Recent cas_breslauer items

A spatial location-allocation GIS framework for managing water resources in a savanna nature reserve

Fri, 17 Feb 2006 00:00:00 +0000

Associated with the establishment of removal of water sources in savanna ecosystems is the issue of the effects of such management actions on animal movement and habitat selection, longer term implications on population levels, and impacts of such change on habitat degradation and soil erosion. Extant metrics used to describe the spatial distribution of water sources on the landscape often fall short of providing source-specific information, making them hard to apply in small-scale management settings. Using the Klaserie Private Nature Reserve (KPNR) as a case study, we compare a buffer framework, describing distances to water, a nearest neighbour framework, a spatial location-allocation framework (SLAF) created in a geographic information system (GIS). These three frameworks can be combined into one GIS to demonstrate site-specific information on water source distribution, in addition to system-wide descriptions. The visually accessible quality of a GIS allows qualitative...

Shifting propagation: The political economy of bioprospecting in Madagascar

Thu, 28 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Addressing a worldwide concern, the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio provided the first global regulatory consortium dealing with the plight of genetic resources. However, far from settling concerns, the ratification of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) sparked numerous debates coalescing around the proprietary use and control of genetic resources. Some contend it is the subsequent phrasing and adoption of the term genetic resources by the CBD protocols that framed genetic or biochemical material and information in the context of an "exchangeable commodity," thereby conflating the value of genetic materials to that of a commodity to be captured, extracted and manipulated similar to previous forest-based natural resources (e.g., high-value timber, charcoal). Genetic resources are similar in ways to forest-based commodities by the spatial configurations they both share. But researchers theorizing natural resources note that it is the “different properties and commodity characteristics”...

Communities, conservation, and tourism-based development: Can community-based nature tourism live up to its promise?

Mon, 26 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This working paper draws from research on the Makuleke Region of Kruger Park, South Africa, to analyze the opportunities and tensions generated by efforts to use conservation-based tourism as a catalyst for community development. By attending to the political economies in which effort is embedded, I seek to enrich our theorizations of community-based natural resource management. This paper represents an initial step in that direction; the Makuleke case is used to identify and think through the implications of nature tourism for participating communities. Like many other protected areas, the origins of the Makuleke Region lie in convergence of dispossession, forced removal, and conservation. The Makuleke, who consider the land their ancestral home, were forcibly removed in the late 1960s so that the land could be incorporated into Kruger National Park. They regained title in 1998, and have subsequently pursued economic development through conservation. While co-managing the...

Common goods and the common good: Transboundary natural resources, principled cooperation, and the Nile Basin Initiative

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Transboundary natural resources present particular problems for the international community, and the community of African States presents no exception. The peaceful management and utilization of these resources is a universal aspiration, but the principles and norms governing international cooperation over natural resources are often just as contested as the ownership of the resource itself. In Part One, the emergent practices, norms and principles applicable to transboundary freshwater and petroleum are reviewed, along with the possibility of further development of these norms through the current mandate of the UN Special Rapporteur on Shared Natural Resources, Ambassador Chusei Yamada. The history of the UN Convention on the Law of Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses is reviewed, with an emphasis upon the foundational principles which it contains. The emergence of the petroleum Joint Development Agreement is also analyzed, again emphasizing the fundamental...

Personal markets and impersonal communities? Prospects for community conservation in Botswana

Tue, 20 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Notwithstanding the regressive impacts of structural adjustment on most African countries, creating “viable” markets have now become an important goal for development interventions. At the same time, devolving responsibility from the state to local actors is now accepted as a critical ingredient for successful development. Underlying these shifts in the development discourse is the idea is that rules and responsibilities can be successfully realigned between different actors and institutions. This paper considers the various logics of institutional coordination evident in current efforts to promote wildlife management in Botswana through community collaborations with state regulators and private concerns. As communities, bureaucrats and firms develop new rules to conserve wildlife and alter agricultural practices, state and market structures become “embedded” in institutional and cultural patterns of African communities in new ways. The paper traces institutional patterns and...

Local responses to marine conservation in Zanzibar, Tanzania

Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

While terrestrial parks and reserves have existed in Tanzania since colonial times, marine protected areas are a much newer endeavor in natural resource conservation. As the importance of marine conservation came to the international forefront in the 1990s, Tanzania experienced a rapid establishment and expansion of marine parks and protected areas. These efforts were indeed crucial to protecting the country’s marine resource base, but they also had significant implications for the lives and fishing patterns of local artisanal fishermen. Terrestrial protected areas in Tanzania have historically been riddled with conflict and local contestation, bringing about numerous debates on the best ways to involve rural residents in conservation planning efforts to establish new “community-based conservation” programs. However, because marine protected areas do not have the same history as terrestrial conservation in Tanzania, marine conservation programs present a new opportunity...

