community conservation and the future of africa's wildlife

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Conservation Biology, Pages 726–734Volume 13, No. 4, August 1999

Community Conservation and the Future ofAfrica’s Wildlife

JEFFREY D. HACKEL

Geography Department, California State University, San Bernardino, CA 92407, U.S.A.

Abstract:

The term

community-based conservation

(CBC) refers to wildlife conservation efforts that involverural people as an integral part of a wildlife conservation policy. The key elements of such programs are thatlocal communities participate in resource planning and management and that they gain economically fromwildlife utilization. In part, CBC is seen as an alternative to the more exclusionary protectionist policies ofthe past, which often alienated rural people from conservation efforts. The new approach acts to make ruralpeople a constituency for wildlife and therefore active backers of wildlife protection. Africans, however, arestruggling with severe social and economic problems such as poverty, long-standing economic stagnation,rapid population growth, and environmental deterioration. Because of the pressures that Africans face inmaking a living, the application of CBC may not occur as readily or as successfully as its advocates wouldhope. It may also be that the approach is being oversold. I use brief case studies from Madagascar, Ethiopia,Zimbabwe, and Swaziland to highlight the possible conflicts between rural people’s economic needs and theimplementation of community conservation. In addition, the CBC literature treats the role of protectionvaguely, as it does the question of what might happen if CBC fails to achieve wildlife conservation goals.Community-based conservation is an obvious advance over past practices because of its inclusive philosophy,but if rural people accept CBC because of its economic benefits, they may reject it at some point in the futureif a better economic alternative is presented. Thus, CBC programs can work to produce a better relationshipbetween wildlife and people, but only a vast improvement in the lives of rural Africans will ultimately pro-duce a more secure future for the continent’s wildlife.

Conservación con Comunidades y el Futuro de la Conservación de la Vida Silvestre Africana

Resumen:

El término

conservación basada en comunidades

(CBC) se refiere a los esfuerzos de conservaciónde vida silvestre que involucran a la gente de zonas rurales como una parte integral de las políticas de con-servación de vida silvestre. Los elementos clave de estos programas son el que las comunidades locales partic-ipan en el planeamiento y manejo de recursos y el que ellos hanen económicamente de la utilización de lavida silvestre. En parte CBC es visto como una alternativa a las políticas mas excluyentes del pasado, en lascuales frecuentemente se alejaba a las poblaciones rurales de los esfurzos de conservación. Esta nueva aprox-imación actúa para hacer que las poblaciones rurales se conviertan en electores del destino de la vida silves-tre y así convertirse en patrocinadores activos de la vida silvestre. Los africanos sin embargo, estan luchandocontra problemas sociales y económicos severos como son la pobreza, estancamiento económico, crecimientopoblacional rápido y deterioro ambiental. Debido a las presiones que enfrentan los africanos para sobre-vivir, la aplicación de CBC podría no ocurrir tan pronto o tan exitósamente como sus proponentes quisieran.Es posible que también esta aproximación ha sido sobrevalorada. Utilicé casos de estudio breves en Mada-gascar, Etiopía, Zimbabwe y Swazilandia para resaltar los posibles conflictos entre las necesidades económi-cas de las comunidades rurales y la implementación de la conservación con comunidades. La literaturasobre CBC trata el papel de la protección de manera vaga, así como la pregunta de que pasaría si la CBCfalla en alcazar las metas de conservación de vida silvestre. La conservación basada en comunidades es unavance obvio sobre las prácticas comúnes del pasado y su filosofía excluyente, pero si las comunidades ru-rales aceptan CBC debido a sus beneficios economicós, ellos pueden rechazarla hasta cierto punto en el fu-

Paper submitted April 30, 1998; revised manuscript accepted October 14, 1998.

Conservation BiologyVolume 13, No. 4, August 1999

Hackel Community Conservation in Africa

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turo si se les presenta una alternativa económica. Por esto, los programas de CBC pueden funcionar en laproducción de mejores relaciones entre la vida silvestre y las comunidades rurales, pero solo un vasto mejo-ramiento en las condiciones de vida en zonas rurales africanas podrá últimamente producir un futuro mas

seguro para la vida silvestre del contienente.

