by Ma-xwell Chivasa
Nearly 100 years after colonisation, there is debate around who controls the continent’s natural resources or who should sustainably: the private sector, local communities or governments.
Certainly, it would seem to be the private sector, as the benefits accrue to themselves. For local communities or governments, certain weaknesses and strengths exist, either governments might lack the capacity or the local communities might lack the legal framework to protect the natural resources sustainably.
The role of traditional chiefs, who controlled the local communities and the land, including the natural resources before settlers, is emerging at various for a on how much power they can retain since most African governments are still firmly in control of natural resources.
Local communities became “poachers” in their own lands as settlers moved in and the conditions still prevail in many parts of Africa because at independence local communities did not regain much control which was placed under government departments.
Any hunting or harvesting from the wild is illegal in most of Africa, except for people in possession of licences. Interests of the local communities have only been accommodated recently with the new bottom up approaches to sustainable development and democracy efforts.
In response to appeals from local communities for a stake in the benefits from wildlife inheritance, experiments are being tried which include Zimbabwe and Zambia programmes of sharing wildlife benefits with the local communities under the Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) and (Administrative Managment Design for Game .Management Areas (ADMADE) programmes effectively, So far, the best known solutions to sharing ‘wildlife resources with local communities, have however been criticised for only focusing on wild animals.
Still, sustainable utilisation of natural resources in most rural and communal areas continues without policy guidelines, and sometimes falls in between traditional or indigenous knowledge systems and weak government controls. The result has been the depletion of resources.
With scarcity of natural resources against population pressure, sustainable utilisation is becoming an even more critical issue than ever before. Scientists are also warning that the era of “romanticising” with Africa’s traditional systems in the protection of natural resources may be over now.
While protected areas have played a major role and will continue to do so in the conservation of natural resources, policy guidelines remain necessary for sustainable resource management.
At a recent symposium in Harare organised by the University of Zimbabwe, the World Conservation Union-Regional Office of Southern Africa (IUCNROSA), the French Institute of Research in Africa (IFRA) and the International Cooperation Centre in Agronomic Research for Development (CIRAD), participants observed that pressure is mounting on the continent’s dwindling natural resources.
They warned that rural communities, so heavily dependent on natural resources, may be headed for conflicts due to crossing each other’s traditional boundaries in search of natural resources.
“Without clear cut policies and systems, the next cause of conflicts among rural communities will be over natural resources. Sustainable utilisation of natural resources has never been so crucial as at this time when all nations are facing scarcity of the resources,” warns a paper prepared by six scientists presented at the symposium.
Entitled the Pan-African Symposium on Sustainable Use of Natural Resources and Community Participation, the meeting learnt that there are conceptual differences on the topic throughout Africa, even in cases where governments controlled the resources.
In fact, two neighbouring villages or wards in one district may have totally different concepts on the use of natural resources in terms of participation of the local communities and control of the projects or natural resources.
The frameworks, involving local communities in Africa’s sustainable utilisation of natural resources, the role of the state and its capacity to control, tenure, decentralisation, authority of local communities, need urgent attention, they recommended.
Most African countries are seeking or reviewing policies on participation ofloca1 communities while other states still enjoy heavy control on natural resources.
Professor Karimou J Ambouta, of the University of Chad concluded that generally there is no African policy as such on utilisation of natural resources. Policies will be developed and might need improvement in future.
The most common and inevitable factor is that about 90 percent of the populations in Africa are heavily dependent on natural resources.
‘We have a minimum consensus on policies but the basic principle is sustainable utilisation which can be integrated with new ideas. There is no doubt that the future of mankind is linked to sustainable use of natural resources,” said Professor Ambouta.
While there are different interpretations of community participation and management of natural resources, Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE programme was generally accepted as a possible solution during the symposium.
Some delegates felt it was “an excellent idea” and could be experimented with in other countries. But the programme needed broadening its attention from only wild animals to other natural resources such – as trees and water.
Professor Marshall Murphree, head of the Centre for Applied Social Sciences at the University of Zimbabwe, and one of the architects of the CAMPFIRE programme warned the delegates that ”behind a policy lies politics.”
Community participation, commonly known as “the bottom-up approach” had only come up recently in the 1980s, otherwise it was conservation of natural resources “against the people” not for the people, he said. And locals found themselves with “no alternative” but to poach.
Delegates agreed that any natural resources protected areas that have to be set up need backup from the local communities otherwise the project would not succeed.
A representative from Siera Leone agreed: “I do not know how you can carry out a new project in an area without the local communities in that area. There is no choice of not involving them because they are the people who will live with the project 24 hours a day. You want their support.”
Dr Andrew Venter (South Africa) and Dr Charles Breen, director of the Institute of Natural Resources in Pretoria, South Africa, in a joint presentation said stakeholder groupings had been identified and guidelines presented for the development of partnership projects and the general evaluation of the forum was functioning.
A number of lessons had also been learnt in the development of South Africa’s Kruger National Park’s Integrated Conservation and Development Programme as some traditional protected areas based on conservation strategies were failing.
The areas had been set up for present and future generations, with the participation of local residents in the affected areas. But some residents were displaced by the new protected area, causing them to “lose the last place where there was still food” resulting in their cattle starving. Protected areas are always stable socio-economic islands that are rich in natural resources and supported by government funding.
Hence, protected areas have been developed into active economic centres with high income-generating potential for sustainable land-use practices. Harvests in protected areas fluctuate according to “good years” and decrease in ”bad years” too.
But curtailing legal harvests often results in illegal harvests from the local residents, and still harvesting due to public pressure results in depleted populations of wildlife.
Backson Sibanda of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) in Nairobi, Kenya, says if a community has to conserve any natural resources, they must have a stake in it.
A chief in the remote rural areas in Gokwe in Zimbabwe had asked Sibanda during a field tour why the government moved into an area to tell “us to conserve our natural resources” if it has no control over “our natural resources”.
The chief felt that once the government comes in, it is difficult to convince local communities that it is not “a government property”. Such properties are often abused or vandalised and therefore ownership or control of the project is very important especially in areas where land tenure was still being debated.
Dr James Murombedzi, of the University of Zimbabwe’s Centre for Applied Social Sciences, the department involved in organising the symposium, concluded at the end of the symposium that a multi-disciplinary approach is necessary but “we should always involve local communities”.
Institutional capacity-building was also crucial for the local communities. Building up positive ‘relationships between researchers and policymakers, and further research into traditional systems and tenure were part of the process.
With local communities gaining more power, academics, politicians and non-governmental organisations are being urged to work together with them to enhance capacity-building and exchange skills in the sustainable management of natural resources.
But critics are also asking who has to initiate the empowerment of local communities: is it governments, the chiefs or the people themselves? ”Real power is automatic, no one needs to tell local communities how to look after their natural resources,” said an observer at the symposium. (SARDC)
