Community-based natural resource management in the Southern Africa region: an annotated bibliography and general overview of literature, 1996–2004

This bibliography is aimed at collating information relating to community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in the Southern African region across different sectors and themes. It was primarily compiled to offer material support to researchers participating in the ‘Breaking New Ground’ – People Centred Approaches to Natural Resource Management and Development Programme – a joint venture of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences, University of Zimbabwe (CASS) and the Programme for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape (PLAAS). It is also aimed at providing a resource to practitioners, policy- and decision-makers and researchers in southern Africa. The bibliography includes references to a variety of previously undocumented sources of information. The focus of this work, whilst including annotations on wildlife, moves beyond this traditional view of CBNRM to include other sectors. It embraces second or third generation issues ranging from the contribution of CBNRM to rural livelihoods and resource condition, to investigating policy issues around CBNRM and issues of power and authority over land and natural resources

Trans-boundary natural resources management in Southern Africa: Local historical and livelihood realities within the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area

The end of apartheid rule in South Africa, together with the termination of the civil war in Mozambique and the occupation of Namibia by South Africa in the early 1990s, seemed to herald profound changes in international relations within the southern African region. These changes saw not only the end of frontline states’ hostility towards the apartheid regime but also new approaches to co-operation, witnessed by increased focus on regional development issues through regional bodies such as the Southern African Development Community (SADC). Conservation emerged as one area that could foster co-operation between countries of the region. By the mid-1990s, trans-boundary natural resources management, trans-frontier conservation, trans-boundary protected areas and ‘peace parks’ had taken root as vehicles for regional economic integration, peaceful resolution of conflict and conservation of biodiversity. This report examines the impacts of local historical experiences with conservation and current livelihood complexities on efforts to implement the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park (GLTP) and the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA). It stresses the contested nature of land and natural resource rights by exploring local conflicts over land use, authority and territorial boundaries, as well as the peripheral attention accorded to these issues in planning and implementing trans-boundary approaches to conservation. Using the example of the GLTFCA, specifically the experience of some of the villages along the Madimbo corridor in South Africa, the report highlights the complexities involved in attempting trans-frontier conservation in an area with a history of dispossession and where livelihoods are perceived to be threatened by outside interventions. The report concludes by proposing a human and environmental security approach towards implementing TFCAs

Framing biodiversity conservation discourses in South Africa: emerging realities and conflicting agendas within the Great Limpopo transfrontier conservation area

Philosophiae Doctor - PhDThis dissertation explores local people's framing of externally driven biodiversity conservation approaches in the context of transfrontier conservation initiatives. It uses data from the Madimbo corridor, a specific locality within the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area, situated to the northeast of South Africa along the South Africa-Zimbabwe boundary. It shows that livelihoods, historical experiences with external interventions and exclusion from policy-making processes and programme implementation influence local strategies for engaging with external interventions. Thus, an analysis of framing of external interventions at a local level should establish the following: the role of natural resources in sustaining local livelihoods; local historical experiences with an external intervention; iii) the nature of multi-level actor interactions from local resource dependent people, to national, regional and global actors involved in or affected by an intervention. The study uses a detailed case study of Bennde Mutale village to trace local people's ideas, ways of speaking and actions in response to the implementation of a large-scale transfrontier conservation initiative. The study finds that local livelihoods play a central role in local responses to the changes that transfrontier conservation bring upon people's lives. Many see further exclusion, while some also see and hope for a restoration of the socio-cultural border region. The globally significant biodiversity - to be conserved for 'future generations' - at the same time constitutes the natural resources that sustain local people's livelihoods. Further, local livelihoods are more diverse than is commonly acknowledged in literature advocating for transfrontier conservation. This lack of acknowledgement of local diversification contributes to the main observation made in this study: that current processes of transfrontier conservation end up replicating and re-inventing the multiple forms of exclusion that have characterised state conservation practices for over a century. While transfrontier conservation enables the freer movement of wildlife, it in fact further constrains the movements of people whose mobility within less closely controlled border regions remains centrally important to survival. At the same time, state actors come into the area with contradicting and conflicting demands ranging from the beneficial advocacy role for land rights to the enforcement of conservation through fences and game rangers, experienced as a direct infringement on livelihood possibilities. The study concludes that there is a need to rethink transfrontier conservation interventions. The diversity of local livelihood approaches needs to be considered more centrally and clearer understanding needs to be developed of how the promises of opportunities, betterment of lives and increased human mobility actually unfold in practice. In order to succeed and deliver on site - not only to high-class tourists seeking to view unique biodiversity but to local people - transfrontier conservation efforts need to engage multiple actors directly from the ground up and throughout the process of policy-making, programme conceptualisation and implementation.South Afric

