Spatial competition and the new governance framework in Mabibi (Maputaland): implications for development

The evolution of the demarcation of the political territories in South Africa has resulted in spatial competition between political structures, conservation authorities and local communities. The current multi-governance policies are attempting to overcome the problems created by the political structures of the apartheid era – during which time the declaration of natural areas for conservation resulted in forced removals and negative perceptions of conservation. The case study of Mabibi, within the confines of the Maputaland coast, is a typical example that reflects the history of the past and the conflicts of the present.     

Property and Difference in Nature Conservation

Social science research on nature conservation ascribes enclosures and the consequent evictions and dispossession of local people to unequal power relations. It reveals that the monopoly of power by the state configures new relations between local people and their natural resources, and legitimizes land grabbing. In this paper we build on this literature by engaging two questions. The first question relates to how land tenure regimes enable green grabbing and also configure the participation of local people in nature conservation enterprises. Knowing how land tenure regimes structure the involvement of local people in nature conservation is a necessary step toward an inquiry into the relationship between local people and protected areas. In the second question we ask how historical land tenure allocations enable current configurations of power relations in conservation areas. We use the case study of Mapungubwe on the Botswana‐South Africa‐Zimbabwe borderlands to demonstrate that historical land tenure allocations facilitate land alienation and the marginalization of local people in TFCAs.     

New Modes of Environmental Governance in Greater Sage-Grouse Conservation in Oregon

Abstract

Natural resource challenges often span administrative jurisdictions and include actors and processes operating at different spatial and political scales. We applied concepts of new environmental governance to analyze Oregon’s approach to greater sage-grouse conservation. Through one in-depth case study in Lake County, we traced features of new environmental governance (cross-scale interactions, decentralization, and capacities of actors) through different governance levels. Interviews and qualitative analysis revealed that decentralization of administrative functions facilitated cross-scale interactions and relied on intermediaries, gap-filling, and perceptions of legitimacy at lower levels. State and agency guidelines steered the effort and were accompanied by financial and technical resources from multiple arenas, which increased local capacity. This study adds to the understandings of environmental governance for implementing multi-actor, multi-level conservation arrangements in resource-dependent communities. Further exploration of connections between higher levels and local contexts will reveal important, new ways to link policies with on-the-ground outcomes.     

Between a rock and a hard place: contested livelihoods in Qwaqwa National Park, South Africa

This paper examines rural livelihoods and the prospects for participatory conservation through a case study of Qwaqwa National Park (QNP) in South Africa. The park was established in 1992 in the context of South Africa's transition to democracy, growing ecotourism in the country and global movements towards conservation involving and benefiting local people. The paper argues that the protracted conflict between park residents and management led to new patterns of livelihood activities and household formation, and resulted in material and social differentiation amongst park households. The goals of park management, with a commitment to nature conservation and ecotourism, were at odds with the livelihood practices of park residents. Conflicts arose over stocking levels, overgrazing, wood-cutting and deforestation and over the use of other natural resources, including water and medicinal plants. The park was the site of a Rand Water project that employed many residents. Residents found themselves between a rock and a hard place as they resisted attempts by the management to reduce stocking levels and yet relied on management to gain access to sources of paid employment.     

Building a bioregion through transboundary conservation in Central America

Barquet, K. 2015. Building a bioregion through transboundary conservation in Central America. Norsk Geografisk Tidsskrift–Norwegian Journal of Geography. Vol. 69, 265–276. ISSN 0029-1951.

Proponents of transboundary conservation argue for the formation of a bioregional scale of governance. How such rescaling should be done remains an undiscussed issue. Through a study of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor in Central America and Si-A-Paz, a transboundary protected area in Nicaragua and Costa Rica, the author investigates how a transboundary scale of conservation is enacted. The study shows that in order to meet the conditions of a bioregion, actors involved in transboundary conservation in Central America produced accounts of social and ecological integrity that did not entirely match local narratives. Moreover, transboundary conservation provided actors with increased mobility across governance scales and sources of funding. In turn, this scalar mobility enhanced the power of already powerful actors in the area, helped states to attract international sources of funding, and empowered previously marginalized local groups at the expense of others. The author concludes that actors involved in transboundary conservation attempt to create new meanings of nature and understandings of society in order to produce a new scale of conservation. However, the study highlights the problems of matching discourses of nature to accounts of social unity, and underlines the political nature of scalar projects.     