Introduction

Community-based conservation (CBC) is a strategy usedthroughout the world as a means to save wildlife. It hasits modern roots in the experience of conservationistsworking in poorer countries during the 1960s and1970s. Conservationists came to realize that local peo-ple, who commonly are hostile to wildlife conservation,had to be won over as supporters of their efforts (WorldConservation Union 1980; Parker 1982); they saw thatwithout the cooperation of rural people, wildlife conser-vation efforts would be doomed. This is certainly true inAfrica, where rural inhabitants often view wildlife con-servation as misguided because it puts the needs ofwildlife above those of people (e.g., Abrahamson 1983;Hackel 1990; Drummond 1993; McMeeklin 1994). Al-though this response is primarily a reaction to people’spresent-day economic needs, it also has strong roots inthe colonial legacy that alienated rural Africans fromconservation efforts.

With colonialism, Africans faced restrictions from anoutside authority that denied them the right to use re-sources as they saw fit. Policy was often based on a co-ercive form of protectionism that ignored the needs ofAfrican people (Metcalfe 1995). Common elements in-cluded hunting restrictions, protected species designa-tions, and game reserve establishment, which usually ex-cluded people from protected areas (Carruthers 1993).

Community-based conservation is a response to bothalienating protectionist policies of the past and to theeconomic concerns that many rural people face (Owen-Smith 1993). Advocates of CBC argue that the approachcan be effective because it harks back to pre-colonial Af-rican conservation practices that used community-basedconstraints to regulate resource use and is a means bywhich rural Africans will benefit materially from savingwildlife (McNeely & Pitt 1985; Metcalfe 1995). Hence,the overall goal is to make rural people an integral partof conservation efforts (Western & Wright 1994).

In general, CBC programs do this in three ways: (1) al-lowing people living near protected lands to participatein land-use policy and management decisions; (2) givingpeople proprietorship or ownership over wildlife re-sources; and (3) giving local people economic benefitfrom wildlife conservation.

In its purest form, CBC would change the relationshipbetween rural people and governing agencies. Its advo-cates stress that CBC is a bottom-up rather than a top-

down approach: it changes the usual way of doingthings by giving local people a strong voice in land-usedecisions instead of having them imposed from above(Western & Wright 1994). Decentralization of resourcemanagement from the central authority to local commu-nities is considered a linchpin for a successful CBC pro-gram. This emphasis on participatory democracy givesCBC a somewhat revolutionary character (Western1994).

I examine some of the issues and problems in the im-plementation of CBC as a workable strategy in Africa. Al-though my discussion focuses primarily on wildlife con-servation, CBC is being applied to many other naturalresources. Moreover, although I accept that CBC is acrucial advance, I follow the lead of Little (1994) andSalafsky (1994) by taking a cautionary tone.

The central question is, can CBC do what its advocateshope, despite Africa’s severe social, political, and eco-nomic problems? Although CBC is an important policyoption in the effort to save African wildlife, I proposethat it is being oversold and that the need for protection-ism is being underestimated. I derived this position fromreading the CBC literature, wherein the underlying as-sumption, stated or unstated, seems to be that imple-mentation of a CBC program will automatically ensureadequate wildlife protection. Usually, little is said specif-ically about the extent or nature of the wildlife protec-tion needed.

Hence, the literature on CBC has not satisfactorilydealt with the role of protectionism as a component ofCBC or with what will be done if a CBC program fails toachieve its goals. No matter how much protection isneeded, however, it cannot be the protection of thepast. Consequently, CBC may offer the means by whichold-style protectionist policies can be modified to workin today’s Africa.

Community-Based Conservation in Context

Over the last two decades, Africa has faced numerousproblems, including political instability, economic stag-nation, and rapid population growth. Consequently, Af-rica has fallen behind other developing areas, and manyAfricans face deep poverty and an uncertain future (Abu-car & Molutsi 1993). Collectively, the problems add upto what has been characterized as “. . . a profound eco-nomic and environmental crisis” (World Resources Insti-

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Community Conservation in Africa Hackel


tute 1996:88). In rural areas, the predicament is particu-larly severe because rural production has gone through atwo-decade period of per capita decline (World Re-sources Institute 1996).

