Communities locked out of conservation partnerships: study

Dar es Salaam. Current partnerships for wildlife, forestry and marine resource conservation have had no impact on local communities, according to a recent study, which proposes a slew of steps for the arrangement to provide the desired results.

The five-year study, whose results were launched yesterday, was a collaboration between researchers from the University of Dar es Salaam (UDSM-Tanzania), Copenhagen Business School and University of Roskilde (Denmark), University of Sheffield (UK) and Autonomous University of Barcelona (Spain).

Experts who camped in the districts of Kilwa, Rufiji and Mtwara rural present evidence for stakeholders and the government to enhance their methods of conservation of natural resources in relation to the livelihoods of local residents.

The project ‘New Partnerships for Sustainability’ (NEPSUS) notes that more complex partnerships that link donors, government, community organisations, NGOs, consultancies, certification agencies and other intermediaries have been emerging to address the sustainability of natural resource use.

Yet, despite huge investments, the structures have not delivered better outcomes for local communities.

In its findings led to the publication of a book titled Contested Sustainability: The Political Ecology of Conservation and Development in Tanzania,” to a large extent, the results of those partnerships have been beneficial for the elite class.

According to the research, village groups around natural resources, especially in coastal areas, face governance challenges related to structural, financial and participatory failures.

It says that in the formation of groups, the local community is sometimes involved at the beginning, but the process ends up being captured by the central government and local elites.

“Financially, most local groups such as Beach Management Units (BMUs) are poorly equipped and the funds accrued from fines and fees are not enough to facilitate the setting up of alternative livelihood activities,” reads part of the findings.

Despite deliberate, evolving and persuasive efforts to raise awareness about the relevant rules and regulations, the results say that sustainability partnerships have struggled to gain and maintain legitimacy.

“Local communities are yet to perceive these partnerships as responsive, accountable and trustworthy arrangements that strike the requisite balance between community welfare and conservation goals,” it states.

The findings show that there is a problem of elite capture of forest benefits and that most of the economic benefits are primarily realised at the community level rather than the household level.

It shows that over 60 percent of respondents interviewed in villages said that their households had not economically benefited from partnerships in forest conservation.

“Fishers and consumers of bush meat were affected by access restrictions, and alternative livelihood activities failed—or their benefits went to a small number of wealthy investors,” it reveals.

Prof Christine Noe from UDSM, one of the brains behind the report, says that they aimed to have evidence to advise the improvement of various government policies.

“To whose benefit do we conserve?” She inquired, adding that many community members have been seen as enemies of conservation.

“We recommend that when access to resources is tightened, it is essential that alternative sources of livelihood that make sense to local communities are facilitated,” she noted.

According to her, efforts should be made to facilitate contact between local communities and other key actors before the establishment of sustainability partnerships and maintain them during their operation.

“The benefits accrued from the income resulting from partnerships need to be distributed evenly and avoid elite capture. The system must be transparent and income shared broadly, no matter how small,” she told The Citizen in an interview.

For his part, Prof Stefano Ponte from the Copenhagen Business School said that there should be a balance between conservation and people’s livelihoods to improve a sense of ownership and increase cooperation and trust.

“There is a need to develop guidelines on how these actors should be included to ensure that they have a stake and that their voices are heard in designing, planning and implementing conservation activities,” he exuded.

Prof Dan Brockington from the Autonomous University of Barcelona suggested that long-term financial support and a better translation of scientific knowledge into local contexts were needed in order to make local communities feel that the management of natural resources was also their business.

Along with praising the work done and providing policy briefs to the government, the Director of Higher Education in the country, Dr Kenneth Hosea said the publication was one of the initiatives that will further promote UDSM internationally.

“These recommendations will be worked on, but also the collaboration that led to these results is one of the criteria that will promote UDSM more internationally. This is what our upcoming researchers from our universities should be doing,” he said.