The Institutional Paradox of Community Based Wildlife Management
Publisher: Project for Land and Agrarian Studies, University of the Western Cape
Author(s): Richard Hasler
Date: 2004
Topics: Governance, Monitoring and Evaluation, Programming, Renewable Resources
Countries: South Africa
Over ten years of social and ecological monitoring and evaluation, planning effort, policy change, legislative reform, donor support and pilot design have taken place for community based wildlife management (CBWM) projects in Southern Africa. In the key experiences of Botswana and Zimbabwe practical achievements related to revenue generation, local institution and capacity building and policy reform have taken place. These changes have created the political and administrative space in which wildlife utilization has become an important land use strategy for local people living on communal lands. Devolution of management control of wildlife has however been disappointing and the overall institutional direction of the programs in the last ten years has not been “community based ” but towards increasing ad hoc involvement of stakeholders who are not considered to be part of the local community. This involvement is primarily because of their claimed property rights and interests in wildlife and is seen in the region, as necessary pre-conditions for CBWM to evolve. Paradoxically, in the attempt to achieve those social conditions under which CBWM can work (legislative and policy reform, capacity building, institutional development, direct local economic benefits and enhanced ecological value of local resources), planners, academics and practitioners have encouraged co-management regimes rather than community based management regimes. Powerful actors in stakeholder