Access to land is a central issue in rural Africa for bothfarmers and pastoralists. Consequently, rural Africansgenerally do not want to give up land to wildlife or havewildlife nearby (Newmark et al. 1994). Rural people’sconcerns focus on crop loss caused by animals, prohib-ited land access, and personal safety (Balakrishnan &Ndhlovu 1992). This is a major problem for conservationbecause wildlife and people have increasingly come toshare the same lands or to exist in ever-closer proximity(World Resources Institute 1996).

Population Growth and Land-Use Pressures

Africa’s human population is 730 million. In 2025, it isprojected to be 1.5 billion. A typical example of regionalpopulation growth comes from the Kajiado district ofKenya, where the population increased from approxi-mately 15,000 in 1927 to over 250,000 by 1989 (Wood-house 1997). Accompanying the growth has been ex-pansion of agricultural land and increased livestocknumbers, resulting in increasing isolation of conserva-tion areas and decreasing wildlife.

Although Africa’s human population growth rate hasmoderated somewhat in recent years, it remains uni-formly high over much of the continent (average 2.8%).The continent continues to have a persistently high totalfertility rate of six (World Resources Institute 1996). Be-cause approximately 75% of Africans are rural, pressureto convert new areas to cropland and pasture remainshigh and will likely remain so for the foreseeable future(Pagiola et al. 1998).

Cropland expansion has been a primary method bywhich Africa’s agricultural production has increased(Cumming 1993; Cline-Cole 1997; Woodhouse 1997)and has been a major contributing factor in the loss ofbiodiversity (Pagiola et al. 1998). From 1961 to 1990,50% of the increased agricultural production has re-sulted from cultivating new areas, with a 5.8% increasein cropland occurring from 1981 to 1993. The specificrates vary somewhat by region, even within a country,but they are notably uniform for the continent as awhole (World Resources Institute 1996). Moreover, theUnited Nations Food and Agricultural Organization(FAO) expects the general trend to continue, althoughabated to some degree, and predicts that agricultural ex-pansion will account for approximately 30% of Africa’sincreased crop production by 2010 (FAO 1995).

Livestock populations are at 600 million head and in-creased by approximately 12% between 1981 and 1993(World Resources Institute 1996). This can have signifi-cant effects on wildlife populations. In northern Kenya,for instance, as the number of pastoralists and their live-

stock has increased, there has been a loss of habitat forwildlife. As a result, species such as Grevy’s zebra (

Eq-uus greyvi

) are threatened (Williams & Ginsberg 1998).Consequently, wildlife conservationists are concerned

about the conversion of rangeland, which can be sharedwith wildlife, to commercial ranches or agriculture. Thetrend has led to the isolation of protected lands as theland around them is transformed by human use (Norton-Griffiths 1995). This trend will continue (Cumming 1993).Some of the conservation problems associated with peo-ple settling or using new areas are (1) disruption of eco-logical processes essential to maintain long-term biodi-versity (for example, dispersal and colonization mightbecome more difficult as habitat is transformed to hu-man use); (2) increased hunting for home or market; and(3) increased pressure from local people to open pro-tected lands for community use (Hackel 1990, 1993;Harris & Silva-Lopez 1992; Arcese et al. 1995). More-over, if land shortage increases as a social and economicproblem, there is the likelihood that human conflictswill also increase (Scoones 1995), a situation that isnever good for wildlife conservation efforts.

Thus, it is likely that people will continue to settle andcultivate new areas as one of their primary responses topopulation growth and the need for land (Norton-Grif-fiths 1995). The solution is an economic reinvigorationof rural economies; rural people need to feel more se-cure in their economic lives. How this can happen isopen to debate, and a plethora of prescriptions havebeen offered over the years. That rejuvenation will oc-cur cannot be taken for granted (FAO 1995), especiallyin light of the dismal rural development record in sub-Saharan Africa in the last 50 years.

The urbanization of Africa is gaining momentum. Howthis will affect rural areas is unknown. Urban Africanshave tended to maintain strong ties to their rural areas,including the maintenance of homesteads. Because ofthese relationships between urban Africans and rural ar-eas, it is impossible to say whether urbanization will alle-viate pressure on rural areas or intensify demand for ru-ral resources, including conversion of land to agriculture(Main 1995).

