Can Nationally Prescribed Institutional Arrangements Enable Community-Based Conservation? An Analysis of Conservancies and Community Forests in the Zambezi Region of Namibia

Abstract

Community-based conservation is advocated as an idea that long-term conservation success requires engaging with, providing benefits for, and establishing institutions representing local communities. However, community-based conservation’s efficacy and impact in sustainable resource management varies depending on national natural resource policies and implications for local institutional arrangements. This paper analyses the significance of natural resource management policies and institutional design on the management of common pool resources (CPRs), by comparing Namibian conservancies and community forests. To meet this aim, we reviewed key national policies pertinent to natural resource governance and conducted 28 semi-structured interviews between 2012 and 2013. Key informants included conservancy and community forest staff and committee members, village headmen, NGO coordinators, regional foresters, wildlife officials (wardens), and senior government officials in the Ministry of Environment and Tourism and the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Forestry. We explored the following questions: how do national natural resource management policies affect the operations of local common pool resource institutions? and how do external factors affect local institutions and community participation in CPRs decision-making? Our results show that a diversity of national policies significantly influenced local institutional arrangements. Formation of conservancies and community forests by communities is not only directly linked with state policies designed to increase wildlife numbers and promote forest growth or improve condition, but also formulated primarily for benefits from and control over natural resources. The often-assumed direct relationship between national policies and local institutional arrangements does not always hold in practice, resulting in institutional mismatch. We aim to advance theoretical and applied discourse on common pool resource governance in social-ecological systems, with implications for sustainable land management policies in Namibia and other landscapes across sub-Saharan Africa.

Environmental Policy Design and Implementation: Toward a Sustainable Society

“…[14] goes on to argue, this enables the state to accrue decision making powers and financial resources under the guise of social-ecological responsibility, while simultaneously expanding its power and control into rural areas and over forest resources at the expense of local communities. This latter point chimes strongly with the recommendation by [10] that, in some (although not all) contexts, if communities have secure land tenure rights, whether communal or individual, overall natural resources on their land, this can improve land management.…”

“…By comparing conservancies and community forests in the Zambezi region of Namibia, ref. [10] argue that matching actors, resources, and legal and administrative arrangements across scales is critical for the effective management of common pool resources. In analyzing the effective roll-out of multi-stakeholder platforms for water basin governance in Tanzania, ref.…”

“…The consequences of inappropriate or inadequate governance are also clear. Prescriptive, top-down measures can diminish customary governance arrangements and undermine local social-ecological resilience [10]; structural institutional barriers can alienate or exclude individuals or groups from actively contributing to governance processes [11]; while insufficient governance resources and capacities are prohibitive to advancing informal settlement upgrading [15] or conservancies [10]. This strongly suggests that governance and institutional structures and processes need to be carefully crafted and considered, and critically evaluated.…”

“…Finally, ref. [10] argue that ensuring finan-cial benefits flow directly to communities (e.g., in return for their labor efforts) is key to supporting local natural resource management institutions.…”

Planning Sustainable Community-Based Tourism in the Context of Thailand: Community, Development, and the Foresight Tools

“…It fills the gaps in tourism planning, emphasizing local participation practices and the ability of the local community to plan, develop, and manage its own future tourism [8]. Creating tourism in a community is about the development of local tourist attractions (products) from natural and cultural resources [9,10]. It is the process of a locality being developed into tourism assets for tourists to consume.…”