African Wildlife and Livelihoods: The Promise and Performance of Community Conservation

Abstract

  troubled states throughout the developing world, the book makes an important contribution. Mozambique's is an important and understudied experience, and Alden uses it to craft a thoughtful cautionary account of the limits of negotiated peace and economic and political liberalism in Africa. It is in highlighting the extensive international intervention this model requires that the book makes its greatest impact. It is not always clear, however, whether the main problem is that the model is infeasible, has never been properly carried out, or is undesirable even if it could be properly implemented. Nor does the author indicate the elements of a more desirable approach. And while the book does a good job of outlining international involvement in Mozambique's threefold transition over the past decade, the evaluation of the results for domestic politics is at times somewhat superficial. Nor is it informed by any substantive exploration of the mechanisms or dynamics of social and political change in general, and of liberalism in particular. Political, sociological and economic accounts of institution-building, for example, suggest that habituation to new sets of rules is a long-term, non-linear process, in which rules are introduced and imperfectly practised and only gradually internalised. Where then should we look for evidence of change in the short term ? Though the establishment of formal democratic institutions and market-based economies have, unsurprisingly, failed to transform Mozambican politics in this period, the placing of such reforms on the table has served to create political space and has brought to the surface fundamental struggles over both the principles and practice of allocating political and economic resources. Political assassinations, violent demonstrations and electoral boycotts provide striking and disturbing evidence of these struggles. But less visible outcomes can also be found. Mozambique's tough-minded independent media, while resting on a slender base, has had measurable impact on the way in which the business of politics is conducted in Mozambique. The advent of electoral competition has occasioned subtle but important changes in the balance of power within both major parties. There is of course no telling what might be the end result of these changes. But they deserve more thorough consideration than they are given here.

Building Robustness to Disturbance: Governance in Southern African Peace Parks

“…The new program had five main responsibilitiescommunity outreach, environmental education, economic empowerment, cultural heritage, and social research (Magome, 2004). These functions parallel similar "people and parks" initiatives in protected area management around the world, as park management increasingly moves away from a fortress conservation mentality (Hulme and Murphree, 2001;Wells and Brandon, 1992).…”

“…Igoe agrees, contending that western-style protected areas "Building Robustness to Disturbance: Governance in Southern African Peace Parks" -10 -are ecologically incompatible with African savanna ecosystems and local communities and that people and the landscape have co-evolved (2004). Related to these discussions fighting for the rights of communities, similar arguments in support of community-based conservation plans include the work of Neumann (1997Neumann ( , 1998, Ghimire and Pimbert (1997), Hulme and Murphree (2001), and Western and Wright (1994). These discussions generally focus on development and the necessity to involve local communities for both moral and utilitarian reasons.…”

Conflict Governance between Protected Areas and Surrounding Communities: Willingness and Behaviors of Communities—Empirical Evidence from Tanzania

“…The governance of conflicts is not only a technical issue that needs to be addressed in the process of biodiversity conservation but also a human development issue that is closely related to socio-economics. Fortunately, the conflict between conservation and development, in some cases, is receiving increasing attention, and natural resource management policies have shifted from a purely "conservationist approach" to more decentralized and participatory approaches [22][23][24][25]. These decentralized and participatory approaches incentivize local people to participate in and support conservation and promote benefit sharing [26,27], aligning development needs with conservation objectives.…”

Conflict Governance between Protected Areas and Surrounding Communities: Willingness and Action of Communities — Empirical Evidence from Tanzania

“…Conflict governance is not only a technical issue that needs to be addressed in the process of biodiversity conservation, but also a human development issue that is closely related to socioeconomics. Fortunately, the conflict between conservation and development is increasingly being addressed, and natural resource management policies have shifted from a purely "conservationist approach" to more decentralized and participatory approaches [20][21][22][23].These decentralized and participatory approaches incentivize local people to participate in and support conservation, and promote benefit sharing [24,25], aligning development needs with conservation objectives. In order to alleviate the contradiction between conservation and development, management authorities, NGOs and other social organizations have provided many development projects for communities, such as carrying out ecological conservation compensation, distributing production and living equipment that reduces environmental pollution, and volunteering to provide technical training for the development of community-based agriculture and forestry [26][27][28], but the most ideal model is still eco-tourism [29].…”