Global, Area, and International Archive

Communal approaches to natural resource management have developed since the 1980s from a relatively untested set of conceptual stances to achieve the status of conventional wisdom in much development discourse. However, communal approaches have also come under attack, both from donor agencies impatient with the lack of evidence of immediate and positive results, and from scholarship in the narrative-counternarrative mode. The topic also has broader significance for the evolution of governance in Africa. What is happening in communal approaches to natural resource management provides in large measure a surrogate picture of elements of this evolution.

This article offers a brief and selective survey of the origins, objectives, and limitations of communal approaches to natural resource management, and it offers five characteristics deemed essential for the future development of this body of work. It also functions as a commentary on other essays in the UCIAS Digital Collection arising from the 2004 Breslauer Symposium on Natural Resource Issues in Africa.

This paper analyzes the opportunities and tensions generated by efforts to use conservation-based tourism as a catalyst for economic development. By exploring how historical legacies position actors and influence relationships between them, characterizing the nature tourism sector and its logic, and examining how liberalizing states are likely to engage with community-based tourism. I situate community-based nature tourism ventures in a broader political economic context. The paper draws from research on the Makuleke Region of Kruger National Park, South Africa to illustrate how these factors influence prospects for community benefit from protected area tourism. Like many other protected areas in Africa, contemporary dynamics in the Makuleke Region are a product of dispossession, forced removal, and conservation. The Makuleke, who consider the land their ancestral home, were forcibly removed in the late 1960s so that the land could be incorporated into Kruger National Park. They regained title in 1998, and have subsequently pursued economic development through conservation. While co-managing the Region with SANParks, the parastatal that manages all national protected areas, the Makuleke have sought to develop a tourism initiative that will produce economic self reliance and development. In adopting this strategy, the Makuleke are engaging with local, national, and international political economies over which community actors have limited room for maneuver.

This case brings three factors to light. First, the legacy of fortress conservation may make it more difficult for community actors to engage with their partners on an equal basis. Second, sectoral attributes of tourism pose special challenges to community based natural resource management initiatives; it is not clear that tourism projects will produce substantial benefits. Third, the coincidence of the shift to community based natural resource management with liberalization and democratization has altered the landscape on which all conservation efforts are situated. The confluence of these factors has created an environment in which state protected areas, community controlled conservation areas, and private game parks are competing for domestic and international tourist revenue. While nature tourism ventures hold substantial economic promise for some communities, tourism is not a panacea. Actors engaged in community based natural resource management initiatives should carefully assess the risks, challenges, and opportunities posed by tourism ventures.

Although terrestrial parks and reserves have existed in Tanzania since colonial times, marine protected areas are a much newer endeavor in natural resource conservation. As the importance of marine conservation came to the international forefront in the 1990s, Tanzania experienced a rapid establishment and expansion of marine parks and protected areas. These efforts were crucial to protecting the country’s marine resource base, but they also had significant implications for the lives and fishing patterns of local artisanal fishermen. Terrestrial protected areas in Tanzania have historically been riddled with conflict and local contestation, bringing about numerous debates on the best ways to involve rural residents in conservation planning efforts to establish new “community-based conservation” initiatives. Because marine protected areas do not have the same conflict-ridden history as terrestrial conservation in Tanzania, marine conservation programs present a new opportunity to pilot innovative techniques to involve local communities in protecting and managing their natural resources. The islands of Zanzibar are home to four community-oriented marine protected areas, each of which is sponsored by an external agency, and each of which involves some form of local community component. However, a number of issues arise when working at the community level, requiring nuanced attention to a variety of local factors. The Menai Bay program in southern Zanzibar provides an excellent example of the complexity of factors involved, which can result in dramatically different village-level responses to a single program. These factors include, but are not limited to, differences in geography and infrastructure, the potential for tourism development and alternative sources of income, pre-existing community structures within each village, and the relationship of conservation program managers to the Zanzibari government. While these factors are complex and difficult to predict, it is essential that conservation programs work to take them into account when trying to establish community-based marine conservation programs that will be sustainable in the long term.

This paper describes subsistence farmers’ agricultural and natural resource management techniques and perceptions in the upper catchment of the River Njoro, Kenya and explores their implications for further research and action by watershed managers and policy makers. In East Africa and elsewhere in developing countries, small-scale poor farming households often form a critical group in the link between upland natural resource conditions and watershed services. A small-scale pilot study of a sample of 15 hillside farmers located within 200 meters (m) of first order streams or springs in the upper catchment of the River Njoro (UCRN) was designed to explore in-depth farmers’ behavior, knowledge, and perceptions in the larger context of emerging watershed management issues. Blending qualitative social science approaches and quantitative biophysical and economic assessment, the research sought to answer the following questions: How do farmers in the UCRN view and manage soil and tree resources? What is the potential for the development of integrated agroforestry practices in the UCRN? What does this imply for conservation planners concerned with watershed and environmental services? The typical farming system and soil management practices in the UCRN are detailed, and farmer perceptions of soil fertility and farm productivity presented. Use and perception of local tree and forestry resources by farmers is also described in relation to watershed conservation issues. Combined, these results are used to inform an understanding of the “gaps” between local and scientific knowledge pertinent to watershed managers in the River Njoro, identify constraints to the sustainability of the farming system, and discuss opportunities for development of integrated agroforestry practices. Emerging hypotheses for further research linking farming systems with watershed management in the UCRN are presented, providing insights for environmental planners concerned with the promotion of improved farm and agroforestry systems in the highlands of East Africa.

This article is part of a forthcoming volume The Origins and Evolution of American and French Industrial Societies, by Monique J. Borrel. The other chapters will be posted on this site as they are completed.

This article is part of a forthcoming volume The Origins and Evolution of American and French Industrial Societies, by Monique J. Borrel. The other chapters will be posted on this site as they are completed.