‘Conservation should be seen as what communities have always done’

[Lisbeth]

‘Conservation should be seen as what communities have always done’, says John Kamanga

by Rhett A. Butler on 20 September 2021


Photo credit: Samantha du Toit

• Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from “fortress conservation” toward more inclusive approaches. Among these latter approaches are community conservancies, which have been expanding around the world, but have especially gained traction in East Africa.

• According to John Kamanga, the founder and director of SORALO, community-based conservation initiatives in East Africa got a boost in the mid-1990s when Kenya Wildlife Service launched its “Parks beyond Parks” program and international donors started channeling more funds toward communities.

• Over that 25-year timeframe, Kamanga said that local peoples’ interest in conservation has grown, while the international community has become more cognizant of the role communities play in protecting and managing wildlife and natural lands.

• Still, the resources allocated to community conservation have not reached a level commensurate with their impact, the conservation leader told Mongabay during a September 2021 interview.

Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from “fortress conservation” — where local people are excluded from the lands they’ve traditionally managed — toward more inclusive approaches. Among these latter approaches are community conservancies, which have been expanding around the world, but have especially gained traction in East Africa.

According to John Kamanga, the founder and director of the South Rift Association of Land Owners (SORALO), community-based conservation initiatives in East Africa got a boost in the mid-1990s when Kenya Wildlife Service launched its “Parks beyond Parks” program, which allowed locals to start directly benefitting from wildlife tourism, and international donors started channeling more funds toward communities.

Kamanga said these developments “really started the conversation around community conservation” before “the formal legal legislation came to support the movement.”

Those legal frameworks would culminate in the Wildlife Act of 2016, which “legally recognizes community conservancies and the community conservation movement” in Kenya, according to Kamanga, who has been recognized for his efforts with accolades like the Tusk Award for Conservation in Africa.


John Kamanga. Phot credit: Johann du Toit

Over that 25-year timeframe, Kamanga said that local peoples’ interest in conservation has grown, while the international community has become more cognizant of the role communities play in protecting and managing wildlife and natural lands.

Still, the resources allocated to community conservation have not reached a level commensurate with their impact, said the conservation leader.

“I see a lot of imbalances in investment in conservation,” he told Mongabay. “So much investment goes into formally protected areas, like national parks and reserves but there is limited support for communities who perhaps live further from these places. Sometime people who seasonally need to move an area close to a formally protected area may then suffer from conflict with wildlife but receive no support or benefits from that wildlife.”

“Most of Kenya’s wildlife lives outside of formally protected areas, on these community lands and yet there is little or no investment in these areas in comparison,” Kamanga said. “Historically we have also seen imbalances when investors and tour operators operate businesses on community land and the community receives relatively little benefit.”

SORALO, which Kamanga founded in 2004 to represent several Maasai communities living across a vast area of wildlife-rich lands, is working to change that.

“We are trying to change that relationship to be more of a partnership between the community and investors,” said Kamanga.


John Kamanga at a community meeting. Photo credit: Guy Western

Kamanga says that conservation is a core part of the traditions and culture of many communities, including the Maasai. That gives them a vested interest in conservation and makes them natural partners in conservation efforts.

“Conservation has been part of the lifestyle of our communities for a long, long time,” he said. “It was essential for survival to have a healthy and stable environment. We live off the land and so you really needed to protect it. Therefore, conservation is a central concept to our communities and they know how to use their environment in a sustainable manner. There are again rules and governance structures which have guided this, and allowed that over time they have protected their land and the resources on it.”

“The argument is therefore that we should build conservation today from what these traditional systems were and support these going forward into the future,” he continued. “Conservation should not be seen as something new and scientific, but seen as what communities have always done.”

Kamanga discussed these issues and more during a September 2021 conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

[Lisbeth]

Could this be done in South Africa or is there a different culture when it comes to agriculture and cattle raising? Only the San people are nomads, right? There is nothing like the Masai pastoral communities?

“Most of Kenya’s wildlife lives outside of formally protected areas, on these community lands and yet there is little or no investment in these areas in comparison,”

This is not the case in SA.

[Richprins]

No, not the case in SA. In fact most conservation land was empty or sparsely populated before the hated white man, and unsuited for agriculture!