Poverty

For rural Africans, poverty is an inescapable fact of life.Africa has experienced a protracted economic declinesince the mid-1970s, with per capita income levels nowsimilar to those of 30 years ago (Callaghy & Ravenhill1993). For sub-Saharan Africa from 1980 to 1992, theper capita GNP growth rate was

2

1.83% per year, withonly five countries achieving the rate (4.7%) needed toreduce the number of people living below the povertylevel (Hope 1997).

House and Zimalirana (1992), in a discussion specificto Malawi but applicable to African countries generally,



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list six factors that have led to poverty in Africa (modi-fied from the original): (1) lack of employment oppor-tunities; (2) low productivity of land and labor; (3) lowlevels of health, education, and training; (4) limited op-portunities to own land; (5) low levels of governmentsupport to the most needy; and (6) high populationgrowth that puts pressure on the physical environmentand social services. Political corruption, bureaucraticbloat, and governmental policies that have stifled ruraldevelopment can be added to the list.

Although there has been some recent macroeconomicimprovement in Africa, there still has been little eco-nomic betterment in rural areas (Waters 1997). Raven-hill (1993:18) states that “Africa’s economic decline hasproved to be more prolonged and much more difficultto reverse than originally foreseen . . . few signs of sus-tained economic recovery are apparent.”

Whatever their specific situation, rural Africans havebeen forced to maneuver within the often narrow con-fines of their social and economic environment (Berry1993; Zinyama 1995). The priorities they set and theeconomic choices they are forced to make often lead toactions that are not compatible with wildlife conserva-tion (Mortimer & Tiffen 1995).

Democratization

Since the mid-1980s, African governments have been un-der internal and external pressure to implement demo-cratic reforms (Luckham 1994), with the majority ofAfrican countries having done so to some degree. Al-though the extent and character of democratization inAfrican countries is beyond the scope of this paper, itis worthwhile to speculate on whether increased de-mocracy will help or hinder community conservationprojects.

Western and Wright (1994) believe that democratiza-tion aids the development of CBC programs. They main-tain that democratization, coupled with increased con-cern over grass-roots development and indigenouspeople’s rights, is leading away from a conservationmodel that isolates protected areas from people to onethat has “a heightened sensibility about the environmentand the interests of local people” (Western & Wright1994:6). They argue that democratization has led to aloosening of governmental authority in rural areas,which in turn has enhanced rural people’s control overtheir own resources. Hence, they see the spread of de-mocracy as an opportunity for conservationists to buildnot only a better relationship between rural people andprotected areas but also between rural people and theland in general.

If democratic reforms empower rural people, how-ever, the consequences for CBC programs and wildlifeconservation may not necessarily be positive, especiallyin light of Africa’s persistent economic problems (Swa-

tuk 1995) and the weak support for wildlife conserva-tion efforts among rural Africans. Risks are inherent be-cause CBC programs have to restrict people’s economicchoices (Hackel 1990; Cumming 1993; Owen-Smith1993; Simbotwe 1993), and it is possible that peoplewill resist the narrowing of their options through demo-cratic means.

Democracy can be a two-edged sword. Although de-mocratization holds promise for rural empowerment,which theoretically could favor CBC, there is also thepossibility that rural democracy will promote, throughdemocratic means, the loss of land for wildlife as ruralpeople gain a greater say in land-use decisions. Althoughit is too early to know what the outcome of the interac-tion between the democratic movement and CBC pro-grams will be, conservationists must not assume thatincreased democracy, with its presumed attendant de-centralization, will be beneficial to conservation efforts.For instance, what would be the conservationist re-sponse if, as McCabe (1991) reports, the Masai of theNgorongoro Conservation Area voted to reject a CBCproject that had achieved its wildlife conservation goalsbut not its economic development goals?

Rural Africans face formidable economic pressure.Economic stagnation has produced widespread povertyand little incentive to change to a more intensified ruralagriculture. Land remains people’s primary asset and so-cial security. Hence, with the growing population andcontinued economic uncertainty, the only solid predic-tion is that rural people will be trying to better them-selves and that CBC programs will be working within anincreasingly unpredictable social and economic environ-ment.