跨国移民企业的形象建构及其影响机制研究

在全球化背景下,随着中非合作不断深化,在非洲的中国企业与地方愈加紧密的经济和社会联系不仅加速了非洲城市化进程,而且也深化了移民企业的本土化程度,使其成为日常社会实践中必不可少的组成部分,以多元化的方式重塑非洲社会对于华人企业和中国国家形象的理解。目前国内学界有关中国移民企业及其在当地形象建构方式和影响的研究较少,尤其缺少基于微观视角探讨企业形象的影响因素。基于此,本文以津巴布韦哈拉雷地区的华人移民企业作为案例,结合定性和定量混合的研究方法,通过问卷、参与式观察和深度访谈,探讨影响非洲员工企业形象建构以及对华人企业继续在当地建厂支持程度的因素,以反映中国移民企业在非洲当地的社会融入情况。研究表明：显著影响因素主要与工厂的工作环境、管理体制、社会网络以及对区域的影响有关,而与非洲员工个体因素关联性较弱。因此,研究进一步置于特定的政治、经济、文化背景进行分析,并为“一带一路”建设背景下移民企业融入地方社会发展提供借鉴。     

The political ecology of Prunus africana in Cameroon

This paper provides an analysis of some current trends in political ecology and then illustrates the intermingling of politics and ecology using a case study of the exploitation and conservation of Prunus africana in Cameroon. It argues that political ecology is still a lively field, but that some recent attempts to chart a way forward for this perspective risk shifting it away from its liminal position in relation to natural and social science by being disinclined to engage with ecological processes. The case study draws attention to the strengths and shortcomings in existing attempts to weave political and economic analysis into environmental debates over the sustainable management of this tree species, which has been incorporated into phytomedical markets in Europe. The fortunes of the tree reflect its botany and ecology as well as the trajectories of the local economy, intercontinental markets for alternative health products, the policies and practices of the Cameroonian state and the politics of international aid.     

The Spaces of Conservation and Development around Lake Nakuru National Park,Kenya

Geographically or sociologically defined resource management units, such as buffer zones or community resource management territories, seek to harmonize local land–use practices with protected–area management objectives. The geographically restricted nature of these models often results in simplistic representations of society–nature relations over time and space. Conservation areas are misrepresented as ecologically and socially homogeneous, as well as politically neutral. This study examines the limits of a spatially defined conservation and development project designed around the physical geographical unit of the watershed at Lake Nakuru National Park, Kenya. It argues that politically motivated violence that has plagued the area since the early 1990s has severely undermined the suitability of such narrowly defined conservation territories. Specifically, the case study points to the permeability of the Lake Nakuru watershed to national and regional political forces that ultimately constrain participation in conservation activities. The spaces of conservation and development must be enlarged to include these extralocal arenas and processes if environmental problems are to be effectively addressed.     

Repositioning zoogeography within the nature–culture borderlands: An animal geography of reptiles in southern Ghana

Few studies examine the impact of large reptile presence on local livelihoods in West Africa. This article investigates how land users share habituated and resource areas with pythons, cobras and monitor lizards in southern Ghana. An innovative animal geography approach is used, evaluating both reptiles and people as individually active subjects, this being combined with a positivist zoogeographical and landscape analysis. Cobras, pythons and monitor lizards significantly affected local livelihood decision-making. Reptiles, especially cobras and monitors also adapted to human behaviour by foraging in settled and farmed areas, despite significant losses of dense vegetation habitat over the study period. This study of reptiles as active adapters adds new insights to reptilian zoogeography and conservation policy.     

Challenges Of Elephant Conservation: Insights From Oral Histories Of Colonialism And Landscape In Tsavo,Kenya

Understanding the reasons for conflict between elephants and people who live adjacent to conservation areas remains key to recruiting them as allies in preserving elephant populations. The Tsavo region of Kenya has become a notable battleground for elephant conservation in East Africa, characterized by ivory poachers, crop damages by elephants in communities adjacent to parks, and electric fencing to control human and wildlife mobility. Oral histories of six ethnic groups reveal how such human‐elephant conflict emerged during colonial times through a landscape transformation process involving elephants, livestock, people, and vegetation. The general trend over the past two centuries involves a transition from a precolonial modality characterized by human and elephant mobility to their increasing immobility, spatial separation, and conflict. Understanding of the historical emergence of that conflict forces recommendation of a change in policy direction, from further reducing mobility to restoration of mobility and spatial reintegration of people in parks. Keywords: colonialism and landscape, East Africa, elephant conservation, historical political ecology.     