Whims of the Winds of Time? Emerging Trends in Biodiversity Conservation and Protected Area Management

This article reviews narratives and trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area (PA) manage

Challenges and prospects for trans-boundary fisheries in Lakes Chiuta and Kariba

Community-based conservation (CBC) is a prominent feature of conservation and development policy and practice in southern Africa. It is a generic concept defining different configurations of controlling access to and use of land and natural resources in southern Africa – and has led to the development of policies and legislation in support of community-based natural resources management (CBNRM) and co-management arrangements. Both concepts largely revolve around the premise of devolution of control and management authority over natural resources to facilitate conservation and use of, and local access to, resources. A focus on regional economic integration has offered an opportunity for extending the experiences of CBNRM and comanagement to resources occurring along international boundaries. Different trans-boundary natural resources management (TBNRM) programmes have been initiated in southern Africa. The experience of two inshore fisheries on Lakes Chiuta and Kariba highlights the challenges of TBNRM, especially at local resource users’ level. A proposal for meaningful engagement of local resource-dependent people is suggested in the form of a trans-boundary commons regulated through co-management institutions. Broad implications of this suggestion, including terrestrial TBNRM progammes, are briefly discussed

Local communities, equity and conservation in southern Africa: A synthesis of lessons learnt and recommendations from a southern African technical workshop

This publication reports on a technical workshop entitled ëCommunities and Conservation in Southern Africa: Key Issues and Challenges towards a more Equitable and Sustainable Futureí, which was held on 26ñ28 February 2003 in Pretoria, South Africa, in preparation for the World Parks Congress to be held in Durban in September 2003. The workshop sought to synthesise the extensive experience of southern African countries on community-based conservation and natural resources management into concrete inputs and recommendations for the World Parks Congress 2003

Whims of the winds of time? Emerging trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area management

This article reviews narratives and trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area (PA) management and examines contestations within and among them in the light of developments within the global political economy. Its argument starts with the assumption that trends in biodiversity conservation and PA management are, in large part, determined by global political and economic developments. The global political economy determines how both policy issues inherent to the conservation and development debate need to continuously be re-operationalised in order to remain politically acceptable. This argument is used to identify three recent trends in conservation, which we have termed ‘neoliberal conservation’, ‘bioregional conservation’ and ‘hijacked conservation’. By illustrating these trends with empirical data from eastern and southern Africa, we aim to enhance the understanding and appreciation of macrosocial, economic and political dynamics both constraints and opportunities that impinge on conservation and development. In turn, this understanding could contribute to a better ‘manoeuvrability’ for the management and success of more technical initiatives that aim to improve conservation of biodiversity and PA management

Whims of the winds of time? Emerging trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area management

This article reviews narratives and trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area (PA) management and examines contestations within and among them in the light of developments within the global political economy. Its argument starts with the assumption that trends in biodiversity conservation and PA management are, in large part, determined by global political and economic developments. The global political economy determines how both policy issues inherent to the conservation and development debate need to continuously be re-operationalised in order to remain politically acceptable. This argument is used to identify three recent trends in conservation, which we have termed ‘neoliberal conservation’, ‘bioregional conservation’ and ‘hijacked conservation’. By illustrating these trends with empirical data from eastern and southern Africa, we aim to enhance the understanding and appreciation of macrosocial, economic and political dynamics both constraints and opportunities that impinge on conservation and development. In turn, this understanding could contribute to a better ‘manoeuvrability’ for the management and success of more technical initiatives that aim to improve conservation of biodiversity and PA management

Whims of the winds of time? Emerging trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area management

This article reviews narratives and trends in biodiversity conservation and protected area (PA) management and examines contestations within and among them in the light of developments within the global political economy. Its argument starts with the assumption that trends in biodiversity conservation and PA management are, in large part, determined by global political and economic developments. The global political economy determines how both policy issues inherent to the conservation and development debate need to continuously be re-operationalised in order to remain politically acceptable. This argument is used to identify three recent trends in conservation, which we have termed ‘neoliberal conservation’, ‘bioregional conservation’ and ‘hijacked conservation’. By illustrating these trends with empirical data from eastern and southern Africa, we aim to enhance the understanding and appreciation of macrosocial, economic and political dynamics both constraints and opportunities that impinge on conservation and development. In turn, this understanding could contribute to a better ‘manoeuvrability’ for the management and success of more technical initiatives that aim to improve conservation of biodiversity and PA management