Examples of Community-Based Conservation

I use case studies from Madagascar, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia,and Swaziland to illustrate some of the problems CBCprograms face. Wright (1992) describes efforts to estab-lish a national park in southeastern Madagascar thatwould link habitat protection with lemur (

Hapalemursimus

and

Hapalemur aureus

) survival. The Malagasygovernment, the World Bank, and the U.S. Agency forInternational Development (USAID) gave priority to theeffort because it allowed them a chance to showcase aconservation project that combined rural developmentand wildlife conservation. The objective was to win lo-cal people’s support for lemur conservation by showingthem tangible gains from the conservation effort. Theeconomic benefits initially came from the Malagasy gov-ernment and outside agencies, who saw that peoplewould accept the park only if they were better off eco-nomically as a result. Benefits include technical assis-tance in agriculture and forestry projects and improvedhealth services and education (Wright 1992).

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Although project leaders want local people to benefitfrom the park as much as possible, it is clear that thepark itself can provide only minimal revenue, even withan increase in ecotourism. The park will surely provideeconomic opportunities for local people, with ecotour-ism providing job opportunities and revenue (50% ofpark entrance fees go to village communities and 100%of campsite fees to village elders), but most of themoney generated from ecotourism is ear-marked forpark maintenance. Wright (1992:32) states that, “the fu-ture of this integrated conservation and developmentproject rests on the abilities of the local people to ac-cept and continue this program.”

This program presents what is likely to be a commonpredicament for CBC programs. Conservationists see aproblem and act to involve local people as a means tobuild a constituency. Long-term success is problematic,however, because local people are reacting to an out-side initiative: the program considers the needs of localpeople primarily as a strategy to win their favor for thepark, and enough money must be generated from tour-ism for local people to receive significant financial gainindefinitely.

Tourism is viewed as the critical ingredient, but it re-quires on-going promotion, facilities, and managementflexibility if it is to succeed. One can question, however,whether sufficient jobs and money can be generated forlocal people to refrain from exploiting the park’s re-sources. At present, there may be a growing over-reli-ance on tourism as the primary means to produce reve-nue for CBC programs.

One of the most often-cited examples of a CBC pro-gram is Zimbabwe’s Communal Area Management Pro-gramme for Indigenous Resources (CAMPFIRE). It is autilitarian wildlife program developed to appeal to localpeople. It gives them a voice in natural resource man-agement decisions and a financial stake in the preserva-tion of wildlife (Murphree 1993). Large mammals are thekey resource because most of the money generatedcomes from safari hunting fees (McCarthy 1994). It ishoped that the program will eventually come to includeas income generators such resources as forestry and live-stock production; moreover, conservationists would liketo see all natural resources fall under the managementplan (Metcalfe 1994).

Zimbabwe’s Department of National Parks and Wild-life Management developed CAMPFIRE. Fortuitously, itfit with President Mugabe’s desire to decentralize themanagement of rural resources. The program has beenimplemented over other competing options, includingsettlement and intensive agriculture (Murphree 1993).Thus, although there is broad support for the program,it is far from universal; advocates for other land uses op-tions wait in the wings.

What would happen to the program if support for itdeclined because arguments for intensified agricultural

or increased settlement began to resonate with localpeople, as some believe will eventually happen? Itwould be difficult for CAMPFIRE to remain a viable wild-life conservation program (Murphree 1993; Murphy1998), which would be a predicament for conservation-ists because CAMPFIRE has as its foundation “the as-sumed right of communities’ group proprietorship over‘their’ resources” (Metcalfe 1994:190). Could conserva-tionists then lobby for a more protectionist wildlife pol-icy, despite their previous commitments to local controlof resources? More generally, what would happen toCBC programs if they fail to conserve? Although thisquestion is applicable to CBC programs overall, it hasnot been addressed adequately in the CBC literature.

In northcentral Ethiopia, Campbell (1991) examinedafforestration efforts. In this case, the rhetoric of localcontrol was used, but the reality was that local peoplecontributed little to forest-use policy. Campbell (1991)shows that, under the guise of community forestry, theforests have been turned into government lands, withthe government setting policy that reduces people’sland-use options. He argues that, in the name of commu-nity forestry, conservation projects restrict local peo-ple’s access to needed land, which has produced landshortages and overuse. Thus, Campbell (1991) believesthat conservation projects work against rural people,even though the rhetoric that accompanies the projectsemphasizes local control and long-term benefits.