Community Action and Tiger Conservation: Assessing the Role of Social Capital

Tiger conservation often requires local-level support to avoid facing serious political challenges. In order to address the political challenges, the social capital of communities can be utilized to create community action and to help understand local dynamics. We studied the social capital in two villages bordering Corbett Tiger Reserve, India. Our results indicate that social capital of local communities is a significant determinant of potential for community action to support or oppose tiger conservation outcomes. Our results also indicate that specific components of social capital (solidarity, reciprocity and cooperation, networks, and mutual support) were critical in this potential community action. Further, the data suggest that the decline of social capital was led by the financial disparities created by unplanned growth of tourism outside the reserve boundaries. We suggest that policy and management interventions should consider social capital of local communities and ways in which it may support tiger conservation in India.     

Another political ecology of civil society reflexiveness against urban industrial risks for environmental justice: The case of the Bisasar landfill,Durban, South Africa

The concerns of political ecology since its beginnings as a field have been predominantly set in rural areas with limited focus on urban industrial risks. Further, debates on the global South (often from Anglo‐American perspectives) have not fully appreciated the divergent and differentiated perceptions of urban risks and, therefore, everyday forms of resistance within civil society. Instead, work has mainly focused on civil society power relations against the state and industry that are driven by coherent populist political agendas. Against this setting, this paper's contribution aims to better contextualize ‘other’ third world localities in political ecology through a case study of urban industrial risks in the upper/middle income (as opposed to rural, low/lower middle income) country, South Africa. In doing so, the paper sheds light on the derelict aspect of civil society contestation, especially along class and ethnic lines, over urban landfill infrastructure as a livelihood resource or a health hazard. The paper draws upon frameworks of self‐reflexivity and reflexive localism as complementary to the mainstream political ecology to illuminate differentiated civil society reflexiveness and therefore, aims to advance the discussion of other political ecologies. The case study of the largest formal landfill site in Africa, the Bisasar landfill situated in Durban, highlights differences underlying power relations and constraints within civil society (in leadership, social networking, resources and mistrust) that have implications for mainstream political ecology notions of civil society coherence.     

Participatory Conservation? Community-based Natural Resource Management in Botswana

This paper examines the complexities of participatory conservation through a case study of the process of participation in a government funded community-based natural resource management programme in Western Botswana. The paper argues that different stakeholders have very different views on the levels of participation taking place in particular projects. Furthermore local people find it difficult to voice their concerns about the environment and issues of sustainability given the power relations involved in this 'participatory'process. The paper questions the accountability and motivation of the different stakeholders involved in participatory projects and suggests that implicit in the policy implementation process are mechanisms which constrain empowerment and dictate the forms of participatory conservation which can emerge. The paper concludes by reviewing the case study in the light of new policy developments in Botswana.     

基于耦合地理模拟优化系统GeoSOS的农田保护区预警

依据农田保护区规划与城市发展模拟相耦合的新思路,开展农田保护区预警研究。以广东番禺为实验区,首先利用基于多智能体的空间优化配置模型(AgentLA) 自动生成农田保护区范围。AgentLA模型能避免产生分散、破碎的空间格局,有利于保护区的管理和维护。通过地理模拟优化系统GeoSOS中的神经网络CA模型对研究区2025 年的城市发展格局进行三个情景的模拟：低速增长情景、基准情景和高速增长情景。最后利用GIS空间分析方法将预测结果与农田保护区相结合,提取农田保护与城市扩张产生冲突的区域。总体上,冲突的严重程度随着空间上城市扩张强度的增大而加剧,高速增长情景中冲突区域的面积较大。冲突区域的存在一方面说明了农田保护区需要相应的法律、法规支持,否则可能会因城市扩张而被侵占;另一方面也反映了农田保护与地区发展之间的冲突。因此,可以根据所提取的冲突区域面积大小、空间位置等特征,采取某种形式补偿,以此取得农田保护与地方利益之间的平衡。     

Responding to Deforestation: Productive Conservation,the World Bank,and Beekeeping in Rondonia,Brazil

Productive conservation, a sustainable development concept for the Amazon, ideally leads to economic development in rural areas with conservation of rain forest ecosystems. This study evaluates the human and environmental dynamics of productive conservation in Rondonia, Brazil, using as a case study beekeeping, which has been promoted by the World Bank-funded Rondonia Natural Resources Development Project. Promoters of beekeeping have given little attention to basic ecological or political economic issues that determine whether the practice contributes to ideals of productive conservation. While beekeeping can generate significant increases in household income, beekeeping cooperatives may become overdependent on donor funds. Once the flow of productive conservation donor funds stops, organizations may fail, making it too difficult for beekeepers to maintain their operations. Beekeeping does not lead directly toward rain forest conservation. Moreover, beekeeping almost exclusively employs introduced Africanized “killer” bees, commercially exploitable in the Amazon only because deforestation has temporarily created suitable habitats for them. Given the human and environmental configuration of beekeeping in Rondonia, the paper suggests ways to direct beekeeping toward accomplishing the goals of productive conservation.     