Linking farmer, forest and watershed: Understanding forestry and soil resource management along the upper Njoro River, Kenya

Mon, 19 Apr 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This paper presents research-in-progress to understand small farmers’ soil and forestry management techniques in the Upper Catchment of the River Njoro (UCRN) in Kenya. This paper seeks to answer the following questions: How do farmers in the UCRN view and manage soil and forestry resources? What does this imply for development and conservation planners concerned with watershed and environmental services? The study blends social science approaches and biophysical assessment. Interviews were conducted between July and September of 2003 with a sample of 15 hillside farmers located within 200 meters (m) of first order streams or springs. Questions addressed agronomic practices, economic issues, the use of local tree resources, soil management perceptions and practices, and farmer awareness of landscape ecology and hydrology. Biophysical data included inventory, frequency and use of on-farm tree species, soil samples, and GPS points for each farm. Laboratory tests revealed...

Communal approaches to natural resource management in Africa: From whence and to where?

Sun, 14 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Communal approaches to natural resource management in Africa: From whence and to where?

Negotiating reforms at home: Natural resources and the politics of energy access in urban Tanzania

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Household access to resources in urban areas is increasingly contested as a political arena under the rubric of globalization. These debates focus on the coming together of urban population growth, increasing inequality, and economic restructuring - processes that cut through arenas of households, communities, national policies, and international regimes. Sector reforms including privatizations of urban resource services and infrastructures such as water, transportation, and energy all figure prominently in these debates and have important stakes for household and community access. This paper is part of a broader dissertation research project focused on unraveling the historical, resource, and discursive processes producing conditions of urban energy in Dar es Salaam. It presents a preliminary set of arguments suggesting that reforms may be contributing to dynamics that may increase and sustain urban charcoal use, and consequently increase pressure on forestry resources. The...

Human-carnivore conflict over livestock: The African wild dog in central Botswana

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) have been the focus of intensive conservation concern due a severe reduction in range, successive extinctions even in protected areas, and the endangered status of the remaining 3,000-5,000 individuals. Like many large carnivores, mortality due to conflict with humans, particularly control associated with livestock depredation, is a major cause of decline. Reversal of the decline will require mitigating the conflict, which in turn necessitates assessment of the problem and a more complete understanding of wild dog depredation behavior. I discuss depredation studies in North America and Europe that may inform wild dog conflict and behavior, although research on wild dogs and other predators in African contexts is urgently needed. Intricately linked to the negative values that many Africans hold for the species, wild dogs prey on domestic stock, including sheep, goats, cattle, and farmed game animals, wherever researchers have looked in human...

Linking local perceptions of elephants and conservation: Samburu pastoralists in northern Kenya

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

This paper examines the development and implementation of a grassroots elephant conservation program based upon the Samburu people's perceptions and knowledge of elephants in the areas surrounding the Samburu and Buffalo Springs National Reserves in Northern Kenya. Ethnographic methods were used to understand these perceptions and demonstrated that strong customs and traditions for conserving wildlife, particularly elephants, exist among the Samburu people. It became evident that these customs are changing given various factors influencing Samburu culture and younger generations. The use of economic incentives is a widely accepted method to foster positive attitudes and behavior towards wildlife. The value of using ethnographic methods to reinforce positive indigenous knowledge about wildlife, however, is underestimated. This case study highlights the significance of using ethnographic methods in community conservation program design. The paper demonstrates that in local contexts...

Spaces of change: Tribal authorities in the former KaNgwane homeland, South Africa

Fri, 12 Mar 2004 00:00:00 +0000

An underreported consequence of the democratic transition is its impact upon localized governance systems in mediating development opportunities within the former homelands of South Africa. Colonialism and apartheid utilized traditional authorities to control landscapes and people, and while these systems continue to influence the livelihood opportunities available to rural households, their scope and influence are being renegotiated by the emergence of new governance structures. This paper uses a case study from the former KaNgwane homeland to evaluate the role of the Matsamo Tribal Authority in shaping access to land, wood and agricultural projects in the region. It is argued that the colonial and apartheid empowerment of the tribal authorities continues to have symbolic and material meaning within KaNgwane, which shapes the ways that rural households benefit from conservation and development. In the post-apartheid era, newly created democratic structures are challenging...