<p>Tanzania has exceptional wildlife, environment and natural resources. The traditional way of conserving nature and wildlife has been through parks and reserves. In the 1980’s community based conservation emerged as a resource management paradigm. Its premise was that giving local people a stake in wildlife would increase their incentive to conserve it. This would make wildlife an important engine of local economic development. The core elements in community based conservation projects concern development, conservation and sustainable land use. Its ambition both to improve conditions for the local communities and conserve wildlife seems like a win-win situation, but has this really been working that well when applied in the field? This study aims to review the Community Based Wildlife Management in Tanzania, exemplified by a case study in the Wildlife Management Area in Burunge, located in a migration corridor between two national parks. There has been much controversy surrounding community-based management projects. While gains for the local communities have not always been clear, gains for wildlife seem more evident. Both species numbers and individuals have increased, but at the same time there has also been increasing conflicts between locals and wildlife. This is a sign that the WMAs are only halfway to towards reaching their goal of improving conditions for both communities and wildlife. CBC stills seems like the way forwards, maybe in a modified form which allows more government control, but where local people’s rights are still respected.</p>

Tanzania has exceptional wildlife, environment and natural resources. The traditional way of conserving nature and wildlife has been through parks and reserves. In the 1980’s community based conservation emerged as a resource management paradigm. Its premise was that giving local people a stake in wildlife would increase their incentive to conserve it. This would make wildlife an important engine of local economic development. The core elements in community based conservation projects concern development, conservation and sustainable land use. Its ambition both to improve conditions for the local communities and conserve wildlife seems like a win-win situation, but has this really been working that well when applied in the field? This study aims to review the Community Based Wildlife Management in Tanzania, exemplified by a case study in the Wildlife Management Area in Burunge, located in a migration corridor between two national parks. There has been much controversy surrounding community-based management projects. While gains for the local communities have not always been clear, gains for wildlife seem more evident. Both species numbers and individuals have increased, but at the same time there has also been increasing conflicts between locals and wildlife. This is a sign that the WMAs are only halfway to towards reaching their goal of improving conditions for both communities and wildlife. CBC stills seems like the way forwards, maybe in a modified form which allows more government control, but where local people’s rights are still respected.

Thesis (M.Sc.(Zoology))--University of Pretoria, 2000. / Abstract in English. Includes bibliographical references.

The continual increase in elephant numbers across southern Africa raises concern, though the interventions to manage these populations are more contentious. Within small, enclosed reserves active management is necessary to limit elephant impact. Various management tools exist with which to control fluctuations in elephant population numbers or density and simulate natural large stochastic events to control population growth. During this study, undertaken in the Munyawana Conservancy, KwaZulu-Natal, and Pilanesberg National Park, North West Province, South Africa, several management options were implemented. In order to lower the population numbers, family groups were translocated from the Munyawana Conservancy to other reserves, while to reduce population growth rate an immunocontraception was implemented. Both conservation areas introduced older bulls to normalise the bull population age structure, and expanded the conservation area by inclusion of new land to reduce population density. The influence of these management interventions on the elephant population were measured by their social, behavioural, spatial and movement responses. The older bull introduction was successful as bulls set up exclusive bull areas. There was a quick, subtle affect on the bull groups' size immediately after the older bull introduction, while there was no immediate change within the resident bulls' musth behaviour or duration. During area expansion, elephants appeared to perceive the new unexplored area as a threat although this threat became reduced through time as they became more familiar with it. The spatial scale of response was relatively small, while the temporal scale of response was relatively large. Rotational immunocontraception was shown to be a successful tool to alter herd structure by aging the population and maintaining a low population growth rate. The process of immunocontraception darting had no significant effect on herd associations and movement rates, accordingly the duration of the disruption effects were short lived. During multi-management interventions, no differences were found within the elephant social grouping. Management interventions may pose unforeseen social risks and different populations may respond differently to management induced stress. Therefore, interventions need to be considered for each elephant population which will achieve the conservation area's objectives with the most effective outcome, but with lowest holistic impact. / Thesis (M.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, 2012.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Wisconsin--Stevens Point, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-78).

My research is focused on investigating the socio-political processes taking place within Community Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) in Tanzania. I draw on a political ecology approach in an investigation of the politics of struggles over natural resources, their management and the benefits that can be derived from this. I bring together theories of policy processes, African politics and scale into an examination of power within two case studies of CBNRM from the wildlife and forestry sectors. I carry out a comparative analysis of these case studies, employing a qualitative methodology based on semi-structured interviews, focus groups, participatory activities, participant observation and document analysis. My research is clustered around three core themes. Firstly, I trace the process of policy reform that introduced CBNRM in both the forest and wildlife sectors, and examine the differences between the governance systems prescribed in policy as a result of these processes. The contrasts between the two sectors in Tanzanian CBNRM are important and multiple. Different policy pathways were adopted, relating to the distinct political economies of forest and wildlife resources and their politicisation within the context of power devolution for CBNRM. The prescribed governance systems in the two sectors contain important differences in the processes by which local communities can apply to participate in CBNRM, the mechanisms of revenue distribution, and the ways in which power is devolved to the local level. Secondly I examine the implementation of these prescribed governance systems and their performance in reality through an exploration of the configurations of power set out in CBNRM, and the struggles that take place around these in ‘politics of scales’ as actors attempt to benefit from CBNRM. I examine the ways the governance systems have been adopted and adapted from those set out in CBNRM policy. I argue that the distinctions between the prescribed governance systems in the two sectors produce separate contexts of re-configuration into the performed governance systems within the case studies. However, I also argue that while the contexts are specific to each sector, both the case studies revealed the same underlying socio-political process of struggles over power to both manage and benefit from natural resources. These struggles to control and benefit from CBNRM are closely linked to the unequal distribution of benefits that were witnessed in both case studies. Finally I examine the performance of CBNRM as an integration of systems of power set out in policy and hidden, often unacknowledged, local contours of power. I address the themes of how the reality of CBNRM differs from that set out in policy, examine the processes ongoing within the projects that permit and maintain elite capture and unequal distribution of benefits, and investigate the socio-political processes of corruption taking place within devolved environmental management. I argue that the struggles over power, combined with hidden aspects, especially neopatrimonialism, local moral economy and the cultural context of corruption, are central to these unequal outcomes and the capture of benefits by a small group of individuals. My research highlights that power, the politics of its devolution to the local level, the struggles that take place around it, and its subtle, hidden forms, lie at the heart of gaining further understanding of the ways in which policies develop, the unexpected outcomes they produce and the inequalities these often entail.

This research goes beyond the traditionally studied intricacies and contentions within northern Tanzania’s community-based conservation by looking at how the state’s engagement, through wildlife tourism, with local communities in and around protected areas impacts the country’s development and conservation of its wildlife. It draws heavily on Tanzania’s Development Vision 2025 and how the wildlife tourism industry feeds into achieving its objectives. This research looks through the theoretical lens of political ecology, the theory of access, and the powers of exclusion. It applies a qualitative content analysis by coding different types of existing literature in NVivo, and includes semi-structured interviews with key respondents. The research concludes that the government’s recentralization of wildlife management is working opposite to its development ambitions as per Vision 2025, and it is doing very little to address the crisis within its ecosystems and to enhance wildlife conservation. Ultimately, it is through the government’s efforts to protect Tanzania’s ecological uniqueness that both conservation and development have faced increased challenges in its efforts to improve.