Responding to Deforestation: Productive Conservation,the World Bank,and Beekeeping in Rondonia,Brazil

Productive conservation, a sustainable development concept for the Amazon, ideally leads to economic development in rural areas with conservation of rain forest ecosystems. This study evaluates the human and environmental dynamics of productive conservation in Rondonia, Brazil, using as a case study beekeeping, which has been promoted by the World Bank‐funded Rondonia Natural Resources Development Project. Promoters of beekeeping have given little attention to basic ecological or political economic issues that determine whether the practice contributes to ideals of productive conservation. While beekeeping can generate significant increases in household income, beekeeping cooperatives may become overdependent on donor funds. Once the flow of productive conservation donor funds stops, organizations may fail, making it too difficult for beekeepers to maintain their operations. Beekeeping does not lead directly toward rain forest conservation. Moreover, beekeeping almost exclusively employs introduced Africanized “killer” bees, commercially exploitable in the Amazon only because deforestation has temporarily created suitable habitats for them. Given the human and environmental configuration of beekeeping in Rondonia, the paper suggests ways to direct beekeeping toward accomplishing the goals of productive conservation.     

社区视角下的农业文化遗产保护与旅游发展（英文）

农业文化遗产中蕴含的丰富生物多样性和文化多样性是在当地社区的传统生活中不经意间保留下来的。这些生物多样性和文化多样性同时也是很好的旅游资源,通过旅游发展既能维持当地居民的生计,同时也可以有效保护农业文化遗产。本文以全球重要农业文化遗产——贵州从江县稻鱼鸭复合系统为例,讨论了农业文化遗产保护与旅游发展中的社区参与问题。构建了基于社区的农业文化遗产保护及旅游发展的概念模型,其核心观点为农业文化遗产在保护和社区适应方面是一个动态的过程。模型中的6个主要因子分别为:农业文化遗产社区、传统农业系统、生物多样性、文化多样性、可持续旅游发展、社区生计和社区文化身份。几个因子之间的作用是互相影响的,因此支持了农业文化遗产的保护以及农业文化遗产地的旅游发展。     

Global poverty dynamics and resilience building for sustainable poverty reduction

There is less than a decade left to accomplish the goal of ending global poverty by 2030. This paper investigates global poverty dynamics and finds a shift in the world's poverty gravity center from South Asia to Africa in the period 1990–2015. Sub-Saharan Africa has become the main battlefield for poverty reduction in the world. Global poverty reduction has been accompanied by political instability and local conflicts, economic marginalization, rural decline, and natural hazards as well as climate change which are jointly impacting the least developed areas and making the world's poverty reduction vulnerable to external shocks. The "STAR" scheme, including maintaining political stability, promoting targeted poverty alleviation, implementing regular assessments of poverty reduction initiatives, and revitalizing rural and poverty-stricken areas, is proposed with specific measures to enhance the resilience capacity of poverty alleviation in the world.     

Relational Hubs for Collaborative Landscape Stewardship

Abstract

Landscape stewardship is considered an important place-based approach to addressing sustainability challenges. Working at landscape-level requires collaboration between diverse landscape stakeholders. In this study, we partnered with local stewardship practitioners across six cases in South Africa to investigate how they facilitate collaboration towards social-ecological sustainability outcomes. We found that practitioners facilitate collaboration among stakeholders by operating as relational hubs in the landscape. Through these hubs, they build new inter-personal relationships among stakeholders, creating social networks which enable stewardship practice. The hubs deepen human-nature relationships by creating enabling conditions for stewards to put stewardship ethics into action. Drawing on insights from these cases, we call for a relational approach to landscape stewardship which focuses on human-to-human and human-to-nature relationships. Moreover, we argue that landscape stewardship initiatives need to re-focus stewardship on stewards, recognizing them as key agents of change in addressing the conflict between agriculture and conservation inherent in many landscapes.     

LOCAL PEOPLE AND CONSERVATION IN MEXICO's EL VIZCAÍNO BIOSPHERE RESERVE*

ABSTRACT. It is increasingly clear that local participation in conservation endeavors is not only critical but also highly problematic. El VizcaÍno Biosphere Reserve in Baja California Sur, Mexico, is examined to study the difficulties involved in translating community-based conservation rhetoric into on-the-ground nature-protection efforts. This case illustrates how inhabitants of a reserve are marginalized by the very conservation process meant to engage them as key actors in promoting natural-resource protection. It also highlights recent attempts to enhance local participation in reserve endeavors through collaborative efforts among field staff, nongovernmental organizations, and area residents.