Edwin Muchapondwa standing in front of a green tree
Edwin Muchapondwa. Photo: EfD South Africa

New study highlights the trade-offs between community welfare and nature conservation

Researchers at EfD South Africa – EPRU have researched the trade-offs between community welfare and nature conservation by examining different Sub-Saharan countries and how they deal with the trade-off. They found that effective co-management, benefit-sharing, and sustainable financing of conservation are key.

EfD Researcher Edwin Muchapondwa and Herbert Ntuli, EPRU associate researcher, who conducted the study, underline the importance of managing those trade-offs wisely since overuse of land can lead to a permanent shift in the structure and function of the ecosystem.

When such shifts occur, they are damaging to both the environment and the communities that depend on them.In addition, there are trade-offs between several groups and interests. The authors take a holistic view of the trade-offs and how they are interlinked to provide a greater understanding of the solutions that policymakers can develop to reduce the conflict.

Local communities sidelined in conservation efforts

Nature and wildlife are often viewed as property of the state and a public good unless it is on fenced private property. This means individuals in rural areas don’t benefit from the natural resources. In addition, many indigenous communities are displaced to develop protected areas. One legal issue that arises from this displacement is that the protected areas lead to denying the indigenous populations their ancestral rights to resources. Land ownership is seen as the primary constraint to good stewardship of natural resources. If government institutions can’t control the resource ownership, there will be a natural development of overexploitation, whether its local community or private ownership.

Conflict arising from competing land uses

Another issue arising from land use allocations is conflicts of interest between consumptive and non-consumptive land uses and private or local community partnerships. As the wildlife is state property, the use of wildlife is granted by the state in the form of quotas. The state tend to favor the private sector when allotting quotas as they gain more income from wildlife-based activities compared to local communities. Additionally, there is a conflict between the use of the land, as consumptive wildlife use (trophy hunting) can harm non-consumptive wildlife use (game viewing activities). This indicates the complexity of managing the trade-offs, as they are not just between communities and wildlife, but also between different economic sectors, as well as communities against private sectors.

Conflicts appear in many forms: private sector versus local community wildlife use, consumptive versus non-consumptive use, and local community livelihood (such as agriculture) versus conservation. Policymakers should focus acutely on the interplay between the different stakeholder groups to create optimized policy.

National strategies to reduce conflict

Different Sub-Saharan African countries use different strategies to reduce the conflict between wildlife and communities. Three strategies are examined in the paper, which are compensation schemes, co-management models, and benefit-sharing arrangements. A country like South Africa provides compensation to farmers for livestock losses caused by predators, runs a variety of community-based conservation programs, and has natural resource initiatives that provide revenue shares between 50% and 100%, depending on which province. Ghana, for instance, has similar compensation schemes and co-management models, but far fewer benefit-sharing arrangements.

South Africa has a unique position in the conservation challenge

South Africa has a long history of social injustice, which has created an unequal distribution of income, ownership, and power. Because of this, South Africa needs to develop policies and strategies that are not only ecologically sound but also economically sustainable and include previously disadvantaged communities. Considering that the creation of many of the national parks involved removing local people from their ancestral land, the South African National Parks organization has pledged to aid in the development of black game farmers from previously disadvantaged communities. Land conservation in the South African context implies involving local communities and allowing for the benefits to be adequately spread.

Policy must focus on benefiting both communities and conservation

Throughout this paper, the authors found that co-management, benefit-sharing, and sustainable conservation financing are vital in managing the trade-off between community welfare and nature conservation. Additionally, there needs to be more comprehensive research into the trade-off issues simultaneously to properly grasp the consequences of the conflict. Finally, gender and climate change issues also need to be included in studies on trade-offs to provide comprehensive policy advice.

To read the paper, please find it here.

Josh Gray

News | 25 November 2024