This case illustrates the division that can occur be-tween the rhetoric and the reality of CBC: it is easier toadvocate CBC than to implement it. Consequently, sup-port for CBC often comes without an appreciation ofhow difficult it is to produce a program that successfullyweds wildlife conservation and people’s economic needs.Thus, as Salafsky (1994) illustrates with the term

biodi-versity

, community-based conservation may be a con-cept that is losing its coherence as people define it fortheir own purposes. Soon it may be difficult to find a ru-ral conservation project that does not define itself ascommunity-based. It is doubtful, however, that many ofthem are, except in the most superficial ways. As CAMP-FIRE illustrates, even when the foundation for CBC issolid and well thought out, success is hard-won (Met-calfe 1994).

The case study in northeastern Swaziland illustrateshow a country’s economic development priorities, in-cluding those of rural people, may hinder efforts to es-tablish a CBC program. The 1980s brought rapid popula-tion growth and development to northeastern Swazilandas commercial agricultural estate development, infra-structure improvements, and a complex of nature re-serves were established. The nature reserves form Swazi-land’s most significant protected area.

Rural people’s economic aspirations, however, makeit difficult to establish an effective CBC program. Peoplegive land access and economic development highest pri-



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ority because each puts them on the path to economicsecurity. Consequently, most rural Swazi want some pro-tected areas opened for settlement or projects that willproduce jobs (Hackel 1993). They do not favor the landbeing used for wildlife protection because they believeit is wrong to place the needs of wildlife above those ofpeople, a common African viewpoint.

The dilemma for conservationists is the broad supportthat all segments of the Swazi population give to com-mercial developments over nature conservation (Hackel1990). It is difficult to see how the reserves could everprovide enough financial benefit to offset local people’sland-use preferences, which are strongly linked to theirperceived long-term economic needs.

Flexibility of Community-Based Conservation

For CBC to succeed it needs to be flexible enough tocope with a countryside inhabited by a growing numberof extremely poor people who depend on a subsistenceexistence and whose greatest goal is to gain economicsecurity. The dilemma is that even the most enlightenedprograms, if wildlife conservation is to be a priority,must reduce people’s land-use options forever becauselarge areas of natural habitat must be preserved. This re-ality makes the widespread implementation of CBC pro-grams problematic.

Goodland (1982) characterizes policies that restrictpeople’s response to changing circumstances as forcedprimitivism; that is, they must remain doing what theyare doing. He believes that this may be a problem whenthe needs of wildlife are emphasized over the needs ofpeople because it reduces people’s ability to adjust tonew circumstances. Wilkie et al. (1991) support thisviewpoint based on their experience with foragers andfarmers in the Congo basin. They believe that balancinghuman and conservation needs will be difficult becauseprograms that require people to maintain land usesdeemed to be more or less traditional, or conducive tosustaining wildlife populations, may not give local peo-ple the flexibility they need to adapt to demographicand economic developments.

Norton-Griffiths (1995), while referring to the Masailiving in proximity to the Serengeti, addresses this issueand the problem it poses for conservationists. He be-lieves that maintaining traditional lifestyles and valuesystems among ethnic groups may produce a povertytrap. Moreover, he finds that young Masai want change.He believes that there will be a conversion of rangelandto agricultural and that the Masai will develop their landat the expense of wildlife.

For conservationists, then, it will require the greatestskill and flexibility to maintain CBC programs because itis likely that over time rural people will view the conser-vation-oriented practices they work under as too restric-

tive. Hence, conservationists will find it difficult to fash-ion programs that meet the needs of both people andwildlife (Snelson 1995).

The Reality of Community-Based Conservation

Community-based conservation programs are a more re-alistic policy in areas that have big game animals—forexample, in Zimbabwe’s CAMPFIRE program, Zambia’sAdministrative Management Design for Game Manage-ment, and Kenya’s Amboseli National Park. The abilityto draw hunters or tourists in sufficient numbers is thekey element. Each of these programs has an operationalhistory of several years, and each has succeeded to somedegree in working cooperatively with local people. It isnot as likely, however, that such programs can be ap-plied generally in rural Africa for the following reasons.

