REFLECTING COMMUNITY WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

Erle Frayne Argonza

 

Gracious morning to you!

 

A country such as Tanzania that is known for possessing large swaths of wildlife can provide to us a wonderful database regarding the impact of political and economic changes on community wildlife management.

 

Such is precisely the purpose of a report prepared by the Drylands Programme, as summarized below.

 

[05 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to Eldis database reports.]

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Emergent or illusory? community wildlife management in Tanzania

Authors: Nelson,F.
Produced by: Drylands Programme, IIED (2007)

As the country known around the world as the home of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, few natural resources are more closely associated with Tanzania than its wildlife populations. By the 1980s, Tanzania’s wildlife management practices were under increasing pressure from a set of internal and external forces largely linked with the broad economic and political changes occurring in the country at that time. This led to support for greater local community involvement in wildlife management as a means of pursuing both conservation and rural development goals. This paper considers the outcomes and impacts of wildlife areas in Tanzania, and considers the emergence of community wildlife management (CWM) strategies.

The author highlights that the outcomes of over a decade of CWM in Tanzania reflect broader internal political struggles over land rights, resource governance, and participation in policy formulation, as well as challenges facing efforts to devolve natural resource management to local communities throughout the tropics. The paper concludes with some suggestions for how practitioners in Tanzania and elsewhere might foster more effective and adaptive CWM approaches in light of these outcomes and experiences:

• new institutional models are needed if CWM is to emerge in Tanzania in a more effective and robust manner
• efforts to support CWM need to take greater account of the institutional incentives that influence reform outcomes, and recognise that in most instances enabling CWM will require long-term negotiations between local and central interests over resource rights and uses
• long-term and adaptive strategies for moving the institutional balance of power towards the local level are fundamental to CWM
• development aid agencies and international conservation organisations need to find innovative ways of supporting institutional processes if they are to make more productive investments in CWM.

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39350&em=240908&sub=enviro

FORESTRY EDUCATION & TRAINING UPDATE

Erle Frayne Argonza

Forestry education is among those human development engagements that are urgently being delivered today.

A study done in Kenya, by Temu A & Kiwia A, examined how future forestry education can respond to expanding societal needs. The study is summarized below.

[04 October 2008, Quezon City, MetroManila. Thanks to Eldis database reports.]

Future forestry education. Responding to expanding societal needs

Authors: Temu,A.; Kiwia,A.
Produced by: World Agroforestry Centre (2008)

Forestry education in recent years has largely failed to adequately respond to the dynamics in forestry practice, the demands of the job market and the challenges of new global forestry paradigms.

This policy brief consolidates recommendations of the first global workshop on forestry education held in September 2007, at the World Agroforestry Centre (ICRAF) in Nairobi, Kenya. Attended by 85 participants from 29 countries representing Africa, Asia, North and South America and Europe, the workshop deliberated on vital issues for guiding, coordinating and linking relevant institutions and stakeholders in the process of transforming forestry education. They agreed that:

• increased investment in forestry capacity is imperative
• improved coordination mechanisms are key at national, regional and global scales to reinforce the quality and content of forestry education and training
• enhanced harmonisation of forestry with other related sectors is needed in order to achieve synergy of strategies and actions
• regional and global mechanisms for collaboration in forestry education be established and sustained

The brief asserts that major changes in forestry education, research and practice are urgently needed to improve relevance and popularise forest science, technologies and practices. Obvious implications for neglecting forestry education are noted as:

• schools of forestry will continue to produce inadequate graduates, lacking the required expertise to handle the emerging complex societal and environmental challenges
• forestry professional ethics could deteriorate further, leading to indiscriminate destruction of natural resources – the backbone of human livelihood
• due to the link between agriculture and forestry, the destruction of forests may lead to water flow challenges impacting on food security
• our knowledge and capacity to mitigate and adapt to the effects of climate change will remain weak, further accelerating global warming, flash floods and droughts
• further losses of biodiversity will deny the world of important plants and animals with the potential to solve health and other problems

Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/?doc=39445&em=240908&sub=enviro