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- Convenor:
-
Monique Borgerhoff Mulder
(MPI-EVA)
Send message to Convenor
- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 October, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
With contributions from indigenous peoples, conservation activists and scholars from developing and developed countries we explore grassroots conservation challenges and opportunities, highlighting indigeneity, capacity, funding, interdisciplinary science, mentorship, neocolonialism and media.
Long Abstract:
Increasingly over recent decades conservation scientists promote their interventions for their grassroots bases, community-based engagement, and concordance with local cultural preferences, livelihoods and economic priorities. The practical limits to these claims, the frequent incompatibilities between project objectives and higher levels of governance, the ambiguity of terms such as indigeneity, and the associated fads or fashions that arise in the academic and applied fields of conservation science to address these problems are all well known. Solutions however are less obvious. Critical challenges continue to face local communities and grassroots activists. These include: a) how they can most effectively manage their natural resources; b) how can the satisfactorily address the heterogeneous interests of different community members; c) what strategies most effectively counter external demand for valuable products; d) how local regulations be aligned with those of higher levels of governance; e) what are the best means of addressing the paternalism within (inter)national NGOs; e) what are effective strategies for interfacing with outsiders for assistance in non-local expertise and funding; f) how can local organizations, with often limited funds for research, provide the robust evidence of success increasingly demanded by donor organizations; g) how to manage the often unrealistic expectations left from foreign interventions. We explore these and related issues, so as to provide a forum in which grassroots conservation leaders can exchange their experiences with a target audience that would include other activists, scholars aiming to support local conservationists, and NGO/donors wishing to make their contributions more effective.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 October, 2021, -Paper short abstract:
Drawing on data from community trusts which are part of Botswana's community based natural resource management program, we assess the viability of those trusts in light of the Botswana government's changes in the CBNRM policy. We suggest various ways that the grassroots conservation can be enhanced
Paper long abstract:
The Republic of Botswana in Southern Africa has supported community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) since 1990. Subsequent changes introduced by the government have reduced community control over wildlife management and utilisation: for example, a country-wide hunting ban introduced in 2014 eroded the rights of community trusts. The resumption of hunting in 2019 has favored safari businesses who have not shared benefits with indigenous communities, particularly those with hunter-gatherer economies. People in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, notably, have been purposely excluded from involvement in eco-tourism, despite the fact that it was their management that made this a hotspot of species biomass and diversity. Drawing on data from community trusts in Botswana, we assess community engagement in biodiversity conservation and CBNRM. Many of these trusts have sizable proportions of indigenous people, notably San, who traditionally have followed sustainable land use and resource management strategies, including using fire to enhance ecological stability and species diversity, and exploitation of their common resources at levels that do not exceed carrying capacity. The conclusions drawn include (1) a reduction in the viability of community trusts should be reversed, (2) the need for a revisiting of the government’s CBNRM policy, (3) the importance of ensuring de jure legal rights over land for communities in communal areas in the country. Fortunately, new projects, such as the Kgalagadi-Ghanzi Drylands Ecosystem Project (KGDEP) of the United Nations Development Programme promise to assist local communities through empowerment, capacity-building, and devolution of authority and responsibility to the community level.
Paper short abstract:
Based on a mixed methods study of community perspectives towards Randilen Wildlife Management Area (WMA) in northern Tanzania, this paper suggests that WMAs can show promise as mechanisms for reducing rangeland fragmentation and supporting people, livestock and wildlife.
Paper long abstract:
Wildlife Management Areas (WMAs) are a particular conservation strategy in Tanzania. WMAs aim to balance wildlife conservation with community livelihoods through the implementation of land use plans at the village level that restrict some human activities while allowing others. They also enable the central government to extract revenue from conservation tourism that occurs on village land. The creation of WMAs can lead to tensions among local communities, private investors, and government authorities as a consequence of competing interests within and across these stakeholder groups. On these grounds, WMAs have been criticized by social scientists, particularly in such instances where the resource rights of rural communities are marginalized. Few case studies to date, however, have employed representative sampling procedures and quantitative methods to assess community perspectives towards WMAs. This paper presents results from a proportionately weighted and randomly sampled survey of community attitudes towards Randilen WMA in the Monduli District of northern Tanzania. The results speak to high levels of community support for Randilen WMA, and highlight people’s lived experiences of inclusion in conservation governance and management. Drawing from these findings, this paper forwards an alternative anthropological perspective on WMAs, suggesting that they can show promise as mechanisms for reducing rangeland fragmentation and supporting people, livestock and wildlife.
Paper short abstract:
We use data on a project that aimed at, but failed, to provide local incentives for motivating conservation to examine whether and how exposure to programme activities, at both the community and the individual level, affected future motivations among community members to engage in conservation.
Paper long abstract:
Site-specific Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Land Degradation REDD+) projects were designed to provide local incentives for slowing rates of deforestation. Like other conservation initiatives originating in the economically more developed world they aimed to emphasize community benefits (co-benefits) and elicit community buy-in. These projects, like all projects, have a lifecycle – they are born, they grow and they can die. Furthermore, as a result of different conservation fads, communities in the developing world are often exposed to a series of different interventions. Researchers nevertheless know little about how conservation projects that have expired (or failed to deliver upon their promised goals), affect residents’ willingness to participate in future conservation actions, grassroots or motivated from outside. We use data on a REDD+ project in Zanzibar, Tanzania, that failed to produce carbon payments to examine whether exposure to REDD+, at both the community and the individual level, affected “conservation willingness”. To determine conservation willingness we analyze “Willingness to Accept” bids collected across 48 sites on Pemba Island. Statistical modeling of these data shows that exposure to REDD+ may encourage the emergence of individuals willing to participate in conservation without any compensatory payment. Further we find no evidence that REDD+ has increased the commodification of nature. We also uncover distinct effects of exposure depending on gender, age, time preferences, conservation committee membership, and forest dependence. Less encouragingly we find a significant protest bid and, contingent on increased exposure, potential areas of community polarization over conservation values.
Paper short abstract:
As a collaboration of indigenous peoples, conservation activists and scholars from developing and developed countries we explore grassroots conservation challenges & opportunities, highlighting indigeneity, capacity, funding, interdisciplinary science, mentorship, neocolonialism and media
Paper long abstract:
At the Landscape and Conservation Mentors Organization, a grassroots body based in Katavi Region of Tanzania we work together to promote, support and improve community livelihoods, sustainable environmental practices, wildlife conservation and community development in rural areas surrounding protected areas. We are a collaboration of indigenous leaders, Tanzanian graduates, professionals and researchers from many different backgrounds who have many years of experience with community action, interdisciplinary research, NGO employment, successful campaigns addressing human-wildlife conflict, and failed programmes in rural Africa. After a brief summary of our history and acheivements we would like to highlight the challenges and opportunities that we face. These include (a) interfacing with international programmes and funders, (b) expanding our capacity with respect to interdisciplinary science, (c) responding to calls for indigenous action, (d) addressing ethical concerns associated with resource conflict, interethnic tensions and human-wildlife conflict, (e) mentoring, and (f) negotiating the experiences of working with and for the government, NGOs and the private sector. With this information we aim to frame a proposal for how outsiders committed to biodiversity conservation and community wellbeing in rural Africa can best direct their skills, expertise and funds. Our target audience includes community activists in the developing world, scholars aiming to support activism at their research sites, and funding organizations seeking to make their contributions more effective.