First, areas without big game animals will not have therevenue-generating potential required for conservation-based projects that rely on revenue sharing becausethere will be insufficient financial reward. Second, evenin those areas where there is big game, there is the dan-ger that communities will eventually reject the project.The amount of revenue received by the community mayeventually be considered too low. For example, inKenya there is presently an incentive for the Masai livingin the Mara area to convert their land to agriculture andranching because of the difference between their cur-rent and potential revenue. Norton-Griffiths (1995) esti-mates that the ratio between what the Masai now re-ceive from traditional livestock management, tourism,and agriculture to what they could receive if the landwas used to its full agricultural potential is between 1:3and 1:23, depending on land quality. Consequently, hequestions a policy for rangelands that is based on a mixof traditional livestock management and tourism. Itwould not produce enough revenue to halt develop-ment.

Clearly, the economic link between rural communitiesand CBC programs poses both a serious practical and aconceptual problem. First, it will be difficult to produceenough revenue; second, CBC programs put a price onwildlife that can be compared to revenue that might bereceived from other activities (Geist 1988). If a ruralcommunity accepts a CBC program based on its eco-nomic benefits, they might also reject it if a better eco-nomic alternative comes along. And if rural people can-not pursue economic options that would bring themgreater income, then they are in fact still subsidizingwildlife conservation. In economic terms, this is anopportunity cost, which is defined as the cost of losteconomic opportunities (Owen & Chiras 1995). Ruralpeople may eventually perceive that they have an oppor-tunity cost because they are forgoing the possibility of

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greater economic gain to maintain wildlife. If this sce-nario proves true, conservationists would face the sameproblem that produced the CBC approach in the firstplace: rural people may feel that the restrictions that theymust bear to save wildlife are costing them too much.

Third, the widespread application of CBC programsrequires significant changes in the relationship betweencentral governments and rural areas. Western (1994) be-lieves the CBC approach calls for great reforms in land-use policy. He believes that if the conservation focus isto switch to the community, the focus must changefrom a top-down to a bottom-up approach: he states thatthis “is where community-based conservation becomesmore revolutionary than evolutionary: Such changes callfor nothing less than a turnaround in entrenched politi-cal norms” (Western 1994:553). Western (1994) goes onto list several other changes that would have to takeplace, including a reduction in factionalism, greater co-operation among those with a stake in conservation ef-forts, and negation of such agreements as the GeneralAgreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) unless they aresensitive to local environmental concerns.

As Callaghy and Ravenhill point out (1993), it is notlikely that such profound changes will occur in Africaany time soon. Little (1994) discusses the realities thatcould work against CBC in the foreseeable future, in-cluding (1) central governments that maintain policy-making power and allow only administrative authorityto devolve to rural areas; (2) local participation that isdifficult and time-consuming to administer; (3) difficultyin recognizing the most appropriate community mem-bers for program participation (e.g., men or women?);(4) participatory community-based conservation that isineffective in combating the environmental problemsthat produce wildlife conservation problems; (5) con-stant monitoring and evaluation needed to see if the pro-gram’s objectives are being met; and (6) local conser-vation efforts that cannot escape national or globalpolitics.

Thus, the requirement for a “revolutionary” change inthe relationship between rural areas and the outsideworld, coupled with the already ambitious goal of link-ing conservation and development, makes it problem-atic that CBC can be widely applied as a wildlife conser-vation model in Africa’s rural areas.

Role of Protectionism

In Africa the overwhelming trend is that core protectedareas (e.g., national parks) are becoming ecologicallyisolated as people populate the countryside. If this trendcontinues unabated, one can expect the worst-case sce-nario: the core areas deteriorate as the land around themis transformed to a human-dominated landscape. Over

time wildlife is lost from the countryside and the core ar-eas themselves are lost. If the present trend is modified,one can also envision a more optimistic scenario: a newenvironmental relationship is forged between rural peo-ple and the land, largely based on principles of commu-nity-based conservation. The result is sustainable devel-opment in the countryside and the maintenance ofbiodiversity not only in the core areas but also in thecountryside as a whole.

