Since the 1960s southern Africa has led a global change in conservation policy based on the principles of sustainable use. Countries like Zimbabwe and Namibia experimented boldly; first introducing policies that devolved use and benefit rights from wildlife to private landholders. The successes of these new policy approaches are reflected in blossoming wildlife numbers and a vigorous wildlife economy.
The next challenge, beginning in the 1980s, was to extend the concepts of incentive-based conservation to the socially complex communal lands where the majority of rural Africans live. This led to well known initiatives like Communal Areas Management Programme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE) in Zimbabwe and Namibia’s national CBNRM program, whereby local communities benefit from and therefore conserve wildlife and other natural resources. Key to these programs was the development of new economic and political institutions for governing wild resources, including strengthened property rights, new markets and rural democratization. Other innovations combined participation and science to improve wildlife and natural resources through adaptive management.
Southern Africa is the crucible of Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM), with considerable support from development partners (especially USAID and Norway) to bold policy reforms. USAID has invested over $100 million in community conservation in the region since 1989. The performance of CBNRM in Africa and elsewhere has been uneven. When implemented in accordance with core principles, and supported by knowledgeable and committed policy-makers and extension workers, the rate of success has been high.
However, this information is held within a knowledge network of personal connections, oral and grey literature, extending haphazardly into educational institutions where (with a few individual exceptions) materials do not adequately reflect the current ‘state-of-knowledge’. These inadequacies are a serious limitation to the spread of CBNRM and to adapting it to manage emerging issues like to biodiversity conservation, climate change, food security and payments for environmental services more generally.
There is little formal training, or coordination of training, of staff within the NGOs and other agencies supporting CBNRM. Rare exceptions are the support provided by World Wildlife Fund for Nature to Namibian University of Science and Technology and Southern African Wildlife College to develop general CBNRM modules for middle-level managers, short-course training in CBNRM at Rhodes University, few undergraduate courses (Sokoine University of Agriculture), and graduate supervision linked to CBNRM research (CASS/UZ; PLAAS/UWC; Rhodes and Cape Town).
The purpose of this project is to create a community of practice in southern Africa to collect, organize, create and consolidate Community Based Natural Resources Management (CBNRM) curricula and materials in durable formats including published books. Practitioners (e.g. WWF, AWF, IUCN-SASUSG), policy-makers (through AWCF), and CBNRM scholars (Universities of Cape Town, Rhodes, Nelson Mandela, Western Cape, Zimbabwe) will work with Namibian University of Science and Technology (NUST), University of Botswana (UB), Southern African Wildlife College (SAWC) and Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) (and others) to institutionalize CBNRM training in the form of
In order to capture southern Africa’s extensive lessons and to strengthen a community-of-practice of committed scholars and practitioners a series of write-shops in field locations over the next three years to: 1) collect, collate, and design CBNRM curricula and materials; and 2) institutionalize these in local universities and colleges. Project outputs will be a series of books, manuals and teaching materials written collectively by scholars and practitioners covering subjects such as natural resource governance, economics, marketing and business development, social learning and adaptive management, participatory resource management. These write shops will include the next generation of teachers and trainers to encourage their buy-in to the materials and pedagogy that links to field practice. A major strength of this project is its strong linkage to the NGO community who are key players in CBNRM in the region.
The interdisciplinary project team has been formulated based on their respective background, knowledge and expertise from UF which will be instrumental in accomplishing the objectives and strengthening the partnership. This project is led by Brian Child (Geography & Center for African Studies), along with Grenville Barnes (School of Forest Resources & Conservation), Sandra Russo (International Center), and Brijesh Thapa (Center for Tourism Research & Development). The partnership is managed through the Higher Education for Development with a three-year funding (2009-2012) of $600,000 from the United States Agency for International Development.