the acquisition of multiple gravity points over the globe made possible the application of gravimetry in mineral exploration. Gravity disturbance data sourced from BGI- was corrected with WGM2012 corrections computed using EGM2008 geoid and ETOPO1 models, with reference gravity computed using the Somigliana formula. The gravity disturbances were mapped over Zambia using Surfer and Q-GIS, with over 600 control points of known mineral occurrences plotted together with other surface features like roads, rivers, railways, etc. By relating the control points to the varying gravity disturbances using the triple integral principle, a cautious analysis led to the geological classification of the gravity disturbances which essentially involved mapping predominant mineral occurrences across different parts of Zambia. During ground truthing, it was observed that the results within a particular area of interest on the classified map, and those obtained using four (4) different metal detectors as well as another remote sensing method tallied. The metal detectors used were the GR-100MINI, AKS, AKS plus 3D, and Garrett Ace 400, each with its own characteristics. From the map outputs, the results showed that GOCE data can be used for geological classification and delineation of terrain types. The delineation of terrain types on the classified map output matched that on existing geological maps and also offered the delineation of sub-terrain types.</jats:p

Threats posed to conservation by media misinformation

Media coverage of trophy hunting highlights the potential for misinformation to enter public and political debates on conservation issues