A scoping review of environmental governance challenges in southern Africa from 2010 to 2020

Abstract

Summary Throughout southern Africa, there have been growing concerns about the rates of ecosystem degradation. This issue and natural resource governance concerns in general remain key challenges. We conducted a scoping review of 135 articles to inductively assess how governance challenges have manifested in natural resource management during 2010–2020 in southern Africa. The paper’s findings show that governance challenges in southern Africa are ‘hydra-headed’. The results suggest that governance challenges related to the maintenance of system integrity and functioning – specifically lack of coordination, accountability, capacity, skills and resources to define effective natural resource management – were the most reported in literature. Challenges related to achieving socially equitable governance were the second most mentioned, followed by those related to institutional robustness. Challenges related to the adaptability and flexibility of institutions, specifically learning, monitoring capacity and innovation, were the least identified, showing that these areas are poorly studied or that these attributes are considered less problematic for achieving sustainable outcomes. Furthermore, the review highlights critical gaps – the limited engagement with governance-related frameworks, specifically polycentricity, adaptive governance and social-ecological stewardship. In concluding, we highlight governance reforms and future research needs on the topic of natural resources in southern Africa.

Research Progress and Conceptual Insights on Drought Impacts and Responses among Smallholder Farmers in South Africa: A Review

“…Manual coding was conducted to identify key phrases or sentences that referred to the impacts of and responses to drought. The coded data from the analytical notes were then compiled in a single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet, where descriptive statistics were calculated to summarise the data [43].…”

‘The ghost of environmental history’: Analysing the evolving governance of communal rangeland resources in Machubeni, South Africa

“…Furthermore, the human factors of growing inequality, lack of viable economic activities and poverty may have indirectly increased the degradation of rangelands. This shows that environmental challenges are complex (Falayi et al, 2021). Given that the Machubeni landscape will continue to be influenced by external and internal drivers of change, it is apparent that ‘good governance' alone will not necessarily bring about improved rangeland conditions in the short term.…”

“…We argue that most environmental challenges originate from governance failures (Falayi et al, 2021; Pahl‐Wostl & Patterson, 2021). From this premise, we argue that ‘the ghost’ of environmental history lingers in current natural resource governance attempts.…”

“…We argue that most environmental challenges originate from governance failures (Falayi et al, 2021;Pahl-Wostl & Patterson, 2021).…”

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Over the past three decades, there has been a growing realisation that communal rangelands are experiencing massive transformation (Mairomi & Kimengsi, 2021;Palmer & Bennett, 2013;Shackleton & Gambiza, 2008), due to the myriad of drivers interacting at different scales (Bennett & Barrett, 2007). Environmental challenges such as increased soil erosion, increases in bush encroachment, climate change and variability have been widely reported to be affecting communal rangeland conditions across Africa (Bolo et al, 2019;Falayi et al, 2021;Palmer & Bennett, 2013). Furthermore, high overgrazing, population growth, unsustainable land management and weak institutional arrangements have also been identified as key drivers causing rangeland degradation (Bolo et al, 2019;Mani

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