The most realistic scenario is one that lies betweenthese two but nearer the pessimistic side (Strum 1994).This raises the issue of where protection fits in the CBCmodel. In other words, is the level of habitat protectionneeded to save a remnant of Africa’s wildlife assured if aCBC program is implemented? Specific discussions aremissing from the CBC literature.

Advocates of community-based conservation seem toassume that rural people, because they receive benefit,will accept and promote whatever level of protection isneeded as a by-product of the program or that the levelof benefits can be increased to meet the community’ssatisfaction. These include, besides monetary gain, ac-cess to renewable resources, recreational opportunities(as of yet not a major factor in Africa), and ecologicalbenefit (Munro 1995).

Buffer zones around protected areas illustrate the na-ture of the protectionist issue. Buffer zones have a dualfunction: they protect the core area and provide re-sources for people. Hence, buffer zones are usually con-sidered ideal places for CBC. Yet to fulfill their conserva-tion function, managers of buffer-zones would have toplace such severe restrictions on people’s activities andbenefits that it becomes difficult to see how they actu-ally could be participatory enough to qualify as CBC pro-grams (Little 1994).

This dilemma highlights the fact that protectionism isstill at the core of African conservation efforts and thatthe role of protectionism in CBC must be carefully con-sidered during the initial stages of program design. Bothconservationists and local people must be clear aboutthe goals of conservation and about what will happen ifa CBC program fails to achieve them.

Conclusion

Community-based conservation programs that presentlyexist do not have a long operational history, so it is im-possible to evaluate them rigorously (Newmark et al.1994). Nevertheless, CBC represents an advance overpast practices that ignored rural people. Yet the wide-spread application of CBC programs in Africa is ques-tionable because of rapid human population growth andwidespread poverty. It is doubtful that the economic re-turn to rural people from CBC programs can be high



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enough that people will not eventually look for eco-nomic alternatives. The tools that make up CBC pro-grams rather than the programs themselves will prove tohave the most practical value in rural Africa.

Community-based conservation programs have as theirgoal the transformation of the relationship between ru-ral people and the environment, and they draw uponnatural resources to produce revenue for local commu-nities (Western 1994). As such, CBC is both a wildlifeconservation and an economic development program,with all the complexity inherent in such an effort.Clearly, the programs are exceedingly difficult to admin-ister, and the simultaneous achievement of social, eco-nomic, and conservation goals is problematic.

On the other hand, if CBC is thought of simply as a setof tools that serve to promote greater acceptance of con-servation efforts by rural people, the ends become morerealistic (Pagiola et al. 1998). Such tools include, amongmany others, environmental education, local people’sinvolvement in management, regulated access to pro-tected lands, compensation for protecting biodiversity,and compensation from such activities as hunting andtourism.

Instead of conservationists trying to implement unreal-istically complex programs, they should use the most ap-propriate CBC tools to build better relations with ruralpeople. In areas less critical to wildlife, the balance be-tween benefit and protection can be tilted toward theformer; in critically important areas, however, CBC toolscan be used as much as possible to ameliorate the re-strictions people must endure. Conservationists will notbe successful all the time. To believe that CBC can domore than this is to set up the programs for failure. Com-munity-based conservation programs cannot fundamen-tally change the deteriorating situation for wildlife in Af-rica when people’s economic needs are so great.

The social and economic reality in Africa will test theskills of conservationists because each conservationstrategy must be site-specific, with conservationists re-quired to mix protectionism with any CBC tools thatmight work in a particular situation. Finding a successfulmix will require much flexibility. What will work willnot likely be predictable at the outset, and success willhave to be measured in small increments.

The trend toward an increasingly human-dominatedlandscape will continue in Africa, with larger mammalsincreasingly restricted to parks and reserves. In those ar-eas where people and wildlife coexist, the coexistencewill continue to be uneasy. To succeed, wildlife conser-vation policy will have to be a mix of protectionism,community involvement, public relations, conservationeducation, and revenue sharing. Hence, it is the creativeapplication of the inclusive philosophy of community-based conservation rather than the CBC programs them-selves that will likely to be of the greatest practical valuein Africa.

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