[Lisbeth]

That's what I thought

[Lisbeth]

How South Africa can get communities involved in conserving coastal and marine areas


A school of yellowtail in the De Hoop Marine Protected Area in the Western Cape. (Photo: Steve Benjamin)

By Wayne Stanley Rice | 22 Nov 2021

The country needs a new conservation movement in which its coastal and marine areas are governed, managed and conserved by custodian indigenous people and local communities.
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Protected areas, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, are clearly defined geographical spaces set aside to conserve nature, ecosystem services and cultural values. They are important to reduce biodiversity loss and protect sources of food, clean water and medicines. They also offer protection from the impacts of natural disasters.

The recent Protected Planet 2020 report found a 42% increase in protected area coverage between 2010 and 2019. This includes a 68% increase in coastal and marine protected areas over the same decade. But the Living Planet Report 2020 shows that biodiversity is still being lost at alarming rates. It notes an average decrease of 68% in global population sizes of many species in the past 50 years. Not surprisingly, the same report states that “our relationship with nature is broken”.

The central challenge facing conservation is that it’s not only an ecological, but also a social issue. If the local context and priorities of those who most directly rely on natural resources for their survival aren’t considered, conservation efforts will continue to fail. Therefore, many have called for a new conservation movement which incorporates the interests and priorities of local and indigenous people. This is what the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework recognises and strives for.

Recent research has emphasised the importance of community-conserved areas. These are protected areas governed, managed and conserved by custodian indigenous people and local communities. But so far, while about 8% of the global marine environment is currently protected, only 1% of these protected areas involve custodian indigenous people and local communities.

In Africa a similar trend exists. Only 0.01% of the current coastal and marine protected areas (which cover 17.7% of the coastal and marine environment) have some form of community stewardship. This is despite many conservationists and initiatives in the region pointing to the success of community-level conservation action.

The barriers and enablers

In a recent paper, my colleagues and I explored what prevents and enables community protection of coastal and marine areas in South Africa. We reviewed global and South African literature to identify common factors in these types of initiatives. We then refined this list based on interviews with a variety of people involved in conservation in South Africa.

We found that local communities can conserve areas when:

* They have secure rights and decision-making power;

* Conserved areas align with local needs;

* The state provides technical and financial support; and

* There are streamlined processes to legally declare community-conserved areas.

The success of community-conserved areas requires self-motivated local champions who can get things done and get people involved. It also takes good communication. Initial and ongoing support from the state, non-governmental, private sector and civil society partners is essential, too.

A potential barrier to success is the relationship between communities and partners – especially the government. In South Africa, strained relations stem largely from the “people-free” conservation approaches taken during the colonial and apartheid regimes. Under apartheid, black people were denied access to and use of land and resources. Many communities were even evicted in the name of conservation.

Therefore, a key enabler will be improving community perceptions and support for conservation by providing redress for these communities. Also, where needed, cultural institutions must be revitalised. These include cultural rules and practices that regulate the use of natural resources, and respect for and effectiveness of traditional leaders to enforce this. If this is achieved, and communities can receive a source of income or livelihood from conserved areas, they are more likely to protect them. But it’s important to monitor initiatives to prevent the capture of benefits by a few local elites.

Reducing biodiversity loss and sustainably meeting the needs of people means having stronger enablers in place and reducing constraints. Conservation should empower communities to be valued and effective in decision-making and management activities.

Technical and financial support should be present from the outset. Madagascar, which has 178 locally managed marine areas, is a great example of what happens when local communities have recognition and power. Here conservation delivers both social and ecological benefits.

Going forward

South Africa has the potential to do something similar to Madagascar. It has laws that recognise communities to establish and manage conservation areas. But the country is yet to declare a community-conserved area in the coastal and marine realm.

Our respondents highlighted a need for greater government support – most notably, a more streamlined approach to establishing these initiatives. It needs greater efficiency in concluding land claims and land-use plans. The government needs to recognise that local communities can contribute to both social and ecological objectives.

Other countries in the region have shown how conservation can be more inclusive. And a recent report found community-conserved areas useful in South Africa, especially in areas of high biodiversity.

This approach can also deliver much-needed local economic development. The country needs to embrace this new conservation movement. DM/OBP

First published in The Conversation.

Wayne Stanley Rice is an interdisciplinary conservation social scientist at the University of Cape Town.

Disclosure statement: Wayne Stanley Rice received funding from the South African National Research Foundation, the Community Conservation Research Network, and the University of Cape Town. He is affiliated with the Universities of Cape Town and Amsterdam, and a member of the global Community Conservation Research Network housed at Saint Mary’s University in Canada.