Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-22T18:41:40.715Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Performance of community-based natural resource governance for the Kafue Flats (Zambia)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 August 2010

BIMO A. NKHATA  and
CHARLES M. BREEN
BIMO A. NKHATA*
Affiliation:
Centre for Environment, Agriculture and Development, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville 3209, South Africa
CHARLES M. BREEN
Affiliation:
Centre for Environment, Agriculture and Development, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Private Bag X01, Scottsville 3209, South Africa
*
*Correspondence: Dr Bimo Nkhata e-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Summary

The performance obstacles surrounding community-based natural resource management (CBNRM) in southern Africa have much to do with understanding of environmental governance systems and how these are devolved. CBNRM appears to be failing because of flawed environmental governance systems compounded by their ineffective devolution. A case study in Zambia is used to illustrate why and how one CBNRM scheme for the most part faltered. It draws on practical experiences involving the devolution of decision-making and benefit-distribution processes on a floodplain wetland known as the Kafue Flats. While this CBNRM scheme was designed to facilitate the devolution of key components of an environmental governance system, the resultant efforts were largely unsuccessful because of the poor social relationships between government actors and local rural communities. It is argued that in Zambia, at least from an environmental governance system perspective, CBNRM has mostly failed. While generally bringing some marginal improvements to local communities, the construction and execution of an effective environmental governance system have been largely flawed.

Keywords

benefit distributionCBNRMcommunity-based natural resource managementdecision-makingdevolutionenvironmental governance systemsKafue FlatsZambia
Type
THEMATIC SECTION: Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM): designing the next generation (Part 2)
Information
Environmental Conservation , Volume 37 , Issue 3: Thematic section. Community-based natural resource management (CBNRM): Designing the next generation (Part 2) , September 2010 , pp. 296 - 302
Copyright
Copyright © Foundation for Environmental Conservation 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderies, J.M., Janssen, M.A. & Ostrom, E. (2004) A framework to analyze the robustness of social-ecological systems from an institutional perspective. Ecology and Society 9 (1): 18 [www document]. URL http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol9/iss1/art18/CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Armitage, D. (2005) Adaptive capacity and community-based natural resource management. Environmental Management 35: 703–715.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Armitage, D. (2008) Governance and the commons in a multi-level world. International Journal of the Commons 2 (1): 7–32.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
ART (1999) Tenure in Transition: a Stakeholder's Guide to Natural Resource Tenure in Southern Africa. Community-Based Natural Resource Management. Harare, Zimbabwe: Africa Resources Trust (ART).Google Scholar
Berkes, F. (2009) Evolution of co-management: role of knowledge generation, bridging organisations and social learning. Journal of Environmental Management 90 (5): 1692–1702.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Boyle, M., Kay, J. & Pond, B. (2001) Monitoring in support of policy: an adaptive ecosystem approach. In: Encylopedia of Global Environmental Change, Volume 4, ed. Munn, T., pp. 116–137. New York, NY, USA: John Wiley and Son.Google Scholar
Barrow, E. & Murphree, M.W. (2001) Community conservation: from concept to practice. In: African Wildlife and Livelihoods: the Promise and Performance of Community Conservation, ed. Hulme, D. & Murphree, M.W., pp. 24–37. Oxford, UK: James Currey.Google Scholar
Campbell, B.A., Madondo, N., Nemarundwe, N., Sithole, B., De Jong, W., Luckert, M. & Matose, F. (2001) Challenges to proponents of common property resources systems: despairing voices from the social forests of Zimbabwe. World Development 29: 589–600.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Child, B., ed. (2004) Parks in Transition: Biodiversity, Rural Development and the Bottom Line. London, UK: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Dzingirai, V. (2003) The new scramble for the African countryside. Development and Change 34 (2): 243–263.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dzingirai, V. & Breen, C., eds (2005) Confronting the Crisis in Community Conservation: Case Studies from Southern Africa. Pietermaritzburg, South Africa: Centre for Environment, Agriculture and Development, University of KwaZulu-Natal.Google Scholar
Emerton, L. (2001) Economics, incentives and institutional change. In: African Wildlife and Livelihoods: the Promise and Performance of Community Conservation, ed. Hulme, D. & Murphree, M.W., pp. 208–226. Oxford, UK: James Currey.Google Scholar
Fabricius, C. (2004) The fundamentals of community-based natural resource management. In: Rights, Resources and Rural Development: Community-Based Natural Resource Management in Southern Africa, ed. Fabricius, C., Koch, E., Magome, H. & Turner, S., pp. 3–42. London, UK: Earthscan.Google Scholar
Folke, C., Hahn, T., Olsson, P. & Norberg, J. (2005) Adaptive governance of social-ecological systems. Annual Review of Environment and Resources 30: 441–73.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gibson, C.C. (1999) Politicians and Poachers: the Political Economy of Wildlife Policy in Africa. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gruber, J.S. (2010) Key principles of community-based natural resource management: a synthesis and interpretation of identified effective approaches for managing the commons. Environmental Management 45 (1): 52–66.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
GRZ (1988) Administrative management design for game management areas (ADMADE). Lusaka, Zambia: Government Printers.Google Scholar
GRZ (1995) National report prepared for the 7th meeting of the conference of the contracting parties to the convention on wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971). Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ), Lusaka, Zambia.Google Scholar
Hall, A.W. (2006) Global experience on governance. In: Governance as a Trialogue: Government-Society-Science in Transition, ed. Turton, A.R., Hattingh, H., Maree, G., Roux, D., Claasen, M. & Strydom, W., pp. 29–37. Berlin, Germany: Springer.Google Scholar
Imperial, M.T. (2005) Using collaboration as a governance strategy: lessons from six watershed management programs. Administration and Society 37 (3): 281–320.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
IUCN (1992) Managing the wetlands of Kafue Flats and Bangweulu Basin: Proceedings of the WWF-Zambia Wetlands Project Workshop. Gland, Switzerland: IUCN Wetlands Programme.Google Scholar
Jeffery, C.V. (1993) Wise use of the floodplain wetlands in the Kafue Flats of Zambia [www document]. URL http://www.ramsar.org/lib_wise_20.htmGoogle Scholar
Kay, J.J., Regier, H.A., Boyle, M. & Francis, G. (1999) An ecosystem approach for sustainability: addressing the challenge of complexity. Futures 31: 721–742.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, D. (1977) The Twa: people of the Kafue Flats. In: Development and Ecology in the Lower Kafue Basin in the Nineteen Seventies, ed. Williams, G.J. & Howard, G.W., pp. 41–46. Lusaka, Zambia: University of Zambia.Google Scholar
Lewis, D.M., Mwenya, A. & Kaweche, G.B. (1990) African solutions to wildlife problems in Africa: insights from a community-based project in Zambia. Unasylva 41 (161): 11–20.Google Scholar
Murombezi, J. (2000) Re-inventing native administration in the post-colonial era: the ‘devolution’ of natural resources management in southern Africa in the 1990s: report prepared for the Berkeley Workshop on Environmental Politics. Institute of International Studies, University of California, Berkeley, USA.Google Scholar
Murphree, M.W. (1994) The role of institutions in community-based conservation. In: Natural Connections: Perspectives in Community-based Conservation, ed. Western, D. & Wright, R.M., pp. 403–427. Washington, DC, USA: Island Press.Google Scholar
Mwenya, A.N., Lewis, D.M. & Kaweche, G.B. (1990) ADMADE: Policy, Background and Future. Chilanga, Zambia: National Parks and Wildlife Service.Google Scholar
Natcher, D.C., Davis, S. & Hickey, C.G. (2005) Co-management: managing relationships, not resources. Human Organization 64 (3): 240–250.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nkhata, B.A. (2002) A systemic approach for assessing community-based natural resource management: a case study of the Kafue Flats, Zambia. Master's thesis, Centre for Environment and Development, University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, South Africa.Google Scholar
Nkhata, B.A. & Breen, C. (2010) A framework for exploring integrated learning systems for the governance and management of public protected areas. Environmental Management 45 (2): 403–413.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Nkhata, A.B., Breen, C.M. & Freimund, W.A. (2008) Resilient social relationships and collaboration in the management of social-ecological systems. Ecology and Society 13 (1): 2 [www document]. URL http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol13/iss1/art2/CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nkhata, A.B., Breen, C.M. & Abacar, A. (2009) Social capital, community-based governance and resilience in an African artisanal river fishery. Water SA 35 (1): 45–54.Google Scholar
Olsson, P., Folke, C. & Berkes, F. (2004) Adaptive co-management for building resilience in social-ecological systems. Environmental Management 34: 75–90.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ostrom, E. (1990) Governing the Commons: the Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. New York, NY, USA: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Plummer, R. & Armitage, D. (2007) A resilience-based framework for evaluating adaptive co-management: linking ecology, economics and society in a complex world. Ecological Economics 61: 62–74.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stoker, G. (1998) Governance as theory: five propositions. International Social Science Journal 50 (155): 17–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wilshusen, P., Brechin, S.R., Fortwangler, C.L. & West, P.C. (2003) Contested nature: conservation and development at the turn of the twenty-first century. In: Contesting Nature: Promoting International Biodiversity with Social Justice in the Twenty-first Century, ed. Brechin, S.R., Wilshusen, P., Fortwangler, C.L. & West, P.C., pp. 1–22. Albany, NY, USA: State University of New York Press.Google Scholar
WWF-Zambia Wetlands Project (1992) Information brief for wetlands management authorities and community development units. WWF-Zambia Wetlands Project, Chilanga, Zambia.Google Scholar